Kennedy, the Primaries, the Elites and Self-Government

I have been vacillating about posting on the Kennedy assassination.  I've wanted to, but it's been difficult getting my thoughts together on this one.

I read with interest the "where they were" posts by Digby and Charlie Pierce on this.  Both were in grade school.  I was four.  I don't remember hearing about the assassination itself.  I only remember the funeral - and even from that, the part I remember most is Black Jack:

It is one of those images that can sear itself into the mind of a 4-year-old and remain there for the rest of his life, no?

One of the themes of these posts (and many other) is the general sense that we really don't know what happened: the conspiracy theories are legion.

I remember in school when a professor I admired who had spent a lot of time in Europe said that nobody there believed the conclusions reached by the Warren Commission, and that the assassinations of the 1960s - he spoke of them collectively - were generally viewed as acts by powerful forces to prevent the government from moving further to the left.  I was actually kind of stunned when I heard this,

The Afghanistan Deal: Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Last week Robert Bateman had an excellent post on how the American Armed Forces are falling flat on their face:

There are four levels of war: tactical, operational, strategic (military and grand), and political. Although for very prudent reasons the US military only discusses the first three, as a historian I can definitively confirm the existence of the obvious fourth. 

 ... 

And at these last two levels is where America is falling flat on its face right now. 

He then goes on to cite several recent articles to illustrate the point he is making. Really excellent. Read the whole thing as they say.

But I responded in a comment by saying he really doesn't go far enough. My comment:

There is one more level - even higher - that you don't mention. And that is:
What are the "national interests" of the United States of America? How are they defined? What principles guide our relations with other nations? Who are our friends and who are our enemies, and why?

We consider ourselves champions of democracy yet, from Mossadegh to Allende to Chavez (not to mention the Palestinian elections in 2006), think nothing of ignoring them.

We consistently engage in human rights abuses that we condemn in others.

We arm islamic militants in some countries while waging war on them in others.

If there is some grand design in all of this, I can't fathom what it is.

You cannot set a rational military strategy without answering these questions, and in my entire lifetime I have never heard a coherent answer to any of them.

So now our government is considering entering into a 10-year status of forces agreement with Afghanistan.

Can somebody, please, explain to me what our national interests are, and how this agreement furthers them?

The Question Nobody Asks the Republicans on Health Care

I'm here watching Scott Walker talking on Morning Joe who mentioned, once again, the argument about letting people buy their insurance over state lines.  This has been a recurring meme now for awhile. Just google "buy health insurance over state lines" and you'll come up with literally hundreds of articles on the topic.

I found myself wishing somebody on the show would ask the most relevant question that arises in this context: would you support repealing the McCarron-Ferguson Act?

The main reason we have the state line problem is this Act.

Ask the question. Please.

The Destruction of our Public Schools Continues

Here we go again:

Obama Launches Competition to Revamp High Schools

This program was designed by IBM and is being run through the Department of Labor, which tells you all you need to know. It's about having the government train workers so businesses don't have to.

By the way, I hadn't really noticed until I read this article that the committee in the House of Representatives that deals with education matters is called the Education and Workforce Committee.

Again, this tells you all you need to know about how our government views education.....

Great: Another Energy Tax Incentive

An item that just came across the tax wires states that the Joint Committee on Taxation has just come out with their estimate of the revenue cost of the so-called "Master Limited Partnership Parity Act."  The cost is $1.3 billion over 10 years, according to the JCT.

The purpose of the act is to extend a tax break reserved for the fossil fuel industry to renewable energy as well.

I have a better idea.  Repeal the fossil fuel tax break.

Seriously, if you want to pursue an energy policy, fine.  If you want to spend money or renewable fuels, fine.

But there are better ways to encouraging this activity.

Stop doing it by cutting rich people's taxes.

Secular Stagnation: What the Real Problem Is

On Saturday Paul Krugman had a post where he discusses a talk given by Larry Summers on what is being called "secular stagnation."  It's generated an awful lot of buzz.  Here is Dean Baker's take on it.  And here is Yves Smith's take as well.

I honestly didn't read Krugman the way the Yves did - as in fact "celebrating" our current state of affairs.  I actually read his column as lamenting that state rather than celebrating it.

But I can see how she gets there, because PK dances around the real issue.  Dean Baker says very succinctly what Krugman (and Summers) won't say:  "The long and short of the matter is that secular stagnation is really a story of too much wealth."

I've actually believed this state of affairs has existed for quite some time.  I can remember when, during the tech bubble, I thought it was insane that stock prices were rising so rapidly, in a manner that was so disconnected to our economic conditions.  The only explanation I could come up with was that there was a huge demand for stocks, fed by large pools of capital that were being created through vehicles that allowed wealth to build up with no tax liability: pension plans, 401Ks, IRAs, tax-exempt organizations, and the like.

