Category: Red Flag

Head for the bunkers

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A Must Read

“If corporations and households taking in $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did back in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an additional $716 billion a year… the federal debt to investors would almost totally vanish over the next decade.”

From an article by Sam Pizzigati — Plutocracy: If Corporations and the Rich Paid 1960s-Level Taxes, the Debt Would Vanish

When everyone has a piece of the pie, you may have seconds. To whom more is given, more is expected. American corporations need to remember that they need to dance with the one that brought them, the US of A.

Our current political/economic crisis is not that hard a problem to solve.  We as a collective group should not let greed rule the day.  We are all in this together, lets act like it.  The American dream should not, must not include la noblesse.  Keep your Marquis and Vicomte where they belong, to history.

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The United States is in a Civil War

The United States of America is involved in a civil war.  Sadly, most of the population is not aware of the war raging around them.   It is a war for the heart and soul of America and the American dream.

On the left side of the Koch-Kennedy line are millions of ordinary folks.  They only want the chance to work, and to work at a decent wage.  They want to be able to raise families, pay their bills, get reasonable healthcare, and to not fear old age as a time poverty and sickness.  As a bonus they want to be able to have a savings so that they do not have to live paycheck to paycheck.  Ideally, there is enough money left over after this for some recreation.  Perhaps it is just me, but I do not see these as unreasonable desires.  There are roughly 280,000,000 folks that probably fit into this category, about 90% of our population.

On the right side of the Koch-Kennedy line Continue reading “The United States is in a Civil War”

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Illustration of Michael Moore’s Stat About Inequality

More conversation about the wealth gap in this country.

From the referenced article, “Michael Moore joined the demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin on March 6, and mentioned that the 400 richest Americans have more money than all of their 155,000,000 fellow citizens at the bottom of the pyramid combined.”  As much as I dislike Michael Moore personally, I have to agree with his positions on many things.

Here is another way to think about this number. The current USA population is 311,000,000 more or less. Half of that is pretty close to 155,000,000. So 400 people have as much wealth as 1/2 of the total US population. Mind boggling.

400 = 155,000,000.  I started to quip, “in what universe”.  I then realized it is in our universe.

This is one of most dramatic demonstrations of that concept I have seen. You have to strain hard to see the white dot that represents the rich among the sea of “commoners”. Call me a socialist, but nobody needs or should be that rich. I’m back on the one pie analogy. In order to have an over sized piece of pie you have to take some from someone else’s piece of pie. Or in this case a bunch of someones.

Link was not longer valid….sorry

What really slays me is that our politicians seem to be on a tear to make these folks richer.  Call me old school, but I firmly believe that to whom that more is given, more is expected.

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Support America — Boycott Koch Brothers Products

The Koch brothers are the billionaire financiers of the Tea Party and other extreme Right political interest groups. They have one interest that is summed up as greed. Apparently they are not rich enough, and want more of the one pie we all share.

Here is an excellent article detailing the practices of the these two that hurt all Americans who are not  Kochs.  I am thnking that is a pretty big group. How Koch Industries Makes Billions Corrupting Government

If you prefer your information in a more audio-visual format scroll to the bottom of this Rachel Maddow article. You can watch a segment of her show that was about the Koch brothers. — Rachel Maddow: Koch Brothers ‘Pop Up In Every Scummy Political Scandal’

One small thing we can all do is boycott products produced by companies owned by these greedy bastards. If you think it does not matter remember that in our society dollars are votes. The Koch brothers just have a ton of votes. Here is a partial list from AlterNet.org article, How You Can Boycott the Kochs

It includes such things as: 

  • Angel Soft toilet paper
  • Brawny paper towels
  • Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
  • Mardi Gras napkins and towels
  • Quilted Northern toilet paper
  • Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper
  • Sparkle napkins
  • Vanity fair napkins
  • Zee napkins
  • The article goes on to detail building products we are not likely to encounter in our everyday shopping, but if you know a liberal contractor…

We have to start fighting back in every small way we can.  It seems to me the greedy and crazies have gotten hold of our government and economic systems. 

