Return to Your Roots, America!

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Back when America was a great country and not a failed parody of itself, we believed in Science. We believed in it. Turn your back on idolatry and false prophets! America! Return to your roots!

From Our Mr. Sun (1956)

Amazon Tax Breaks

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NY has given how much money in tax breaks to Amazon?  How many billions of dollars?  Amazon is crushing businesses all over this country and putting people out of work and these companies dont get tax breaks.

Now, ask me again why I am angry.

Notes on Samsung Tab E

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I bought a Samsung Tab E 9.6 inches with 16 GBs of internal memory and 128 GBs of external storage.  These are random notes on setting up and learning how to use the device.

1. The battery charges amazingly fast and lasts a long time.

2. Setting up WiFi is easy.

3. The thing has a desire to set up every application with the most lenient privacy, guaranteeing that you will be exposing yourself to the world.

4. The desktop is filled with applications I do not want, do not use, and can not get rid of.

5. I try to increase the volume of the Amazon Music player and someone (the app? the OS?) tells me that it could damage my ears.  Jesus.

6. After a day of using I am impressed with the hardware but think that Samsung or whoever made the software for this thing needs to choke back their greed and let the user choose the software they want.

Wells Fargo and Class Action Settlements

I had a wonderful conversation with a "banker" at Wells Fargo at 877 924 8697 about whether or not Wells Fargo had opened any accounts in my name.  Why they would not know that already and arrange to return any money is of course, typical corporate bullshit and theft.  But we checked and there is no unauthorized account in my name (didnt think there was, really) so I cant claim any money on the class action settlement.

What I really want of course is for their CEO who retired with $120 Million, coincidentally nearly the amount of the class action settlement, to give all that money to charity, but that will never happen in America where the rich live by one rules and exploit the rest of us.

Too Bad They Fucked Up Democracy in this Country

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Oh this so needs to be rewritten.  So many more things to say.  So much left out.  What a disgrace these people are.  How much they have degraded our country.  How pathetic.

Too bad they fucked up democracy in this country. I dont want to hear about it anymore. From now until the rest of my life, if they are Republicans they are traitors. That does not mean all Democrats are great, but at least we can give them the benefit of the doubt.

We live in a tyranny by and for the rich. Here is the minimum that they have to do to restore any faith in this country.

I think that the Russians are throwing Trump a bone to save his presidency.

1. Trump goes to jail.  2. Nancy Pelosi becomes president.  3. Gorsuch off the supreme court.  4. The tax bill is revoked.  5. Trumps accomplices go to jail.  6. The electoral college is eliminated.  7. The criminals on wall street behind the 2008 disaster go to jail.

CVS and Contempt for the Patient in California

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I want to live in a country where the law works to help the patient get their medication.

I have seen a man with ALS who needs his medication to work the next day be denied that medication and go home in pain. Dont tell me this isnt true. I was there. I know what the law says, I know what the pharmacist did. I know the man drove home in pain.

This is the 24 Hour CVS Pharmacy at El Norte Parkway not that anyone cares.

CVS Pharmacy and Single Payer Bribery

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A surprise tonight on my medication costs. To make a long story short, I normally spend $20 / month at Vons Pharmacy for a medication I do for "restless leg or whatever". But I let it run out, I am bad, and so I went to my 24 hour CVS pharmacy to discover that *after discount* they were going to charge me $220.00 for the exact same thing.

I wonder, do our politicians get a cut of this every time a sick person is raped for their medication? Or do they just take some agreed upon fee at the end of the year? Hey I dont have to sleep tonight, and I can pick up my medication when Vons opens tomorrow.

I just wonder if it might not be possible to examine how our politicians are paid for their crimes against the people.  Perhaps if we made their bribes more efficient, perhaps a single-payer bribe mechanism, our medical costs could be lower?

Its worth a try, I think.

John Kerry and the American Values of Lies, Betrayal and Hypocrisy

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Warning.  It is required of all right-thinking people of the world to hate Israel, but I am guilty of the sin of not hating Israel. I dislike Netanyahu but I think he was legally elected. I disagree with the settlements in the so-called Occupied Territories, but I look forward to the day that the world addresses its settlements on occupied territories before beating up a little country like Israel.  Shall we all return the lands won in war? What if we were attacked in that war? The US, China, Russia, the UK, etc, builds settlements in lands they took in wars, wars in which they were the aggressor.  Shall we have a UN Resolution to demand that they return those lands? I am all for it.  But to criticize Israel for actions that other nations are guilty of is blatant hypocrisy. All in a days work at the UN, I suppose.  

