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Monthly Archives: May 2012

“Life Is Not Fair” is a Relative Concept

May 31, 2012

Fairness is primarily about justice .  It matters less that life isn’t fair when you’re wealthy.  It can mean everything when you’re not.  

 

Sometimes I think I may belabor the fact that today’s Republican Party is clearly not the Party that it once was or that it no longer truly represents most Americans.  I worry too that revealing over and over how the GOP, being captured by a combination of a libertarian philosophy and remnants of the Bush-era neo-conservatives who support policies that advantage the rich in this country, will ultimately discourage people from reading anything on my blog when I bring this socio-political issue to the forefront.

Redundancy can often have an adverse effect.  But when those within that Party continue to demonstrate this pattern of behavior as if it was somehow sanctioned by most working Americans, it’s just not in me to let it pass without exposing it and challenging their premise.  If for no other reason than to achieve personal peace of mind.

The guru of the libertarian laissez-faire economics is Milton Friedman.  In his 1980 book Free To Choose he concedes “that those who grow up in wealthy families and attend elite schools have an unfair advantage over those from less privileged backgrounds”. (source of quote from “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” by Michael J. Sandel)  He then proceeds to rationalize this as a condition of “that’s the way the ball bounces”.

Life is not fair.  It is tempting to believe that government can rectify what nature has spawned.  But it is also important to recognize how much we benefit from the very unfairness we deplore.  there’s nothing fair . . . about Muhammad Ali’s having been born with the skill that made him a great fighter . . . It is certainly not fair that Muhammad Ali should be able to earn millions of dollars in one night.  But wouldn’t it have been even more unfair to the people who enjoyed watching him if, in the pursuit of some abstract ideal of equality, Muhammad Ali had not been permitted to earn more for one night’s fight . . . than the lowest man on the totem pole could get for a day’s unskilled work on the docks? (Friedman, Free to Choose, 136-7)

 

This skewered example hardly considers how behavior is manipulative or takes in the fact that pure talent or a born-to-the-manner status are hardly true spawns of nature.  Is the wealth of some families due to their ability to conduct their lives and their businesses ethically or did they achieve it through guile and manipulation?   Are some  physical talents the result of nature alone or were their lives less challenged with a dysfunctional family that allowed them to enhance what many have but are unable to pursue?  What Friedman and his advocates see as free choices are often nothing more than arranged conditions that have been manufactured by human beings.

The belief that there is a natural propensity in the social order of things that we can’t control is flawed.  Just because things are the way they are doesn’t mean they have to remain that way.  If this were a truth then civilization as it is today would be non-existent.  People can effect social outcomes and can do it without adversely affecting those who have certain advantages over us, for what ever reason.

By creating a level playing field in the area of education we create greater opportunity for more people to reach their talented capabilities and to put them into action.  Rather than remain dormant and go wasted we unlock doors for people who are equally or more capable to succeed than those who have inherited wealth.  A chance to hone their skills through the advantages of a full education benefits society as whole more than any policy that puts them on equal footing with the more affluent elements in society.

In our democracy we want to enable the general welfare of all so that a few wealthy elites don’t dominate the mechanisms that control our economy and ultimately our way of life.  When the federal government helps disadvantaged youth to start at the same threshold as rich kids with a comparable education, it doesn’t alter any assumed natural state of things but rather enhances an expansion of the nation’s raw talent by encouraging competition of those who come into the free markets on equal footing.  To use Friedman’s example, why encumber a talented athlete with equipment too inadequate or out-dated to succeed.  By providing him or her with basic essentials we then provide a hungry public all the talent there is to provide and thus enjoy.

 

Yet the view that the GOP currently holds which essentially allows only the existing wealthy elite to compete in the free markets continues to find support amongst those very people who clamor for personal freedom.  They would deprive those talented people to compete simply by the luck of the draw that our social system has dealt them.  This point has been driven home recently in a Senate vote on two separate bills that would keep interest rates low on student loans.

One of the bills presented by the Democrats, S-2343, was rejected by a 51-43 vote.  The majority that favored extending the lower interests rates was insufficient because an earlier deal had been struck between Senate majority and minority leaders to allow passage only with a two-third’s majority – 60 votes.  The so-called “greatest deliberative body in the world” is rapidly becoming the laughing stock of global civilizations.  All Republican Senators voted against this bill as did one conservative Democratic Senator – Jim Webb of Virginia.  Several obviously abstained and Republican Olympia Snowe merely registered her vote as “Present”.

Prior to this vote the Republican version to allow student loan rates to remain at the lower level was rejected with several of the GOP members siding with nearly every single Democrat in their opposition.  The final tally for the Alexander amendment No. 2153 was a lopsided 34-62.  Snowe again registered her vote only as “Present” and two Democrats and one Republican chose not to vote at all.


 

The primary difference between the two bills is that the Democratic version would have  funded the lower student loan rate by eliminating a tax preference for certain shareholders of S Corporations.  The GOP version would have achieved their funding by eliminating a preventive health fund created by the 2010 health care overhaul.  The devil as usual is in the details but clearly the GOP rejected the Democrat’s bill because it was viewed by many as depriving a more affluent class of people some of their income, while theirs is seen to pay for the lower loan rates on the backs of less affluent people who would benefit from a preventative health care measure listed in the Affordable Care Act, or what opponents of this legislation derisively refer to as “Obamacare”.

These votes alone by both Parties speak volumes as to where their interest lie and who their true constituencies are but there is even a more subtle assault here on low and middle-income families that isn’t highlighted in the vote count.  Take a good look at those Republicans who voted with the Democrats  in rejecting their own Party’s bill on this issue.

Jerry Moran – Kansas

Rand Paul   – Kentucky

Richard Burr – North Carolina

Tom Coburn – Oklahoma

James Inhofe – Oklahoma

Patrick Toomey – Pennsylvania

Jim DeMint – South Carolina

Bob Corker – Tennessee

Mike Lee – Utah

Ron Johnson – Wisconsin

Four of these – Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Jim DeMint are part of the newly formed Tea Party Caucus in the Senate.  Both Oklahoma Senators and Bob Corker of Tennessee were strong supporters of Bush neo-conservative policies.  Both Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, though not official members of the Tea Party caucus, have clearly aligned themselves with Tea Party causes.  

What their vote speaks to here is not only a rejection of how such a bill to retain lower student loan interest rates should be funded but the idea that the government should help fund such loans at all is to be rejected.  In other words, a level playing field at the expense of anyone other than the students themselves is in line with Milton Friedman’s presumption that such aid is against some “natural spawn” that pervades the libertarian mind-set.

