The Pendulum of Economic Justice

First, the Oligarchs stole it from the Workers by diverting 95% of the value added by the Workers into the Oligarch's profits.  (I say that 10%-20% is plenty of a return on investment...not 80%-90%).  This is possible only with monolopy behavior supported by corrupt laws.

Then, the Workers took back a chunk of those profits (which...should have been the worker's in the first place) in the form of progressive taxation. (Although, this still doesn't mark a complete return of the stolen wealth to the Workers...but, instead to Government programs that benefit the Workers...a far cry from true self-control of resources.)

Then, the Oligarchs once again took back those profits they stole from the Workers with a government that does not represent the Will of The People through Gerrymandering, voter suppression and conservative court packing.

Billionares and Trillionares should not exist.  The only way for anyone to hoard that much wealth is by claiming resources that they did not produce themselves.

If we had a Living Wage and Just Profit Sharing, everyone would have all the resources they would need to thrive in whatever manner they choose for themselves.  

The Congress - A Delicate Balance Between Rural and Urban Inhabitants of America

The Senate was always designed to give additional weight to rural areas.  I think that was to make sure the the understandable economic strength of dense urban centers did not result in power being unbalanced to benefit citizens in cities.  

I think that is wise...unless the balance shifts too far giving rural voters too much power compared to the increased power for dense population centers.  This is very subjective.

This varies from the House, which (without Gerrymandering) would be an excellent body to represent The Will of The People.

The Congress is meant to represent The People and to Legislate by majority (with some additional weight in the Senate to rural voters, as mentioned for the above reason).

So, the Senate Filibuster and House Gerrymandering are two processes that destroy the intricate balance that our Founders built into Our Constitution.  If either are so supported by The People, they can be enshrined in Our Constitution by Amendment.

But short of that, either can be banned by a simple Majority of the Congress since neither the Filibuster nor Gerrymandering are protected in the Constitution.

Abolishing the Filibuster and Gerrymandering will not destroy the Constitution and our Country; it will restore it to its promise of a Government Of The People, By The People and For the People.

Some thoughts on Owners, Managers and Workers

Som thoughts on the above post...

Definitely not "elite".  But not quite Predatory.  There is a symbiotic relationship like the clown fish and the sea anemone.  Investors and Managers can do no business without Workers, and vice versa.  The interesting thing about business is many of the workers are also mangers, too.  But all three are different, critical roles.

The role of Owner is the Source of the Capital (either raw goods or funds to purchase raw goods) that is risked.  If the business fails to make sufficient sales, that Capital is lost.  If a business sells enough to pay back the cost of raw materials, wages of management and labor and for general overhead like rent and insurance, etc. then whatever is above that is profit...the return on investment.

If the Workers collectively provide the initial funds to start the business or periodically invest further, they are ALSO the Owners.  So, the Owner role is still present...just not separate from the Workers.

The same is true with Management.  If the Workers collectively through some sort of voting structure make all of the strategic decisions, then they are both Workers AND Managers.  But the role of decision making exists.

The Worker takes the raw materials and takes the action to alter them in some way to add value.  But they will.not know what actions to take unless some managers tells them what result is the goal of their actions. And...again...even if the Workers have a direct say in what those goals and actions are, the act of deciding what to do and doing what is decided are two different steps even if the same people are doing it.  The planning meeting from 6 AM to 7 AM when the collective plan gets decided upon is different from the work shift from 8 AM to Noon and then from 1 PM to 4 PM when the raw materials are altered and the goods/services produced.  

I say our system is not parasitic since there is SOME benefit for work...but it is so lopsided towards the Owner and Managers that in terms of looking for a greater solution, I agree that starting with that basic description does start the conversation in the right frame of mind.  I'd say it might as well a parasitic relationship, when it SHOULD be symbiotic where EVERY role benefits...Owner, Manager and Worker.

After the fires...we will build back better

Imagine your house is on fire.  The last Fire Chief took some sparks and sprayed kerosene on the flames making a bad situation worse.  When he got fired in November, the new Fire Chief stopped spraying kerosene and instead started spraying water, putting out the blaze. 

