Of Course 2 % Growth Is "Here To Stay" - So Long As GDP Is Used As The Growth Indicator

First, some basics:

Labor productivity is a measure of economic growth within a country. Labor productivity measures the amount of goods and services produced by one hour of labor; specifically, labor productivity measures the amount of real gross domestic product (GDP) produced by an hour of labor.

What could be wrong with that? Well, plenty! Namely, if the GDP is in error or doesn't measure what is really needed, then the labor productivity will be off too. Hence, one must  look askance at the recent WSJ Business & Finance piece, '2 % Growth Is Here To Stay' (Jan. 31,  p. B14).   According to the piece:

"Economists get plenty wrong but they have been right about one thing: The U.S. economy is stuck in low gear.  On Thursday the Commerce Department reported that gross domestic product (GDP)  grew at an annualized rate of 2.1 percent from the 3rd matching economists' forecasts."

Adding:

"Most economists and the Fed expect GDP growth will be stuck around 2 percent in the years to come. This is partly due to demographics: the population is growing more slowly than it used to and aging as well. so growth in the labor force has moderated   And since the labor force produces the stuff that goes into GDP, GDP growth will be as well."

But the outside, inquiring economic observer must then ask if the growth index being used is not itself defective. I mean, why use a measure so subject to demographic change and especially population size?  We know, after all, that population cannot keep growing indefinitely, so why even incorporate it as part of the economic growth indicator?

As  Financial Times contributor David Pilling wrote in a 2018  TIME Viewpoint article ('Why GDP Is A Faulty Measure Of Success',  Feb. 5, p. 41):

"Invented in the 1930s, the figure is a child of the manufacturing age - good at measuring physical production but not the services that dominate modern economies. How would GDP measure the quality of mental health care or the availability of day care centers and parks in your area?  Even Simon Kuznets, the Belarussian economist who practically invented GDP, had doubts about his creation."

GDP is supposed to measure the total production and consumption of goods and services in the United States. But the numbers that make up the Gross Domestic Product by and large only capture the monetary transactions we can put a dollar value on. Almost everything else is left out: old growth forests that maintain cooling and act as CO2 repositories, watersheds, animal habitats, e.g. the Everglades, and costs of infrastructure maintenance. But ALL of these count toward  the physical security and welfare of a society. If bridges collapse owing to maintenance failure and hundreds or thousands of drivers are inconvenienced, delayed  - then that has a cost and hence an economic impact!

In addition, there are hundreds of other contributions not registered that arguably have  major economic repercussions. For example, a 2015 Forbes article highlighted how 40 million family caregivers in the U.S. are putting their own careers on hold to provide unpaid care — sometimes for decades.   The estimated  total value of the care has been put at nearly $1 trillion. This isn't reckoned into the GDP but IF it were,  the labor productivity cited in the WSJ would surely be much higher in the years since 2007 - maybe even double or (1.2%) x 2  2.4 %. Which would then exceed the rate cited since 1947.

Related to this - as reported in the WSJ three days ago- is the dearth of volunteers at senior care centers to help (e.g. in interactions with dementia patients, e.g. using games, coloring books and puzzles) to help caregivers at such facilities.  Surely, the assistance of such potential volunteers ought to be factored into the economic equation.

What to use in place of GDP? The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare which was first proposed by Eco-economist Herman Daly of the University of Maryland. is a prime alternative  Daly's point was that the GDP was too artificial and narrow an indicator of economic health. He argued that if one incorporated all the "externalities" usually dismissed or ignored by standard economic models, people would be more parsimonious in how they consume which would yield a better world.

Ignoring these externalities leads us into a fool's paradise where we come to believe things are much better than the GDP numbers show. Similarly with energy, conveniently ignoring externalities of cost and demand leads too many to envisage a pie-eyed future of never-ending growth (based on producing material output)  and ever more intense energy consumption.

All this translates inexorably into “growth” and woe betide you if you dare intimate (as Prof. Daly has done) that a zero or negative growth index may be a lot better for humans, if they hope not to outstrip their resource support base. Right now, indeed, we already know that humans are consuming the equivalent of 1.5 Earths every year. See, e.g.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/

This is obviously unsustainable, which means we desperately need to replace the industrial age GDP and sooner rather than later. Retaining it as a practical measure of real growth is a fool's errand and counterproductive, to say the least.

No surprise that a decade ago a panel headed by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz concluded we are  "mismeasuring our lives" using GDP.

If indeed it is true (and it is) that the millions of man-hours that go into Wikipedia  (which brings human knowledge to  virtually everyone) "adds not a cent to GDP" then something is seriously amiss. Because if that's so then it also doesn't add a single extra unit to labor productivity. Hence, those millions of man hours of research, writing, editing go unrecorded in our grand economic metric.  This is absurd.

We can't keep using this antiquated metric which is totally detached from reality.  "Production" simply cannot be measured in output of material units of slim Jims, Barbie dolls, Legos, Ipads, Ipods or X Boxes alone. Apart from being skewed toward one type of production it omits an entire other (admittedly less tangible) universe that now needs to be reckoned in - including for things like Wikipedia, unpaid care giving and creative expression in the generation of art or music, as well as abstract (basic) scientific research.

Why Labor Productivity Needs To Be Redefined And GDP Eliminated

Once more labor productivity is being criticized as too low (e.g. Worker Productivity Remained Sluggish in 2017, WSJ,  Feb. 2, p A2).  Using the graph and other stats, the WSJ author (Eric Morath) is led to write:

"Soft productivity gains is an impediment to stronger wage gains and ultimately better economic growth".


Which in itself is a rather strange comment given it has been precisely "stronger wage gains" in concert with higher bond yields - that has spooked the stock market causing it to dump nearly 2.7 % of gains. (The worry being the higher wages will lead to inflation and the Federal Reserve raising interest rates - which means the cost for business borrowing and credit increases.)

He also writes (ibid.):

"When workers don't become more productive, it may be difficult for business to justify larger raises for workers. Firms may instead opt to add more employees rather than increase pay for current staff."

Which is more patent codswallop, given I earlier (Jan. 10) quoted Paula Harvey, VP of Human Resources at Schulte Building Systems in Houston:

"Companies are really hesitant to give raises. When you give a raise, it's stuck in the pay system. It is something you're guaranteeing: it's becoming a fixed cost. "

In other words, companies don't wish to give raises on account of being stuck with a fixed wage rate for their employees, not because they aren't working productively or hard enough. Today's workers are producing every bit as much as they were in early years - it's just that the metric is no longer capturing the work!

Before commencing my argument that labor productivity as currently defined is archaic, let's provide a definition:

Labor productivity is a measure of economic growth within a country. Labor productivity measures the amount of goods and services produced by one hour of labor; specifically, labor productivity measures the amount of real gross domestic product (GDP) produced by an hour of labor.

What could be wrong with that? Well, plenty! Namely, if the GDP is in error or doesn't measure what is really needed, then the labor productivity will be off too. Hence, the WSJ's (and other) sources criticism of this productivity will be baseless.   As  Financial Times contributor David Pilling writes in a recent  TIME Viewpoint article ('Why GDP Is A Faulty Measure Of Success',  Feb. 5, p. 41):

"Invented in the 1930s, the figure is a child of the manufacturing age - good at measuring physical production but not the services that dominate modern economies. How would GDP measure the quality of mental health care or the availability of day care centers and parks in your area?  Even Simon Kuznets, the Belarussian economist who practically invented GDP, had doubts about his creation."