 

It is a mind-set that fails to see how the hand of human thinking has intervened and made such a “natural” state exist in the first place.  It denies that societies evolve in a dynamic pattern that result from human action and interaction, not by some “invisible hand”  that exists only in the minds of zealots.  It supports a status quo view that they themselves either benefit from currently or aspire to, despite the fact that more people than not will needlessly suffer from such impractical perceptions.  And finally it values monetary wealth and material gain over the basic human need to fulfill a dream.  Not for the sake of personal gain alone but for what it does to make life better for others.

 

Fairness is what justice really is.  – Potter Stewart

RELATED ARTICLE:

The Cost of College Will Soar if Interest Rates Are Allowed to Double 

Posted by in Social Discourse

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“Blessed Are the Peacemakers …”

May 28, 2012

This is my annual offering on a day I wish we didn’t have to recognize.  Not from lack of homage for the sacrifices made by young men and women in carrying out their duties while serving our country, but because war will no longer be an action mankind takes in dealing with other humans we share this tiny blue dot with.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  Dwight D. Eisenhower

To Not Die In Vain

Yet another Memorial Day rolls around
With each flag placed neatly on rounded mound
For those lying silent beneath the ground.

There lies each woman and man
Who perished in a distant land
For things we seldom understand.

Proclamations given to make us proud
With pomp and circumstance they’re said aloud
But heard no more under covered shroud.

If die they must it should be clear,
Our cause is just and sincere
To promote a world free from fear.

 

We cannot throw away good souls
For extraneous reasons given by those
Who only gain and never lose.

Young men and women cannot be fodder
Thrown into battle and led to slaughter
By those who sacrifice neither son nor daughter.

Let wars be executed if we must
But for reasons that are just;
Anything less violates a sacred trust.

 

This great nation has always stood
As a standard for each who would
Treat all equally and promote what’s good.

For all have a stake in what’s celebrated this day,
That loss of life that has given way
To prevent future wars so we can say,

The peace we know came at high cost
Through human sacrifice and loss
So tomorrow’s children will benefit most.

Let it be clear we are here today
To seek a path, a certain way;
That war no longer serves as a need to pray.

I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. - George McGovern

Posted by in Global politics, History Tags: , , , , ,

6 comments

“It’s a Little Bit of Everything”

May 25, 2012

I think the rock group Dawes is one of the freshest and most inspirational groups around today.  Their lyrics are so down to earth and often carry the weight of the ages.  Combined with their familiar but pleasant tunes they reveal intimate aspects of our humanity.

Life is an amalgam of events but they have to be viewed independently of each other to show us how we are composed.  We may not always like what we see, feeling a sense of hopelessness as the young suicidal adult in this song, or the choices we made like the older and perhaps homeless man.  But for others, like the woman in love planning her wedding, she sees the simple pleasure of life in the little details.

In looking at our life from some grandiose perspective we often miss the small bits that make it up and give it its true meaning.  A pearl is but a grain of sand when it begins.  It is the slow process of time and interaction with other matter that makes it something of value.  In the final analysis it’s not the “psychics” and the “doctors” – the priests, the politicians, the gurus or even our own appointed mentors who attempt to hand us our life in a neatly wrapped package.  It is the accumulation of daily events intermingled with our hopes and fears, our dreams and hesitancies and our failures and successes that put substance to what is uniquely us as individual human beings.

 

 

With his back against the San Francisco traffic,

On the bridges side that faces towards the jail,

Setting out to join a demographic,

He hoists his first leg up over the rail.

A phone call’s made,

Police cars show up quickly.

The sergeant slams his passenger door.

He says, “Hey son why don’t you talk through this with me,

Just tell me what you’re doing it for.”

 

“Oh, it’s a little bit of everything,

It’s the mountains,

It’s the fog,

It’s the news at six o’clock,

It’s the death of my first dog,

It’s the angels up above me,

It’s the song that they don’t sing,

It’s a little bit of everything.”

 

 

There’s an older man stands in a buffet line,

He is smiling and he’s holding out his plate,

And the further he looks back into his timeline,

That hard road always led him to today,

Making up for when his bright future had left him,

Making up for the fact that his only son is gone,

And letting everything out once, His server asks him,

Have you figured out yet, what it is you want?

 

I want a little bit of everything,

The biscuits and the beans,

Whatever helps me to forget about

The things that brought me to my knees,

So pile on those mashed potatoes,

And an extra chicken wing,

I’m having a little bit of everything.

 

Somewhere a pretty girl is writing invitations,

To a wedding she has scheduled for the fall,

Her man says, “Baby, can I make an observation?

You don’t seem to be having any fun at all.”

She said, “You just worry about your groomsmen and your shirt-size,

And rest assured that this is making me feel good,

I think that love is so much easier than you realize,

If you can give yourself to someone,

Then you should.

 

Cause it’s a little bit of everything,

The way you choke, the way you ache,

It is getting up before you,

So I can watch you as you wake.

So on that day in late September,

It’s not some stupid little ring,

I’m giving a little bit of everything.

 

Oh, it’s a little bit of everything,

It’s the matador and the bull,

It’s the suggested daily dosage,

It is the red moon when it’s full.

All these psychics and these doctors,

They’re all right and they’re all wrong,

It’s like trying to make out every word,

When they should simply hum along,

It’s not some message written in the dark,

Or some truth that no one’s seen,

It’s a little bit of everything.

Posted by in Music/Poetry Tags: , ,

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Tell Congress to Fix Social Security – NOW

May 23, 2012

Social Security continues to be under attack from private interests who want to use your SSI payroll contributions and risk them in speculative ventures that may or may not succeed.  For most Americans, gambling with their retirement savings can have serious consequences at a time when financial security is most vulnerable.

The anti-government crowd headed by anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist wants to  dissemble a secure retirement program and have you put your faith in a system that is often quite similar to casino gambling.  You could walk away comfortably rich or you could walk away with nothing but the clothes on your back.  To encourage this they are using the nation’s deficit structure as a fear-mongering tool to intimidate poorly informed Americans and direct them to make a choice that will assuredly benefit them and enhance their wealth at even greater levels while making no guarantees how your results will end up.  As an added measure to persuade you, they would argue that Social Security is on the threshold of bankruptcy.  The truth is quite different but there are issues with this system that can be easily fixed if only wealthy interests would quit creating obstacles to make such improvements

The hue and cry from the extreme right within the GOP is that public sector spending needs to be cut back to reduce the deficit.  This itself is a political smokescreen that appeals to that austerity crowd who want continued cuts in social welfare programs while leaving a bloated defense budget untouched, along with leaving the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% in place.