Now, picture the charred remains of the house...only the strongest structural components surviving.  Water damage is pervasive throughout. 

You and most of your family got out alive, but now its time to roll up your sleeves and start rebuilding.  But we don't want to rebuild to the old unsafe conditions that allowed the blaze to begin in the first place.

We will build back better.  But it will be a long road.  Our only comfort is we will rebuild together.

Free Market Saved By Unions

Some thoughts on the causes of Wage Stagnation inspired by the above post.

Wages stay the same because Owners compare salaries and benefits with other Owners.   In other words...Owners are Unionized.

True facts (like salaries and benefits) which, while supposedly are confidential, can never really be totally secret.   And that's fine...as long as the workers can Unionize, too.

The cost of materials is set by markets.  The sale price of good and services is set by the markets, too.  If owners and workers are unable to collectively negotiate the workers fight amongst themselves and the owner get the balance of what is left on the table.  That is WHY we have wealth and income inequality. 

A Free Market is self-equalizing.  It would either force employers to compete for laborers (labor share of profit goes up) or lower prices to increase their sales (owner share of profit goes down).  In either case, the wealth and income is more equitable and fair. 

Owners get rewarded for risk, and laborer get rewarded for value added.

A system of economics in which all or nearly all profits go to the Owner with little or no reward to the Laborers, is Fuedal Serfdom.  Not Free Market Capitalism.  I knowvit seems counter-intuitive, but if we had stronger Unions, we'd be closer to Free Market Capitalism. 

And the best part...is that government doesn't have a role in this at all.  If the government let's the Owners talk to Owners and the Workers talk to Workers, it all sorts itself out with the Invisible Hand of the Free Market.

Make America America Again

https://www.customink.com/fundraising/maaa

The thought popped into my head that blue baseball caps with the phrase,"Make America America Again" aught to be sold.

So you can imagine my surprise, when I Googled that phrase to see if anyone was selling them that I discovered a poem titled "Let America Be America Again" written in 1935 by American poet Langston Hughes. It was originally published in the July 1936 issue of Esquire Magazine. It was later republished in the 1937 to be read issue of Kansas Magazine and was revised and included in a small collection of Langston Hughes poems entitled A New Song, published by the International Workers Order in 1938. (According to Wikipedia.)

I found it pretty poignant. Here is the poem (found at https://m.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/let-america-be-america-again):

Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

45 - Day 50 (Friday, March 10, 2017)

Jobs Report

• The February jobs report saw 235,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate tick down to 4.7%. Quite a startling turnaround from the campaign when the candidate claimed the numbers were cooked. Asked about why they suddenly accept the numbers, Spicey said that the President told him that, "They may have been phony in the past, but they're real now."  They had a hearty chuckle...literally.

POTUS

• At a photo op ABC's Jonathan Karl repeatedly, and bluntly, asked the President what evidence he had of wiretapping. Other reporters asked about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn & his now-disclosed work for Turkey. The President didn’t answer and the press was quickly ushered out of the room.

Treasury

• Remember 2013 when the GOP threw a hissy fit and shut down the government because raising the debt ceiling was the worst thing that had ever happened in this country? Well Thursday Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin began taking “extraordinary measures” to delay the U.S. government from defaulting, and called on Congress to lift the debt ceiling. We’ll see how that turns out this time.

State Department

• Rex Tillerson is on his first major trip as secretary and his personal media blackout continues as the press were not taken along on the trip to Asia. When asked about this today, Spicey claimed it was “to save money.”

Media reimburse the government for the cost of their travel and lodging on trips. As CNN’s Jake Tapper said, “Not bringing press on a trip like that is unusual & insulting to any American who is looking for anything but a state-run version of events.”

• Further promoting the “State is sidelined by Bannon/Kushner” narrative, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray met senior White House aides without the State Department's knowledge.

• One win for common sense, in February Tillerson managed to keep the President under control when he complained that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act costs the United States billions of dollars in lost sales overseas and millions of jobs. The President literally was upset that we could not bribe foreign officials.