John Kerry announced to the world that the US vote at the UN to condemn, isolate and ultimately destroy Israel was in accordance with the best values of the American People. Now, what values might he be referring to? I think those values are lies, betrayal, hypocrisy and maybe just a little irony.

We are told and we are expected to believe that the Obama Administration did not initiate, encourage and coordinate this UN Resolution. Well, I suppose that one thing that we have learned from the last few years and certainly this election season is that lies no longer have to be plausible, that Americans will believe pretty much any baseless lie if they want to. But not even a nitwit, not even a Trump supporter, could possibly believe this one. Sure, appropriate cutouts (1) had to be found. Yes, America had to have their hands clean when someone put in the knife. Now who would that someone be? England? France? And then one of the little guys, you know like Senegal would have to take the fall. Of course it is just coincidence that this happens in the last month of the Obama presidency and before four years of Trump about whom, whatever else you might say, is apparently not prepared to sell Israel down the river. Of course, coincidence! The Obama administration does not even have the guts to say what everyone knows, that this last minute arranged vote is a reversal of 60 years of American foreign policy. Liars..

Betrayal is also a core American value. In this case we have at least two beautiful examples of American betrayal at its finest. Of course the United States has just betrayed Israel, that goes without saying. But even more delicious is the lovely betrayal of those in this country who support Israel's right to self-defense who supported Obama through two presidential elections. Obama waited until he did not need their support anymore, and then stabbed these supporters in the back, knowing there was no way to undo the damage. And he did it in a way that he escapes the results, he does not have to run for election anymore. The poor Democrats in Congress though are going to reap the implications of this. Of course the old Democratic coalition has been dead for years, this is merely another shoe dropping. 

But the highest value exposed here is our value of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is as American as mom and apple pie. Shall we review which of the countries on the security council have built settlements on the “occupied territories”? Well, lets see. Britain (N. Ireland), New Zealand (North and South Island), China (Tibet), Spain (Basque territory), Russia (so many places), and dont forget the good old US of A (Hawaii, N. Mexico, Ca, and frankly most of N. America depending on how you look at it).

Is there any irony in this episode? That would depend on how you interpret a topic in American history. That topic being to what extent Jewish Americans were involved with and important to the Civil Rights movement in this country. And even if Jews were important to the movement, did it really matter that they were Jewish, in some sense of that word? But to the extent that Jews were important to that movement that worked to achieve civil rights for all Americans, regardless of color, then some of the children of these activists will note that when the time came for the USA to condemn, isolate and attempt to destroy the Jewish state of Israel, that it was the first Black American president who did so. This seems like irony to me.

Is cowardice an American value?  Not that I am aware of. But one thing we can be very sure of here, this particular little betrayal by Obama was handled in a way that demonstrates that first and foremost, Obama is a coward.

But lets get real here.  Lies, betrayal and hypocrisy are three of the fundamentals of international diplomacy. There is nothing particularly new here when you look at the big picture.

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1. A “cutout” is an intelligence term for a person or organizaton that is between the real perpetrator and the victim. It provides plausible deniability, at least under some circumstances.

tags: lies, hypocrisy, betrayal, greed and corruption 

The Electoral College Having Done Its Work Leaves the Stage

"Tomorrow we discover if Americans, specifically Republicans, have any guts or if we are all doomed by their cowardice to be slaves of the Russians and the rich forever. The Republican electors could choose to postpone the process in order to hear the results of the CIA investigation but they will not. They are craven traitors who are betraying their country out of ignorance and self-delusion."

Oh come now, I say in retrospect, did you really believe for a moment, for even one moment, that dedicated functionaries of the Republican party, all of them vetted for their reliability, did you really think they were going to turn their back on their party's candidate and vote for Hillary Clinton in full view of the world?  And then what, to return home to accusations of betrayal, their lives destroyed, their careers destroyed?  Did you really think that of all people they would vote for Hillary Clinton, the target of their lies and hate campaign for 30 years?

Grow the f-word up.  Lets be real here.  The Republicans want power, pure power is their goal, and with Trump although they have a wild-card, they have one that generally conforms, or who can be believed to conform to their racist, misogynist,  homophobic, xenophobic vision of America.