The GOP has its sights on changing Social Security as we know it to correct it’s deficiencies while eliminating its impact on the deficit, or so they claim.  But does Social Security dramatically affect the deficit?  The CATO institute, a Libertarian think tank founded by billionaires Charles and David Koch, thinks it does.  They have put some numbers together to support their contention.  But there are equally creditable organizations who show a different story and point to the Bush tax cuts and the two wars in the mideast having the biggest affect on our growing budget.  Dean Baker with the Center for Economic and Policy Research also points out something missing in the deficit hawk’s argument.

Under the law, Social Security is financed by a designated tax, the 12.4 percent payroll that workers pay on their first $107,000 of income each year. The money raised through this tax is used to pay benefits. Any surplus is used to buy U.S. government bonds. All funding for the program comes either from this tax or from the bonds held by the program’s trust fund. (The Social Security system is also credited with a portion of the income tax paid on Social Security benefits.)

Social Security is prohibited from spending any money beyond what it has in its trust fund. This means that it cannot lawfully contribute to the federal budget deficit, since every penny that it pays out must have come from taxes raised through the program or the interest garnered from the bonds held by the trust fund.   SOURCE   

What seems clear to a layman like myself is that projecting the future for a program so large as Social Security is not any easy task and we are dependent on the experts to give us an honest assessment of this important retirement resource for millions of Americans.  We need honest, objective analyses that utilizes all data and not studies subjected to ideological dogma.  Creating choices that fail to take in all considerations does a disservice to a public that is forced to trust those who are supposed to have the aptitude for such things.  I like to gamble as much as most people do but when it comes to a retirement fund needed to meet my needs in old age, I don’t want to wake up one morning like many did in 2008 to find they lost most of their savings to a system that gambled on unsure bets.

What’s at stake here is a system that has served this country well for 75 years keeping many people from falling below poverty levels.  It serves as a back up for those people who worked hard all of their life and still were unable to put enough away on their own to sustain them through old age.  Raising a family with costly health care needs and equally costly education expenses makes the ability to set enough aside with wages that have been shrinking for several decades difficult if not impossible for some.  Since the cost of living doesn’t ever really go down it is important that wages keep pace with the cost of goods and services.

The record shows that this hasn’t happened for the large majority of working families in this country.   Since the 1980’s wages have been stagnant in comparison to wages for the top 1% of wage earners while the costs of goods and services continue to rise.  As a result, pensions have been diminished and in a lot of cases lately, eliminated as businesses find ways to keep their profits on track.  Income revenue for most Americans no longer allows people to save as they once did.

Social Security thus becomes essential in keeping many people from starving and succumbing to illnesses easier from lack of adequate health care once they lose their ability to work.  It’s a system that a humane society put in place following the Great Depression of 1929 and has saved millions of lives.  Each month a portion of one’s paycheck – 6.2% – is deducted and matched by their employer to pay in to the Social Security trust fund.  Until 2010 there has been a surplus from this source to pay benefits for retirees who claim these benefits in old age.  The economic disaster that occurred at the beginning of 2008, resulting from excessive risky investments by banks too big to fail sent the economy into a nosedive, creating massive jobs losses.

These job losses took with them the payroll deductions that are used to pay benefits to SSI beneficiaries causing the shortfall in 2010.  But many of those years collecting revenue had surpluses.  This money was set aside by purchasing U.S. treasury notes to cover Social Security in times when intakes didn’t match outputs.  To the hoot and holler of many this most recent shortfall means doom for the system.  It’s a scare tactic that’s been around almost since the inception of the program back in 1936.

Wealthy financial corporate interests in this country have been jealous of the fact that so much money has alluded their grasps all these years and have attempted to squeeze the life from this program so that they can access such funds for their own self-interests.   And though there is something to be said for the larger returns many might see over the years by investing this money in private financial markets, there is also much evidence to weigh that shows how such a move could actually hurt more people than it helps.

“You can trust me with your retirement funds”

Social Security sets a specific amount aside and let’s simple interest enable it.  It is not put into risky investments that may show high returns one year but then go belly up the next year.  Organizations like the CATO Institute, the Heritage Foundation and wealthy individuals like Peter Peterson who want to privatize Social Security like to point out that “despite recent declines in the stock market, a worker who had invested privately over the past 40 years … would retire with more income than if they relied on Social Security.”   What is concealed here however is that if you retired in January 2008 you would have lost half of that retirement in just a few short months as a result of the stock market crash that saw the Dow Jones go from an all time high of 14,100 on October 9th, 2007 to hit a a low of 6,547.05, a 53.78% loss over a period less than year and one that had not been seen since November 25th 1996.  Social Security recipients on the other hand saw no change in their benefits.

Herein lies the devil within the details.  Those who seek to end Social Security as we know it do so NOT because it’s an unworkable system but because it is so effective and they are losing out on money that their capital ventures would create for them.  But under this Superman Cape of “free markets” is the reality that the values of your stock are subject to the volatility of the markets and if they collapse as they did in 2001-02 and 2008 at the time you decide to retire, then your net worth may in fact be much less than someone who is collecting social security.  They don’t call it Social “SECURITY” for nothing.

Now, are there problems that could prevent benefits from continuing as they have for 75 years, including COLA increases each year?  With a poor economy, a continuing high war debt, large numbers from the baby boom generation retiring and revenue cuts from lower tax rates, of course there is.  The fact that the government decreased the amount of the payroll tax by 2% in 2011 to help struggling income earners hasn’t helped either.

But killing this system as we know it and turning it over to private venture capitalists and their cronies in those banks too big to fail is a gamble that will ultimately hurt many low and middle-income families whose wages will never reflect what their parent’s did in the 1950′s, 60’s and 70’s.   Unless we address the serious issue of income disparity in this country, the belief that the free markets prop us up in our retirement years is as unlikely as it is to believe that homeownership is more of a reality now than it was a generation ago.  Both possibilities have suffered at the hands of people whose self-interests are focused on profits – not your long term needs.

Congress can fix Social Security in one of two ways long before it reaches a state where full benefits have to be cut back in 2036.

  1. Eliminate the cap on the payroll tax on income above $250,000, or
  2. Reinstate the Bush tax cut on the top 2% of American income earners.

Either one of these quick fixes would eliminate any real or imagined threat to Social Security.  As for the deficit – President Obama has put forth a budget that would reduce annual deficits, “through his proposals to raise $1.5 trillion over 10 years mostly from the wealthy but also from closing some corporate tax breaks, chiefly for oil and gas companies.”

There is plenty of room to find resources necessary to reduce the deficit without touching the Social Security trust fund, especially during these economic hard times.  By making deficit reduction the focal point of their 2012 campaign on the backs of the elderly and dependent children while job losses remain high, the Republican Party has informed low and middle-income retirees and wage earners who their real constituency is.

