CLINTON ECONOMISTS: A STORM IS COMING

William Greider, The Nation

Economists from the Clinton era were once the biggest cheerleaders for free trade and pro-business policies -- but now economic uncertainties have them singing a different cheer. Following are a couple of quotes from the article:

Robert Rubin: "Prosperity has neither trickled down nor rippled outward. Between 1973 and 2003, real GDP per capita in the United States increased 73 percent, while real median hourly compensation rose only 13 percent."

Princeton economist Alan Blinder, a Hamilton participant and Federal Reserve vice chair in the Clinton years, describes the "difficulty" in more ominous terms: "I think the prospects for the liberal trade order are not great," he says. "There's a whole class of people who are smart, well educated and articulate, and politically involved who will not just sit there and take it" when their jobs are moved offshore. He thinks CNN commentator Lou Dobbs, who has built a populist following by attacking globalization and immigration, "is just the beginning -- nothing compared to what's going to happen in the future."

See the complete article at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/38981/ 

Why this, when it's not on political reform?

Because it is! Follow the money and you'll find money changing hands along the way. It demonstrates that even national security is up for grabs when politicians need private money for their elections. 

Oman Trade Pact Permits Foreign Ownership of U.S. Nat’l Security Assets

By David Sirota

In an explosive report tonight, top House Democrats discovered provisions in the controversial Oman Free Trade Agreement that would permit foreign ownership of U.S. ports and other key national security assets. Three Democrats and one Republican held an emergency press conference today to expose the provisions just before the House is scheduled to vote on the Oman pact on Thursday. As Reuters reports in the story attached, "Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who serves on the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, said the pact would allow companies such as Dubai Ports World to acquire U.S. port operations by establishing a shell company in Oman." Those provisions might also allow foreign ownership of other key national security assets, considering just after the recent Dubai Ports controversy, that country went ahead with plans to purchase a major U.S. defense contractor.

See the complete blog entry and this Washington Post article.

Tidbits

Molly Ivins: Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers.

Robert Reich: A Meager Recovery -- I don’t want to rain on the president’s parade. He’s right when he says more money is flowing into the Treasury this year than last, which means the federal budget deficit will be lower. Frankly I don’t blame the president for making the most of every bit of good news he can find. But it’s important to put this good news in context. This year’s federal budget deficit will still total between $280 and $300 billion. That’s better than the $318 billion hole that was expected. But it’s hardly cause for celebration. See the complete article here.

I get a kick out of pundits that brag that Bush's tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy, have proven to have increased total revenues and that we are much better off for it. We should all be ecstatic. But I would draw your attention to the Citizen's for Tax Justice report and especially the ones for each state. Note that the tax burden in Wisconsin has gone up for all categories except the top 1% of the population (the over-$1 million per year folks). The people who, incidentally, give all the campaign contributions! But then ask: if these tax reductions for the rich are so damned effective, can you imagine the growth of the economy if we eliminated ALL taxes for rich people? Make them zero; zip, nada! I don't think I could tolerate such happiness, knowing that my absorbing their share of taxes would do so much good for the economy. We should have done this long ago!!!

Bush himself is bragging that the US deficit is decreasing. Get this: When you give massive tax cuts to the rich, which are still moving forward, there are a number of ways to offset the effects. Among them: offsetting tax increases to the middle class and decreasing funds to Medicare (see item 3 above), Medicaid and services for the poor and unemployed. If that is what the right wing calls compassionate conservatism, I part ways with them on that issue.

I've written before about how corporate taxes are regressive, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy makes the same case for property taxes, which brings up the interesting possibility that the only fair system of taxation is zero corporate taxes, zero property taxes and only progressive taxes on income (all income, not just wages). See more here.

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More on CEO Pay (Thanks to Lee Drutman of Citizen Works for these links):

From www.WisOpinion.com

 7/18/2006

Reform Not on the Table; Politicians Must be Tossed

By Jack E. Lohman

The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.

Reform? Of course not. According to the FBI only 1,060 federal, state and local public officials were convicted in 2004 and 2005, and today the FBI task force has only a little more than 2000 active cases going. What with Wisconsin having only a half dozen of our once-finest politicians in various stages of conviction, sentencing or serving time in jail, those who are still free seem content to wait until things get worse before they fix the system.

But I'd say it is bad enough already, and the politicians not in jail had best fix things in a hurry, or they may soon find themselves outside of a job. We are seeing what happens to politicians that get caught in a system that they themselves have perpetuated. It's what happens when politicians don't want to face fair competition and potentially lose their jobs. They "fix" the system so others cannot compete.

