A Rising Tide

"A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats".

The 'Rising Tide' in this famous metaphor is the U.S. economy, and supposedly, as the economic tide rolls in all ships will rise with it, whether you own a mega yacht or a little dinghy.

a Little Dinghy is what you would have to be to believe this. An incoming tide breaks on your head if you don't have a boat, and outright drowns you if you're anchored to the ocean floor.

Also known as 'Trickle Down', the 'save the wealthy' theory says that if we all make sure the richest among us stay rich and make most of the money, they will be so generous as to build factories and invest in businesses and perhaps give us a job.

Is it too much to ask that after a session of  'trickle down', they could at least 'wash their hands before returning to work' us over again?

Speaking truth to the power of this metaphorical mantra of millionaires is the chart comparing worker productivity against wages. As is apparent even with a quick glance, as productivity has risen year afte year, and the economy grew throughout the 1980s,1990s and 2000s, wages stayed flat, to the point where the middle class is making less money than they did 30 years ago, once inflation is taken into account.

Despite record-breaking profits due to the combination of more productive workers, increased efficiencies and favorable regulations for businesses,  wages dropped and benefits were removed year after year, and slowly but surely the 2-car garage was replaced by a 2-job barrage of difficulties for the middle class.

Some will argue that 're-distribution of wealth' is something we ought to avoid.  However, as Robert Reich shows in his new book "After Shock", we have already been in a phase of 're-distribution of income' for three decades, as the nation's wealth has been more and more concentrated amongst fewer and fewer people.

Leaving aside the morality of greed vs the benefits of 'Social Darwinism', the real problem with this trend is the effect on the economy. When the Middle Class no longer has the means to raise their lifestyle, the 'Demand' side of the free-market is stifled. This is the problem with 'Supply-Side' economics and it's largely what's wrong with our economy right now.  The people who would normally spend money purchasing flat-screen TVs, i-Pads, 4g-phones and such simply do not have enough money to do so. When the Demand side dries up, the Supply side soon follows, and workers are laid off and investment money sits waiting for a more favorable business climate. When ther eis a Demand, businesses will invest and work to increase Supply to meet that Demand.

Without Demand, the Free-Market system of "Supply and Demand" grinds to a halt.

Henry Ford recognized this way back in 1914, when he began paying his factory workers $5 per day, roughly three times what comparable workers were making elsewhere. His reason? They could then afford to buy his products. Ford's cunning business move was soon vindicated. His Model T, priced at $375, was then within reach of the middle class workers he employed. By paying them higher wages, he turned them into consumers and customers, and Ford's profits more than doubled from $25 million in 1914 to $57 million two years later.

Today, the share of the national income taken by the top 1% is close to 25%, and the top 10% receives a whopping 40% of our overall wealth.  That leaves the rest of the population with fewer and fewer dollars to spend, and has crushed the Demand side of the free-market.

At first, the once-strong American Middle Class was able to cope with stagnating wages by three basic strategies; women moving into the workforce; everyone putting in more and more hours at work; and people spending their savings and borrowing money, a large part of which was secured by their mortgages.

Those were all temporary strategies however,  and with the crashing of the housing bubble, have now all been 'maxed-out' and are no longer available. This is the point where the business cycle really starts to stop, a stagnation caused by a 30-year transfer of wealth from the bottom up.

Not coincidentally, there was also a huge transfer of wealth to the top income brackets in America in the years right before the Great Depression, roughly from 1923 - 1928. This led directly to, well, the Great Depression.

An earlier era eerily emulated eighty years later as the economic engine was eaten by The Great Recession (Hey, don't laugh! I was gonna say she stopped selling sea shells by the seashore 'cause consumers ran out of cash, credit and clams). Ahem.

Anyway, take a look at this chart showing the percentage of income held by the top 1 % during the past century.

Notice the big 'dip' in the middle?    In "After Shock" Reich refers to this period after World War II as "The Great Prosperity". During this time the USA had a more even distribution of wealth, and yet in the middle of the century the American economy was far more successful than at either end. You might notice that this is also the time that people tend to remember as "how great America used to be". They often argue that we need to reduce taxes in order to return to those successful 'good old days'.   The facts, however, show that the opposite is true, as the next chart will clearly prove.

During this time of prosperity, tax rates on the upper income levels rose to as high as 91%!!

 

 Did those ridiculously high tax rates squash productivity? Investments? Jobs?  Not at all. 

This bit of history completely crushes the contention that we can't raise taxes on wealthy people for fear of hurting our economy.

What these charts clearly reveal to us is that just before both the Great Depression and the Great Recession, as the top earners were taking a larger and larger share of the American Pie, they were also giving less back through lower and lower tax rates. The result of that was a huge imbalance of wealth leading to catastrophic failure of the financial system. Twice.

Now, one doesn't have to advocate returning to the outrageous tax rates of the war and post-war years to understand that America does better with a more even distribution of wealth.

This is one of the problems with modern politics by the way, as virtually every issue that ought to be discussed using evidence and common sense is instead demagogue'd to the lowest possible result, such that anyone calling for higher taxes on the wealthy is decried as a 'socialist" or some such nonsense. 

This refusal to use evidence as the basis for rational discussion of our problems has led to the current morass in our wildly unpopular Congress. At least being unpopular is bi-partisan.

Leaving aside our Latin friends reductio ad absurdum and argumentum ad hominem tactics for the moment, the facts clearly show us that America performs better when there is more of a balance in the share of income received by all Americans.

 

This is not a new realization. The term "American Dream", although nowadays thought to refer to something like "with hard work, anyone can rise to the top",  when originally coined by historian James Adams really meant "a better, richer, happier life for all our citizens of every rank".

"A better, richer, happier life for all our citizens, of every rank".

All of our citizens.  Of Every rank.

The American Dream has been cut in two, as the better, richer, happier life is increasingly more difficult to obtain except for those already in the top income brackets.  The tacit agreement that when labor performs well and businesses make a profit,  both would share in the rewards of that success, has been broken.