Criminalizing Corporate Crime and Malfeasance

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Famously, Don Corleone said in the novel The Godfather that one lawyer with a briefcase could steal more than a gang of thieves with guns, or words to that effect.

Of course, everyone knows this is true. The egregious corruption of our justice system, from top to bottom is well known. Whether it has always been that way or has gotten worse in the last 3 or 4 decades is not known to me, but in the interest of helping our poor, stupid, and corrupt political elite in matters that should be obvious, we are going to make a few comments.

Dear Stupid Politicians,

If you do not start fixing the justice system, you are going to see a blowback that makes the Globalization / Trump debacle look minor in retrospect.

Everyone has noticed, and I mean everyone, that our justice system is grossly unfair and biased in favor of the rich. A poor man can go to jail in Alabama for life for stealing a stapler, but not even stealing billions of dollars on Wall Street and causing the collapse of the world economic system is a cause for even the most modest reprimand.

But if you keep ignoring what the people think, and keep kicking the can down the road while chortling to yourself that you got away with it again, one day this is going to blow up in your face. This is a specific example of the more general "failure of the cultural myth" or "failure to believe in a nation's institutions". It means that people start believing conspiracy theories, even the most ludicrous, and never believe anything that a politician tells them. You don't want that, although it may already be too late as The Donald Trump Disaster demonstrates.

What can you do about this?

In a nutshell, when a corporation commits a crime, people should go to jail. And I do not mean the little people here, say, for example, the 5,000 people that Wells Fargo fired after a decade of crime. We mean the top executives, all of them, and for a reasonable period of time depending on the extent of the crime.

Specifically, this includes the people on Wall Street whose incompetence and greed caused the financial collapse. Put them in jail. This means the executives at Volkswagon, to the very top, who of course knew all along that they were committing fraud with the EPA Decepticon software. This means the Exxon executives, who suppressed research reports on global warming and funded fake science to attempt to delay action on global warming. This means the Wells Fargo executives who stole money from their clients. This means AT&T who was caught stealing $88 million from customers. I suspect that is the tip of the iceberg. Put them in jail.

Put them all in jail.  Yes, even the ones who gave all that money to your reelection campaign and that you have been protecting all these years behind the scenes.  Even those executives you play golf with.  Even them.

Furthermore, if our government can seize the assets of middle class people who have not even been accused of a crime, then civil asset forfeiture could surely be applied to such people as Exxon executives or Wells Fargo executives. Just think of all the good you can do with that extra $100M from the Wells Fargo CEO who of course knew all along that his company was stealing. 

We all know that "statute of limitations" is nothing more than a way of exempting rich criminals from facing the penalties of their crimes.  People figured that out long ago.  So when some stooge quotes "statute of limitations" at us why a criminal corporation can not be prosecuted, we know we are being lied to again.

We dont care that you failed over the last 60 years to make the criminal code correspond in the least to fairness here. We know you are in the pay of the worst criminals / executives. Put them in jail anyway and fix the criminal code while you are at it. 

Of course you wont do it. You are as corrupt as they are. But you have been warned, so dont pretend innocence when this blows up in your face.  

Sincerely,
MW
Global Wahrman

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Article on AT&T Stealing $88 Million

http://www.networkworld.com/article/3148319/mobile-wireless/atandt-to-cough-up-88m-for-cramming-mobile-customer-bills.html

The Trans Pacific Partnership and National Security

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The NY Times has published an editorial describing how rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was self-destructive and will allow China to take over the world and destroy America. <insert link here>

They may very well be right. But whoever wrote this is in the dark about some fundamental issues that seem to have escaped them. So allow me to help my brilliant, elite editorial writer learn about some basic reality in American in 2016.

First, although we hear how Globalization and NeoLiberalism has been good for the world economy and especially the American economy, most of us have not seen it. We have seen the rich get richer, the middle class get destroyed by taxes, reduced wages, reduced pensions and the destruction of jobs but we have not seen how this new economy helps us. We have seen the government lie about unemployment and do absolutely nothing about helping the middle and working classes except perhaps to suggest that we could learn to type and become a secretary, or maybe work at Jack in the Box for minimum wage.

And furthermore, this has been going on for 30 years. But no response from Washington, no acknowledgement of the problem. No attempts to fix it that are not laughable. But we do see bankers and fund managers destroy the economy, not get prosecuted and given their multi-million bonuses nevertheless. We see Wells Fargo commit fraud for a decade, fire 5,000 little people, but no one goes to jail and the CEO retires with 100 million dollars after some insider trading which of course is not investigated. We see middle class people get assets seized by the police without being accused of a crime and the DOJ say that it is OK.