This has import for the other claims made about falling productivity in the WSJ piece, i.e.:

"Nonfarm, business sector productivity, measured as the goods and services produced per hour worked, advanced 1.2 percent last year from 2016...That matched the average rate recorded from 2007 through 2017 and is well below the 2.1 % annual rate averaged since 1947."

Says who?  GDP is supposed to measure the total production and consumption of goods and services in the United States. But the numbers that make up the Gross Domestic Product by and large only capture the monetary transactions we can put a dollar value on. Almost everything else is left out: old growth forests that maintain cooling and act as CO2 repositories, watersheds, animal habitats, e.g. the Everglades, and costs of infrastructure maintenance. But ALL of these count toward  the physical security and welfare of a society. If bridges collapse owing to maintenance failure and hundreds or thousands of drivers are inconvenienced, delayed  - then that has an economic impact!

In addition, there are hundreds of other contributions not registered that arguably have  major economic impacts. For example, a 2015 Forbes article highlighted how 40 million family caregivers in the U.S. are putting their own careers on hold to provide unpaid care — sometimes for decades.   The estimated  total value of the care has been put at nearly $1 trillion. This isn't reckoned into the GDP but IF it were,  the labor productivity cited in the WSJ would surely be much higher in the years since 2007 - maybe even double or (1.2%) x 2  2.4 %. Which would then exceed the rate cited since 1947.

Just saying!

What to use in place of GDP? The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare which was first proposed by Eco-economist Herman Daly of the University of Maryland. is a prime alternative  Daly's point was that the GDP was too artificial and narrow an indicator of economic health. He argued that if one incorporated all the "externalities" usually dismissed or ignored by standard economic models, people would be more parsimonious in how they consume which would yield a better world.

Ignoring these externalities leads us into a fool's paradise where we come to believe things are much better than the GDP numbers show. Similarly with energy, conveniently ignoring externalities of cost and demand leads too many to envisage a pie-eyed future of never-ending growth (based on producing material output)  and ever more intense energy consumption.

All this translates inexorably into “growth” and woe betide you if you dare intimate (as Prof. Daly has done) that a zero or negative growth index may be a lot better for humans, if they hope not to outstrip their resource support base. Right now, indeed, we already know that humans are consuming the equivalent of 1.5 Earths every year. See, e.g.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/

This is obviously unsustainable, which means we desperately need to replace the industrial age GDP and sooner rather than later.

No surprise that a decade ago a panel headed by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz concluded we are  "mismeasuring our lives" using GDP.

If indeed it is true (and it is) that the millions of man-hours that go into Wikipedia  (which brings human knowledge to  virtually everyone) "adds not a cent to GDP" then something is seriously amiss. Because if that's so then it also doesn't add a single extra unit to labor productivity. Hence, those millions of man hours of research, writing, editing go unrecorded in our grand economic metric.  This is absurd.

We can't keep using this antiquated metric which is totally detached from reality.  "Production" simply cannot be measured in output of material units of slim Jims, Barbie dolls, Legos, Ipads, Ipods or X Boxes alone. Apart from being skewed toward one type of production it omits an entire other universe that now needs to be reckoned in - including for things like Wikipedia, unpaid care giving and generation of art or music, as well as abstract research/

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dean-baker/77576/three-percent-gdp-growth-and-democrats-irresponsible-opposition-to-trump-tax-cuts

Why Dems May Need To Go "Nuclear" To Stop The Repuke Tax Bill

"Hey, , the longer we can bamboozle the base, the better!"

"We got to get this thing passed. Otherwise, our base will fracture, people will stop writin' checks, and the party will crumble under its own weight." Lindsey Graham yesterday.

Let's not mince words: the GOP tax "reform" bill on offer is an unmitigated atrocity. For starters:

- The corporate tax cut is intended to be made permanent, and going from 35% to 20%

- The tax cut for average citizens has been designed to "sunset" in 10 years, so taxes will then increase.

- The tax cut benefit overall for those earning less than $75,000 a year, is $100. That benefit may well come at the cost of cutting Medicaid, Medicare benefits later.

- The overall tax benefit is allotted so that 62 percent of the takings go to the top 1 percent.

- Allows drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.(ANWR)

- As reported by the NY Times there is also a plan to change from the Consumer Price Index to the Chained CPI, which move would essentially negate any future Social Security cost of living increases - certainly in a low inflation environment such as we have.

Last night this perfidy was at least temporarily stopped in its tracks,  even after the GOOPs grew giddy after John McCain reverted to sock puppet to back it.  However, a nonpartisan analysis released hours ahead of a planned vote projected the Republican tax plan would add $1 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade.  Process that! ONE Trillion bucks! That's more than $200 b beyond the cost of the entire Obama stimulus package in 2009, which at least spared this nation from another Great Depression.

The other hit to the Reeps last night came by way of the nonpartisan Senate Parliamentarian who ruled they could not use the "trigger" sunset mechanism to try to contain the deficit explosion. This sent them right back to 'square one' scrambling for other ways to raise revenue,  including reinstating the AMT or Alternative Minimum Tax, and (GASP!) reducing the corporate tax cuts.

Recall the Republicans had contended the vast tax cuts enclosed in their plan would in effect pay for themselves through economic growth. But the analysis, released by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, forecasted the tax bill would balloon the deficit even after factoring in the economic growth the bill is expected to generate.  Of course, through U.S. economic history no tax cuts have come close to paying for themselves.

The other aspect of why this wouldn't happen is that corporate CEOs are not even on board with any job creation, despite the yammering of the GOP con men.  Most illuminating was White House economic advisor Gary Cohn's meeting with dozens of CEOs, and most of them giving thumbs down when he asked about potential jobs, e.g.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-plan-gary-cohn-bill-2017-11


The moderator (WSJ's John Bussey)  asked those in attendance whether they were planning to increase their business investment if the tax bill became law. The CEOs in attendance didn't seem to be on the same wavelength as Cohn.  While there was a smattering of raised hands in the auditorium, it was clear there were not as many as Cohn would have liked.  You see Cohn asking, almost embarrassed to be caught in the same room with these misfits:

"Why aren't the other hands up?"

Then, realizing he'd get no rational or decent answer, moving on to another question. So there you have it. These CEOs would rather put their tax cut benefit money into stock buybacks and paying out dividends than creating new jobs.

An even more cogent reason not to allow this sham to add to the deficit and destroy lives is that there isn't a scintilla of rational justification for it. At least when other tax cuts were implemented unemployment was high. That isn't the case now as Bruce Bartlett (former economic advisor to G.W. Bush) pointed out last night. We have virtually full employment so the only reason to hang this schlock on citizens is to attempt to spur growth using a ruse that will only be of benefit to corporations and explode the deficit. (The non-partisan CBO forecasts a maximal increase in growth rate of only 0.6%). But as I've noted before, in an environment in which the quality of energy is degraded (lower energy return on energy invested), low economic growth will be the byproduct. Short of creating more efficient energy - say like nuclear fusion - there is no solution for this.


To their credit,  Democrats seized on the report by the Joint Committee on Taxation as proof that the Republican tax is all hot air and flim flam, since it would not do what the Reeps claimed. Hocus Pocus. Voodoo economics, to use George Bush Sr.'s term.  Holding a copy of the report, Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, said the analysis proved the bill was nothing more than a “holiday bonanza to multinational corporations and special interests."

