Barack Obama, A Treacherous Fellow

Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan, both deceivers & brazen liars, are zealous crusaders for the advancement of meanness, pain & death which Obama, too, in a merely slightly less virulent way, has consistently supported in practice (but not, of course, in his devious speeches). But I don't want to talk about the Republican candidates here, nor in any concentrated way, Obama.

 

We Americans now live in a society that economically, politically & religiously cherishes psychopathic values. Poor, powerless, rich & powerful people who were similarly bent have always been among us, clamoring for more soldiers, more dreadful weapons, more police, more saber rattling, more wars, harsher laws, more prisons, fewer rights - or no rights - for those who disagree with or are unlike them. But today such people tyrannically rule in almost all political offices, court chambers & boardrooms. They rule the 'economic team' of rich, vicious cutthroats that Obama hand selected to save the big banks, not the nation or its people. They rule in many other places, too - on television news networks, in editorial quarters at many newspapers, in the economics departments of universities that are usually said to be the nation's best, & in the general staff at the Pentagon. They own the private corporation that creates & controls the presidential 'debates.' They increasingly own both lower school public & higher education. And insofar as they own our health care, own the medicines we are allowed to get at great personal expense, & have commodified every disease so that they might benefit from our illnesses, they own both the present & ultimate fate of our bodies. And insofar as they control the means of the distribution of information, including the manufacture & distribution of propaganda, they own our minds ... or, if one believes we have souls, they own those, too.

 

One need only note, for instance, that in the first two 'debates' the urgently pressing, most momentous threat all living things have ever faced, global anthropogenic climate change, has not been mentioned once. No one thinks it will be mentioned in the third & final 'debate' - that is, charade - either. Upon reflection, one may rationally conclude that nothing that really matters to the welfare & future of America has been or will be mentioned.

 

Harper's Magazine, in which the article cited below appears, is, since 1850, America's oldest continuously published monthly. It's very serious & also immensely funny, brilliantly illustrated, literate & readable, & at its low cost (presently $16.97 for 12 issues) it should be in most homes. Its fact checking is U.S. journalism's gold standard.

 

The Elephant/Donkey political duopoly that now rules this empire was shaped by the multibillionaire propagandists in the TV & print nooze biz, & by their superrich cohorts who since Ronald Reagan became president have steadily spent whatever it took to own not only almost every politician in the nation, but almost all institutions that once were public. The public is bamboozled, kept ignorant, overworked, underpaid, purposefully uninformed, forced to be anxiety ridden, & robbed at every turn. - In short, what has happened & is surely going to get worse is not the public's fault. We are not to blame. They are.

 

And why do They lie & cheat? Because the manure They heap upon us that They claim explains the causes of our trouble & the solutions for them is so bereft of validity & virtue that only incessant lying & cheating & endlessly shitting up the same crap could get anybody to believe there is nothing else. Men like Rupert Murdoch & the Koch brothers are maggots occupying, eating & growing in our minds.

 

Romney & Obama are the two sides of the turd that is the Elephant/Donkey duopoly. Together they are the two-faced Janus mask that is the present countenance of America, impenetrably duplicitous & meaningless, but plainly brutal & cruel because, no matter what either says that one might think makes the one or the other likable, they are agreed in their actions that everything must be taken from us & be given to the rich, who already took almost all that we once had - our homes, schools, courts of law, retirement funds, good jobs, decent pay, financial assets, composure, sense of self-worth, civil rights, education, air, water, Earth's very health, & any feeling that the future might be better, & finally our faith that voting can ever be an expression of our own preferences & interests.

 

So what is it that Obama never speaks of, nor shall Romney? Why, the real way to our salvation, of course. Mentioning it is taboo, because the rich wouldn't give these narcissistic candidates nor any other kind of candidate a dime for it, despite the fact - repeat, fact - that what you're about to read would make large private financial fortunes more secure & durable. Why? Because when capitalism goes into catastrophic runaway, as was its condition before the crash of 2008 & already is again, it collapses & leaves behind a Demand Crisis, in which great numbers of people lose their savings & property, lose their jobs & income, & so become unable to buy the goods & services that only by being purchased enable capitalists to acquire & increase wealth, & keep their wealth from disappearing as much of it did in 2008, or did in the Great Depression (which I experienced directly), & did following other booms that led implacably to busts & Demand Crisis depressions.

 

OK - federal stimulus delivered into the pockets of workers who will spend it, followed by increased taxation, is what you're going to read about below. Before you blanch, read on, & either keep in mind what governments exist for, & what at their best they do for commerce & the welfare & peace of citizens, or - if you cannot put your fear that this must be wrong in check - indulge me & the author of this thesis, & let's then talk about it. Remember, if you are blanching, a vast array of institutions owned or supported by the superrich have for a long while controlled the information your opinions are based upon, & you've no reason whatsoever to trust that those people & their institutions ever had your interests in mind or, much less, at heart.

 

Thanks for reading along,

 

Robin

 

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NOTE: I added all bracketed comments & highlights.

 

The Entitlement Crisis That Isn't

 

By Jeff Madrick

 

Published in Harper's Magazine

November 2012

 

EXCERPTS: But as Bruce Bartlett, a high-level advisor to Ronald Reagan & George H.W. Bush –– & no fuzzy-headed liberal –– put it .... "Almost every country in Europe has a tax/GDP ratio high enough to cover all of the projected increase in spending in the United States through higher revenues alone" ... Roughly speaking, the average nation among the thirty-four members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) collected some 38 percent of its citizens income in taxes. U.S. citizens are taxed –– including all federal, state & local income taxes, sales taxes, & payroll taxes (the taxes that are taken out of every employee's paycheck for Social Security & Medicare) –– at only about 26 percent of their income. Yet the high-tax economies grow about as fast as ours does, sometimes faster. Prosperous Denmark, Norway, & Sweden have tax rates well above 40 percent.

 

To be clear, no one should raise taxes now, because the economy is still too weak [that is, the demand crisis that began in the crash of 2008 continues]. On the contrary, we need bigger deficits for a while [in accord with the empirically tested principles laid down by the late economist John Maynard Keynes]. But when the economy is righted, we will have our chance. Imagine if the the United States raised taxes by 10 percent. If this seems far-fetched, that is for purely political, not economic reasons: such an increase would put our taxes on par with the OECD average, still well below the levels of nations like Norway. This hike would bring in about $1.5 trillion in one year alone &, by my estimate, $17 or $18 trillion over ten years. To put this in perspective, the bipartisan agreement in 2011 to cut the future deficit under the Budget Control Act demanded a total deficit reduction of only about $1.5 trillion. That additional $16 0r $17 trillion would cover all imaginable increases in entitlement programs, even over a span of sixty years or more –– & it would also wipe out the deficit.

 

Let's keep in mind that Medicare is expected to rise by only 2 percent of GDP –– to just under 6 percent –– by 2035, even if the health-care system is not made significantly more efficient. Social Security benefits are forecast to increase from 5 percent of GDP today to, at worst, somewhat more than 6 percent, then level off in the mid-2030s. These increases are readily manageable.

 

.... [In conclusion] There is no debate of good conscience in America about how to pay for the nation's most profound needs. if there were, raising taxes would be a major part of it. Instead, the lower & middle classes will bear the brunt of deficit reduction.

 

Politicians & ideologues are playing a cruel game by keeping serious tax increases off the table, but it is especially hypocritical to do so in the name of fiscal responsibility. America's budget problem is a revenue problem, not a spending problem. The current national conversation about tax hikes is a fine example of political deference to the rich & powerful. It is not good economics.

Done