Am I crazy to think that negative real interest rates are simply a function of supply and demand?  That the reason why the returns on accumulated capital are so low is that the supply of that capital is so high?

Too much wealth.  The logical result of 30 years of supply-side economics dominating the landscape.

Keeping the Door Shut

Dan Crawford relates a John Steinbeck quote I had never heard before, but which is no doubt true: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

Which for some reason reminds me of this article I read yesterday in Business Insider.  The key point:

Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the U.S. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits. Most of those in the bottom half of the top 1% lack power and global flexibility and are essentially well-compensated workhorses for the top 0.5%, just like the bottom 99%. In my view, the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.

You know, I spent the vast bulk of my 30 year career as part of that cadre of well-compensated workhorses.  It was only in the last 10 or so of those years that I realized how destructive those top 0.5% are, and how I was aiding and abetting that destruction.

Every once in a while an opportunity drops into my lap and I have to consider whether or not I want to pursue it.  And there are many people in my life who think I should do so.  Certainly my life is a gigantic mess right now and, on the surface, it looks like vaulting myself back into the role of well-compensated workhorse would go a long way toward helping to clean it up. But I wonder how much of the mess I am in derives from my prior role as well-compensated workhorse to begin with.  But even further, why would I want to be a workhorse for a bunch of sociopaths who seem bent on destroying everything good in the world if that's what it takes to keep their hold on their wealth and power?

Read the whole Business Insider article. The writer's experience, and description of people who are in the power elite, is extraordinarily similar to mine. But I do wonder how that investment manager can continue to participate in what can only be described as a gigantic con on his fellow citizens.

Driftglass Nails It on the 60 Minutes Benghazi Matter (UPDATED)

An excerpt:

Lara Logan's contribution to the Great Wingnut Cause was finding them another Curveball -- another means of jumping their paranoid fantasies past the WorldNetDaily/FoxNews/Brietbart blood-brain barrier and into the American media mainstream, where it could stop being just one more chapter of cheap, wingnut stroke-mag fiction and finally start doing some real, impeachable damage to the Kenyan Usurper.

And as such, the real parallel here is not with Dan Rather, but with the coverage of the Iraq War.
You might remember it -- it was in all the papers.

For many years, Dubya's Excellent Iraqi Adventure gave the Right and the Center a free pass to do what they both love doing more than anything else: bashing the shit out of Liberals.  It was a free-fire zone where it was absolutely okey-dokey to slander Liberals anytime, anywhere as America-hating, terrorist-loving traitors and surrender monkeys.

This was the era during which screechy, basement-dwelling lunatics like Michele Malkin were allowed to blossom into Credible Media Pundits ...where even the most talentless grubworms could grab some fast cash and respectability publishing trash like "The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life"...and where David Brooks clawed his way up from his gig at Bill Kristol's "Weekly Standard" and into a job-for-life at the New York Times by gleefully pistol-whipping Liberals for insufficient patriotism.

....

And then it all went tits-up, so horribly that eventually all Cheney's horses and all Cheney's men working at peak efficiency could not continue to sell Operation Endless Clusterfuck as Mission Accomplished.

After which ... [what] happened is what always happens:

1. The Right got away with murder right up until their lies collapsed.
2. There was suddenly a real danger of people noticing that Liberals had been right all along.
3. The Center, which had been only too happy to go along with all the Hippie Punching, suddenly got very worried about Both Sides being so mean and shrill.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Jeez, CBS is really giving Fox a run for its money.  Charlie Pierce on its latest screw-up.

Hoocoodanode, indeed.

Tax Reform Redux

Here's the latest out of Washington on the prospects for tax reform:

House Republican leaders are worried about political damage if the party’s top tax writer releases a plan to revise the U.S. tax code and limit popular breaks, four House Republican aides said.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp wants to push legislation through his panel this year. The biggest changes since 1986 would raise taxes for many Americans while lowering them for others, creating a challenge for Republicans who don’t want a distraction from their attacks on the flawed rollout of President Barack Obama’s health-care law.

Camp, who wants to curtail tax breaks and lower rates, is scheduled to meet on Nov. 14 with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican. Other committee members, House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy also will be at the meeting, one of the aides said.

....

That aide said a potential worry is opposition from lawmakers outside the Ways and Means panel who are generally supportive of the concept without being steeped in the details and might object to ending specific tax breaks.

This is just another one of those things the Republicans just can't seem to do.  They say they want to cut spending but they don't want to specify any particular spending cuts.

Now they say they want to end tax breaks, but they don't want to say which ones.

I seriously doubt anything is going to come of this.