Middle Class Americans have not been spending too much money and saving too little, they haven't been immorally wasting time chasing unaffordable luxuries, and they certainly haven't been lazy.  The reality is that our workers have increased productivity and have been working longer and longer hours, but they haven't been receiving the benefits that are supposed to come with that success.

Henry Ford understood what Robert Reich calls the "Basic Bargain" which lays at the heart of a modern, highly productive economy. Workers are also consumers, their earnings are continuously recycled to buy the goods and services other workers produce. If earnings are inadequate, the economy produces more goods and services than it's people are capable of purchasing, leading directly to job losses and economic stagnation.

Consider for a moment how income inequality stops the flow of money through our society. If one person receives $100 million dollars in one year (as did Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America in 2007, as he led them to financial collapse and eventual absorption by Merril-Lynch),  they can't possibly spend it.  Without a strong business climate, it doesn't get invested in new business either. Take that same $100 million and divide it amongst 2,000 people, each receiving $50,000, which is close to the median income. They will spend all or most all of that money in a single year, providing the necessary fuel for our economic engine to continue chugging along, delivering it's cargo of  prosperity to everyone. The American Dream.

All of this ought to lead us to the conclusion that the path to restoring America to her former glory days, the so-called Great Prosperity",  is simple. Raise taxes reasonably on the wealthiest income brackets, while ensuring that government spending is aimed towards investing in growth and job creation, and providing a safety net so our population can weather slumps in the growth cycle. The combination of revenue enhancement and investment spending leads to balanced budgets and growth, as we saw during the Clinton years.

Factual information like this also ought to alert us to the fallacy of the cries of the 'don't tax the job creators' crowd, because as facts show us, the true job creators are the American people, living the American Dream. 

Our metaphorical middle class catamarans ride the swells of the economic ocean on the twin hulls of jobs and fair wages.  When we all share in the rewards from our hard work and increased productivity, Port and Starboard together, we shall keep the American economy riding atop the waves of commerce on an even keel, through sun or stormy weather, gliding full sail with the wind at our backs towards the dawn of our country's bright future.

At that point, then yes indeed, a Rising Tide will lift all of us.

Why we need to re-elect Barak Obama Part 2.

In Part One of "Why we need to re-elect Barak Obama"  I discussed legislation such as Voter I.D. Laws. Gerrymandering of Congressional Districts, "Personhood" Amendments, and Anti-Union Laws, all of which are issues that the Tea Party/GOP has been putting into place since they came to power in 2010.  I noted that these issues have nothing to do with fiscal responsibility, a smaller government or making America a better country, and how they support the claim that we should re-elect President Obama.

My last post also argued for re-electing our President, as it showed how historically the Democrats have performed better than the GOP in fiscal responsibility when they have been in the Oval Office.

This column will look at President Obama's performance in managing the economic recovery since he took office.

Among other claims, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been accusing the President of "failing", and of "making the economy worse".

Is he telling the truth?

How HAS President Obama done?

Has the economy improved since he took over from President Bush, or is it worse?

First, let's start by looking at the change in GDP from the last year of Bush's second term, compared to Obama's first three years

OK, so GDP is back on a positive track. That's growth. Perhaps it's not as high as we might like it, but as we will see in the next chart, the reason is that we have also been cutting government spending instead of investing in growth. This has been true for every recession in the past half-century, and is the proven response to recovery from a recession.  Here is a chart which illustrates the point, comparing spending during the 'Reagan Recovery' with government spending under Obama.

 

The blue line shows how spending went up right as President Obama took office, (a legacy of the Bush Administration's last budget)  and before Obama's budget went into effect. Once it did, spending started coming down.

 

From these two charts we can see that the economy IS improving,  and that the reason the improvement is slower than we might like is that the government is not investing money to stimulate the economy.

But what about the stimulus money we already spent? Did it work?  Here are three different analysts' opinions:

 So the answer appears to be yes, the stimulus worked as intended. Although it stopped us from falling into a full depression,  it was simply too small for the size of the problem to spur economic growth. 

But what about jobs? It seems like the unemployment rate is still too high. Are we creating any jobs?

So far as job creation goes, it appears that after a few months of 'reduced job losses' immediately after Obama took office, we moved into positive job creation in 2009 and we have since had 27 months of positive job growth.

The economic indicators presented here show that Mitt Romney is making false claims, that in fact President Obama is doing a good job bringing the U.S. economy back after the worst recession we have had since the Great Depression.

Along with the issues that the Tea Party Republicans have shown to be their top priorities, and the half-century of superior economic performance by Democratic Administrations in the White House,  the economic facts presented here clearly show that President Obama deserves a second term.

Fiscal Conservatives. Who Knew?

I came across an article at slate.com, with some surprising statistics, showing how well the country has done under Democratic vs Republican administrations in eight economic categories. These cover the period from 1960-2006 (and so don't include the economic collapse of  2008).

These facts will probably surprise many people, because they run  counter to most people’s opinions about the two parties regarding fiscal competence and managing the economy.

From writer Michael Kinsley:

"The figures below are all from the Annual Economic Report of the President (2008), and the analysis is primitive. Nevertheless, what these numbers show, almost beyond doubt, is that Democrats are better at virtually every economic task that is important to Republicans."

"On average, in years when the president is a Democrat, the economy grows faster; inflation is lower; fewer people can't find a job; the federal government spends a smaller share of GDP, whether or not you include defense spending; and the deficit is lower (or—sweet Clinton-years memory—the surplus is higher). The one category that Republicans win is, unsurprisingly, federal taxes as a share of GDP. But it is no trick to lower taxes if you don't lower spending".

