Control Your Controllables

One of my favorite economist reads, Paul Kedrosky, directed me to this image, which is from another excellent financial analysis blog done by Susan Woodward and Robert Hall. This is a comparison of labor numbers from now and 1981 rescaled to the size of today's labor force. Stunning. For those of you who, like me, were still in high school in 1981 - it was the biggest recession we have had in the US since the Great Depression. Not pretty. The graph shows us a partial image of how painful events are right now. Many people have lost homes, many are without work, and I have a feeling it is going to get worse before it gets better. There is a lot of suffering out there. I get a lot of calls from desperate people who are trying to put on a brave face. Sometimes I feel like I am barely hanging on to my life raft and folks are pulling on my legs to clamber on. In the midst of all this turmoil, with so much personal pain around me, how do I keep steady?

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Republicans Reveal Attitude Toward The Future

The rhetoric that accompanied Obama's election included much from the downsized Republicans about looking forward to working with the new president and coming to grips with national problems in the spirit of a fresh start. However, the stimulus package---which may well be too big---has forced the Republicans to declare themselves. We're hearing a lot about wanting more tax cuts---almost exclusively tax cuts---in lieu of spending in the form of direct aid. This is a Republican mantra now. Tax cuts. The question, of course, is really this: what good are tax cuts when you're already buried in debt? Granted, it frees up (theoretically) money for critical and immediate payments, but if the idea is to put people back to work tax cuts are not the solution. Because corporate America is mired in over-leveraged debt burdens that must be paid down before something mundane like hiring can happen. Tax cuts, therefore, won't have any kind of immediate impact on the jobless rate. In time it might, depending on several other factors, the most significant of which would be a newfound corporate sense of ethics which would prevent them from continuing the pillage of their own capital for all the things that have gotten us into this mess in the first place. Labor is at the bottom of the ladder of what they see as important---hence the tongue lashing Obama gave them for paying out bonuses while asking for federal aid. As for working people? What good does a tax cut do someone who isn't paying taxes because he or she has no income? But this was to be expected. It is an attitude born out of the mixed priorities of what has become the Right, one of which is fiscal responsibility (I used to support Republicans on this count) the other of which is the more Libertarian view (borne of the Grover Norquist faction) that government is always the problem and must be pruned back radically. Hence tax cuts, in order to curtail revenues in order to force the government to reduce its size and, one must realize, its influence.

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States don’t have to wait for stimulus payments

What with the Congress mulling over plans for stimulating the American economy, there is an even more critical role to be played by the states in delivering aid to those hardest hit by our current economic crisis. States are where the tires hit the road, and states can act much more efficiently and quickly to meet the specific demands of their citizens. Even after the states have taken action, Congress can support these actions with direct funding and augment the strained budgets the states face with declining tax revenues in our recessionary economy. I’ll use an example from Missouri. We have just elected a Democratic Governor after four years of a GOP Governor who spent his time giving tax breaks and favors to corporations and contributors and left the State of Missouri with a budget shortfall of over $300 million. We have a GOP lead legislature in both chambers of our bicameral legislature. So far, everyone has promised “bi-partisanship” and all are looking at ways to make up the differences in funding because Missouri, like all states, has to have a balanced budget. Regardless of responsibility for why revenues are down, the Governor apparently will have to cut the budget in the current fiscal year to make ends meet. I say apparently because of that pesky requirement we balance or budget each and every year. So how does a state government fully fund priorities when immediate cash revenues keep that from being done? Here’s how . . .

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"To restore science to its rightful place"

It's not that I'm infatuated with the words of Potus44, but Barack Obama's inaugural address (that I've already addressed) hit quite a few notable notes. One of which was the promise to "restore science to its rightful place". He also said,

"Promoting science isn't just about providing Resources-it's about protecting free and open inquiry... It's about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient - especially when it's inconvenient.

That's a breath of fresh air, indeed. But the real question and challenge will be: What exactly is this Rightful Place? The previous administration acted as though they believed that science belongs after political expedience and the Bible, not necessarily in that order. They fired or censored anyone whose carefully calculated conclusions disagreed with their prejudged opinions. It will be a long time cleaning up the resulting mess. Mike the Mad Biologist posted: To Restore Science to Its Rightful Place, We Need to Redefine Elitism. In brief, science is not easy to follow once you reach the discoveries of The Enlightenment and beyond. It takes a certain amount of education and dedication to know good science from pseudoscience. And this is anathema to American principle of Democratic Populism, the idea that all men are not only "created equal", but are in fact equal.

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Obama is Being Republican Lite

Lofty rhetoric aside, after the election dust has settled, President Barack Obama seems to be giving us “Republican Lite” in his proposed economic stimulus package which may go over $850 billion. The package includes some $300 billion in tax cuts and $100 billion in givebacks to big business and other large business tax breaks long sought after by the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. The plan seems to be a shill to allow for more Republican support in the US Senate where President Obama apparently fears a filibuster from a weakened GOP. GOP minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-TN.) has said the bill will likely be passed by mid-February. Former Senator Obama’s legislative centrist instincts have taken over.

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