Another Obamacare Rant, With a Twist

There's been a lot of buzz today about Lori Gottlieb's rant in the NY Times, which is basically just another one of those rants by someone complaining that their insurance company cancelled their health insurance policy without actually checking whether or not they can actually get a better one under the ACA.  For a taste, here's Booman, Paul Waldman, and Dean Baker.

But my favorite has got to be Scott Lemieux, who notes this paragraph from Gottlieb's rant:

Like Bridget Jones’s “smug marrieds,” the “smug insureds” — friends who were covered through their own or spouses’ employers or who were grandfathered into their plans — asked why I didn’t “just” switch all of our long-term doctors, suck it up and pay an extra $200 a month for a restrictive network on the exchange, or marry the guy I’m dating. How romantic: “I didn’t marry you just to save money, honey. I married you for your provider network.”

 and points out that Gottlieb is best known as the author of this book:

I kid you not.

I still can't stop laughing.

The Stupidest F*cking Thing I've Read in Quite Awhile....

Digby has a post up on the latest rationale for allowing the NSA to continue sweeping up all of our personal information:

They argue that having the companies hold on to all our data instead of storing it in a huge government data base means that local and state authorities could use it more easily and that it would be accessed by shyster divorce lawyers and the like.

Patrick Kelley, the acting general counsel of the FBI, said the phone company data could be made available to "other levels of law enforcement enforcement from local, state and federal who want it for whatever law enforcement purposes they're authorized to obtain it." He also raised a frightening prospect: "Civil litigation could also seek to obtain it for such things as relatively mundane as divorce actions," he said. "Who's calling who with your spouse ... So if the data is kept only by the companies than I think the privacy considerations certainly warrants scrutiny."

 First, local law enforcement has to go through certain procedures to obtain this information.  They can't simple request it and boom it's there.  And local law enforcement certainly can't just tap into the phone conmpany's computers to get the info like the NSA can.

Second, civil litigation?  Are you kidding me?  I thought all financial records would be relevant in a divorce action, and phone records fall within this.  If I'm a party to a divorce action and I want to see my spouse's phone records, I can't imagine a set of circumstances where my spouse could withhold them from me.  And if they tried, yes I suppose I could subpoena the phone company, but seriously, there would be no basis for them to be kept secret from me.

If you don't want your spouse to know who you're on the phone with, don't get married.

But the real mind-blowing thing is that this guy somehow thinks that if the NSA scoops this stuff up, that means nobody else has access to it.  How the hell does that work?   Does the NSA erase it from the phone company's computers when they copy it?

WTF is this guy talking about?

Making My Blood Boil

I swear, when I read things like this it makes my blood boil:

Former US Comptroller General David Walker appeared on 60 Minutes back in July 2007. His message? Our country is suffering from a fiscal cancer far more dangerous than any external threat. The federal government is broke. It has promised entitlement benefits—health care in particular—that it cannot afford. While few economists disagreed with Walker's projections, politicians were unwilling to actually address the problem. From their standpoint, it's always better to push the problem off to a later date in the vain hope (or delusion) that it will simply disappear.

Walker eventually gave up trying to educate politicians and took his message straight to the people. The Wall Street Journal ;referred to him as "Chicken Little," and no one in Washington wanted to hear his doom-and-gloom message. After all, the economy was fine (remember, this was 2007). They either could not or would not see the problem. Walker was ignored.

Since then, the fiscal cancer Walker warned of has continued to grow. In July 2007, our national debt was $8.9 trillion. Six years later, it has nearly doubled to $16.7 trillion. The cancer has metastasized.

Look, the federal government is not broke.  It can always raise taxes to keep its promises.  The problem is that it refuses to do so.

In the 9 years prior to Ronald Reagan, federal income taxes (individual and corporate) averaged 10.8% of GDP.  In the last 9 years (through 2012), they averaged 9.2% of GDP.

That 1.6% difference would go a long way towards letting the government keep its promises.

It's not that the government can't keeps its promises.  It's that it won't.  The powers that be won't let it.

Just another tidbit:  for the same periods, payroll taxes - which are funded solely by taxes on wages (and for the most part don't apply to high wages (above $110,000 in 2012)) - averaged 5.5% of GDP in the pre-Reagan era, and 6.1% of GDP in the 9 years ending in 2012.  And wouldn't you know it, during that same period the share of GDP comprising wages and salaries - you know, the share going to working men and women - has shrunk by more than 48% to under 43%.

So working men and women are paying more in tax while their share of the pie has shrunk.  Which means, of course, that the affluent among us have seen their share of the economy grow while their share of the tax burden has shrunk.

And the affluent are the ones saying we can't afford to keep our promises.

I say BS.