1.  GDP  % change (growth)                             Democrats are over 1% better for growth

      Democrats              4.09

      Republicans            2.94

     

2.  Inflation                                                       Inflation is less under Democrats

      Democrats             3.81

      Republicans           4.50

3.  Unemployment                                           Unemployment is lower under Democrats

      Democrats             5.33

      Republicans           6.21

     

4.  Federal Taxes                                             Republicans have less than .5% lower taxes

      Democrats              18.40

      Republicans            17.97

     

5.  Federal Spending                                     Democrats spend over 1% less!  "Tax and Spend Liberals?"   No.

      Democrats              19.60

      Republicans            20.67

     

6.  Deficit                                                       The deficit is over 1.5% less under Democrats!

      Democrats              -1.21

      Republicans            -2.70

     

7.  Defense Spending                                    This one is close, but Democrats spend more on defense, not less.

      Democrats               5.83

      Republicans             5.71

     

8.  Non-Defense Spending                            But for overall spending, Democrats spend less!

      Democrats               13.77

      Republicans            14.96

    
(end of article)

Wow.

It should be noted that there are many factors involved in these results, not the least of which is the makeup of the House and Senate in any particular term.

However, when considering only whether the country has done better with a Republican or a Democrat in office, the results have been totally one-sided in favor of the Democrats, who have proved much better at managing the economy, as well as following the 'conservative principles' of reduced spending and smaller government.

Of course, people don't always vote in concordance with their stated beliefs, and so these results probably won't sway many people who believe the GOP is the party of 'fiscal responsibility' regardless of what the economic statistics show. The term "Cognitive Dissonance" is used to describe the situation when a person holds two or more views that are inconsistent with each other, and we clearly see a good deal of cognitive dissonance in politics, and there's no reason to think this issue will prove any different.

While there may be other legitimate reasons for supporting the GOP, clearly lowering spending, reducing the deficit and increasing growth cannot be among them, as the Democrats have been a full percentage point better at all three.

Although we should remember that correlation does not prove causation, these statistics include a long enough time span and are so solidly in favor of the Democrats, it isn't a fluke or a 'cherry-picked' analysis.  I did not include Mr. Kinsley's chart showing the results if you add a one-year 'buffer' assuming it takes a President a year to put his policies in place, but they show the same results.

These satistics add weight to Rick Santorum's argument that social policy should be the focus of the Republican platform, in that historically the Democrats have now been shown to be better at the managing the economy.  Including the two most recent terms isn't going to alter these figures, President Obama has done a far better job in his three years than President Bush did in his second term (I will be presenting the evidence for this claim in future columns, but considering Bush's second term included the worst recession since the Great Depression, it's not really a difficult claim to prove).

So next time you're sitting around the dinner table, or hanging out at the proverbial water cooler at work, when your favorite Republican brings up the issue of outrageous spending by the Democrats, bust out your iphone and dial up some facts. At least the discussion can then revolve around some evidence rather than the very pervasive myth of Republican superiority in this department.


reference:  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/readme/2008/09/politicians_lie_numbers_dont.html

The Dignity of Work

Hilary Rosen caused a huge stir recently when  she said that it was wrong for Mitt Romney to be using his wife Ann as his guide to women's economic struggles, because she "had never worked a day in her life."

Mitt Romney and the Republicans were quick to jump on that remark as a way to attack President Obama, despite the fact that Hilary Rosen isn't affiliated with either the President, his campaign nor the Democratic National Party.

It was an unfortunately myopic comment by Ms. Rosen, in that pretty much everyone agrees raising children is indeed hard work, and as a Democratic supporter she should have known it was also the type of comment which can ignite a firestorm of negative publicity, which it did.

So Romney scored some points in trying to close the 'gender gap', as polls were showing President Obama with around an 18% point lead amongst women voters.

The disparity in support by women was largely due to Romney's backing of the GOP's so-called 'war on women', so named because the policies pushed by the GOP strip women of basic rights over their own bodies, including not only abortion, but also contraception, various types of pre-natal treatment and a host of other rights, such as equal pay for women than for men doing the exact same jobs..  The GOP also has been working to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, Head Start and a variety of other programs that millions of women and their families rely upon for basic heath care needs.

So chalk up a small win for Romney in the publicity battle, though a comment by a random Democrat not connected to the President over whether 'stay at home' Moms are "working" doesn't really compare to the GOP's sustained support of policies that increase economic hardships for millions of less fortunate women.

Recently, Mitt Romney illustrated how phony his 'indignation' over Hilary Rosen's comment really is.  In talking about his plans for welfare reform, Romney said "even if you have a child two years of age, you need to go to work".   He followed that up by saying “I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.”

This begs the question, 'if a poor mother who receives benefits in order to take care of her children needs to go outside the home to "have the dignity of work”, why doesn't Ann Romney also need to go get a job in order to enjoy that same "dignity"?

If raising children is "work", then poor women receiving welfare and raising their children are already "working". If Ann Romney is a "hero to Moms" for staying home and taking care of her kids, why isn't the same true for poor mothers?

Hypocrisy, writ large. 


It should be noted that Hilary Rosen made her comment in the context of saying that Ann Romney isn't the best person to consult on the economic situation of working mothers, as she has enough money to make the choice to stay at home with her children, and hasn't been a member of the 'outside work force'.

So in context, Hilary Rosen was correct. Ann Romney doesn't have to go outside the home and get a job for pay, and has no economic need whatsoever, so she isn't the best person to give advice on the struggles of women who do.


While it's certainly true that Ann Romney has had to put in a great deal of effort to raise five children, pointing out that she hasn't had to get a job outside the home shouldn't be controversial in any way.

The supposed 'controversy' arises over the meaning of the word 'work'. Hilary Rosen used it to mean "work outside the home at a job", while the Republicans so 'outraged' over her comment are using it to mean "put in a great deal of effort".

No matter your beliefs about our society helping those least fortunate, such as children born into poverty, if a wealthy woman is 'working' when she stays at home to raise her children, so is a poor woman.

And the same level of 'dignity' should accrue to a poor mother staying home to raise her children as it does to a wealthy mother doing the same.

