Show me The Money!

This is a few stills from a video on youtube that is very interesting, and somewhat disturbing.

Her's the link to the full motion video where I captured these stills

http://youtu.be/JTj9AcwkaKM

The first chart we will look at shows what socialism would look like, basically every one has the same amount (looks pretty good from the cheap seats!)

 

 Now here is what Americans THINK the distribution of wealth in America is, along with a second  bar graph that shows what we think would be a ideal distribution of wealth.

 

 Both of those look good to me.








Let's look at the same data using a X,Y graph.
This is what Americans THINK the actual distribution of wealth is in the USA

 

Now here's the shocker, let's see what the actual distribution of wealth is
using the same style chart:

Take a good look, we can see over to the left, the poor hardly register on this chart. We have to move quite a way up the income ladder to reach the middle class, and honestly, it is hardly any better than the lower middle class or the poor.






Now look to the right of the chart. The first steep climb is for 10% of the people. The almost vertical lines represent the top 1%, the wealth for the goes right off the top of the chart!

But to really represnt it on this graph, we have to cut the lines down and stack them next to each other.

What we are looking at is that the top 1% are so wealthy, not only would their wealth not fit on the graph, but we have to dissect it into ten pieces to even show it on the chart. Add all those lines together and you have a 1% that is Very Very wealthy. In fact, they have the same amount of overall wealth as the bottom 40% of Americans added together



That is a mind-bogging statistic to me.


 
While American workers were improving their productivity, and working more hours, and while the businesses they work in are all profitable, the workers did not share in any reward for working at the company and doing a great job.

A Hole In My Head, the Title Song

There's a hole in my head
Where my thoughts leak out
Sometimes it's a whisper
Sometimes it's a shout
When I talk about the world
There's so much to be said
So I'm reaching out to you
Through this hole in my head, in my head.

When I look out these holes
in my head I see a lot
While some of it is good
at other times it's not
When I look I try to see the good
and leave aside the rest
When I look at the world
I see the world
at it's best, at it's best

When I listen to the world
Through these holes in my head
Though I hear a lot of talking
There's so much that isn't said
About how we all could live together
Try to get along
When I listen to the world
I hear the world sing it's song, sing it's song

When I breathe
through these holes in my head
I smell the roses
A thousand different fragrances
I concentrate on those
I could rush around to breathe in just the smell of success
But it seems I'd rather Stop.
And smell the flowers,
I guess




A song by J.R. Reynolds

2020 Vision: Stimulus Work Programs instead of Disability?

This is the first installment in my new series
"2020 Vision: A Clear Look at America's Future"

This information came from an Outstanding, Interesting and perhaps Alarming article at pbs.org about the steep rise in Americans who receive disability payments.

The article includes these graphs and quotes, and a lot more and is worth reading in full.

Here it is, I'll wait........

:  http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/


Ok, you want to be Persuaded? Wined and Dined? Wooed?

Here are the appetizers....

This chart shows the number of people formerly in the work force who now receive disability:

It turns out that as Welfare shrank, Disability Grew.  This is an improvement nonetheless, people receiving disability are, after all, in pain and unable to work, by definition. They also paid into the system, and receive benefits according to those payments made when they were working.

Still, it is expensive. The article at pbs.org takes your emotions back and forth, one minute seeing the plight of desperate formerly hard-working Americans who  can no longer do the jobs they intended to retire from, then back to the desire of most people to see everyone pitch i and earn their keep, then forth once again to the very real suffering and the unhappy lot in life some of the people drew, than back, well, you get the picture. If not, here's a handy chart, direct from the article

The unemployment rate is also affected by the number of people on disability:

One thing that author found was that there is a monetary advantage for tthe states to move people off of state-financed medicare or other health plans, and move them into the Federally funded disability program.  So the States finance outside companies to attract and assist people within in their state who can qualify and so be moved to a different funding source wlll away from the state's budget.

And here we go forth again to a 'business-lens' with which to view the growth of disability in America.

I found the author,  Chana Joffe-Walt, to be well balanced in the approach, and to bring up all sides of the issue, despite how it might appear by showing all the numbers and the rising costs without the context of people who have been approved by a several doctors and a judge prior to receiving anything back from a system they helped finance, and who are undoubtedly in pain a good deal of the time, as I do here. (You still with me? Read it again if you need to. Good!)

Yet plenty of people who have jobs go to work also in pain, what is the difference?

One difference is that lower-educated workers tend to have more physical jobs, and it is harder to do a job on your feet all day, lifting, moving things, working a line, &c than it is to sit at a desk and work on the computer.