• Tillerson has recused himself from decisions related to the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Tillerson was previously the CEO of Exxon and a functioning KXL would raise the value of crude oil from Alberta, where Exxon has investments

Department of Education

• Secretary Betsy DeVos met with transgender students and their families today. They were hoping to persuade DeVos to do more to protect transgender students after the administration rolled back protections two weeks ago. They spoke about the violence, discrimination, and humiliation these children face and about the astronomical attempted suicide rate (41%).

Department of Justice

• Forty-six U.S. attorneys were ordered to resign today, all holdovers from the previous administration. Deputy U.S. attorneys, career officials of the DOJ, will act in their steads until replacements can be confirmed. In 1993, the Clinton administration fired all 93 United States attorneys on the same day. The firings came less than 24 hours after Fox News’ Sean Hannity called for a “purge” of Obama appointees at the Justice Department on his show.

Dumbasses

• Rep. Mike Kelly thinks that President Obama is staying in D.C. to run a shadow government.  65,844,95 voters wishes this were true.

HHS

• Scott Gottlieb is expected to be named Food and Drug Administration commissioner. He’s a fairly establishment Republican who wants to speed drug approval times and was a deputy FDA commissioner under President George W. Bush. Notably he has been a vocal critic of vaccine safety skeptics — a stance opposed to the rather anti-vax President.

Health Care

• Because of legislative rules, bills passed in the Senate via budget reconciliation (like TrumpCare) need only a simple majority and cannot be filibustered, as long as they have a direct impact on spending or tax levels. The TrumpCare/AHCA bill was written in a very specific way to address only those parts of the ACA that it could, under these rules. That’s why Phases 2 & 3 of the complete health care overhaul are coming later.

Some members of the GOP, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) & Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and vice chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), are suggesting that the party disregard the rules altogether. They are seeking to cram as much as possible into the bill and when the Senate parliamentarian rules them out of order, get Vice-President Pence, as the presiding officer of the Senate, to overrule her. According to Cruz, the law regulating reconciliation gives the power of deciding what is permissible in reconciliation to the presiding officer.

• A second bill will be coming to the floor when the AHCA does. This is presumably “Phase 3” and is the new legislation controlling the health insurance market. Among other things it will include a provision allowing people to buy insurance through association health plans. The chances of it passing are slim as it will need 18 Democrat votes to pass.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed Democratic lawmakers today, saying that the scoring of the health care plan by the Congressional Budget Office was necessary for a vote to move forward.

The Hill

• The completely bonkers H.R. 1313 passed the Workplace & Education Committee on a party-line 22-17 vote. It would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing and provide the same about their families and share it with their employer or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars. It gets around existing legislation preventing that very thing by making it “voluntary” part of a “workplace wellness” program.

Direct Action Report

• Today was the culmination of four days of protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the President as thousands of protesters and dozens of indigenous tribes marched through the streets of D.C.

• EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s phone has literally been ringing off the hook today with people bitching him out for not believing human-released CO2 is driving global warming. (Psst. It’s 202-564-4700) (Actually they have interns answering the phones now so be nice.)

Spicey Meatball

• The Press Secretary’s American flag pin was on upside down today during the briefing, a recognized symbol of distress. #SurrenderSpicey

• Broke a federal rule that prohibits executive branch employees from publicly commenting on principal economic indicators within one hour of release by tweeting about the jobs report 20 minutes after it was released.  The Reagan-era rule was to prevent commodity or financial markets from being affected. Asked about this, Spicey waved it off saying he doubted the markets would care.

Reminder that the White House refused ethics training as it did not “accurately reflect the current needs of the Presidential Transition Team.”

• Claimed that there was no way that at the time Mike Flynn was named National Security Advisor the President or anyone at all would have known that he was acting as a foreign agent.

OR everyone DID know, because on November 18, Rep. Elijah Cummings sent a letter to Vice President-Elect Mike Pence asking for information on Flynn’s conflicts of interests after a Politico story reported on his lobbying for Turkey.

This has been Day 50 in Trumpistan. Good night!