In the end, "dignity" isn't the benefit most women, or men for that matter, are looking for when they go to work.

It's the money.

"Hey buddy, loan me a job?'

I take great issue with the term 'job creators' being used for wealthy people.

'Job Creators' may be wealthy, or they may not be wealthy. On the other hand, wealthy people may create jobs, or they may not create jobs.

The claim that "we can't tax the job creators" was first enunciated by President Bush II when discussing "The Bush Tax Cuts".  Mr. Bush recently weighed is on that moniker, memorably saying “I wish they weren't called the Bush tax cuts, if they were called some other body's tax cuts, they're probably less likely to be raised.”  Precisely.

Regardless of whether we're disussing the Ryan budget or the 'G-W' tax cuts,  the idea that 'sending money' to wealthy people via lower tax rates or deductions will spur job growth or stimulate the economy is highly suspect.

First, the evidence clearly suggests otherwise. We cut taxes dramatically during the Bush years, yet even before the recession started we had very anemic job growth. The ongoing lower tax rates didn't manifest themselves in either higher job growth, nor increased government revenue from the supposed 'stimulus' to the economy.

Simply put, we tried it and it didn't work.

Second, logic should indicate the folly of this line of reasoning. Wealthy people already have money. If they want to 'create jobs' (which essentially means investing in companies via the stock market or venture capitalism), they can do so at any time.

Making the claim that they will do so only if they get lower tax rates is to assume that they use the tax rate as a primary indicator of whether or not to invest. While a favorable tax situation is certainly one of the factors, the primary incentive to invest is whether or not they will make a profit.

No level of taxation will spur someone to invest if they don't make a profit (leaving aside exotic investment tricks, or buying a company in order to destroy it, neither of which 'create jobs').

But the easy way to see the fault in this line of reasoning is to imagine giving that same money to people one level lower on the income scale. To believe that the wealthiest are the only  'job creators' is to assume that the 'almost-wealthy' won't invest the money should it be directed to them.

Continuing along this path of reason should show you that until you reach the level of income where people simply don't have enough money to live (god forbid we direct any money to them!), any segment of society that has money to invest will do so, thereby 'creating jobs'. In fact, if creating jobs is the goal of tax policy, directing that money to people who would be opening a business except that they don't have the money is a far better way to achieve that result.

We can pause in the middle of our musings to give a nod to the recently departed middle class. For those who remain at this income level, that same money would go towards things like home ownership, college costs, and a host of other stability-enhancing family expenditures that solidify the center,  which brings confidence to the markets, which, come to think of it, actually IS one of the factors that people use in making investment decisions. Trickling-up, if you will.

At the far end of this mental journey is the 50% of the population who are either poor or on the edge of being poor. With those same funds directed to them, they most certainly would not make stock market investments nor open a small business. What they would do is pay bills, buy food, or take care of health care issues that they have been ignoring for months or years. Regardless of how they spend the money, they would spend it, stimulating the economy the old-fashioned way, by buying things. Even if, as is far more likely, the money came their way via benefits such as job training, pre-natal  counseling, or preventive health care, the money goes directly into the economy  juicing the GDP  and spurring job growth from the bottom up.

Finally, making the claim that 'if only they had this additional money' the wealthy people would be creating jobs is a slight on those very people. Under this scenario, these people who are already wealthy beyond most people's wildest dreams are sitting back, petulantly crossing their arms in defiance, refusing to invest money to 'create jobs' until they get even more of the nation's wealth in their pockets. I don't think this is a realistic assessment of the top 1%, despite how well it might play at Occupy sleep-overs.

The most direct way to use tax policy to create jobs is to put the money in question into subsidies and loan programs designed specifically to put people to work. Investing into construction projects to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure will do more to stimulate the economy and put people to work than will giving people already sitting on piles of money, waiting to invest that money until the economy picks up and they can make a profit in said investment.

So a few moments reflection on the best way to direct government spending shows us that directing it to the very wealthy is the least effective way to jump-start the economy or create more jobs.
Keeping in mind that we aren't talking about a return to the outrageous tax rates of the 70s, but rather a re-thinking of the now-discredited idea that more tax cuts are the solution for all of our economic ills.


In the end, the true 'job creators' are the American people themselves, whether through directly opening small businesses or simply by being an active participant in a thriving economy.

So go spend some money! It's the American thing to do.

Chasing Rainbows

I just re-read Richard Dawkins' book called " Unweaving the Rainbow" which, logically enough, gives a great explanation of how rain makes a rainbow appear under the right conditions.

 Rainbows are pleasing to look at,  and the way they come about is fascinating, so I wanted to share about it.

First, somewhat disappointingly, I have to report that there is no 'end of the rainbow'. Hence, there are no pots of gold, nor short drunk Irishman either. Wait a sec...What's that, Janet?  Oh, I'm sorry, apparently those little green people are called "Leprechauns" (not that there's anything wrong with that).

 But I digress.

OK, here we go. Because a rainbow depends on light being reflected back to the observer, it can only be seen when the sun is somewhere behind the observer, and not too high in the sky (otherwise, the angle that the light hit the water drops would send the reflections right into the ground, which would make them very hard to see).

A rain drop bends light in a similar fashion as a prism. When sunlight is passed through it, the light is diffracted (bent), and the different colors are bent at different angles.  The result is that some of the colors come out higher than the others, and some lower, and when they are all separated, we call it a  rainbow if its in the sky, and the 'visible light spectrum' when it's in the lab.).

Prisms differ from Raindrops in one important way, however. They hurt a lot more when they fall a few thousand feet and hit you on the head.