Fair enough, but if this piece of toxic crap somehow rises from potential ashes today, the Dems need to do more. They need to use their leverage in possibly stopping a government shutdown to extract concessions.  If no concessions are forthcoming, then the Dems refuse to cooperate to avoid a gov't shutdown.   The $64 question: What do the 'pukes want more, their sham tax cuts, OR preventing a government shutdown next week?

Let's first note that the Republicans hold all the power needed to stop a government shutdown on December 8th. They have the numbers, they have control of all branches of government. They do not need the Dems to help them - IF  all their members (mainly in the House) were on board. But, they're not on board. There are just enough rebellious Repukes - mainly Tea Party hard cores / holdouts,  that a shutdown can't be prevented without Democratic votes to stop it.

But should the Dems cooperate? I say NO, unless the 'pukes deliver the following:

-  No spending cuts to try to make up for any unrealized economic growth. That means NO cuts to Medicare, and no cuts to Medicaid.

- NO drilling in the ANWR.

- Revocation of any tax provision to withdraw the ACA mandate  - which would affect 13 million now covered.

- . No use of "Chained CPI" or other means to cut Social Security to lower the deficits because of the tax cuts.

- $100 b allocated for reconstruction in Puerto Rico.

- DACA remains intact and no deportations of the 60,000 Haitians who've arrived since the Haitian earthquake in 2010. Repatriating them would send Haiti into total chaos since there are neither the resources or job opportunities to provide for them.

- Change  all the "permanent" Corporate tax cuts to temporary ones only. And make them fully contingent on the corporations creating jobs.  No jobs, no tax cuts.

Make no mistake that this is a draconian move but the toxic tax plan on offer from the Reptiles  has the potential to hurl this nation into permanent  third world status  - while dramatically increasing economic inequality.

It is also true that people will suffer in a shutdown, but as Lawrence O Donnell put it on his show two nights ago, "Sometimes principles and governance must take precedence."  That is the case now, when we have to look beyond immediate problems incurred with a shutdown  to the need to prevent more radical, widespread destruction and worse suffering in the future.

A Message From Sen. Bernie Sanders concerning this refuse:

The current Republican “tax cut” bill, paid for by the Koch brothers and other billionaire campaign contributors, continues the push to make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. It would raise taxes on middle class families making $75,000 a year or less and would throw 13 million Americans off of health insurance. And it would do all of these things to provide permanent tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and profitable corporations that ship American jobs to China while moving their American profits to the Cayman Islands.

But let's be clear. This legislation goes well beyond taxes. Its ultimate goal is to radically transform American society and the role that government plays in the lives of the working families of our country. This legislation will increase the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over ten years. Mark my words. If passed, the Republicans will then rediscover the "deficit crisis," and push aggressively for massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education – higher education in particular – nutrition, affordable housing and more. They will seek to undo every major piece of legislation passed in the last 80 years designed to help working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor.

This is the Republican plan. Huge tax breaks for the rich and powerful. Massive cuts to life and death programs for the middle class and working families of our country.

This is not moral. This is not what the American people want. This is not what our country and our pledge for "liberty and justice for all" is supposed to be about.

That is why I am going on the road this week to talk directly to working people in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania about this disastrous piece of legislation. If we stand together – black, white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, male and female, young and old, gay and straight – we can defeat this horrific bill.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/greg-coleridge/76490/corporations-and-the-super-rich-tax-democracy


And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/76492/the-gops-utterly-uninformed-hasty-tax-bills

Has The Stock Market Dodged A "Bullet" In The "Unlucky Sevens" Streak? NOT If The Reep Tax Cuts Are Passed!

Graph showing the stock crashes for years ending in '7'. (From The Wall Street Journal, p. B18, Oct. 18)

Many headlines have been generated in the past nine months or so warning of an imminent stock market correction or even crash.  Such headlines have included:

'A Case For The Bulls Is Hard To Warrant' - James Mackintosh

E'verything Is Awesome! Now Is The Time To Sell Your Stock' - James Mackintosh

'Warning Signs Mount As Stocks Stumble'   WSJ,  'Business & Finance', Aug.. 21

'Crashes Are Inevitable But That Doesn't Mean Now'  (WSJ, Oct. 9)

Perhaps the pithiest advice offered in these assorted stories was by Mackintosh in his 'time to sell your stocks' piece, noting:

"Investors believe that bear markets only come with recessions, and so reassure themselves that there is no sign a recession is imminent, repeating the mantra that 'economic cycles don't die of old age'. Unfortunately, this is both wrong and useless.

First, 20 percent drops happen outside recessions, as in 1987 and 1966. Second, economic cycles can be killed by a financial crash, and as the late Hyman Minsky pointed out, the longer a financial cycle goes on, the more likely it is to turn to excess and end badly. Worse, there is no reliable method of forecasting a recession, so even if it were true that only a recession can end a bull market, that isn't a lot of use to investors."

Adding:

"When everything is awesome it is best to prepare for things being a little less awesome in the future, even at the cost of missing out on some of the gains."

A few months earlier, Mackintosh's column was preceded by one  ('Do You Have The Stomach For The Next Stock Crash? ) in The Denver Post Business Section, written by Charlie Farrell, the CEO of Northstar Investment Advisors LLC,  wherein he writes:

"For the past eight years, investors have enjoyed a steadily increasing stock market. Memories of the 2008 crisis have largely faded and many investors have forgotten that sinking feeling. But if you want to avoid the mistakes investors made during the last crisis, you should start thinking bad thoughts. Yes., bad thoughts. Start training your brain and your guts for the next stock market decline. Why? Because big stock market crashes and declines happen and they pose a big threat to your wealth."

Of course, Farrell is quite correct and it's been literally known since the birth of the stock market that  all bull markets end in veritable crashes, the purpose of which is a massive transfer of wealth to the upper crust . (See e.g. George P. Brockway,  'The End Of Economic Man'). 

SO there have been endless warnings, some of which have come to pass, i.e. such as those who were correct about the October, 1987 stock crash.   But what about the more recent one in 2008? Too many members of the "dismal science" missed it, perhaps because they didn't put 2 + 2 together to grasp that years of the Bush tax cuts - taking place during de facto 'war time' - preceded it.  Add to that the fact that a bubble had been created and you had all the elements necessary for a crash. All that was needed was a 'trigger' and that was provided by the infusion of financial toxic waste known as credit default swaps. These unstable instruments (buried in bonds) found their way into everything from collateralized mortgage obligations to pension fund investments and most were classified as 'AAA' despite the fact there was no basis to do so.

The failure of the credit agencies themselves to be onto the junk bond nature of CMOs and allowing the presence of fractions of  toxic  CDS bonds in each – then designating the whole AAA - led directly to the collapse of the credit markets in 2008. The realization of their presence across the financial spectrum triggered a credit freeze then crash. (See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2008/12/financial-black-hole.html )

Fast forward now to the latest take: that the current market may well be on its way to defying a nasty "unlucky -sevens" trend (WSJ, 'Market's Unlucky -Sevens Streak In Danger', p. B18, Oct. 18). What ate we talking about? Basically, a pattern that has held for U.S. blue chip stocks for at least the last 130 years.

Specifically (ibid.):

"For the past 13 times that a year has ended in seven, going back to 1887, the Dow Jones Industrial Average or its predecessor has suffered a sharp downturn at some point between August and November. The average downturn has been a little over 13 percent according to the research firm Leuthold Group."