Now before you read any further, you should reread the above two paragraphs. You should reread them again. You should keep rereading them until you understand them. Until you understand that they are true. Then when or if you finally get it through your head that we have a corrupt and unacceptable economy for millions of Americans, then we can move on. The point is that your trade deals and Globalization is not a favorite concept among millions and millions of Americans. Ok, got that?

Second, the TPP was negotiated in secret and sprung on the American people about a year ago. When it was released to the public with the statement that we must ratify this treaty at once, and no discussion permitted, people demurred. Since a ratified treaty becomes law, it makes sense that there be some discussion of what is essentially a proposed law(s). We cant have that, the Government says, we must ratify this at once!

But what we discovered when we looked at the TPP was some very egregious and unlikeable provisions. Well, unlikeable unless you are a large, corrupt corporation of course. In fact, there is a lot to dislike about this “partnership”, when it was finally presented to the American people.

Third, you now tell us that the TPP had nothing to do with trade. In fact, it had to do with national security as manifested by trade blocks that will form a bulwark against China and Russia (if anyone cared about Russia as an economic power, which they do not, apparently).

Well, that is interesting and it may even be true. But your efforts to slide that past the American people without discussing your real motives or the slightest effort to protect the American people against the egregious and manifest crimes of international corporations doomed this effort.

As you say, it has nothing to do with trade. It may or may not have something to do with national security. But it certainly has a lot to do with the trust that the American people have in their government, and that is where you lost.

But there is a way forward. All you have to do is be honest with the American people about what your real motives are, fix the problems with the treaty to protect the American people and their laws, and convince them that your trade policies actually help Americans instead of just stridently assert that they do against all the evidence of people's experience of the last 30 years.

If you do that, I have no doubt that a treaty can be ratified.

Good luck.

Causes and Mysteries about Election 2016

A minority of American voters have elected an irresponsible, racist, misogynist, narcissistic, and unqualified asshole to be POTUS and are in complete denial of how they have fucked this country.

Causes

In order to achieve this, a number of things had to happen. I review a few of them here. First, women and Hispanics who were presumed to vote for HRC and against Trump did not do so in substantial numbers. Trump could not have won without their support. Second, we learn that the country is perfectly willing to ignore their leaders. Just about every elite politician, intellectual and news source supported HRC, some of them half-heartedly, and opposed Trump. Third, voting Republicans, not their leaders but the rank and file, supported their candidate and the Democrats did not. Fourth, we, the Democrats, won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. We may have to do something about the Electoral College, but that will be hard. Fifth, you can not run a candidate for POTUS unless he/she is a superior communicator and HRC is not. Sixth, we ran a Washington insider in a year when the country seethed with anger about how the system was failing them.  We had plenty of warning, see the Occupy movement and the campaign of Bernie Sanders. In other words, we, the Democrats, chose the wrong candidate.

Mysteries

I do not understand why the Washington elite has completely failed to understand and recognize the anger about the economy that has been building for over 30 years. 

Also, remember that the Trump vote only reflects the anger on the right.  There is a similar anger but on the left, what we might call the Sanders supporters.  These people were completely and utterly disenfranchised in this election being forced to vote for HRC as a lesser evil than Trump.

There is anger about the wealth inequality. There is anger about a justice system that favors the rich and punishes the poor. There is anger about a tax system that oppresses the middle class. There is anger about a justice system that lets corporate criminals commit any crime and go free.

The Polls

I do not understand why the polls were so wrong, nor do I understand why so many people, including the pollsters themselves, are in denial of the scope of their disaster.  This is as bad as "Dewey Defeats Truman". 

The implications of the polling failure are not commonly recognized. For example, you think you know what percentage of women or Hispanics voted for Trump? Well, you don't. Those numbers come from exit polls. The same technology that was so wrong going into the election. The fact is that this technology is thoroughly discredited. You can believe those numbers if you wish, but I don't.

The Good News

There is good news, its not all bad.

First, Washington needed a wake up call that business-as-usual does not work. Probably nothing less dramatic would have gotten the message across and even so it is not clear that Washington heard the message. Second, Trump is essentially a third party candidate that used a weak Republican party to get nominated and then elected. So if you want a path for a third party to win the White House, one has just been demonstrated for you. Third, Trump does not exactly have the support of the Republican Party. He will not get things all his own way in the Congress. Fourth, Trump has no track record of working with Washington. The last time we had a true Washington outsider, Jimmy Carter, it made a very big difference on what got done and what did not.