The root cause is the privatization of our public electoral system. Pay-to-play has never been so rampant. Had we had full public funding of campaigns and a strong ethics commission five years ago, we would not even be discussing this issue today. Politicians would not be going to jail and Wisconsin would not be the third-highest taxed state in the nation. Our budgets would be balanced because $4 billion wouldn't be going to the fat cats each year for funding the elections.

Get this, guys and gals. There are only two types of money: public and private. The current electoral system demands the use of private money, and those who control that private money demand government favors in return! I've been a CEO; we don't spend money unless we get more in return than we gave.

But when I was a CEO, if I had an employee that gave away company assets in return for money on the side, I'd have him jailed. Politicians are very lucky in this regard; we just re-elect them.

Of course, the assembly Republicans scuttled all hope for ethics reform when it buried Senate Bill 1. Now they can only dish out the rhetoric preceding the November election. But ask them this: if you "really were" for reform, why did you kill it? Then watch them squirm. And ask Governor Doyle why he refuses to force a vote on it? Is he afraid that it might pass?

After SB1 should have been full public funding of campaigns. Spending $5 per taxpayer per year could fund the elections and eliminate the $1300 per taxpayer that goes to the special interests in the form of tax breaks, subsidies and no-bid contracts. That $5 would be a bargain at 200 times the price, but they killed that too.

The Republicans and most of the Democrats just don't get it. But that means the voters must now step in. It's called term limits on demand, and only the voters can play that game. There are a handful of good politicians, and you can see how yours is rated on www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. If they didn't get three A's, toss them. They are in this only for themselves.

Think about it. When the state legislature was cutting local services to balance the budget, they simultaneously increased the road construction budget by $70 million. Follow the money! And they won't implement a good universal health care system because health care interests gave politicians $1.4 million last year to keep things just as they are: profitable and limited.

We need a lot of reforms, but our current politicians won't make them happen:

· Voter-owned elections

· An independent ethics commission

· Independent redistricting

· Voting by mail with optical card readers

· Instant Runoff Voting (preferential voting)

· A none-of-the-above option

I particularly like the last one. Even if there is no challenger, if none-of-the-above wins, there must be a new election with none of the previous candidates participating. Let them eat cake.

Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate and founder of www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. He can be reached at jelohman@gmail.com.

Source: www.wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=4706

Give me a Break!

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Oh, sure.... http://www.mensa.org/workout2.php

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Quote for the day:  "A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: Duh." Conan O'Brien

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If you are interested in automated legal forms, like a power-of-attorney or living will, take a look at LawDepot.com. I do not know how this company makes its money or supports itself, so use the services at your own discretion. I am always nervous about "free" things.

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See 10 dumb things users do that can mess up their computers - The entry popup asks if you want to get their newsletter. Click on the  popup X unless you want to "join."

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The Neat Net Tricks technical support Bulletin Board is a group of 500 computer geeks and computer users that love to share troubles and fixes amongst them. It is free, though I have never posted a question to the board (I use www.experts-exchange.com, which is a $100 per year service).

___________________  No Blondes Allowed - Please move to section 7 if you are blonde.  _____________________

A blonde gets caught in a really bad hail storm. The hail is as big as tennis balls, and her car is covered with large dents. The next day, the blonde takes her car to the repair shop.

The shop owner, seeing she is blonde, decides to have a little fun. He tells her just to go home and blow into the tail pipe, really hard, and all the dents will just pop out.

The blonde drives home, gets out of the car, gets down on her hands and knees and starts blowing into the tail pipe. Nothing happened, so she blew a little harder; and still nothing happens. Meanwhile, her roommate, also a blonde, comes home and asks, "What in the world are you doing?"

The blonde car owner tells her how the repairman had instructed her to blow into the tailpipe in order to get all the hail dents to pop out.

Her blonde roommate rolls her eyes and says, "Hel-lOOOO! Don't you think you should roll up the windows first?

Book Recommendations

See other reviews on Amazon.com

Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas
by Lou Dobbs (ISBN: 0446577448)

Dobbs is a Republican with his eyes at least partially open — but Dobbs seems not to connect the dots to the moneyed interests, either in his book or on his TV show. He glosses over the fact that campaign contributions have bought our government's hands-off policy with regard to the companies that hire the immigrants to perpetuate low-wage jobs, thus fueling the border explosion. But I'll say what Dobbs often says and for which I agree; he is not against immigration, just illegal immigrants and our porous and unsecured borders. Dobbs, incidentally, is frequently named as a potential "center" presidential candidate on www.Unity08.com.