RESOURCES:

Experts: Contrary to Mainstream Myth, ‘Social Security is Strong’ and Could Be Made Stronger

Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling: A Proposal to Modernize Women’s Benefits 

Posted by in Climate Science/Global Warming, Social Discourse Tags: , , , , ,

38 comments

Maybe This Explains It

May 21, 2012

Now there’s physical evidence that may suggest why so many people changed their vote in 2010 from a vote they made in 2008 that had denied the financial status quo a continuation.

 

A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning — . The peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology published the findings in its May 15 edition.

According to Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science, “Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage.”    SOURCE 

 

This intrigued me when I recalled the queries posed in a popular book by Thomas Frank, “What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America”.   In the book, Frank, a native Kansan, asked provocative questions like “Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where’s the outrage at corporate cronyism? And what’s effected  the diminished value of the middle-American progressivism that was so powerful in earlier times?”

The movement that has become the Tea Party seems to fit this new Kansan paradigm.  Rather than recalling their roots that opposed crony capitalism and promoted a healthy middle class, many who now support the Tea Party have transferred their anger toward those who still retain those views and values. They have somehow turned their loyalty over to those very people who manipulated the system to foster self-serving ends that hurt middle class Americans.

Somehow the corporate Tea Party message convinced a lot of them that the concentrated wealth in the hands of a small number of people is better than a system that once allowed jobs with a living wage and benefits to effect better productivity.  They seem to have fell victim to the premise within the Libertarian philosophy that would convince you that compassion and playing by the rules really have no place in a system that rewards only those whose advantages of inherited wealth allow them to keep more of the pie that we all collectively helped create.

The fairness once practiced that our labors will aptly reward us, is a hollow statement these days by virtue of the fact that concentrated wealth now controls the mechanisms that determines who will be successful, rather than who can be successful.   The notion that the everyman can become comfortably wealthy if “they just apply themselves” still exists in the hopes and aspirations of many Americans, not knowing that the deck is stacked against them in a system where concentrated wealth will stymie anything that threatens their treasure and territory.

 

“Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think,” says Gomez-Pinilla.   If this research can be borne out then it seems clear that the extreme fringes on the right who see the Koch Brothers as saints and people like Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders as personifications of evil, may have been consuming a lot of processed food with a high-fructose additive in it.  It would surely explain why I thought Rod Stewart was a serious talent.

I’d love to test this hypothesis by devising an experiment similar to the one Gomez-Pinilla and study co-author Rahul Agrawal created to validate their claims suggesting high fructose sugars effect memory and learning.  In their research “two groups of rats … each consumed a fructose solution as drinking water for six weeks.”

The second group also received omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which protects against damage to the synapses — the chemical connections between brain cells that enable memory and learning.

The animals were fed standard rat chow and trained on a maze twice daily for five days before starting the experimental diet. The UCLA team tested how well the rats were able to navigate the maze, which contained numerous holes but only one exit. The scientists placed visual landmarks in the maze to help the rats learn and remember the way.

Six weeks later, the researchers tested the rats’ ability to recall the route and escape the maze. What they saw surprised them.

“The second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that did not receive omega-3 fatty acids,” Gomez-Pinilla said. “The DHA-deprived animals were slower, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signaling each other, disrupting the rats’ ability to think clearly and recall the route they’d learned six weeks earlier.”

 

If we could find volunteers who have been vetted to meet the criteria for objectivity, they could be placed in a maze that would allow them to recreate their journey after having been baselined.  Baseline would establish what their natural tendencies are in making political choices.  After ingesting abnormal levels of high fructose additives we would then run them back through the maze and see if their choices contradicted their earlier natural tendencies and wound up putting them more in harms way than they were before.

It would be interesting to see if those moderates and independents who voted for change in 2008 after the free market collapse of the banks would either continue to vote for such change or would instead revisit those policies that put many out of a job as well as on the streets after losing their homes from predatory lending practices by powerful financial interests.  In other words, would their memories fail to remind them of what put their lives in such duress in such a short period.

Now clearly many of us who voted for change in 2008 didn’t get a lot of what we thought we were voting for but we also understood that we were denying the status quo policies that preceded the Obama administration a platform to continue its ruination on the lives of the American middle class.  We also understood later that putting Tea Party-types in office in 2010 would not put us on the right path to regain those social and economic advantages we have been loosing for the last 30 years.  Sadly though, many we voted with in unison for these changes back in 2008 became convinced that their natural tendencies were erroneous and made that leap in 2010.

Are some being duped to believe that we can recapture an America that no longer exists?

 

Furthermore, it’s clear to most of us who still insist on change that promotes fairness and a level playing field in the job market that there are those who would deceive us and pretend that our fortunes lie with them rather than smarter choices to effect corrective change in government.  Groups like Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity and former Bush confidant Karl Rove’s super Pac, American Crossroads GPS to name a few.  These are movements heavily funded by a handful of billionaires who want us to believe that they are us and we are them.

So might our consumptive habits had an effect on changes that Frank alluded to in his book, especially the one about why people tend to vote against their economic interests?

I’m just suspicious enough also to believe that If my hypotheses pans out, could there be a link between those who make the decision to use this high fructose additive and those corporate lobbyists who also support increased tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% while simultaneously supporting measures to cut spending in the public sector.   Knowing that the corporate special interests have failed to demonstrate that trickle down economics is anything but a failed political model, it seems this would be a strategically clever move for them to give them an edge this election year.  Stripping people’s memories of the Bush years and its failed policies is definitely something the neo-conservatives and their Republican partners in Congress would hope to achieve.

And for the record, lest anyone think I am suggesting that only moderates and Independents have had excessive cravings for high fructose sweeteners, I too have been guilty of making erroneous judgments.  But, since swearing off of many processed foods over the last few years, I am now better able to remember that the Democratic Party today is not much more than a watered-down version of its former self under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy .   I now have to take measure of a Party and their leaders who can’t manage to pass health care with a public option and substantial financial reform when they have control of both Houses of Congress and the White House.

Posted by in Corporate Influence, political fringe groups Tags: , , , , , , , ,

12 comments

Not-So-Near Perfect

May 17, 2012

What would make this the perfect man?

 

According to a recent poll of women by Austin Reed, a British-based luxury tailor for men’s clothes, there are 30 characteristics they rated that would make the perfect man.  Here’s how they were listed.