Conclusions

I can only hope that this clusterf*ck that is Trump will be a wake up call and that the principle of unintended consequences will apply here.

In the long run, we don't know if this is a complete disaster, or whether it was a necessary transition to a better government.

Torrent Downloads and Personal Morality

A friend was trying to explain to me that he did not need Torrent to view such things as “Agents of SHIELD”, that he was willing to wait until God and the Networks allowed him to see it on Netflix.

Could it be that he was suggesting that I was in some way morally deficient, possibly even wallowing in sin?

I don't see it that way.

Like all misunderstood geniuses, I feel the need to explain myself, usually while the representative of conventional society, often dressed in a tuxedo, is held at risk, soon to be defenestrated, or laser-decapitated or even eaten by an Amazonian life form.  Unless I feel that he/she/they/it have properly acknowledged my good will and desire to help, their doom is certain.

Come now, Mr. Bond. You do not expect me to miss an episode of Agents of SHIELD, do you?

You see I am not stealing anything.  I am merely borrowing for my own personal and legally defensible use this media product, so that I might better analyze it and review it for this Blog and society at large.

My mission is to help the world, not to steal from it.

The networks were formed on the concept of advertiser-based content. Now, that is not good enough for them. Greed has driven them mad and now they change the rules and declare that the viewer must also subscribe to some service that they have made some sort of pact with to extract money from the newly disenfranchised.

When all I want to do is to view, unimpeded by any network latency or bizarre distribution rules, their creative product so that I might be morally or intellectually uplifted. Yes, I seek improvement, I seek enlightenment. They have broadcast the material, with advertisers as the FCC has permitted, should I not also be permitted to dip my beak and see what has been paid for?

Are we mere tools of corrupt, international media organizations who wish to extract more and more money from the innocent citizen?

And further, what harm am I doing?  Am I making financial profit with this material?  Am I generating badly derezzed rar files to send to my supposedly degraded and morally debased friends?  No, I am using it for my own use. What harm therefore do I cause?

Besides, these companies, all of them, owe me.  I sacrificed my life to help invent and prove the technology they use to create this product. Selflessly, I dedicated myself to that end, and what reward did I get? I was left for dead, impoverished and disenfranchised. Will it hurt so much for them to allow me to view their product created with technology whose early development they totally did not pay for, and review it for the benefit of my readers and all the world?

I personify, even objectify, the desire for all man and womankind to improve themselves through the new synthetic media.

I am only trying to help.

Are Young People Too Impatient With the Political Process?

I have often heard it said that youth, callow youth, are too impatient with our political process. That they expect the great ship of state to change direction on a dime, not realizing the immense momentum that must be overcome and that many parties must be appeased in our collaborative political process before change can occur.

I have also heard it said that people with experience know how hard it is to change the system and are here for the long haul. They know its a marathon not a sprint, and that only by applying steady pressure over a long period of time and building coalitions can we achieve a more worthwhile polity.

Well, as some wit said, “all generalizations are wrong”. In my case, at least, the exact opposite is true. I used to be patient with the process until I realized how cynical and disingenuous the process was. How often the political process simply lied to steal the money, or to get their way.

And in the last 30 years I have seen our government fail to implement the voting rights laws, even go backwards on this critical issue.  I have seen public education continue to get low priority. I have seen the Dept of Justice fail to implement the law when it involved the murder of citizens for their political beliefs and even straightforward racism.  I have seen the worst criminal abuses of corporations and the rich go unpunished and worse, the hypocrisy of a congress that pretends to disapprove but does not actually enact the legislation that would permit criminal penalties to be applied (assuming the Dept of Justice would act against the rich which is not likely).

I have seen the lip service paid to the poor and disenfranchised which is not backed up by legislation and positive action.  I have seen the tax burden shifted to the middle class and the reality of the corporate tax code. I have seen the appalling "war on drugs" and the lives it has destroyed, every bit as destructive as the drug use it so hypocritically fails to prevent.  Leonard Peltier is still in jail and the FBI goes nuts whenever they think that a president might pardon him and therefore permit justice to exist in the land.

Henceforth, dear political leaders, the new rule is as follows. Fix it now, or we will assume that you are just lying or ineffective.

No more patience, no more slack.

