Is it Possible Paul Ryan is Being Lied to?

I just heard an interview of congressman Paul Ryan on NPR. According to Mr. Ryan he has been all over his district talking to business owners, managers and other so called “job creators”. Evidently, Mr. Ryan has been politely inquiring as to why these job creators have not been creating any jobs. If we are to take Mr. Ryan at face value and assume he is accurately reporting what he was told, suspending any suspicion of the dubious coincidence that what he was told by these “job creators” just happens to fit exactly with his, and his party’s agenda, we still don’t know much.

Unsurprisingly, these particular “job creators” reported that the reason they could not or would not hire more workers and expand their operations, was because of the uncertainty created by the current regulation and taxation climate. Really? So, are we to believe that lack of demand for their goods or services has nothing to with it? Are we to believe that these supposed virtuous gamblers and risk takers have simply refused to go after potential profits, because they are too “uncertain” about how they will be taxed or regulated? Smells fishy to me.

I don’t mean to call the integrity of our business leaders into question, but I’ll just throw this out there. What if they are lying? What if they realize that the reason they can’t expand is because the current market will not support it? What if they are smart enough to realize that Mr. Ryan more than likely doesn’t understand our economic dilemma any better that they do, and is unlikely to be able to improve it? Is it possible that they are just taking a shot at lowering their taxes and improving the profitability of their concerns through deregulation?

Put yourself in the typical business owner’s shoes. Your business is down or at least stagnant. There is just simply not enough demand for what you do. Now, you have this politician in your office asking you why you are not creating jobs. You have a choice to make. You could tell him the real reason you can’t expand, which is that there is simply not enough demand. Or you could take a shot at lowering your tax and regulation burden so that when or if the economy recovers, most likely independently from any cockamamie tax or deregulation scheme, you can make more money, and make it more easily. Think about it.

Sanctimony = Occupy Wall Street Criticism

Sanctimony: Feigned piety or righteousness; hypocritical high-mindedness.

This word more than any other I can think of describes virtually every criticism I have seen of the Occupy Wall Street movement. All of a sudden, everyone is an economist and is absolutely certain that the Wall Street protesters cannot possibly have a valid point. It can’t possibly be that corporate interests have become too powerful in this country. It can’t possibly be that far too much control over far too many people’s lives has been seized by a privileged few. No, it has to be just a bunch of naïve, lazy, irresponsible hippies who just want everything handed to them.

I don’t know about you, but if the extent of my knowledge about economics came from the Rush Limbaugh show, I would keep my criticism to my self. Of course I would know deep down that I was right, but I would also know that more than likely one of those liberal college hippies would probably make me look pretty silly in debate. You know, with all that book learnin’ and everything. But, these are the first ones to speak up, and I am finding it hard to imagine why. I’ll take a stab at it though.

It has always seemed to me that one of humankind’s favorite things is to feel superior to others. I find it usually goes something like this. I may not be… fill in the blank, rich, educated, good looking etc., but at least I’m not…fill in another blank, on welfare, in bankruptcy etc. etc. This, it seems to me, is a game anyone can play–always good for a nice self-esteem boost. No matter your circumstances, you can always point to someone not thriving as well as you are.

No one wants to believe good fortune has anything to do with his or her situation. More than anything else, I think people want to believe they deserve to be where they are, and have what they have. The Occupy Wall Street movement is just another opportunity for that same old wise-dumb, call-it-like-I-see-it crowd to spout off about things of which they haven’t the foggiest understanding.

The reality is many of these people are hurting too. They’re just too proud or too simple to realize what has happened to them. Sad really.

Slap Your Troubles Away With the 999 Plan

Do you know how tax policy in the United States is made? Me neither. But, I've always assumed that policy makers do not just pick numbers for aesthetic reasons. I assumed that tax rates were not arrived at by the same method used to price QVC items. I mean, I doubt $19.99 is the exact optimal price for a Slap Chop, even when you throw in the free paring knife. We all know there is just a little psychology involved in the pricing of these things. I think the logic is probably something like this. $19.99 looks like it’s cheaper than $20.00 by more that just a penny, and if someone is willing to pay $17.00 for something, they are probably very nearly as willing to pay $19.99. I am not a marketing professional, but this all seems pretty obvious. Is this what the 999 thing is? Is Herman Cain trying to sell us a Slap Chop?

Let's think this through. What are the odds that after plugging data into three different methods designed to determine tax rates in three different domains of economic activity, each one would each spit out 9%? Surely, the method for determining business tax rates is different from the method used to determine income tax rates, or sales tax rates. And surely, different data from the economy would be used to plug into each system. How else would it be done?