  1. 6 feet tall
  2. Toned and athletic
  3. Brown eyes
  4. Short dark hair
  5. Smart dress sense
  6. Beer drinker
  7. Non-smoker
  8. Wears smart jeans, shirt and a V-neck jumper
  9. Gets ready in 17 minutes
  10. Stylish
  11. Wants a family
  12. Earns £48,000 ($77,000) a year
  13. Loves shopping
  14. Eats meat
  15. Clean shaven
  16. Smooth chest
  17. Watches soaps
  18. Enjoys watching football
  19. Drives an Audi
  20. Educated to degree level
  21. Earns more than his other half
  22. Jokes around and has a laugh
  23. Sensitive when his wife/girlfriend is upset
  24. Says ‘I love you’ only when he means it
  25. Admits it when he looks at other women
  26. Has a driver’s license
  27. Can swim
  28. Can ride a bike
  29. Can change a tire
  30. Calls mom regularly

 

Of the 30 characteristics, I am slightly above average owning 16 of them – IF I am totally honest about #23 – being sensitive when my wife is upset.  I could earn extra credit too if I used JUST FOR MEN® religiously to accommodate #4 – short dark hair.  ”Dark” being the key word.

Some of these you would expect from a woman’s Adonis perspective, which unsurprisingly makes up the top 5 categories.  My qualifications skip past those and begin at #6.

Some are no-brainers too for most men like beer drinker, meat eater, enjoys watching football and most likely items #25 through 29.  But the one most men are adept at is #9, getting ready in 17 minutes.  In fact for some of us, this is a snail’s pace.  Depending on the occasion and location, 17 seconds is all most of us need to get ready.  I’m not sure why this is an important factor for women though.  It’s not like they’re going to be waiting on us to get ready in time for that dinner party.  Seventeen minutes is a fraction of the time they take deciding what they want to wear, initially.  I usually don’t shower, shave and dress until my wife is ready to leave the house in the next 15 minutes.

And I’m suspicious about #25 – admitting when we look at other women.  This sounds like a trap fellas so use your own judgement here.  Know thy female companion and tread lightly.

Let’s face it though.  This is not a scientific poll.  The Austin Reed site doesn’t even mention the poll on it’s home page.  I suspect also that some PR person connected to Austin Reed got this “survey” out into the blogosphere for commercial reasons in lieu of attracting curious on-lookers like me to click on their website.  If it is genuine – and there’s no reason to think it’s not – I suspect the target population for this was the 20 to 35 age range.  Considering the source, I’m sure they were primarily British too.  Hardly a group that would objectively reflect on older men like myself.

It would interesting to see what the women of the baby boom generation consider qualities of the so-called perfect man to be.  I’m sure things like hair of any kind (on the scalp of course), a sufficient retirement portfolio and the ability to ambulate without  the need of artificial devises would be in that list.  But if none like that can be found they might simply settle for someone who doesn’t pass gas in public, remembers anniversaries (if they remember anything at all) and does some house chores without being asked.   We’re a generation with simple needs and wants at this age.

Do we have less demanding expectations as we age?

Posted by in Humor, People, seniors/aging Tags: , , ,

7 comments

When You’ve Got Nothing to Offer – Punt

May 15, 2012

 

A recent Ross Douthat’s column entitled “The Party of Julia” provides yet another example of how conservatives will play out this election to win votes for their candidate, Mitt Romney.  It is similar to a legal defense an attorney would take with a client that could possibly do more damage to his cause by taking the witness stand so is instead prevented from testifying on their own behalf.  It’s often a gamble that hope’s the prosecution’s case can be demoralized enough to weaken the presumption of guilt for the defense’s client and thus look for a dismissal because the accused can’t be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Clearly the Republicans have nothing to offer that could convince enough people with short memories that trickle down economics this time around will somehow work, despite it poor track record.  The data is so convincing that such economic policies are a failure that the GOP’s only hope of regaining both Houses of Congress along with the White House is to make Obama and the Democrats look worse than this retread alternative.  Douthat would have his readers believe that the Obama campaign theme of FORWARD  “is a none-too-subtle admission that a look backward at the Obama economic record might be bad news for the president’s re-election prospects.”  In actually it’s contrasting the direction Obama will continue with as opposed to the opposite direction the Romney campaign will take the country

 

The thrust of Douthat’s efforts however, in line with conservative bloggers and pundits across the nation, is currently focused on the the Obama/Biden campaign slide show, The Life Of Julia.   This animated narrative shows how federal funded programs can help people who either cannot engage in the free markets, like children and many of the elderly, or who can but the free markets have not provided adequate jobs or compensation for services to take advantage of the system that opens opportunities up to those who have the financial means.

“All propaganda invites snark and parody, and the story of Julia is ripe for it” Douthat tells us.

 She’s an everywoman only by the standards of the liberal upper middle class: She works as a Web designer, has her first child in her early 30s (the average first-time American mother is in her mid-20s), and spends her golden years as a “volunteer at a community garden.” (It will not surprise you to learn that the cartoon Julia looks Caucasian.)

Based on that last comment in parenthesis it’s not clear here if Douthat is trying to suggest that Obama’s revealing something the GOP has overlooked – that white, professional, thirty something single moms are also in need of some assistance from the failed promises of free markets – or, if he is suggesting that only minorities with dark skin fit the profile portrayed in this slide show.  The latter perspective would go against the radical conservative argument that the Democrats and liberals are all too willing to use the race card.  It seems Douthat is doing the race-baiting here.

Poor divorced mothers need help to survive the end of a marriage

 

Douthat then seems surprised that the imaginary Julia has “no meaningful relationships apart from her bond with the Obama White House: no friends or siblings or extended family, no husband”, even though she has given birth to a child.  Only a conservative would presume that such a demographic is either unlikely or not significant in numbers.  A quick look at the stats show that more women are remaining single rather than getting married,  that half of all marriages wound up in divorce these days with better than 85% of women still under the age of 30 and that the birth rate for unmarried women is 50.5 births per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15-44 years.

These numbers are staggering even when you realize that a lot of the women with children will either get married or remarry.  But that period of time may be too long to subsist for a woman who either has no family to help her get by or whose family also falls below the poverty level and can offer her no real relief from her plight.  Yes Ross, such a demographic does exist.

 

Douthat goes on like this a bit and then tries to defend a notion that omits modern day realities.

The liberalism of “the Life of Julia” doesn’t envision government spending the way an older liberalism did — as a backstop for otherwise self-sufficient working families, providing insurance against job loss, decrepitude and catastrophic illness. It offers a more sweeping vision of government’s place in society, in which the individual depends on the state at every stage of life, and no decision — personal, educational, entrepreneurial, sexual — can be contemplated without the promise that it will be somehow subsidized by Washington.

To my knowledge I don’t think there has been a change in how liberals view federally funded social programs from what they did 30-40 years ago.  Douthat’s premise is a red-herring, but it does expose an element that appears to go completely over the head of the conservative columnist.  If it appears to conservatives that there is an attempt by liberals to establish a government “in which the individual depends on the state at every stage of life”  they might want to reflect on the economic realties of today that could possibly explain why this may have some merit.