Fix it now or go away.

Is the US Government Stupid, Corrupt or Incompetent?

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When I review my own thinking about Globalization, using that term very loosely, and the various issues that it raises, I keep coming back to the same question.

It goes something like this. There is no doubt to anyone who has studied economics that many of the negative issues of Globalization, as discussed in other posts on this blog, were predictable in broad outline. And there is no doubt to anyone who examines the evidence that our government enabled Globalization but did not put in place any of the sorts of programs that would help Americans who were likely to be impoverished by these policies find a new way to make a living. Nor was there any attempt by our government to address the increasing income inequality that would be the natural result of their policies. Furthermore, the record is clear that while many economists went public with the likely implications of these policies, they were apparently ignored, but even more important, our leaders did not discuss these implications with the American people. We also have to contend with the evidence that Washington is (maybe was) completely unaware of the vast anger and distress that these policies caused until it was shoved in their face, and even then I think they were blindsided and do not really acknowledge the issues even today. (See for example the incredibly stupid and egregious defense of the deceptive undemployment index in the New Yorker, reference to be provided eventually).

So I propose to you that this leads us to ask the following questions.

Was our government completely stupid, incompetent, and unaware of the implications of their policies? Or were they deliberately following a policy that was going to destroy the lives of millions of Americans to increase the profits of the rich? A third possibility might be that they were aware of the implications, but simply failed to take the corrective actions that would be necessary to attempt to ameliorate the distress caused.

The reason I keep coming back to this question is as follows. If they were merely stupid, then they are not competent to be running our government, and we should have no hope for the future. If they were cavalier about the well-being of so many Americans, then we should not expect that to change and should have no hope for the future.

Either way, the conclusion is that our government is fucked, is dangerous to the people, and that there is no hope for the future.

None of this will make the least bit of sense to you unless you understand how well understood the issues and controversies of “free trade” aka “globalization” are. None of this is new. It goes back to the 19^th century and the dawn of modern economics as we know it.

Hillary Clinton and the Welfare Reform Disaster

My little personal review of the systems of support for the poor in America (really in California) has been unexpectedly interesting.

It turns out that if you are poor, you can be quite sure that the US and California State governments will not help you have shelter or keep the power on. It will help you eat and get medical care, as long as you dont mind being homeless and completely impoverished.

Furthermore, it may be that there was never really any support except for women with children, anyway. I am not sure about that, but whatever there may have been, was destroyed by the Republicans with the help of none other than Pres. Bill Clinton with the so called Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which you can read about at the link below.

One of the worst aspects of this so-called "reform" is that welfare is now run by the states, which allows the Republicans to further demean and attack the poor.  In many states, drug tests are required and only counseling is provided, when what is needed is money, pure and simple. What arrogant swine the politicians of America are.

And how little respect I have for the Democratic party for their role in this abomination. When I refer to the Democrats as being "compromised", their participation in this sort of thing is what I am referring to.

What this means is that if you are poor in America, you are fucked. Thats the way people seem to want it, but it is not the way I want it. The government has gone out of its way to destroy employment in this country, and to see that their rich friends do well. They can damn well provide a basic subsistance amount without limitation to those of us who did not happen to benefit from their corrupt and egregious economic policies.

Oh yes, not only did Hillary round up votes for this offensive bill in Congress, but she also allegedly encouraged her husband to vote for it. And she has never disavowed her support for this so-called "reform".

Remind me again why the presidency of  Hillary Clinton is going to be heaven on earth?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act

A Concise Discussion of the Role of Our Government in the Economic Distress of Americans

This is an attempt to be as concise as possible about an issue that is very complex.

Probably if you are interested in the history of globalization in economic thought and for some reason could care about what I think on the topic, you should read the more lengthy discourse which can be located here.

For those of you who want the Cliff notes version, read on.

Many people in this country are aware of serious economic distress among some of our citizens, even though the nature of that distress, and the number of people affected, is controversial.

Many of my friends have trouble believing that our politicians and government would knowingly take actions that would damage the economic well being of many Americans, but they should not be so surprised. "The greatest good for the greatest number" is used to justify many policies that are sure to be bad for some people even if they are, hopefully, good for others.

Ultimately, understanding the structural issues of the economy that has been put in place over the last 20 plus years is going to take more time than most people are willing to devote to the topic. Ultimately if you are going to understand the situation, you are going to have to read a lot more than just this post which can at best point you in what is hopefully the right direction..