The piece by Spencer Jakab goes on to note:

"The most memorable of those drops was 30 years ago. The 1987 stock market crash sent the Dow tumbling 22.6 %, its worst single day percentage loss ever, including a selloff that began earlier and wiped 36 percent off the Dow's value."

So the gist of Jakab's piece is this unlucky streak is "in jeopardy".  But is it really?

The problem with all pattern -based reasoning or templates is that there is no bearing on actual causes, and causal relations. Theodore Moois, the author of the monograph 'Predictions', for example, (p. 156), observes that the factors that most impacted the 1987 crash were the energy oscillations at that time in terms of energy prices, relation to consumption, and lack of investment in new jobs. In particular "stock market plunges manifest themselves during the downward trend of the energy oscillation and hence correspond to a downturn in the economic cycle".

Let us also note in conjunction with this that the 1987 crash occurred after a major tax cut was enacted via the Economic Recovery Tax Act in 1981.  Included in the act was an across-the-board decrease in the marginal income tax rates in the United States by 25% over three years, with the top rate falling from 70% to 50% and the bottom rate dropping from 14% to 11%.  The cut itself may not have been as toxic, but Reagan also launched a $2.2 trillion defense spending spree - effectively burning the fiscal candle at both ends.  This, I believe, set the stage for the 1987 crash.

The 2008 crash occurred after years of the Bush tax cuts which drove the deficit even higher and also:  "The 2000s- that is the period immediately following the Bush tax cuts – were the weakest decade in U.S. postwar history for real, non-residential capital investment. Not only were the 2000s by far the weakest period but the tax cuts did not even curtail the secular slowdown in the growth of business structures."  (Financial Times analysis, in 9/15/10)

What one must conclude is that while the credit meltdown with CDS infusion was the proximate trigger for the 2008 crash, the Bush tax cuts were the effective distal cause - specifically on account of the lack of investment, which itself created an "energy sink" in terms of the transactions between workers-consumers and employers.  Because many workers barely benefitted from the cuts , millions had to go into credit card and other debt to make up for the dearth in earnings. Much of this was needed for health care, and utilities. The narrow vision of these tax cuts -  like the current ones on offer (giving those making over $5m /year a $200k cut) left the jobs-energy landscape as a wasteland. Also, the bubble created - including by selling millions of sub-prime mortgages to borrowers who couldn't really afford them, paved the way to a crash.

For reference, the top marginal tax rate during the Bush years (for income tax) was reduced to 36% from the 39.5% during the 1990s Clinton Years. Over the 1950s and into the 1960s (until about 1964) the top marginal rate was at 91%, going down to 65% by the mid -60s. The low level of 50 % wasn’t reached until Reagan arrived and passed his tax cuts in 1981. (And we note here that the debt as a percentage of GDP rose to nearly 30% during the Reagan years, caused by his tax cuts in conjunction with mind boggling military spending.)

Another telling statistic from the FT study is the growth rate for investment in equipment and software for business. They note that this ranged from 5.7% a year to 9.9% in earlier decades but was reduced to 1.9% during the 2000s.  Meanwhile, “average growth in non-residential structures ranged from 1.3% to 5.7% from the 1950s through the 1990s but declined 0.8% during the 2000s.”
A fair and timely question must be asked at this point:

Why do Republican tax cuts lead, counter-intuitively, to industrial decline, stagnant wages, and finally financial collapse? The fact is that high marginal tax rates strongly correlate with economic growth.  In December 2010 Mike Kimel examined the effects of cutting the top marginal tax rate:

….real GDP also grew faster under Bill Clinton, who raised taxes, than it did under Ronald Reagan. In fact, from 1981 to the present, the period in which Reagan’s philosophies have reigned triumphant, the correlation between the top marginal tax rate and the annual growth in real GDP has been positive. That is to say, higher top marginal tax rates have been associated with faster, not slower real economic growth. Conversely, lower top marginal tax rates have coincided with less economic growth.

The positive relationship between the top [higher] marginal tax rate and the growth in real GDP is very nearly bullet-proof. For instance, it extends all the way back to 1929, the first year for which the government computed GDP data. Additionally, higher marginal tax rates are not only correlated with faster increases in real GDP from one year to the next, but also with increases in real GDP over the subsequent two, three, or four years. This is as true going back to 1929 as it is for the period since Reagan became president. In fact, since the Reagan Revolution took hold, similar relationships have existed between the top marginal rate and several other important variables, like real median income, real private investment, consumer sentiment, the value of the dollar relative to other major currencies, and the S&P 500.  

Lower tax rates in any given year are associated with slower growth rates for each of these variables, whether those growth rates are measured over periods of one, two, three or four years.

What is the takeaway here? Although Treasury guy Steve Mnuchin predicts a stock market crash if the Reepo tax bill isn't passed, e.g.

http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-news-mnuchin-says-crash-if-no-trump-tax-reform-plan-2017-10

The fact is that all the historical evidence points to the opposite. I already referenced the lack of investment during the Reagan and Bush tax cut years, but less well known was what transpired before the 1929 stock market crash.  Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Revenue Act of 1924, which lowered personal income tax rates on the highest incomes from 73 percent to 46 percent.  Two years later, the Revenue Act of 1926 law further reduced inheritance and personal income taxes; eliminated  many excise imposts (luxury or nuisance taxes); and ended public access to federal income tax returns. The tax rate on the highest incomes was reduced to 25 percent.

The result was a speculative frenzy in the stock markets, especially the application of structured leverage in what were called at the time "investment trusts." In September 1929, this edifice of false prosperity began to wobble, and finally crashed spectacularly in October,  1929.

Again, I submit that energy oscillations - usually as liabilities  -are also tied to these tax cuts and lower tax rates. It takes energy, after all, to build new plant for labor or even less carbon -generating  energy infrastructure,  e.g. solar collectors, wind turbines.. But if corporations merely use the money to buy back shares as a form of tax avoidance, the energy goes nowhere useful. (As Joseph Stiglitz noted this morning on 'Morning Joe').  Lower tax rates  encourage taking wealth out of industrial companies; the wealth taken out must then be "put to work." That means more money chasing "investment opportunities" (instead of real investment in capital goods and employees), leading to price increases in financial capital or real estate or some other asset.  The end result? An energy use distortion in an environment of low aggregate demand and high deficits (set to get much higher) setting the stage for a deleterious energy oscillation leading to a crash later next year.

I predict that if this Repuke tax "reform" bill passes, then we will see a monster crash (up to 40 %)  by October  of next year.  You can make book on it.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/76434/orrin-hatch-s-bullcrap-on-taxes-is-exactly-that

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jack-lessenberry/76454/how-the-gop-tax-bill-would-ruin-michigan

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/steven-rosenfeld/76431/why-arent-dems-in-congress-raising-more-hell-to-oppose-the-worst-gop-tax-bill-ever

Yes, Puerto Rico's Debt Needs To Be Forgiven

Scene of desolation in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

In the wake of Hurricane Maria's devastation of Puerto Rico the issue of bringing the island territory of the U.S. back to economic viability has come to the fore.  Let's recall one of the issues even before the monster storm (barely 2 mph less than category 5) was Puerto Rico's  debt.  But in the wake of  Maria, which could cost the island up to $95 billion, more than double its current debt, there are few good options available. The most likely of which is that, under the existing law, all debt holders, including PREPA (electric utility) bondholders, will be those left largely footing the bill.