When light hits a raindrop, some of it passes right through, some of it is absorbed, and some of it goes through the front side of the raindrop, hits the curved inner-back surface, reflects off the back  and comes out the front, eventually reaching your eyes.  Depending on how tall you are (or where you are standing) only a single part of the color spectrum hits your eyes.  If a particular raindrop reflects orange to your eye, the ones just below it will reflect only yellow to you, the ones above it will reflect red, and so on.  Longer wavelengths of light (red) are bent the least, while shorter wavelengths (violet) are bent the most.This means a taller person standing next to you will see the colors at different places than you, your rainbow would have red where his has orange, your orange is at the same height as his yellow, and so on down to where you will see Violet when he hits Ultra-violet and sees noting

The visible light spectrum follow the acronym  ROY G BIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).

By the way, the rest of the frequencies on the Electro-magnetic Spectrum will be familiar to you as well.  'Above' Ultra-violet are higher frequency X-rays and gamma-rays (which is what they used to zap my brain last time around), going 'south towards the shorter frequencies are Infra-red, Microwaves, and a wide swath of radio waves at the 'low frequency' end. Due to their extremely long wavelengths, radio waves can travel long distance on earth, as they tend to 'bounce' between the earth and the atmosphere as they work their way around the world. Can you say "a.m. radio"?

Back to rainbows.  You would have trouble seeing a color reflected from only a single raindrop, but because there are so many raindrops falling, together they reflect enough light that you can see wide bands of color.

Now, because a raindrop is falling, the particular color it reflects back to you will change as it falls. Remember, each raindrop actually reflects all of the colors, at slightly different angles due to their diffraction, but only one color frequency hits your eye from each raindrop at any given height. Rainbows are usually seen with the red at the top. The location of each color reflected off the back of the raindrop and striking your eye is always at a fixed angle measured from a line between your eye and the sun. This angle is approximately 42° measured to the top of the red band and approximately 40° to the bottom of the violet band. Say wha..?

When drops are higher in the sky, the suns rays are angled back well over the head of the ground dwelling-observer. As the raindrops fall and become level with  the sun, the suns' rays slap the water drops at flatter and flatter angles, until you see violet from the lower raindrops, up to red at the top, the full rainbow (it's interesting to consider that before the raindrop reflects red to you, it has already reflected infra-red. You just can't see it.).

So we have a 'sheet' of raindrops falling, and as each of them passes through the spectrum, you see a rainbow. It's a bit like the way a wave passes through water in the ocean, the energy moves but the water molecules stay where they were (except for 'local' motion). In this case, the particles move, and the 'energy' stays the same. Because the colors stay put, you see the rainbow as stable, when in reality the rainbow is a cauldron of intensity, millions of water molecules and other airborne particles providing a visual delight, truly one of natures' greatest wonders.

That's it!  A vast number of raindrops are falling, each one reflecting only a sliver of light to any one observer, yet together they create a beautiful streak of color in the sky.

By the way, a rainbow would be a full circle, except the ground gets in the way. 

In researching rainbows, I came across many online discussions about the possibility of standing inside the 'end of the rainbow', bathed in beautiful colors.  Without belaboring the point, the science behind how a rainbow is formed and viewed precludes this exciting possibility. That said, there are many people who swear they have done just that (although none of them claimed to have found any gold nor been accosted by any wayward leprechauns).

I highly recommend Dawkin's book Unweaving the Rainbow, which is full of easy to understand explanations of other miracles of nature, (and for that matter, any of Richard Dawkins' other books as well, especially the Blind Watchmaker).  

Some critics have complained that by 'Unweaving' the Rainbow,  Dawkins has ruined the beauty of it for them by explaining the science behind it. I don't agree with this at all, I find that understanding the physics behind this 'spectrum in the sky' makes it even more spectacular (choice of words intentional).  Honestly, I am not entirely convinced that 'spectrum' and 'spectacular' come from same root. But had I not pointed out the similarity, 96.3 % of my readers would have assumed they were, and that I must be smarter than I appear. (I suppose it would be pretty disappointing if I weren't!)

Bubba and Brenda Just Got Married

 Every once in a while you are reminded about how great it is to live in an era with amazing technology such as the World Wide Web.  I had just such a wake-up-call today, when the internet coughed up an almost forgotten highlight in Janet and my theatrical careers.  The following is a review that Jim Morekis wrote for Connect Savannah, about our dinner-theater comedy "Bubba and Brenda Just Got Married". Written and Directed by Janet Gamble (with a little help from Grace Tootle and myself), the show was ( excuse the expression) a true labor of love,  and the cast was fabulous, truly a joy and a privilege to work with. As you will see, the review is the kind that many Actors or Directors often deserve, but all too infrequently receive (well, except for Janet, who always seems to be the brightest light on the stage).


September 05, 2007
Review: Bubba and Brenda Just Got Married

    •    By Jim Morekis
    

The concept behind Bubba and Brenda Just Got Married is a familiar one to anyone who’s attended one of Jack North’s Murder Afloat events on the Georgia Queen riverboat:
Talented local actors improvise around a loose script using the boat itself as a stage, while the audience interacts -- or just eats and drinks -- as it sees fit.
The similarities to Murder Afloat end there, however, as Janet Gamble and J.R. Reynolds of Interactive Adventures have put together a comedy improv that digs deep into social satire and Britney Spears-NASCAR kitsch for one of the funniest theater experiences I’ve ever had.

As you board the Georgia Queen, you’re given a nametag with a fictional white-trash moniker -- mine was “Beans” and my wife’s was “Tiffany” -- that identifies you as either a member of the bride’s or groom’s family. While audience members are under no obligation to actually follow through on these personae -- though it is fun if you try it -- the two families couldn’t be more different.  Bubba -- portrayed by one of Savannah’s brightest young talents, Kyle Merritt -- is the stereotypical pampered Southern mama’s boy you see everywhere these days, wearing pressed jeans and driving a brand-new supersize pickup, whose idea of “off-road” driving is taking the Veteran’s Parkway to Bass Pro Shops instead of Abercorn.  As you’d expect, Bubba’s well-to-do parents -- portrayed by Barry Finch and  Cathy Pellicone -- look down their noses at Brenda’s family, who can charitably be said to come from the wrong side of the tracks.