Is there a thinking person in the entire universe that thinks Herman Cain used anything like a reasoned, economically sound approach to arrive at the 999 plan. Really, 9% across the board huh? What an unbelievable coincidence. And, isn’t handy how they all just happen to be the largest single digit number…9. I mean, it couldn’t have been the 678 plan, or the 12 21 13 plan? Oh yeah, sorry, that would just be stupid and arbitrary.

Come on folks, this is a masterpiece of asininity. You don’t have to know anything about anything to know the 999 plan is a ridiculous gimmick even QVC would be ashamed of. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a big fan of our current system either, but this is embarrassing.

Partiers and Occupiers: What’s the Difference?

Why is it that every time I turn on the news there is either some person wearing colonial garb with tea bags hanging form their hat, holding signs and shouting, or a group of hippies shaking tambourines, and holding signs and shouting? Why does every news program contain protest coverage of some sort? Why are these movements springing up everywhere? I submit to you that these groups are not as different as you may think. They are speaking out against the same problem, they just differ on their interpretation of the cause of the problem, and thus differ even more drastically on potential solutions to the problem. What’s the problem? In a word: powerlessness. People don’t take to the streets because they feel empowered to shape the world around them. People, who feel like they have a voice in the process that determines the kind society they live in, don’t have time to take to the streets. They have lives and things they would rather be doing. Contrary to what the media portrays, the majority of the folks involved in these movements are not extremist nuts. They are regular people who feel like their interests are not being represented in our government, or any of the other institutions that shape our society, public and private.

So, why now? What makes right now so different from ten years ago? There were no tea parties ten years ago, and the only people “occupying” Wall Street were financial professionals in the private sector and government regulators. Oh yeah, those last two groups, the private sector finance people and the government regulators, same people. Here is how it works. They all start out at a few top universities where they make friends and form alliances with each other. Then, they get recruited to Goldman Sachs or some other powerful financial institution, where they make obscene amounts of money, by either attempting to predict the unpredictable or by selling crap they don’t understand and reaping huge commissions-regardless of how the deal turns out for the investor. Once they are independently wealthy, it’s time for a little “public service” regulating their college buddies. This really is how it works, and this really is part of the problem. But, that’s a digression. We don’t even need to go there. In reality, tea partiers, occupiers, and other malcontents have always been around in one form or another, but as long as the system works for a great enough number of people, their cries are drowned out by the exhaust sounds of Hummers and WaveRunners. The noise of affluence is simply too loud for their voices to heard. Well guess what, it’s getting pretty fucking quiet these days. The silence is becoming so deafening it’s actually starting to wake people up, in numbers too large to ignore. Millions of people are waking up to the reality of their complete powerlessness. The lullaby of anarchocapitalism that sang us all to sleep as children is ringing more and more hollow every day. We were all taught that having a lot of extremely rich people makes everyone better off, right? Isn’t that how it goes? A rich, intelligent, superhuman built a skyscraper, and it helps the rest of us poor and dumb people, because it creates janitorial work. Otherwise, we would starve. Isn’t that about right? I mean, that’s what I thought when I was a kid.

The most ironic thing about all this is that I think it actually used to sort of work like that. I’m no historian, but from what I know of the history of the U.S., there was a time when the system worked for a lot more people. From what I can tell, the reason it was working for more people in those days was because they organized themselves and stopped allowing the powerful business government elite to completely dominate them. Collectively, poeple struggled for better pay and working conditions. They struggled for a forty-hour workweek. They struggled for the dignity of the worker. In essence, they struggled against modern day slavery. All of our lives, we have heard the argument that because the living standards of the poorest among us have risen, that is proof that that the top down, rich-and-powerful-rule-without-question, trickle-down system is the only way. On the surface, it seams to make sense. Any argument for labor rights or the dignity of the worker can easily be rebutted by any anarchocapitalist ideologue, by a sort of “you’re-lucky-to-have-a-job”, “don’t-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you” kind of argument. The only problem is that these days that hand isn’t feeding quite so many people, and a lot of people are tired of being trickled on by trickle-down economics.