The policies of the GOP over the last thirty years have hurt the vibrant middle class in this country.  They have supported the outsourcing of jobs, shifted the tax burden away from the wealthiest 1% and they have done nothing to stymie the increasing cost of health care.  Under these extraordinary dire economic circumstances they have fought against extending unemployment benefits and worked to kill legislation aimed at creating the type of jobs that will address our future energy problems.  They have removed the regulatory safeguards that are intended to prevent the great recession we fell victim to in 2008 and are still unwilling to implement these necessary safeguards in the face of this deficiency.

To pour salt into the wound the GOP House recently took action that would renege on their promise last year as part of a resolution to the debt-ceiling crisis.

Republicans had already agreed to $109 billion a year in automatic spending cuts — half from defense, half from the domestic side — if lawmakers failed to agree to lower the deficit in more reasonable ways such as mixing targeted cuts with tax increases on the rich. Even Democrats who supported big defense cuts wanted them chosen carefully, not with the sequester’s cleaver. But Republicans refused to take that path when the supercommittee deliberated and now are trying to make all of the cuts on the domestic side.

In just one particularly destructive example, the bill would eliminate the social services block grant, a $1.7 billion fund that is given to the states to help people struggling the hardest. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the fund provides services to 23 million people, including Meals on Wheels and other programs that help older Americans. It also helps pay for child care assistance, foster care and juvenile justice at a time when states are cutting back these programs.  SOURCE  

They have no plan other than “to make Obama a one-term president” and continue to hope that the voter will be distracted by their demonization of Obama’s policies enough to forget that it was their policies that created a world wide economic catastrophe.  What does that say about the conservative message when all of their hopes for regaining power focuses on their negative images of Obama with little to nothing to say in a positive fashion for their own candidate?

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

8 comments

When Free Markets and a Grid-Locked Congress Threaten the Public Health

May 10, 2012

Because free markets are at heart designed to make profits, there are times when this principle of capitalism can negatively impact the health of the citizens of this country.  It doesn’t help either that our nation’s lawmakers are more concerned about ideology than doing what’s best for the people they serve.


We like to boast that we have the greatest health care system in the world even though other developed countries might dispute that.   Clearly however we have the most costly health care system and one that doesn’t serve the common good for those who can’t afford it without going into debt or losing their home if they incur any long term disability.  But even if you can afford it, it won’t be accessible if it’s not profitable.   Health care is and should be a right, not a privilege and here’s one reason why.

A good day may not look great when you’re ten months old and fighting leukemia like Elena Schoneveld. But 80 percent of children with her kind of cancer can be cured with the right medications.

Two months ago, her dad Mark Schoneveld was told her chemotherapy drug, methotrexate, was running out.

“You just pray that stuff is handled by the professionals, and people do their jobs and get it done,” he said to CBS News.

But, it’s not getting done. Dozens of cancer drugs are running out. The reasons include manufacturing problems and reduced production due to lower profits with generic drugs.   SOURCE

 

Did you catch that last part?  Reduced production, causing the shortage of a life saving drug is in part “due to lower profits with generic drugs”.  That’s the core principle and driving force of free markets – the profit motive.  Not only does there have to be a demand for goods but the cost of return has to be sufficient enough to drive market forces to make it.  Who could argue with this principle of capitalism.  I don’t think even the parents of a 10-month old child who may well die if she can no longer receive the life saving product would contest this.  What is clear here though is that market-based principles can sometimes be a deterrent to the general welfare of a nation.

I have argued many times about the inherent greed in the corporate mindset that puts people over profits, but that is not what’s going on here.  I find in this case that it has more to do with the political gridlock in Washington today and the attempts by the extreme right fringes now controlling the GOP to cut spending, especially in social programs like Medicaid and Medicare.  The cost issue is summed up here by Adam Fein over at the Drug Channels blog:

When drug shortages were in the news last fall, I (among others) cited the perverse economic incentives from Average Sales Price (ASP) as a key factor behind our very fragile generic injectable supply chain. See What’s Behind the Drug Shortage Epidemic.

To my surprise, politicians have heard the message. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) is now drafting the “Patient Access to Drugs in Shortage Act,” which will change reimbursement for generic injectables from ASP + 6% to Wholesale Acquisition Cost (WAC) for injectable generics with 4 or less manufacturers.

Three items in [Senator Orin Hatch’s] draft legislation relate directly to the broken incentive system:

  • Price Stability—The Medicare reimbursement rate for generic injectable products with 4 or fewer active manufacturers would increase from ASP + 6% to WAC.
  • Medicaid/340B Rebate Exemption—Generic injectable products with 4 or fewer active manufacturers would be exempt from Medicaid rebates and 340B discounts.
  • Extended Exclusivity—Manufacturers who hold an approved application for a drug that would mitigate a shortage can extend by 5 years any period of exclusivity.

These fixes start to address the fact that the reduced return on investment from generic injectable manufacturing has created the enabling conditions for drug shortages.   SOURCE 

 

There’s a link on Fein’s blog too that has an article by Paul Howard of the Manhattan Institute who makes a pretty good case for allowing the free market to address this issue of shortages.  I am going to concur here, at least until we can figure something better to ensure a stable supply of life-saving generic medicines where there are only one or two suppliers.

To be sure, there are some profiteering attempts going on with key generic oncology and critical care drugs but that is in the secondary grey market.  See Fein’s report on that here.   The grey market is where counterfeit generic drugs are produced and unless caught can slip into the mainstream of national and regional pharmaceutical wholesalers.   But this is not what’s causing the shortage for critical injectable drugs like methotrexate that little Elena relies on to keep her alive.

With the cost of return issue now targeted by the government as one area that effects shortages, legislation in the House and Hatch’s bill in the Senate are set to correct this problem.  But as you would suspect, because the two Parties can’t seem to agree on anything today, that legislation has been stymied from reaching the floors of both Houses to be voted and then hammered out in conference to give a final bill to lay on the President’s desk for his signature.  When Party leaders  were approached about this delay by Dr. Jonathan LaPook reporting for CBS News, you could have choked on the circular rhetoric given by the congressional leadership.

Here’s House Speaker John Boehner trying to handle this hot potato.

“Well, the Congress is working on this,” Boehner told CBS News. “The Senate is getting ready to move a bill. The Energy and Commerce Committee is getting ready to mark up a bill in early May. But I would also ask: Where’s the administration been? Where’s the president of the United States been?”

