It's Cool to Trash Gubmint

I am really more than a bit tired of the trend--because that's all it is, a trend--to be against or to out and out hate government.

Like most trends, it's tiresome but this one goes beyond that. It's not just wrong but wrong-headed, too

Seems Right Wingers and Republicans and Libertarians, all, at minimum, like to rail against government. They sometimes literally say or will write, on social media, that "government doesn't do anything right."

To that I like to point out just a few of the things government has gotten us all.

The Interstate Highway System

The Social Security system, which lifted millions of Americans out of poverty and keeps millions more out of same.

Social Security Keeps 22 Million Americans 

Out of Poverty

And then there's Medicare.

Medicare Keeps Americans Healthy for the Past 50 Years

And Medicaid.

Medicaid keeps adults healthy and employed

Note that's "healthy and employed" so they can stay at work and be productive and benefit our society, locally and nationally. So there aren't just costs to Medicare and Medicaid, to be clear. There are benefits as well.

Heck, "gubmint" took us all, took man to the moon, for God's sake, no small task.

May 25, 1961: JFK's Moon Shot Speech to Congress

Government cleaned up some of our dirtiest and most-polluted rivers.

A Brief History of the Clean Water Act

Including, of course, the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency.

These Photos Show How the EPA 

Transformed America

Heck, at one point, at least a few of our rivers were so polluted, they actually caught fire.

Cuyahoga River Fire

And these are just a few, quick examples of how government actually not only works for us but helps us all, individually and collectively.

A Success Story, with Many Chapters Still to Come

Breathing Easier Because of the Clean Air Act

Cleaner air linked to bigger, stronger lungs 

in Southern California

Again, this is a case of all of us benefiting, too, due to "gubmint", these regulations called the Clean Air Act of 1970 and what it's done for us. We live longer lives, better lives, healthier lives and so, more productive lives because we require companies to pollute less. It's a total win for all, including those companies.

Have governments, has our government, at times gone wrong, done wrong by the very people it is to serve?

Of course.

Has there been, is there waste in government?

Most certainly.

But it's up to us, the people, to keep our government on the "straight and narrow." Things will go wrong, things will be done poorly or wrongly and/or not at all, at times. But government can do and has done great things, over time, certainly.

Government is, after all, us, we the people.

This Could Rattle Your Day. Or Week. Or Month.

I just saw this article:

The Center for National Security and Arms Control at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M.

Nuclear weapons labs hit with sizable fines for new security violations

Just a couple details:

A classified material was missing for years before anyone noticed, and a lab official's public slides included bomb design data

You're in charge of the nations nuclear weapons and you can't keep track of the inventory?

And check this out from that same article:

In 2004, the laboratory’s director suspended the lab’s operations to fix problems that included the loss of classified computer disks, and in 2006, police responding to a domestic violence call at an employee’s home discovered thumb drives from the lab that contained classified information, along with illicit drugs.

That's enough to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, there, isn't it?

Try to have a great weekend, campers.

Nearly unbelievable stupidity or lies, from our own Senator Blunt

Like

Quote of the day

Our institutions are failing us

When it comes to Americans and our government, it seems we share a great deal with Catholics and their hierarchy and leadership. That is, it seems the people are good and well-meaning and well-intentioned and hard-working but the leadership and so, the respective institution is failing the people, the followers, if you will, they are supposed to be leading and working for. In far too many states and in Washington, D.C. with our national Congress, there is divisiveness, demagoguery and stalemate instead of progress. In the Catholic Church, unfortunately, far too much time and energy and assets--money--have gone to first, sadly and shockingly, physically and/or sexually abusing children in their schools and then, to make matters worse, covering up those activities and defending the abusers. It's so tragic and unnecessary, unproductive and even ugly. What has happened? Why are both of these two institutions failing us, failing the people they are supposed to be serving? It seems one possibility is that both are victims of their own success. Maybe another is that we, the people, have become lazy and don't expect and demand enough of our leaders though I am always loathe to "blame the victim", as that 2nd possibility seems to bring. We need to take our institutions back, in each case. We need to be in charge. We need to speak up and make clear what should happen--and what must not. Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/us/catholic-church-pressures-victims-network-with-subpoenas.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all; http://kileyrae.tumblr.com/post/7961222388/ny-times-op-ed-a-deadlocked-congress-has-become

People being held accountable

An advertisement RootsAction, an American Human Rights group, placed in a Spanish newspaper:


A Spanish judge, acting under international law, will soon decide whether to investigate US officials' roles in authorizing torture. We hope you agree that such cases must go forward, despite pressure from the Obama administration to drop them.  The organizations sponsoring this advertisement represent hundreds of thousands in the American public who believe the US government must be held to the same rule of law as other countries. We thank the people of Spain for your courage, and ask for your support as your courts consider bringing American officials to justice for the crime of torture.


From their website:


Despite earlier assertions by President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder that waterboarding is torture, former President George W. Bush publicly stated three times last year that he authorized waterboarding and added proudly that he would do it again. In a TV interview aired on November 8, Bush said he considered waterboarding legal "because the lawyer said it was legal." Waterboarding and other forms of torture were banned by the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by the United States in 1994. 


Maybe people will be held accountable one day after all.  


I doubt it seriously but it would be nice.


Links:  http://warisacrime.org/content/american-human-rights-groups-place-ad-spanish-newspaper-encouraging-prosecution-us-war-crimi
http://rootsaction.org/

More brilliance and prescience from Thomas Jefferson

“I hope we shall...crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

~Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan, November 12, 1816


Who knew this was a problem, all that long ago?