Brenda -- played to the hilt by the always-excellent Stefanie Selai -- trys her best to control the antics of her mother Darlyne (played by the matchless local comedienne Grace Diaz Tootle) and her aunt Carlyne, hilariously and hammily played by the multi-talented actress and playwright Janet Gamble.
J.R. Reynolds is once again brilliant as the decrepit and completely Bible-illiterate rapping preacher who presides over the wedding, which features everything you’d expect in a nuptual: Bouquet-throwing, garter-snapping, sappy singing, snippy catfights, and -- drunken making-out?
Well, maybe just a little drunken making out.

The show has no profanity or anything a reasonable person would consider offensive. However, the themes are somewhat adult in nature, so young children -- while they’ll no doubt enjoy the energy and vivacity of the cast as well as the let’s-put-on-a-show interactivity -- probably won’t get much of the intricate plot, which is seamlessly woven into the reception activities and provides plenty of twists and turns while leading up to a hilarious surprise ending that left the audience in tears.

In addition to the show itself, the audience can enjoy a cash bar and a buffet with items that might be at such a wedding, like fried fish, hot wings and yes, Moon Pies.

While the show itself is just about as good as improv comedy can get, I have to quibble about the food. It may sound silly to complain about the buffet at a theatre performance, but it is included in the price of the ticket, after all, and food becomes especially important when you’re on a boat for an hour and a half.  While the wings were indeed excellent, most of the other food (provided by the Savannah Riverboat Company) was barely edible. I was looking forward to the fried fish, but discovered to my chagrin that the breading was soggy -- apparently it was covered to keep it warm, which you just don’t do with fried food.   But the service -- and the drinks -- at the cash bar are very friendly.

And the show is absolutely hilarious.

If you’re at all touchy about “interactive” audience-participation shows, don’t worry about this one. The level of participation is completely up to you.

The performers are top-level craftspeople, and their show stands with or without the audience. But I say step right in -- the water's fine. č

Upcoming show dates for Bubba and Brenda Just Got Married on the Georgia Queen riverboat are June 13, July 11, August 15, Sept. 12, Oct. 10 and Oct. 24. Tickets are $38.95 per person, which includes dinner. Cash bar available. Boards at 6 p.m., sails from 7-8:30 p.m. Call 232-6404 or 800-786-6404.

March jobs lower than expected (but still higher than Bush's 8-year average)

That is condensed from a column by Robet Reich, who was the Secretary of Labor during the Clinton Admiistration, a job he was highly succdssful at. He is, in my humble opinion, one of THE smartest people in the country when it comes to the economy and the job market. You can read the entire column here:         http://robertreich.org/

ROBERT REICH WRITES:
The economy added only 120,000 jobs in March – down from the rate of more than 200,000 in each of the preceding three months. The rate of unemployment dropped from 8.3 to 8.2 percent mainly because fewer people were searching for jobs – and that rate depends on how many people are actively looking.


It’s way too early to conclude the jobs recovery is stalling, but there’s reason for concern.
Remember: Consumer spending is 70 percent of the economy. Employers won’t hire without enough sales to justify the additional hires.

The reason consumers aren’t spending more is they don’t have the money. 

The economy has been growing but almost all the gains have gone to the very top. As I’ve noted, this is the most lopsided recovery on record.

You will hear other theories about the hiring slowdown, but they don’t wash:

It’s not due to “uncertainty” about the economy.
It’s not because of fears about a European recession.
And it’s not about gas prices
or the rise in healthcare insurance premiums.

It’s because consumers’ pockets are almost empty.

That's The Word from The Man.

As I mentioned, Mr. Reich knows what he is talking about. He points out that the financial numbers prove that the stimulus worked to save us from falling into a deep depression, but that it simply wasn't large enough for the size of the problem. We were in a deep, deep hole when Obama took office, and you can't attack a billion dollar problem with a million dollar solution.

As I have written often, the way out a recession is to spend money to stimulate growth, and with growth comes a balanced budget. Remember, we did this just ten years ago!  Ignore what the GOP/Tea Partiers claim that the problem is all due to spending.  The facts don't bear this out.  While we can and should cut spending to help balance the budget, we can do a great deal of that by improving the efficiency of our government programs. We havent been 'spending ourselves into this problem, and we can't balance the budget by cutting services.  We created the hug deficit when we cut off the revenue to the government with giant tax cuts, at the same time we were waging two wars!  The good news is that WE CAN FIX THAT!  By restoring the tax rates of the Clinton years, by fully implementing the Affordable Care Act ("Obama-Cares")by making smart cuts to so-called 'entitlements, and by speindg stimulus money to repair our crumbling infrastructure and bring the solar power and other alternative energy industries up to scale,  we will put people to work, which puts money in people's pockets, which drives up consumer spending, which stimulates growth and which will bring the budget backinto balance as it was when Clinton left office.

The 'austerity' approach is currently bankrupting several countries in Europe, and it will bankrupt us if we don't wise up.

The reaons the economy isn't recovering faster is simply that the goverment is spending less and less money. When Ronald Reagan had to get out of his recession, the government spent millions of dollars in stimulus spending, whic kick-started the economy and led to Reagan's 2nd term sucess.

When Clinton inherited the first Bush's recession, he too increased government spending, which resulted in growth, which resulted in a surplus for four straight years!

The Tea Party is wrong in their 'no taxes and cut benefits' approach. It hasn't' worked before, it isn't working now, and it won't work the future.

Why we need to re-elect Barak Obama

I am a patriot, in the best sense of the word. I believe in America, and the rule of law.