Senate Leader Harry Reid made equally vague references about “the system” when questioned why there were delays with this legislation.  But notice in Boehner’s response his attempt to lay some of the blame on the White House.  Not even this issue is without the efforts of the GOP to demonize the President in order to fulfill Mitch McConnell’s desire to make Obama “a one-term president”.  What makes this laughable is that though the Obama administration has also been slow to respond to this crisis, the President did issue an Executive Order called Reducing Prescription Drug Shortages last October 31st empowering the FDA to tackle this shortage.

Fein noted this was basically a PR-friendly move that would “have only a limited direct effect on shortages”, but at that point Congress had yet to even enter the fray.  Not until February and April of this year did we see see legislation offered up in both Houses to correct what needed to be done here.  It should be further pointed out that to change reimbursement for generic injectables from ASP + 6% to Wholesale Acquisition Cost for these critical injectable generics requires approval from Congress, NOT the President.

 

 

Here is where I suspect the new mentality brought into Congress by the election of numerable Tea Party types has created an obstacle for this important life-threatening issue.  The fact that this would require raising costs for these drugs within the Medicare program was a red-flag to the GOP leadership, knowing that their TeaParty contingent would fight it tooth and nail.  So until this issue was made public by the “liberal press” Republicans in both Houses had no intention of addressing the need to ensure unabated access to life saving cancer drugs.  What a pity.

Some would argue that if the government wasn’t involved at all that there wouldn’t be an obstacle affecting price thus inhibiting production of these vital drugs.  Maybe, maybe not.  The prospect of profiteering is always out there under conditions where demand for a limited product exist.  I would also point out, who would be there to prevent the grey market from slipping in counterfeit products and creating a separate but equally hazardous threat to innocent children like Elena Schoneveld?  Do Americans really feel secure in the notion that the industry will police itself even when taking certain action means profits will suffer?

Posted by in Health Care Reform Tags: , , , , , , , ,

9 comments

A Glimmer of “HOPE” to Move Us “FORWARD”

May 8, 2012

Though the Republicans would like to put a pejorative spin on Democratic themes past and present, there are indicators that such themes are tangible for this election year

  

Past and present Democratic themes that Republicans will be attempting to undermine during this election year.

In the upcoming U.S. elections it will be moderates and rational Independents who will swing this vote one way or the other.  The hyperbole, vitriol and down right mischaracterizations of the facts will hopefully be weighed by these voters and rejected, basing their votes instead on the tangible realities.  We can only hope that reality based information is broadcasted objectively by the mainstream media and not tweaked to preserve any corporate ownership’s views.  Most likely what we’ll see is a glazing over of significant realties that would present an accurate view of current economic policies rather than a total omission of those realties.

So far the MSM has failed to pay due diligence to two pieces of information that have recently surfaced and would most likely engender moderates and Independents toward the Obama camp, for the time being at least.

The first is the recently released news that there are now more private-sector jobs in the United States than there were in January 2009, immediately following Obama’s inauguration.   After all the rancor and criticism we have heard from the Republicans about Obama’s “socialism” policies, it appears that all of the jobs and then some in the private sector that were lost in the first year of President Barack Obama’s term have been recouped as indicated on the graph below from recent figures issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

It could be, and probably will be argued by some on the right that despite this obvious improvement that 1) it would have been a lot better had the “socialist” policies of Obama not restricted the free-markets and 2) these numbers are a far cry from the total job losses that began way before Obama took office.

The first premise is a subjective one that simply isn’t born out by the facts.  Though there has been a weak attempt by this administration to implement financial reform in the form of the the Dodd-Frank Act to prevent the kind of back room deals that set the Great Recession in motion back in late 2007 and early 2008,  most Wall Street observers say it has had very little effect and continuously runs into obstacles by legislative efforts paid for by corporate lobbyists and supported in both the House and Senate by sympathetic legislators.  This has been the most unregulated market in nearly thirty years.

The second argument is more accurate but those on the right will attempt to obscure the fact that most of this job loss occurred on the neo-conservative watch when Bush was still in the White House and the U.S. Senate had a Republican majority

Many conservatives would cry foul at Democrats for citing that the economic crash originated and gained steam under Bush.  They claim that this is merely a ruse to dismiss what they see as a failure of the Obama administration to fulfill a campaign promise he made to prevent unemployment from rising above 8%.  A promise to be sure that failed to see the depth of this crisis and one that required a lot more federal stimulus funding than the conservatives within the Democratic Party were willing to provide.  However this maneuver is purely political and was used by their own Party under George W. Bush, blaming Clinton for their economic woes.

Effective efforts by astro-turf Tea Party groups following Obama’s inauguration had begun to shift the onus of the recession from government bailouts of banks too big to fail under George Bush and redirected it to the bailouts of the auto industry and the stimulus money under Obama.  Pro-corporate talking heads associated the auto bailouts with Big Labor and the argument that stimulus money would raise everyone’s taxes managed to influence a panicked and poorly informed public to attack Obama and the Democrats rather than the Republican policies that led to this financial disaster.

The Republican Party would have us believe that Obama’s policies failed to halt the rapid job losses created in this recession (see graph below) and turn the economy around more quickly.  More could have been done it’s true but not with what the Party of NO is suggesting.   Save for the argument that a greater concentration of stimulus money would have proven more successful, there is little else that could have been done to prevent this train wreck from happening or getting it back on track in any real time fashion to avoid the unemployment figures we see today.

When the GOP talks about a plan for recovery, a close look will see that they offer nothing more than the same status quo policies that put us where we’re at in the first place.  To dress this pig up as something new by reiterating the need to cut taxes for the wealthiest 2% more than they did under Bush and kill federal funding for public sector jobs is Einstein’s definition of insanity.

Pubic sector job loss is a primary factor in why this recovery has been slower to develop.  The graph at the top of the page shows that as the private sector jobs have increased under Obama, public sector losses are taking away the gain made here.    But is this Obama’s fault as some on the right would claim?  The graph below shows that the public sector grew under George Bush and the Republican controlled Congress.

I think it is safe to say that because the overall sluggish job growth under Bush for 8 years was worse than it currently is under Obama, had it not been for the growth in the government sector under Bush, there likely would have been no growth at all, probably even greater unemployment records.

So when corporate sponsored astro-turf organizations convinced voters to put Tea Party types in office, promising to slash government spending without raising taxes to address our deficit issue, the decrease in public sector jobs began following the 2010 elections and continues to this day as a result of such “austerity” programs promoted by the GOP and some conservatives within the Democratic Party.  Austerity was the GOP’s answer to fixing the economy provided we made only cuts in federal spending that didn’t hurt wealthy corporations.