Even econ maven Steve Rattner, who initially inveighed against debt forgiveness,  stated flatly in a CNN interview a week ago that investors will have no choice but to "take a haircut".  There is simply no way it can ever be in a position to repay the debt especially after the hurricane's ravages. Rattner of Willett Advisors, originally told Bloomberg TV  that Congressional action might be needed to wipe out the debt.

But this isn't true. (A realization that may have subsequently caused Rattner to change his tune)

Under the PROMESSA act, according to UN sovereign debt consultant Eric LeCompte, the potential for Puerto Rico's debt to be significantly forgiven is a real possibility that will not take an act of Congress. Under the law, the bankruptcy judicial authority has significant latitude to consider the U.S. territory’s ability to pay the debt. The territory also has $50 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

LeCompte pointed out that the super bankruptcy process includes a key provision that pins debt payments to the economic ability of a sovereign region to pay. The provisions of the PROMESA act are more sweeping in this regard than credit leniency afforded to states or other sovereign governments, he said.  Adding - in one online interview with an investor site (ValueWalk):  "When PROMESA legislation was written, it was very specific to Puerto Rico.  It would be very difficult for other territories to have the same latitude under the law.”

LeCompte also noted that money earmarked to pay bondholders is currently being diverted to hurricane relief.  This in itself makes it incomprehensible why Congress would recently pass - as part of general emergency relief-  a $4.9 b  package for the island territory but via a LOAN with interest attached. WTF?!  With bondholder debt diverted to hurricane relief why on Earth would you add more debt as a component of relief?  It's idiotic, but also passing sadistic.

Basically, what the Repukes in Congress have done is to essentially charge Puerto Rico "a leasing fee for the life raft as they drown", in the words of one commentator. How about, instead of treating the people of Puerto Rico like second class citizens, we treat them like the  hurricane victims of Houston? Give them hurricane relief with NO strings, i.e. no interest-bearing loans attached. This so they can get a head start on rebuilding and get on with their lives.

But the zeitgeist appears to be one of calculated cruelty combined with economic stupidity, such as exemplified in a recent WSJ piece ('Forgiving Debt Would Hurt Puerto Rico') by John Tamny. According to Tamny,  Puerto Rico's debt troubles "were the direct result of policies that hurt growth so forgiving its debt would only free Puerto Rico's politicians from having to address the policies that were suffocating its policies to begin with".

What is Tamny's solution? It is "to allow the government to feel the pain of its debt"  then this would "leave politicians no choice but to adopt pro growth policies".  And what pray tell does this mean? Well "a reduction in income taxes for the highest earners".  So, in the analogy of a foot race, Tamny would have the island cut its legs another foot shorter. 

He clearly is still hostage to the supply side nonsense, which almost brought Barbados to ruin in 1991 thanks to its adoption of Reagan's bunkum in 1986.

The fact is that any drop in revenue from whatever source will not help Puerto Rico, given any island state is already behind the financial 'eight ball' by virtue of its geographical situation - being an ISLAND.  Islands (such as Barbados and Puerto Rico) have to have all resources come in from outside - ship or plane - which naturally increases the cost of living. No surprise then that Puerto Rico's cost of living is some 13 percent higher than any location in the U.S.  Barbados cost of living is even higher than Puerto Rico's - as we relearn each time we visit and go the grocery mart.

Puerto Ricans also can’t claim the Earned Income Tax Credit or Child Tax Credit, which serves to both cushion the blow of living in poverty while enticing people into paid work. Those would be useful in a place where the labor force has fallen by about 20 percent over the last decade.

The territory’s economic struggles -  like those of Barbados -  led it to borrow heavily by issuing bonds in an attempt to keep its budget balanced. But it hasn’t been able to climb out of the hole, and in 2015 its governor announced that it couldn’t keep paying its creditors. Because Puerto Rico isn’t a state, it has been denied the ability to go through municipal bankruptcy. Congress instead set up a Financial Oversight Management Board to come up with a plan. So far, the plan calls for austerity measures that include $25.7 billion in spending cuts. The plan even acknowledges that his will lead to another “lost decade” of economic growth for the island (which could easily end up being worse than their projections).

However, economists Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Guzman have pointed out that if the territory’s economy can’t recover, it will continue to have trouble paying anything to creditors, not to mention prolonging the suffering of its residents. Conversely, if the economy is allowed to regain its health, it will have more revenues that it can use to pay people back.

Another option would be to push for the hedge funds and other firms that own Puerto Rico’s debt to write off large portions of it. Under Congress’s plan, the island can unilaterally reduce its debt with the approval of a federal judge. Doing so could have other ramifications—such as increasing borrowing costs—but it’s also worth remembering that investments are inherently risky. Rattner following his change of heart pointed this out. So the same way a stock investor needs to expect the inevitable losses, so also bond investors need to expect the inevitable "hair cuts" if they happen to invest in places, or products, utilities that go under - for whatever reason.

Let's also bear in mind that allowing Puerto Ricans to  continue to suffer will do no one any good and  - if anything - drive hundreds of thousands to abandon the island to come to the mainland U.S. And, as U.S. citizens, there isn't a god damned thing Trump or his Reich wing cronies can do to stop such a mass migration. Don't like it? Then forgive the damned debt, and offer no strings attached money for relief - to rebuild!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/lois-marie-gibbs/75744/hurricane-victims-don-t-have-the-complexion-for-protection


And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/miles-mogulescu/75740/trump-drowns-the-forgotten-men-and-women-in-swamp-water

Atheism With A "White Male" Problem? Yes!

Yes, Atheism does have a "white male" problem - meaning far too many white males to African-Americans, and especially females.  I noticed the dearth of females over all the years I attended Atheist conventions and conferences dating from the early 1990s. Generally, one would see about three white males to every female, and even the primary presenters would be white males.

Why does this imbalance exist? A piece in salon.com ('5 Reasons there aren't more women in atheism',  July 29) lists the following - and I will respond to each:

1) Women are more devout because they have to be. Women’s religiosity is directly related to economic security. The lack of a social safety net means that women, who are still responsible for the bulk of elder and child care, often need to rely on religious organizations to support themselves and their families

This is basically true, and one reason the preponderance of female atheists seen is from higher socio-economic levels, many in the $75,000 - $100,000 income range or higher. Thus, these women needn't worry about projecting a "halo" effect wherever they go since the probability is low they will ever have to rely on church-based charities or religious organizations for a safety net. The same is not  true for low-wage workers, who may not only require food stamps for their families but also supplies from food pantries  - many operated by religious charities.

2) Sexism is real and has an effect on women’s participation and leadership within the atheist community. Rape jokes and sexual harassment, as penalties and tools to silence women, exist in atheist and secular groups as well as religious ones

Yes, sexism exists everywhere - even among rationalists, of which atheists are perhaps among the strongest manifestations. However, in all my years attending atheist conferences, parties, etc. I've not seen or heard "rape jokes" or sexual harassment. Generally, male atheists at all these gatherings were well behaved and the female atheists of such powerful identities-personalities that  they likely wouldn't have tolerated any such nonsense. So I believe this reason doesn't apply to the same degree as (1)

3) Men of all ideological persuasions are overrepresented in media — why should atheists be any different?  .....We see more male atheists because we see more males. Prominent atheist and secular men benefit from media that grossly prefers the speech of men.