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One Pie, 9 Pieces to the Rich, 1 Piece for the Rest of Us

And this folks is why I am so disillusioned and angry at the Right and our buffoons in Congress…

This chart is all over the Internet.  To me numbers seem to ring true, but I really do not know.  Best I could find out this is the original article from whence this chart came.  Note: Original article is no longer available.

Right now, I am buying the figures.

   Programs at risk vs Tax breaks for the wealthy

Click on image to get a more readable size

Random thought…I used to have to go to the downtown area of any major city to see crazy, psychotic people wondering around. Now days all I have to do is turn on CSPAN.

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Have You Hugged A Teacher Lately?

For a nation concerned with being competitive with the rest of the world we are doing all we can do to gut that competitiveness by gutting education. We refuse to tax those who could afford it, instead we want to gut, gut, and gut a little more in all pursuit of of some idealogical fantansy.

Having dated a school teacher for the last 3 years, I am not sure why anyone stays in the professional. I understand the burn out rate early in the career is high. I’m sure folks get into teaching for many reasons, and I know for many that reason is a need for a socially significant profession. We should reward folks for these occupation.

From what I hear teaching has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. Plus teaching has become an exercise in teaching to standardized tests.

Below is a link to an excellent article and retro video about this issue.

Have You Hugged A Teacher Lately?

If you do a Google search on Teacher Burnout, I came up with close to 200,000 hits.

A couple of interesting quotes from the article:

“Nearly half of all teachers quit during their first five years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but the numbers alone don’t convey the full severity of the problem.”

“It is often the best qualified teachers who leave first because they have the easiest time finding employment in other fields.”

Yet there is a group of politicians (and citizens) trying to make them the scapegoat for our financial problems.  Shame on them.

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No More Teddy Bears

No more candle light vigils.  No more piles of teddy bears.  No more stacks of flowers.  No more fences covered with ribbons.  No more platitudes or speeches of remembrance.  We react compassionately to tragic events after the fact.  They fade from memory and we fail to act to prevent the next one.

There were probably a multitude of factors that collided in the Tucson shooting that left 6 dead and many more wounded.

First, it is much, much too easy to get guns in this country.  I read recently that there are 85 guns for every 100 people in the US.  If they were evenly distributed that would be almost be a gun for every man, woman and child in the US.

Secondly, access to health care in this country is atrocious Continue reading “No More Teddy Bears”

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Wealth Inequality = Social Problems

Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times Equality, a True Soul Food

He is summarizing a British report on the societal effects of wealth inequality. Currently in America “the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans possess a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent.”  I do not understand why everyone, except the 1%, is not shocked and up in arms over this fact.  But that is me.

The basic premise of the study, backed up by tons of data is this.  With great wealth inequality you create a wide variety of personal and social stressors.  There are increases in crime, Continue reading “Wealth Inequality = Social Problems”

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Ace Hardware — Hip Hip Hooray

After about 3 weeks of casually looking when I was in a store anyway, I found a pair of gloves for yard work. “Big deal”, you say. Yes, because my primary criteron was to find a pair not made in China. I had checked all the usual suspects, China*Mart, the China*Mart want-to-be Lowe’s, etc. Every pair of gloves I picked had been manufactured in China.

I was close to an Ace Hardware store Sunday, so I decided to buzz in and see what they had in the work glove department. I picked up several pair, and they were identified as having been made in Pakistan. While this is not American made, I had decided that I would not be able to find a pair of American made work gloves and would settle for a pair made anywhere but China.

I am 100% sure that Pakistan needs the work much more than China. Having worked for a large retailer I know that they make a show of making sure their products are manufactured in factories with some modicum of humane treatment. I can only hope Ace Hardware does this too.

I bought them. Thanks Ace Hardware.

See I Want to Buy American

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I Want to Buy American

I was in Lowe’s the other day.   The fact that it was Lowe’s is only incidental.  It could have been any of the many big box store chains that dot Generica.

They provided to me a pretty clear snapshot of the some issues that are troubling me about American business.  It all seems to boil down to corporations being willing to sell out this country because they are more concerned about the quarterly profit statement and executive pay than anything else.

My first observation is that Spanish is nearly as prominent in the store as English.  The lettering was not quite as big as the English, but it was only a small percentage less so. Continue reading “I Want to Buy American”