That is why I stand so staunchly against the current Tea Party Republicans. This is not your daddy's GOP!  By their actions in dozens of state legislatures, and the House of Representatives, they have demonstrated that they are not truly believers in following the U.S. Constitution. The crop of candidates for the Republican nomination are no better, they prove my thesis here every single day on the campaign trail:

-- We have a democracy, and every person has a right to vote. Such things as Poll Taxes and unreasonable barriers to exercising that right are an egregious assault on this most precious of civil rights.  Thirty states currently have laws in place that require all voters to show specific types of I.D. at the polls, there could be another five states with these anti-democracy laws by the election this November.  These 'voter I.D.' measures, passed and signed into law by Tea Party Republicans, are a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, in that they attempt to selectively restrict the vote and prevent certain people from voting in order to stop non-existent fraud, for the purpose of swaying elections and gaining power. The states all have slightly different laws, in all cases the type of I.D. required is one that groups that typically vote Democratic are less likely to have.  For example, in Texas, an I.D. .from a state college is no good, but a gun-license I.D. is acceptable. Despite how it may seem to most middle class citizens, not everyone has a drier's license or passport, and to obtain one requires one or more trips to a DMV and a birth certificate,  which can cost up to $40 to get. Many counties don't even have a DMV, so people living there have to tarvel a distance if they want to vote.  the Republicans are counting on the fact that if they make it hard enough to procure an acceptable I.D., a substantial number of people will give up, or won't be able to afford to get an I.D. in the first place. As many studies have shown, there are virtually no instances of documented 'voter Impersonation' fraud. This is a 'solution' without a problem, created solely for political purposes. These laws are, in a word, reprehensible.

-- The "personhood" amendments being put before House legislators are an attempt to give religious belief primacy over the laws of the United States, as are the attacks on contraception, abortion and personal drug use. Talk about "Big Government Intrusion"!

The Tea Party Republicans campaigned on the issues of government spending and the economy, yet the vast majority of legislation they have proposed since taking office are aimed at blocking abortion rights or other social issues. These are not honest people.

-- The 'anti-union' laws are another tactic being pushed in GOP-controlled state governments. They are in direct opposition to our basic right to assemble and our governments' role in protecting the weak from the powerful. When a single person has a grievance against unfair working conditions or pay, that person is powerless against the immediate employer or corporate owners. It is only when many workers all agree to stand together that power is balanced. It is because of these 'unions of workers' that we have the workplace rights that have done so well by our country and built a strong middle class: limited work weeks; equal pay without discrimination; child labor laws; and the minimum wage are all due to workers being able to stand as one and negotiate a fair working arrangement. Without that balance, employers will run roughshod over the workers, and the result will be more people thrust into poverty and the dissolution of the middle class.

-- While both sides of the aisle are guilty of 'gerrrymandering' congressional districts to thwart the will of the people (drawing district boundaries to make sure the incumbent gets elected by putting a majority of Republicans in each district, where this is impossible, all the Democrats are pushed into the same district, so that only a single person is elected where there were several majority Democratic districts prior to the redrawing. The winding, bulging contorted districts resemble a curvy salamander, hence the name). The current Tea Party/GOP has taken it to the extreme, as they have with parliamentary maneuvers, such as the record number of filibusters. Combined with the voter I.D. laws, they are attempting to take ahold of our government and prevent us from being able to change leaders if we so desire.

These are but a few of the more obvious assaults on our Constitution, our liberty, and the rule of law. Regardless of your position on various issues of governance, we all should agree that everyone should get a vote, and the voting must be fair.

What are the differences between the parties? Aren't they 'all the same?"

No.

The Left wants to restrict and regulate the power of industry to do as they may, protecting our environment and the people of our great nation while retaining our rights to be secure in person, property and the freedom to pursue happiness.

The Right wants to restrict these most basic freedoms and control our personal behavior, based not on the Constitution, but on religious beliefs, while at the same time allowing corporations to do whatever they like in pursuit of profit, regardless of the effect on the country.

Which of these two is the greater threat to our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, the very tyranny we speak of when we claim our right to bear arms?

For the sake of this discussion, I will grant the argument that both sides are equally bad when it comes to 'dirty tricks', back-room deals and the like.  However, the actions and results of these behaviors are clearly not equal.  

--- The possible 'dirty tricks' of the Left may result in less profit for the very wealthy, and less power for the very powerful, yet they defend our freedoms at the most basic level. They harm very few people, and those that are impacted are the most able to sacrifice without affecting their life negatively. These are the same people who have done very well in the past two decades, their income has risen dramatically and their share of the overall wealth has skyrocketed, especially in the past ten years.

---- The possible 'dirty tricks' of the Right attack personal freedoms directly, and they fail at one of the most important roles of government, protecting the weak from the excesses of the powerful, while they attempt to circumvent our ability to exercise our right to vote and elect our leaders. The people they will impact negatively are the least able to withstand further hardships, and there are millions of us. For this vast majority of Americans, things have not gone well the past two decades, the average wage hasn't improved at all, and their share of the nations' overall wealth has plummeted.

In other words, If the Left succeeds, even using 'dirty tricks', favoritism, etc, the nation will still be better off as a whole, and we will move forward, towards restoring a strong middle class and an opportunity for upward mobility. We will retain our right to elect our leaders, our rights to marry whom we choose, to control our own health and bodies, and our right to be secure in our person, property and pursuit of happiness.

If, however, the Right succeeds, even using 'dirty tricks', favoritism, etc, we will have fewer freedoms, the wealthy and powerful will become more so, and millions more people will fall into poverty and a subservient lifestyle. Gone will be such freedoms as the right to do what you want with whom you want in your own home, the right to pursue happiness how you choose, the right to be safe from discrimination and the right to a fair wage for a days work. Not to mention the harm to our environment that is unrestricted-industry's legacy.

So while I am of the opinion that we need to fix the system, in order to do so we need to put people in office who will work for the betterment of the nation, following the rule of law, and who will set aside partisan politics and do such things as fair redistricting to restore competition to elections, and put in place a multi-party power sharing system so that people can express support for third parties on either side without hurting their 'second choice' (one of the two current parties). Proportional Representation is the term commonly used. Without that, a vote for a 'third party' takes away a vote for the party one would normally support in a two-party system. in the 2000 election, Ralph Nader took enough liberal votes to enable George Bush to stay close to Al Gore, and eventually the Supreme Court awarded the election to Bush.