Well, true - but that is a problem of the media, as noted by Robert McChesney (The Problem of the Media) and many others. For whatever reason, the corpora-media emphasize and exalt the male voice over others, probably because of a misplaced belief it is more authoritative and the male has more credibility.  I confess to being guilty of this viewing bias as well. For example, when I see the smiling, winsome female physician who often reports on CBS News, her continuous smile for me detracts from her creds. Meanwhile a seldom smiling or non-smiling doctor - like Michael Agus - is taken much more seriously. Why? I don't know - but perhaps this is a reflection of the media bias, but also the tendency of females to smile too much when on the air. (I tend not to trust over-smiling individuals in general)

4) Atheism and secularism are part of a movement, with leaders, on Earth. This social movement is no less subject to norms than anything else and we live on a thoroughly patriarchal planet. Have you seen pictures of any of the major economic summits in the world

True, but again this ties in to (3). If the patriarchal emphasis wasn't present then it is logical to expect the media emphasis on male voices wouldn't be either. One feeds into the other. Perhaps also the fact that females doing the same jobs are paid only 79 cents to every dollar the male earns is also part of this. What we need is an entire transformation but where must it begin? With the society or the individual? The classic paradox of what comes first, the chicken or the egg

5) It’s no exaggeration to say that managing sexism is exhausting, depressing and distracts from work women could be doing as visible spokespeople of fighting for higher and equal pay, or immigration policies that include uneducated women, or ending sexual predation, or advocating for the right to control our own reproduction. All of which, by the way, would probably contribute to the growth of secular and non-religious culture.

True, but again, this is not genuinely independent but links in to (3) and (4). If the patriarchal paradigm wasn't predominant women would be paid equally to men, and also sexism would recede and we'd see greater female representation, not only in the secular sphere but also in business, economics and scientific conferences.

Now, I will list my own reason:

Women are more sensitive to moral issues and are likely cognizant that - by a large majority-  Americans view Atheism as an amoral or immoral philosophy (see, for example, the most recent Pew Forum on Religion survey). They are thus wary of taking on such baggage, given many are already caught in the crossfire of our politically polarized society. This is distinct from (1) because it cuts across all economic levels and one finds higher income women as sensitive to how they are perceived morally by the society as lower income women. (As an example, my wife - an atheist in every way one could be defined - yet refuses to call herself one.)

In other words Atheism, to reach these women - must show it can rise beyond the negation of deity and is also a positive moral force for good. The optimal way, as I wrote in my book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, is to support social justice causes.  What do I mean by this?

According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz:  “the upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year and control 40 percent of the nation’s total wealth”.

Conversely, the bottom 80 percent of Americans own just 7 percent of the nation’s wealth. Stiglitz notes that “while the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall”

 By any measure this economic inequality is a corrosive, long term evil, given it reduces people’s choices and indeed can incept criminal acts for economic self-preservation. This also dovetails with the salon.com quote of Walter Bristol, an atheist interfaith activist, who wrote last year,

“Economic inequality is one of the most imminent issues facing Western society today. Any progressive movement that chooses to dismiss it is and will be rightfully dismissed themselves.”

This has become the warp and woof of today's white -male heavy atheism as it has become enamored of free market Neoliberal capitalism and libertarianism.  (Both of which eschew the "entitlement" state )

To me, this is the core of the issue and problem for modern atheism which has become too enmeshed with capitalist economics and libertarian BS especially.

To quote the 2013 salon.com article again:

"It’s time for the atheist movement to get off the political sidelines. It’s time to truly help this country become a better place to live for all its citizens"
 

And when it does "get off the sidelines" look for a dramatic increase in female atheists!

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/04/atheisms_white_male_problem_a_movement_needs_a_moral_cause_beyond_glamorizing_disbelief/

The Neoliberal Ukraine News Blackout - Why You Shouldn't Be Surprised

Neoliberalism is a new form of hybrid global financial authoritarianism. It is connected to the Deep State and marked by its savage willingness in the name of accumulation, privatization, deregulation, dispossession and power to make disposable a wide range of groups extending from low income youth and poor minorities to elements of the middle class that have lost jobs -  Henry Giroux, on smirkingchimp.com (last week)


If Putin and Russia continue to be surrounded and marginalized, the world will become ever more hostage to the whims of the Wolves-of-Wall-Street class that drives the energy industry, which in turn drives the policies of the White House, Downing Street and other similar addresses.

Ultimately, it is we, the citizens of the West, who lose big. In allowing uncontested victories by this unelected alliance operating putatively on our behalf, we the people marginalize our own interests. We also ensure that we ourselves never break free of our own political corruption—and remain unable to inaugurate our own real, functioning democracy. - Russ Baker, 'We All Get the Tyranny We Deserve', smirkingchimp.com


After watching an initial segment on Chris Hayes' ' All In' last night, wherein he "blamed Russia" for what was going on in Ukraine (like all the right wing mouthpieces at FOX, as well as other pseudo libs at MSNBC) I turned to my wife in an aggravated state of despair and said: "Even Chris has now been bought out. He's so terrified of losing his MSNBC gig that he won't even go near the deeper political story of how the neocons instigated a coup in Kiev and incited the current crisis."  My wife replied, "So you believe he'd lose his job if he went there?" And I said: "For sure!" to which she responded "So much for the free country." (I also reminded her that Comcast had taken over MSNBC, the same bunch that just pushed for a merger that will likely slow many of us on the net.)

Again another day of propaganda from the Neoliberal corporate media. Anyone looking for a scintilla of truth or accuracy would be hard put to find it. First there was Martha Raddatz  on ABC News yapping about "Putin the bully", then the scene switched to John, aka 'Lurch', Kerry, posturing in Kiev for the State Dept. Neocons, then on NBC we beheld former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, expressing incredulity at the extent of "anti-American sentiment" he beheld in Russia during his stint there..

What is he, a nitwit, or just plain ignorant?  Has he never heard of the 'Shock Doctrine''? Author Naomi Klein gives the key information in her book:  'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism' (2007).   But you know, a dedicated Neolib politico or hack would ignore such a book because it exposes too much of what his or her shtick is about - and no Neolib wants to know. Anyway, in her chapter on the Russian capitalist "experiment" (pp. 282-87) she documents how a cabal of gangster capitalists under the IMF and the "Chicago gang of Milton Friedman" attempted to brutally re-make the existing Russian centrally planned economy into a Neoliberal free market outpost of  the West. The process was long and painful, entailing first getting rid of Mikhail Gorbachev - who through his glasnost and perestroika did far more than Reagan to render the world more peaceful, never mind the propaganda.

Klein makes no bones about the fact that the Friedman "school of economics" was responsible largely for the ideological ruthlessness that laid waste to Russia in the early 1990s.  They only needed (Boris) Yeltsin to help dissolve the former Soviet Union.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz (p. 283) called Russia's pro-capitalist market experimenters "market Bolsheviks". As Klein put it (ibid.):

"However, where the original Bolsheviks fully intended to build their centrally planned state in the ashes of the old, the market Bolsheviks believed in a kind of magic: if the optimal conditions for profit were created - the country would rebuild itself- no planning required."

Newspapers, magazines from the period (which I still have and can peruse anytime) depict horrific suffering by ordinary Russians as they had to beg, borrow or steal to survive - thanks to the Neoliberal market barbarians. Is this being an "American traitor" to reveal this, probably something most Americans don't know? Nope, because one can't be a traitor to an economic paradigm he never accepted in the first place and is in fact an aberrational economic-political  mutant that has no relation to the nation or its Constitution!