This applies, today, in so many different ways. It applies to our health care system and its problems, our taxes and taxation, their use of us, as a labor force, etc., etc.

What should have happened

I read in The New York Times today that now, even "good guys" (their term) like the AARP are ending contributions to their 401(k)'s, in an effort to cut costs.

This drives me crazy.

Years ago, there used to be pensions because, as we all know, people age and need something to retire on in their later, aged years.

Pretty complicated huh? (read sarcasm)

It was only fair and intelligent, for pity's sake.

We work at jobs for decades and, in return, it just made sense that responsible companies would put a bit of money aside--yes, from profits--for each employee so two things would develop.

First, the good employee would be rewarded for good work and encouraged to stay with the company. (We used to reward lonevity at firms).

Secondly, at the end of those decades of work, the associate would have money to take care of themselves in their old age.

But that was thousands of years ago, it seems.

Companies decided long ago that those pesky, "expensive" pensions were costs that had to be cut so they were, bit by bit, done away with.

That was bad enough.

At the time, the Federal Government should have stepped in, I believe, and required companies to maintain the pensions. It was good, too, for the country, so people had these saved nest eggs and could live on them in later life.

But naturally not.

Fortunately, someone came up with a 2nd-best idea and that was to start these 401(k)'s. The companies would get a tax deduction and the employee could contribute to them and voila'! While not as good for the employee as the pension, since half of it was usually paid for by the employee, at least there would be, again, something for that same employee to retire on.

But again, the ugly, voracious, self-eating "free markets" and capitalism come along, seeing a pot of money, one that it also views as an "unnecessary cost" and does away with it.

So now, in 2009 America, the worker--the old "salt of the Earth" we used to celebrate--is totally and completely, with the exception of the pittance of Social Security, alone and on his/her own. And that's assuming Social Security will survive, which most people assume it won't.

If you are one of the lucky few who have been able to keep a job, through good times and bad, and also been prescient and disciplined enough and able to save all your working career, you're okay.

Maybe.

Probably.

Possibly

If you stay lucky.

If, on the other hand, you've ever been let go from a job or had some expensive health care or other problem or just plainly weren't lucky and thrifty and extremely disciplined, all--you're screwed.

Too many Americans, frankly, down through the decades, have fallen into this last group, especially given the current financial crisis striking the US.

And that's why the US Federal Government should have held up expectations of its corporations, so we could further strengthened the entire society and for the long term.

Instead, all that corporate money just fattens the wallets of a select few lucky, conniving, shrewd, manipulative corporate titans who end up with hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars. All the while the middle class shrinks and people start doing without important basics like health care, insurance, food, in some cases, and more.

I'm sure some free market capitalist, Republican, conservative, right-winger would defend this barbaric, unbalanced, unfair, inadequate and, really, broken system.

I sure can't.

Link to story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/your-money/401ks-and-similar-plans/27money.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Et+tu%2C+AARP%3F&st=nyt

Good question

From Interest Rate Roundup Blog by Mike Larson, yesterday, as Fed Chairman Bernanke spoke:

"If loaning Treasuries and cash against hundreds of billions of dollars in lousy commercial and residential mortgage securities and other paper hasn't worked ... if agreeing to buy an unlimited amount of commercial paper hasn't done much ... if lending tens of billion of dollars to AIG hasn't stopped the market from worrying about the health of other insurers ... and if cutting the funds rate ALREADY -- from 5.25% to 2% -- hasn't worked, you have to wonder what cutting the funds rate even further toward zero would accomplish."

Read the full entry here:

http://interestrateroundup.blogspot.com/2008/10/bernanke-speech-focuses-on-economic.html

What, exactly, is going to turn things around, if anything? What will calm the world's markets?

Who knows? All we can do is stay tuned--and hope.
___________________________________________________
To end today, a riddle:

What do the international economies and Senator John McCain have in common?

Answer:

They're both tanking. (One's bad.)

Good news, with bad

Bad economic news today in the form of reports inflation is up the most in 27 years.
(Link here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080819/bs_nm/usa_fed_dc).

Thanks again, W, what with yer spendin' an' all.

That's going to be tough on the economy, for sure, and means the Fed will likely have to raise interest rates so we keep inflation in check.

On top of the already-occurring credit crisis, due to the housing loan meltdown, this will likely mean businesses and business could really get beat up.

No one might be able to afford very much.

The good news is that it the dollar will go up because interest rates will likely have to rise and oil may go further down, God willing. It's very likely.

But the overall effect may just be that we have less and less control over what, exactly, the economy is doing due to the string of events of the last 7 years that got us to this point. Hopefully we won't have any serious "stagflation" (stagnant, lackluster economy, mixed with out-of-control inflation).

And that, of course, is where the thanks to our glorious leader, "W", comes in, what with his war and spending and tax cuts for the wealthy and for oil companies and on and on.

Anyway, there's some good and bad, as with most everything in the world, in this news.

As for the banks, there's been some good news in the last 2 weeks, in that none were closed down and taken over by the FDIC on Friday evenings. My suspicion has been held off for a bit. Hopefully held off permanently.

But wait. News today from Reuters shows that the former head of the IMF says a "Large US bank collapse" is possibly (or is that "likely"?) ahead.
(original story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP21695020080819)

According to former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff, " 'The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come.'"

More: "'We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks,' said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004."

When you put the sharp rise in inflation together with this possibility--that the "worst is yet to come", it doesn't look pretty, does it?

Hopefully, Humpty, we can put all the pieces back together again.