As I studied the history and theory behind Globalization, several questions presented themselves. If, as it appeared, that these policies resulted in the economic distress of millions of Americans, to what extent did the US Government pursue these policies knowing full well that this was going to destroy the economic well being of millions of Americans?  The second question, presuming that they did know this was going to be one of the likely results, to what extent did the government put in place policies and programs to help these Americans find new ways to make a living and ease the transition? Finally, whatever the answers to the first two questions may be, to what extent would our government expect Americans to benefit from these policies, and who would they benefit?

Each of the following statements could have pages, even volumes, of discussion to support them.

1. The issues around the economic policies that go under the name of “globalization” or “free trade” are not new, but have been discussed and debated since the 19^th century by some of the most important economists in the history of political economy, including Ricardo, Hume, and Marx.  It is in fact one of the central issues of political economy of that century.

2. In other words, although the extent of the impact of “globalization” is larger because of new technologies, there is excellent and relevant theoretical work and empirical case studies on the topic and the debate goes back a long way.  Therefore, there is no possible excuse of ignorance.  These policies are alleged to have certain important positive economic effects, but they are also very well known for having certain negative effects as well. 

3. “If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they would still not reach a conclusion”. (Attributed to G. B. Shaw).

4. Although the positive impact of globalization on the world economy is very much debatable, what is not debated are the likely negative, local results. These results include, using my own terminology, first order and second order effects. A first order effect is when an industry goes overseas and people lose employment. A second order effect is when a community suffers because of the lost income of its citizens and the impact on the local businesses, on the lost tax income, and on the social implications of unemployment and its effect on the unemployed and their families.

5. To use one case study, an industry which had spent $500 million a year to get certain services done locally, finds that by spending $450 million overseas, they can get the same work done and save $50 million. This is seen as good because the company has made $50 million more profit, all else being equal. But the community as a whole now has much more unemployment, and the local community no longer has that $500 million circulating.

6. Therefore, whether or not the company is more profitable, it is very arguable that our society as a whole is certainly not better off. But whether you agree with this or not, it is hard to disagree that these policies were as certain as one can be in economics to cause hardship for those who are to be unemployed and the communities they live in. Although one might not be able to predict exactly which industries and communities will be hit the hardest, one can certainly predict that many will be and in fact you may be able to predict very well which ones and to what extent with a little study.

7. But if the company is more profitable, don't we all benefit? No, because in this country, most of the wealth is owned by few of the people. We have all heard different numbers, but for the sake of discussion I am going to use a more moderate estimate, and say that 75% of the wealth is owned by 10% of the population. Therefore, any benefit of this policy will go to the 10% or so that already owns the wealth, and none of the benefit will accrue to the local community, or people, workers, etc.

8, So the first question is answered. The US Government supported and enabled a structural transformation to the economy which was known to (extremely likely to) economically disadvantage workers and their communities in our country. Maybe not all workers and communities, but certainly many of them.

9. The situation is made worse by other government policies as well. I will mention three. The first is that the H2B visa program is famous throughout the world as being used by companies to help them take work from local communities and outsource/offshore the work to other countries. The second is that the US Government has failed to use its power to counteract various subsidies put in place by other countries to benefit certain industries at the expense of the American industry and its workers. The third is that the US Government deliberately and explicitly does not measure real unemployment in this country and disingenuously therefore discusses unemployment in terms that they know understate the real situation.

10. Finally, given that the US Government knew the likely effect of their policies, what steps have they taken to retrain the worker into new industries, and to support them and their families while they go through this wrenching dislocation. The answer to that is also clear and unambiguous, we have done nothing to support these people. Not one thing.

Therefore, did the US Government pursue economic policies that were as certain as one can be about such things to cause great economic hardship to working Americans? Yes. Did they do anything to help ameliorate or compensate those workers for the hardship they experienced and are still experiencing? No. And one more question, were the beneficiaries of these policies guaranteed to be people who were already wealthy? Yes.

There is another side to this story, which has to do with the economic theory of growth in a globalized economy. By no means is this theory universally accepted, but even if it was it says nothing about the people whose livelihoods were destroyed by these policies, and this negative impact of the policies are extremely well understood and predictable.

A proper post on this topic should contain at least one page of references to supporting documentation, and maybe that will be added later.