The sad facts?  After only a year of Neoliberal thuggery and "market therapy" millions of Russians had lost their life savings when the ruble lost nearly all its value.  And yes, they rightly blame Neoliberal capitalism as hatched and cultivated in the US of A for their plight. Why wouldn't they?

In fact, I ought not have been surprised that the only places one will find the real backstory are in the Left-most recesses of the web - places like www.smirkingchimp.com and http://firedoglake.com/

These are places where the last bastion of REAL patriots, aka REAL Liberals (not Neoliberals) go to get a heads up on the news. The REAL News. Not the crap and propaganda spouted by the mainstream media. If you aren't visiting those sites too then you aren't getting the real lowdown on the Ukraine. You're only getting what the Neoliberal masters of PR want you to see.

But I perhaps write too fast. If one watches MSNBC one might catch a glimpse of the truth - even if the thread isn't pursued by the host, as in the case of Chris Hayes' interview of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) two nights ago.  In that interview, for example, Col. Wilkerson not only gave the proper historical background and how the Neoliberal Market priority helped to propel it, but also how the neocons still ensconced in Obama's administration helped engender the immediate crisis.  As he observed, after Russia was promised (in 1991) that NATO would not go one inch further to the east...

" a series of Presidents came in who not only went further to the east - pushed by Lockheed Martin and others, who wanted to sell weapons to eastern and central European countries - but hinted at Georgia and Ukraine."

In other words, the Neoliberal capitalist weapons market PUSHED the expansion of NATO to Russia's doorstep - even trying to entice the capture of two former Soviet states via weapons sales as NATO members. And the idiots in the U.S> wonder why Putin and Russia are going ape shit? What are they? Well Col. Wilkerson has the answer for that too:

"Anyone who knows Russian history .....could have guessed that  President Putin would move into the Ukraine once we had formed a group there, led by the NED and its affiliates - which effectively pulled off a coup.......If I were Putin I'd have done exactly what Putin did. And anyone who says they couldn't predict this is either a fool or lying"


Well, then we have a hell of a lot of lying,  fool politicos and media.  But why be surprised? They are convinced, following the work of PR master Edward Bernays - if they all speak with one voice and repeat it over and over again, they will get Americans to believe THEIR baloney that Russia started it - when as Col. Wilkerson said, the U.S. Neocons started it. Putin merely responded to their provocation - though Obama (a Neoliberal at heart) refuses to acknowledge it.

The point is everyone, politicians and media are in on the game, to connive and deceive the American people that Neoliberal democracy is true freedom, when it is merely an ersatz freedom. It means the free spread of markets - any kind, including weapons, and water-air destroying natural gas fracking  - without regard to human security or welfare. Why do you think so many Neolibs also want to cut Social Security and Medicare?

The entrenched pseudo-freedom of Neoliberalism explains everything from the recent Comcast takeover of Time-Warner e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-comcast-45-b-merger-will-rampant.html

to the disastrous West Virginia coal cleaner dump and pollution of water for over 300,000 e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-neoliberal-business-model-to-blame.html

to the humping for the new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement to hijack more American jobs to low wage notions e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/lets-not-get-punnked-by-neoliberals.html

This is why it is so critical to always portray Neoliberal "democracy" (what I regard as an oxymoron) as the only legit form. Make your freedom real based on MARKET choices, but forget personal ones - they only exist to the point you choose one brand of toothpaste or fried chicken over another.

This is also why they want the Ukraine pulled into the fake Market domain of Neoliberal capitalism. They also made it appear as if the Ukrainians themselves chose to "rebel" against the Kiev gov't of Viktor Yanukovych, not that the neocons started it.  This is why it's also incumbent on the alert and aware citizen not to swallow the neo-Cold War codswallop being peddled that Putin and Russia are "playing the long game" and are intent on "re-assembling the old Soviet state into a new Russian empire". This is the sort of  recycled, 50's style paranoid bullshit I'd expect from brainwashed Neolib degenerates who are so aware of their own violations of sovereignty they would concoct them for others to provide cover. As for these new U.S. sanctions, don't look for the Europeans to back them, not when they stand to lose their natural gas supplies from Russia!

Something to take to the bank: If it's coming from a Neoliberal source, don't believe it!

See also these critical adjunct articles!

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/russ-baker/54599/ukraine-we-all-get-the-tyranny-we-deserve

Excerpt:

The problem is, you can only believe that the West truly cares about the people of Ukraine and their democracy if you have zero historical memory. Or if your analysis of all of these events comes from news organizations that don’t ever really, fully do their jobs.

The US corporate media never changes its spots. After being tricked and lied to on Vietnam, the first Gulf War, the Iraq invasion, Libya, Syria, and just about everything else, it once again takes the US foreign policy establishment at its word that it only wishes to do the right thing. The right thing. It bears repeating.


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-stanton/54603/ukraines-leaders-seek-national-socialism-dictatorship

Excerpt:

So the US leadership is supporting the creation of One Nation Under God in Ukraine. As one of the key groups involved in the militant overthrow of an elected government has stated in its party platform, “a system of the dictatorship of the Nation with regard to the socioeconomic interests of the people” needs to be implemented (more below).

Isn’t that what the military in Egypt proclaimed in its coup to oust another elected official, Morsi?

The American press is fond of patting itself on the back for upholding the first amendment to the US Constitution, that being, among other things, freedom of the press. But that does not mean the freedom to obfuscate, ignore facts and curry favor with the US national security apparatus in whatever covert or overt form it takes.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/54602/us-provokes-russia-acts-surprised-to-get-a-nasty-reaction

Excerpt:

If too many people get sucked in by the current, distorted media coverage of events unfolding now in Ukraine, then there's a good chance life will get very ugly for a lot of innocent people, since one of the logical end points is the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone in power knows that's a potential reality, but the urge to demagogue the Russians is presently overwhelming honesty and caution.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/walter-c-uhler/54786/the-hypocritical-united-states-of-amnesia-and-Russia

Excerpt:

In 2003, using the false pretexts of weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda to manipulate an American public still angry about and fearful from al-Qaeda’s attacks on 11 September 2001, the administration of George W. Bush ordered the illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq – perhaps the worst war crime since those committed by Nazi Germany during World War II. The invasion precipitated an incipient civil war between the Sunnis and Shias, give rise to an anti-American insurgency, caused a massive destruction of property, cost Iraq the lives of least 100,000 innocent men, women and children and forced the displacement of at least 4 million people from their homes. (Thus far, Putin’s intrusion into the Crimea has caused nothing like that.)

France, Germany and Russia ended up on the right side of history when they opposed America’s invasion. But, none of them threatened economic sanctions against the U.S. for its brazen violation of international law. Their feckless behavior brings to mind the observation made by an Athenian in Thucydides’ “Melian dialogue:” “You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Obviously, NO Real Atheist Can Be A Republican....OR A Libertarian!

Paul Ryan, Libertarian Randite with his Ryan Budget - he still hopes he can fob off on us in a "grand bargain". No atheist ought to have anything to do with this character or his ridiculous philosophy.