The reality that many workers are awakening to is that if they are lucky enough to have employment, they are completely dominated by that employment. They have no choices and are completely powerless. They are modern day slaves. How does this happen? Well, you grow up. You go to school, and you get a job in some office somewhere. I say some office somewhere, because all those other types of jobs are virtually gone, and the ones that are left don’t pay enough to have any sort life for yourself, not to mention raise a family. You know those useless jobs like teacher, fireman, policeman etc. Well these office jobs are usually what we term exempt. They pay a set salary, and are as such, not subject to any real labor regulation. I guess back in the old days having a salaried position was more of the exception. Nowadays everyone is on salary or some type of temporary contract, which is even less subject to any type of regulation. So, you have a boss and you have co-workers, and that boss is allowed to expect anything under the sun from you. They can assign a years worth of work and expect it to be done it a month. They can hold you responsible for things totally out your control, and then ceaselessly reprimand you for not controlling them. They can hold you responsible for whatever they want and you can’t say a word, because if you do there is always someone willing take your shackles and wear them with pride. Offices become one giant competition to see who is the most pathetic, servile, sycophantic waste of human life. Who works at home the most? Who ignores their children the most? Whose relationships are the worst due to unshakable workplace stress brought home to the kitchen table or the bedroom? Yeah sure, living standards have increased, but by the destruction of actual human lives. What good is a higher standard of living if you don’t have a life! Anarchocapitalists will always say you have a choice. You can quit and work for a competitor where you may be treated better, or start your business, or whatever. The point is, they will tell you you have choices. Oh really, how many people out there with jobs right now feel like any of these are real options. Chances are your company has fired half its own employees already and the competition is not hiring. Start you own business? Are you freaking kidding me? How the fuck does anyone expect a mid-level business person to provide health insurance for his family, while he takes all that excess capital he’s been accumulating on 50K a year and invest it in a start up venture? What a joke.

There are no options for the middle class. You either sacrifice exactly the amount of your life required by your employer, or you get out of the way of those who are willing to sacrifice theirs. You see, the dirty little secret of all this supposed high standard of living is that you don’t actually get to live enough life to enjoy it. It’s an all or nothing proposition. If you make 100K a year working 80 hrs a week you can’t just decide to make 50K a year and only work 40 hrs a week. For some reason it just doesn’t work like that. It probably has something to do with it costing a company more to have two people doing what one overworked, overstressed worker who dies shortly after retirement can do. Anyone who is not independently wealthy and has to work for a living knows this is truly how it is. The modern worker cannot afford the luxury of dignity and integrity. There are no laws to protect them. If your boss wants you gone, your gone. The reason matters not. They might simply not like the look on your face. They might not like that you have ethics and don’t want to cheat or harm people. Everyone knows anyone can be fired for any reason. If a person’s boss wants to single them out and figure out something for which to hold them responsible, they can do it. The employee will always be seen as the wrongdoer; the one who is not living up to expectations. Who will come to the aid of the unfairly ousted worker in this day and age. The co-worker? Yeah right, they have families too. The union rep? Sorry, we don’t really have those anymore, and we really never did in office work. The state? Wrong again. The state knows that if it messes with business too much they will just relocate to a more chattel-friendly area. So, what you end up with is millions of people with no rights and no power, completely and utterly controlled by other human beings with no options and no way out. This is slavery, and people are starting to wake up.

The difference between tea partiers and occupiers is not in the pain they feel from modern day life, but in their interpretation of the cause of that pain and in their ideas for alleviation of that pain. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am taking a side. If you thought I was going to somehow equate the two movements and explain how they are both right in their own way, surprise! I think the tea party anarchocapitalists are fools and they have been tricked. They have been intentionally tricked by the business-government class into a sort of confusion between the problem and the solution. They bought into the oversimplified business as the engine of the economy argument and now they just won’t hear anything else. They have been convinced by hired gun propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity that the reason for our economic woes is too much regulation and restriction of this wonderfully powerful engine that would provide more than enough horsepower for everyone, if society would simply let the powerful business entities take complete control. The truth is that argument really does make a kind of sense. It’s not hard to see why people buy into it. As a matter of fact I actually like the analogy of business being the engine of the economy. Lets just think about that for a moment. Where do you find most engines? In cars, right? Out of everything that constitutes what a car is, what percentage of that would you say is the engine. 10, 15, 20 percent? The point is, a car has to have other things in order to function as a means of transportation, which is it’s ultimate purpose. It has to have seats, brakes, windows, tires, wheels, etc. We all see that, right? There is a reason we do not drive top fuel dragsters to work everyday. Yes, they have huge powerful engines that produce a lot of horsepower, but they really don’t accomplish transportation very well. A dragster only seats one person and its fuel economy is rated in gallons per mile. While it looks like a pretty bad ass ride for that one guy, it does nothing for anyone else, and it won’t even get out of site before it runs out of gas. Is it not perfectly obvious by now that we have a top fuel dragster economy? Is it not obvious that the people who own this economy are doing fine, while everyone else is either out of work or a slave to the work they have? It’s like this. You’re born. You live. And you die. It goes just that way for everyone, no exceptions. An economy is what we use for that middle part, the living, and it is not working for millions of people. I appreciate what the occupiers are doing and I think they are right. It’s time to turn this dragster into a Prius and let a few more people ride.