We are more likely to achieve election reform by electing center-left moderates, and reasonable people in general, which is clearly not the Tea Party/GOP.  Clinton was a moderate, and he showed a willingness to work with the GOP rather than taking a hard line.  Obama is also a centrist, and again, he has shown a willingness to anger many on the left in order to try to work together. But the Tea Party Republicans won't have anything to do with Obama, from day one of his administration they have talked of no other goal that 'making sure Obama is a one-term President.  It certainly isn't difficult to prove that the current Tea Party/GOP is the most partisan, uncooperative and 'my way or the highway' political party we have seen in a long long time, willing to sacrifice millions of people's quality of life, without asking the wealthy to sacrifice at all.

Whether we judge by the statistical results of previous governing, or by the basic goals and objectives of the parties, the Left is clearly the better choice.  Obama has done a good job in guiding our recovery despite historic level of obstruction from a congress that won't spend a dime to try to stimulate the economy, and that oppose everything he does . Obama has demonstrated that he is willing to re-think his positions, to negotiate in good faith, and to cooperate in order to get things done, even if it goes against the wishes of his political base. Two examples that illustrate this clearly are the Affordable Care Act (or "Obama-Cares") and the "Cap pand Trade" method of lowering carbon emmisions. Both of these were free-market approaches that were strongly supported by Republicans until Obama dropped his opposition to them and put them in place. Now the Tea Party/GOP acts like they are full-blown socialist schemes aimed at a complete government takeover of private industry. The level of deceit and dishonesty from these Republicans, especially from Mitt Romney, is like nothing we have seen in the modern political era.

This is an important election, perhaps the most important one in my lifetime. The nation stands in a precarious position, with mounting debt and rising inequality following the Bush Administration's destruction of the successful Clinton surpluses.. The choice is between the very reasonable Obama, who has demonstrated that he is good at foreign policy, the recovering economy, and has compassion for the poor and middle class, or a Republican who wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood, get rid of the Affordable Healthcare Act, hand the social safety net over to for-profit corporations, and institute religious doctrine over the rule of law.

We saw what happened when the GOP took over the Presidency after Clinton and Gore had led us to the best economy in over 60 years, and again what happened in 2010 when the Tea Party took over Congress and pushed the country to the brink of default, bringing the recovery started in Obama's  first two years to a screeching halt.

despite all that, we have had 25 months of private sector job growth, a solid rise in the GDP and stock market, and passage of health car reform that is already bringing benefits to millions of Americans.

Standing My Ground in the Cul de sac.

 The Trayvon Martin Story,  Revisited.....


So I was driving around protecting my neighborhood, had my Gatt locked and loaded, just in case

After a couple of hours, I saw two guys riding bikes. They didn't look like they lived around here.

They sure looked suspicious, though.  They were wearing white shirts and ties! Plus, they were both White!

If that's not suspicious, I don't know what is!
White collar crimes are almost always committed by white guys, these guys were both white, and to top it off, they were both wearing white collars!

So I followed them. They were up to no good, for sure.

They were stopping at house after house, ringing the bell, obviously looking for places where no one was home.

So I hit speed dial on my phone and called 911. They told me to stop following them and go home.

Now, I had called 911 a few hundred times this month, so I knew that was code for "Stop the religious terrorists at all costs!"

I wish I hadn't said they were 'trucking donkeys' because now people think I used a racial slur.
That's so typical of 'Whitey', always playing the race card.

anyway, I got out of my car and followed them down the lane.

They noticed me following them, so they got off their bikes, and came my way.

"Why are you following us?" they asked, smiling to throw me off.

"Why are you riding your bikes around here?" I cleverly replied.

One of them came over and started telling me about this all-powerful being who would send me to hell if I didn't swear my allegiance to his son. 
To Hell!

Well, that scared me!  I couldn't stand the thought of going to hell! 

"Your soul will go to hell if you don't do what the all-powerful being says in this old book, which is perfect and infallible" one of them told me.

"Plus this other book Joseph wrote" the other one added quickly.

 "Your soul will walk amongst the damned, you will suffer in anguish, weeping and wailing in the brimstone fire for all ETERNITY" the first one said.

"And remember, he loves you" chimed in the second guy. They were both carrying books, and one of them had an iced tea.

One of them put his hand on my arm.

It felt like I had dislocated my shoulder! I knew I'd have to have that looked at in a few weeks or so. I could barely hold onto my gun!

I pushed over their bikes, so I could get away.  Why were they picking on me?

The two of them kept talking about their "Lord". Gang Members for sure! They were probably both on LDS!

I feared not just for my life, but for my very soul!

So I grabbed my Gatt, (turned it sideways), and shot them both dead.

Damn, that was close!

Well, the cops showed up. I told them that the two white guys had been smashing my belief system to the ground over and over again, and that I had dislocated my shoulder!

I told them I was protecting my property, because I rent an apartment just a few miles away. 

I had a perfect defense, because I was Standing My Ground, even though I had chased them for an hour, and was standing in their front yard when I shot them.

The cops didn't bother looking for the spent rounds, or the bullets, and they never even found out I had been smoking meth (which was good because I was pretty fcked up.)

But it was a thorough investigation, don't get me wrong. After all,  they asked me why I shot them and I said I feared for my eternal soul.

That seemed to be good enough for them but, just to be sure, they asked the two other guys the same questions.

They didn't answer.

It was a clear case of  "I said, they're dead"

But they did a background check on them, and a drug test, just to be sure. They also went over their complete medical history, located their birth certificates, and checked their elementary school grades. 

They didn't need to ask around for any eye witnesses, because my brother called from Seattle and confirmed that they dislocated my shoulder, hurt my feelings and took out my appendix, so it was clear they were at fault.

What else could I do?  My soul was clearly threatened, and after all, they were wearing white shirts and ties!