A recent article at salon.com ('Atheists Can't Be Republicans') see http://www.salon.com/2013/10/26/atheists_cant_be_republicans/

hits the nail on the head - given the Reepos are all about pushing heavy religion on its denizens, and using that as a hammer to also halt abortion, contraception, gay marriage and even state assistance to the poor ("If the poor had faith, then they wouldn't need welfare.") But the piece also nails the Libertarian crap, i.e. when stating:

"Atheists are secularists, and a secularist cannot be a member of today’s Republican Party. You’re either one or the other. You cannot be both. Now, I am acutely aware that a great number of atheists identify with the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, but this is comical. A lack of evidence is why atheists don’t believe in God. But to believe in libertarianism is in itself an act of faith, because libertarianism has not only never been tried anywhere, but an overwhelming number of economists reject the philosophy as little more than “capitalism with the gloves off” — a condition that would only exacerbate the winner-takes-all society we have today."

I can't dispute  this take which is why I have no truck or tolerance for Libertarian atheists, and dismiss Republican atheists like S.E. Cupp as essentially fakes. To me they're an anomaly like a two -headed,  walking carp.  Most Libbie atheists probably were drawn into their version of atheism by virtue of noting Ayn Rand's famous quote in her book, The Virtue Of Selfishness', p. 38:

"Faith is a malignancy that no system can tolerate with impunity, and the man who succumbs to it, will call on it in precisely those issues where he needs reason the most. "

But this is a minuscule support on which to build a coherent, "grown up" atheism.  The same salon.com article also notes that hyper-militant zealous atheists are equally immature, and give atheists a bad name to boot. A particular brand of these includes the likes of Sam Harris, and the late Chris Hitchens who pounded an incessant anti-Muslim theme in assorted writings.  As the salon.com piece observes, again accurately (and this was a topic brought up on Bill Maher's Real Time Friday night)the problem with these anti-Muslim zealot atheists is:

"rhetoric that not only ignores our long history of foreign policy blunders in the Middle East, but also echoes the neo-conservatives, the Israel lobby and the entire right-wing echo chamber"

Which was the exact same point guest Michael Moore was trying to make to Bill Maher, who echoed many of the anti-Muslim lines. Moore tracked our history in actually recruiting Bin Laden to our own ends - to make him our special "puppet" - to attack the Soviets in Afghanistan, as well as setting Saddam up as a separate puppet, to use against Iran. Oh, also toppling Iran's original President Mossadegh in 1953. Is it any wonder so many Muslims hate our guts? If you were pissed over at every turn, by a meddling nation full of hubris, wouldn't you not be exactly pleased? But this is the point the anti-Islamics miss.  Those who wish to see former security specialist Chalmers Johnson's take on it, can go here: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/have-americans-especially-thier.html

Where he supplies answers regarding 'blowback' and why too many Americans are totally in the dark. Maher and the anti-Muslim atheists ought to read that, as well as Johnson's book, "Blowback".

In his brilliant article Atheism Wars[1], the eminent economist John Gray, author of False Dawn- The Delusions of Global Capitalism,   argues that “evangelical atheism has so aligned itself with illiberal economic values that it’s joined forces  with the Christian fundamentalists in the Republican Tea Party.”

If this is so, why on Earth would I wish to make common cause, especially as I’m a 1960s-style Kennedy liberal who hasn’t moved one iota toward any specious “center”, especially since Kennedy’s murder at the plausible hands of a rightist-based conspiracy? Such affiliation, despite the much ballyhooed meme of “atheist diversity” is an insult to me.  Indeed as Gray notes, it would no more occur to Richard Dawkins that an atheist would reject liberal values than that he or she would take up witchcraft. But the unsettling fact is too many do!

As the 2012 political campaign revealed, the GOP budgetary doyen Paul Ryan (an ardent acolyte of Rand’s) basically sought to adopt her views in his Ryan Budget. This would have replaced standard Medicare with vouchers with which the elderly would seek their own medical assistance each year, as opposed to depending on a government secured co-payment. I can just imagine how I’d have fared in my HDR prostate cancer treatment last year if Ryan’s vouchers were the extent of  assistance available! With a $10,000 per year voucher allocation, I’d have ended up in major debt. Five figure debt!

 

So pardon me if I regard any self-proclaimed atheist who embraces the Ryan budget or his  minimal government (except for defense) politics as stupid, delusional or both. 

 
 

Beyond this, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz[2], “the upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year and control 40 percent of the nation’s total wealth”. Conversely, the bottom 80 percent of Americans own just 7 percent of the nation’s wealth. Stiglitz notes that “while the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall”[3]. By any measure this economic inequality is a corrosive, long term evil, given it reduces people’s choices and indeed can incept criminal acts for economic self-preservation.

This dovetails with the salon.com quote of Walter Bristol, an atheist interfaith activist, who wrote,

“Economic inequality is one of the most imminent issues facing Western society today. Any progressive movement that chooses to dismiss it is and will be rightfully dismissed themselves.”

Ouch! Any atheists paying attention? They had better be! Atheism in this view, and one shared by me in my new book, cannot be some mere abstract philosophizing position but must be in common cause with larger social justice movements  - and that by its nature- also excludes aligning with Reepos and Libertarians in economic policy issues. (Though one can strategically align with them when it comes to opposing NSA spying overreach - a subtle point Melissa Harris Perry was seemingly lost on in her show this morning.)

 

Since I am also foursquare opposed to laissez-faire capitalism and especially the Neoliberal variety that worships the global free market, there is really nothing I have in common with the new breed of pro-free market atheists.  We could as well be from different planets.  Reading John Gray’s excellent essay  showed me that my position is genuinely more implicit atheism, or what George Smith (The Case Against God, p. 9 ) described as agnostic atheism, than the more hard-edged variety of Ayn Rand, or Madalyn Murray-O’Hair. In Smith’s words:

 

 

The agnostic atheist maintains any supernatural realm is inherently unknowable by the human mind. And further - not only is the nature of any supernatural being unknowable, but the existence of any supernatural being is unknowable as well

 

 

After all, if one cannot truly know anything supernatural, then how can one arrive at a supernaturally –based morality? It is preposterous. One then must work very hard to fashion a natural ethics, which features test markers and attributes based in the natural world. This, of course, is the heart of my Materialist ethics!
 

The problem is that a libertarian atheist’s ethics aren’t likely to agree with mine, any more than his definition of Materialism will agree with my own. I had warned about this division of interests and ethics in my first book (The Atheist's Handbook to Modern Materialism).    As for S.E. Cupp, I don’t regard her as any bona fide atheist at all, but rather someone who’s been able to parlay a purely nominal atheism into becoming a high profile media person. She basically found her special media niche by being the ultimate conservative, religion-friendly atheist! As Ian Murphy so aptly describes her shtick, in an Aug 4, 2012 salon.com essay:

 

 

"Cupp’s self-loathing-token-atheist-in-the-conservative-media routine seems so geared toward delegitimizing atheism, and selling books to fundie Fox types, that is strains credulity"

 

She’s also disqualified from being an atheist I’d ever associate with by her comment, "I would never vote for an atheist, ever."

 

Murphy once more: "In an atheist integrity contest, she loses to Stalin by a mustache."

 

Is it possible the aggressive memes of dogmatic religions have called forth equally aggressive memes of non-belief to combat it? This is possible, but sadly hasn’t helped atheists win the battle for hearts and minds. In the meantime, atheists need to develop a more cogent, political dynamic that embraces the social justice aspect rather than ignores it.  To quote the salon.com article again:

 

"It’s time for the atheist movement to get off the political sidelines. It’s time to truly help this country become a better place to live for all its citizens"

 

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[1] Gray: Playboy (60), 49.

 

[2] Stiglitz: The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Threatens Our Future, Chapter 1.

[3] Ibid.