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Photoshop and the Ethics of Reverse Manipulation

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At this point we are all inundated with obviously and not so obviously faked images that have passed through a photoshop session.  What would Facebook be without a suitably cropped and modified photograph per day with some obnoxious political agenda attached? Even so, although our news media outlets are notorious for manipulating the news and evidence, there are some of us who would like to think that they keep it to a minimum and unconscious level.

But what happens when we have a news story with an attached photograph that is almost certainly, obviously modified?  Should it be used anyway, or modified, faked if you will, to be less apparently false?

Is lying allowed if it increases the likelihood that an otherwise true story will be believed?

We have a particularly egregious example in the photograph used in the Reuters article about a recently convicted arsonist, see German Man Convicted of Setting Dozens of Fires in Los Angeles.

Oh, those fiery eyes! 

This is an entertaining example of a photograph that looks faked for editorial purposes even if, by some strange chance, it turns out not to be faked  How likely is it that the alleged (and now convicted) arsonist should happen to get "red eye" in this circumstance?

Anyone looking at it, though, might reasonably think it had been modified, and therefore, perhaps it should have been modified, possibly for a second time, to make it appear less manipulated even if by doing so it was in reality more manipulated.  Or would this be even worse, hiding from the public as it were the evidence of the original modification?

For those of you interested in the history of manipulating photographs for evidence or political purposes and are unaware that it has a long tradition, you could do worse than start by reading David King's acclaimed book “The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia” which you may find on that great evader of Austrian sausage taxes, Amazon.com.

https://www.amazon.com/Commissar-Vanishes-Falsification-Photographs-Stalins/dp/0805052941

Believe it or else, this is an important topic in the aesthetics and practice of visual effects.  In visual effects we often have the problem that something  that is correct (either in real life or because our simulation says it is correct) looks wrong.  And in visual effects, something that looks wrong will not achieve its purpose with the audience and will call attention to itself in an undesirable manner.

Now on the other hand, if our purpose was to show our convicted arsonist had been possessed by the Devil, then this photograph, modified or not, would have been just fine.

Is Austria Overtaxing Its Sausage Stands?

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Any right thinking American, upon reading the baseless Austrian complaint against those pillars of American Industry, Starbucks and Amazon, must wonder if Austria is not indeed demanding too much taxes from its sausage stands.

You may read their horrible accusation here in Reuters.

In America, we know to never tax our corporations, from which everything good in our society originates, but instead we put the burden on the worthless people, even those who do not work. These are the scum that should pay taxes. And if they do not work, then they should pay *more* taxes, not less, it seems to me, to make up for their indolence.

Indeed, we know that when the corporation takes out its most virtuous Sausage it will bring forth blessings and goodness that will “trickle down” onto the heads of all of us, both politicians and citizens. To tax the corporation is a sin, because it restricts this flow of corporate goodness.

All politicians in America know this, and so they wait anxiously by the trough of the corporations, yapping like newborn birds for their nourishment directly from this All-Beneficent Sausage. We call this most healthy flow “the political donation” but which might better be called the “Food of the Gods”, the very life-blood of our political system and the American Way..

Therefore let Austria learn from us, and learn the wisdom of freeing the corporation from this pernicious burden, these so-called taxes, which if left unchecked might affect shareholder value.

Administrative Note: The "Conclusions" Category on Global Wahrman

We announce here a new category, or tag, for Global Wahrman, the so-called “conclusions” category.

One purpose of Global Wahrman is to explore a variety of ideas and beliefs about such things as the role of the Illuminated Masters in determining algorithms for Google, the failure of the cultural myth, the role of corruption in our civic governance and whether our politicians are motivated directly by Satan or merely *appear* to be motivated by Satan. These are just a few examples of the ideas that we discuss here on Global Wahrman.  

But from time to time, I think it is fair to say that we reach conclusions, or proximate conclusions, about these weighty and complex issues, and want to mark these posts as being of particular interest. Such posts will be marked with the “Conclusions” tag. Eventually these posts will also be collected and put in some category on the right hand side of the blog to also make them easier to find.

As an example of this, consider Globalization and Its Discontents which discusses the role of our government in the collapse of the American economy.  Although perhaps not the final statement on the culpability of our government in this collapse, it is certainly a partial statement on this topic. Did our government know full well that their policies would impoverish millions of Americans in order to increase the profits of the rich?  Of course they did.

So while the term "Conclusions" is a little overblown, it is fair I think to identify these posts as being a little less speculative and of greater interest to those who want some of the ideas of this blog boiled down, distilled as it were, into a relatively few posts.