Austerity during a serious recession is economically insane. It is a pro-cyclical policy that makes the recession more severe. A more severe recession is a mass destroyer of wealth and quality of life. It is pure waste. It is the primary cause of dramatic increases in public deficits and debt. – Bill Black

Which leads us to the second piece of information that should enable the Obama campaign this fall.  Austerity measures in Europe have failed miserably even after nearly three years being implemented.  Conservatives would argue these measures haven’t been in place long enough nor has there been enough cuts, but the same rational has been made by those who support the stimulus spending and health care reform under Obama, only to be rejected by conservatives here.  One could argue that austerity measures were primarily meant to create confidence in the private sector but clearly that outcome isn’t materializing.

In the most recent news from Europe, two weeks ago we found that after reviewing the austerity programs of the world’s 3rd largest economy under the conservative British government of Prime Minister David Campbell, we find it has created worse conditions than existed before he took office.

  • GDP continues to drop.  The economy has only grown by 0.4 percent since the government came to power
  • the biggest fall in construction output in three years
  • Britain’s service sector which makes up more than three quarters of GDP continues to make no substantial ground
  • Industrial output and construction have shrunk to levels not seen since Q1 2009     SOURCE 

And now yesterday we see that the French people have rejected the austerity programs of their conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy and replaced him with Socialist François Hollande.  A clear sign that moderates and independents in that country at least are beginning to see that the silver bullet promised to them by opponents of government stimulus is perhaps just another ploy by the corporate wealth in their country as in ours to control factors that have created the greatest income disparity since the Gilded Age period of the late 19th century.

 

As early as a year ago protest in London made public the failure of conservative austerity policies of British Prime Minister Cameron

 

I would caution everyone not to read into these real life occurrences about how one ideology alone is the answer to our economic woes.   Scott Erb does a great job expanding on this view over at his World in Motion blog.  The belief that only socialistic policies will prove effective has been shown to be an abject failure in countries like Russia, North Korea and Cuba.  China too was suffering under such delusions until they at least implemented free market policies aimed at improving economic conditions there.   Human rights sadly have not kept pace there with economic gains.

But as we are seeing in Europe, unregulated laissez-faire free markets alone are also not able to generate the type of recovery necessary to offset the deep job losses we experienced four plus years ago.  What has proven to be successful when properly managed and kept free from corruption is a an economic system that utilizes the benefits of both a free market that serves their self-interests by truly serving the social needs of consumers and a government oversight that keeps good men honest and evil men at bay while propping up the entire system when its under duress from forces not adequately anticipated.

The belief that there is a single system out there that works best for everyone is a myth that both sides perpetrate, especially those Ayn Rand free-marketers.  But there is more truth to the promise that when the private and public sectors work toward economic improvement for all, poverty levels will be lower and less severe and greater wealth can be had by all as opposed to what we are experiencing now.  This economic cooperation must recognize too that current consumption rates of natural resources cannot continue at the pace we are now geared to.  Unless we start focusing on recycling our waste and finding renewable, infinite sources of energy, we will all suffer the consequences of an unforgiving planet that has only so much it can give up.

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections

7 comments

Fantasies of the Poor: Oh to be a Rich Person’s Pet.

May 5, 2012

Emotion-driven humans are prone to perpetual folly. And capitalists, it seems, are everlastingly ready to take advantage of them. Greed, alas, springs eternal. - Lynn Parramore

 

 

You know, despite what some may think, I really don’t hate rich people simply because they are loaded.  It isn’t the having of wealth that often gives the rich a poor image.   Many use their great wealth for socially beneficial things.  Hell, even the nefarious Koch Brothers contribute vast quantities of their wealth to the arts, education, and medical research.

 

It is how some of this great wealth is spent though that rubs many of us wrong who see basic needs for human survival getting overlooked, not only in this country but around the world.  In the case of the Koch Brothers they spend huge sums to ensure that there are idle and poorly paid income earners, hoping I guess that they will visit the museums they support during their off-time from productive work .

But beyond this there are those who have so much cash left after paying for essentials and various luxuries that they still have “pocket change” left that goes to an area that is an insult to any child who goes without food or a family in drought stricken countries that have to walk all day just to get enough potable water for essential use including food preparation and limited hygiene.

In this era of late capitalism, we live in a top-heavy society where the rich are flush with far more cash than they know what to do with. That development has merged with a post-war trend in which pet owners increasingly view animal companions as surrogate children and even mates. The anthropomorphizing tendency seems to be speeding along full-tilt, with owners choosing human-sounding names for their pets and insisting on bringing furballs along to bed and even to the dinner table.   SOURCE

 

Let me state up front that as a dog owner I have no problem with “Millie” and “Bandit” sitting next to me on the couch or sleeping between my wife and I at night.  But beyond that and maybe a few table scraps on occasion, they live a dog’s life and I make no pretense that they are my equal.  I give them proper medical care when they need it, which includes preventative medical treatment that requires a visit once a year to the vet to get their annual shots for common dog related issues.

The relationship I have with my dogs is a close bond but when they die they will get buried in the back yard as earlier pets have and I will shed a few tears at their passing.  But unlike my wife and my two children I will not spend inordinate amounts of money for my pets on a funeral and a casket while someone who has been ordained in the clergy reads eulogies over them.

Their bodies will eventually decompose and enrich the soils giving new life above ground for other creatures to feed from like the families of squirrels and birds that inhabit my small space in this world.  I will not spend good money to have them mummified or frozen in cute positions and placed on display for me to fondly remember them.  Roy Rogers I’m not

 

And even if it is less conspicuous, I would NEVER cremate them and then use their ashes to manufacture a piece of jewelry to wear so I will always be reminded how they touched my life.  That’s what pictures are for.  So what if I’ve converted the spare bedroom into a gallery for my pets.  It was wasted space anyway. (Just kidding)

Now, to be clear, in their moment of grief at losing something that has supplanted a human relationship, people can become vulnerable to exploitation by that entrepreneur spirit that borders on the snake-oil salesman mentality.  And if you just happen to have a  monetary value equivalent to a few small countries you can be sure these vultures will devise ways to separate you from any excesses you have.  But I would implore all such people of wealth to keep in mind that though you have emotional needs that need to be met following the death of  “MiMi” or “Sebastian”, there are still families near and far that barely find enough to eat to meet basic nutritional requirements or water supplies to prevent serious dehydration.

Unlike your pets, these will likely be people that weren’t there to comfort you when your stock took a nosedive or the the family yacht had to be dry-docked but I’ll bet they are capable of showing love if they knew you had a hand in their survival.  Hell, they may even name their family goat after you and drink it’s milk to your health every time they sit at their small wooden table that sits on an earthen floor under a thatched roof which keeps most of rain out in the monsoon season.

“More please Mr. Romney”

Posted by in People, Social Discourse Tags: , , , , , ,

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