In one town the author looks at, the factory closed, and there simply are no jobs for people who might be able to work a little, but are not able to move or to travel a long commute to work for low wages in a backbreaking job.  The allure of disability is obvious under these circumstances.

But as Joffe-Walt points out, Americans don't want to deny people the assistance they need, but also don't want to be played for chumps.

I know from personal experience, the disability system is not well-set-up for someone to transition to work, or to work some to supplement the payments they receive.

The threat of losing hard-earned benefits is real, and it just makes no sense for someone to make the huge effort to be productive i some fashion if they risk losing the money they depend on to survive.

 Almost no one who goes onto Federal Disability ever comes off of it.

This should be a chart showing that:

 but I don't see it.

Regardless,

It is no picnic being poor and living on benefits, anyone who tells you it is is simply wrong.

I am that person, I had a thriving video production business, was working in independent production in the film and commercial industry, and had many other pursuits, chief among them Ultimate Competition, Ultimate Tournaments and a training camp, and an acting career doing Pirate Treasure Hunts on the beach and Murder mysteries on the Savannah Riverboat.

I was working on five different productions the week I went into the hospital. I left a production meeting for a checkup, and had to call in due to the brain tumor.

I can assure you, it was a far easier life when I was working 50-55 hours a week, was buys all the time and had money to do things with than it is to try to manage on the meager money people receive on benefits, especially with some of these ailments listed below (like the segue to the chart?)

What about the Children? I don't know, what about them? Here's a chart about them as well.

I guess you could say they are getting good training for when they grow up and are on adult disability. No, don't say that! (and let's pretend I didn't say it either, ok?)

 All of this brings us to the question that has been begged all along, What to do about it?

With 2020 Vision, we can clearly see that it is preferable for the government to receive some kind of return on the money spent to assist our fellow citizens.

Everyone can do something, most people would prefer being productive, especially if it brought in a little extra money to ease the stress of affording food, healthcare and other basic family costs without endangering the benefits they receive.

With 2020 Vision, we can clearly see that a program such as the WPA (Works Progress Administration) is a viable plan that would bring many benefits: we put the large work force that is currently idle to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and we utilize the disabled and displaced for part-time and less strenuous tasks in support of the program. We further steer as many of our safety net recipients as we can into productive, contributing 'jobs', providing childcare, cooking, shopping, many of the things they do now for themselves could be organized into service for those who need it, reducing the cost to government elsewhere in the system.

The money spent doing this will reduce unemployment and disability costs, and will provide us with a market of consumers that will have the ability to buy things.

Stimulus investment can even be outsourced if the seed money can be guaranteed a profitable return down the line, if the investors know that a return is certain, they will gladly pout up most of the money, and the actual cost to government may never materialize.

Regardless how the investment is funded, Demand will then have the resources to push Supply to perform. The guaranteed markets for the materials to run the program, along with a stronger & resurgent middle class will pry lose the trillions of dollars currently sitting idle waiting for a better investment climate to appear.

That is how the cycle gets started, prime the economic engine and give it some gas (with some solar shining on it's face and some wind at it's back, to stretch the metaphor) and it will roar to life chewing up products and services like dirt under a dune buggy (adding an alliterative simile to the linguistic imagery) until our debt disappears under a white cloud of smoke as credit cards rip through readers generating heat from the friction of an economic drag race as consumerism and capitalism race side-by-side down the drag strip of our financial future without a caution flag. (to jump right over the top in a wheelie of linguistic - oh, never mind)

 2020 Vision gives us a clear view of the changing weather on the economic front (returning to the original metaphor of two paragraphs ago)

Conservatives will be satisfied that the 'free-riders' no longer have a free walk in the park on a sunny day, while Liberals will be pleased that we aren't allowing the weakest and least fortune among us to suffer unnecessarily under storm clouds of economic uncertainty

Moderates will be overjoyed that common sense, logic and rational thinking are being brought to the service of our country once again after a long hiatus, and that I am out of metaphors at long last.

ObamaGolf: The False Outrage of the GOP

I was struck by the recent complaints from the GOP about Obama playing golf. 

What could that have to do with the sequester?  With the very real suffering that ordinary Americans will go through because the tea party was willing to let the sequester become law rather than eliminate corporate subsidies or tax the extremely wealthy Americans who have profited so much this past decade, what does it matter if the president gets away to play some golf?

OMG!  Was Obama wasting taxpayer money?  

 Was the outrage legitimate?


In a word, "NO"

Here's the breakdown:

President Obama has been on vacation 78 days from 2009 to 2011, and in his first year was on vacation less than the previous three Republican Presidents. In his first year, Obama took 26 days of vacation.

President Bush spent 32% of his presidency on vacation. He was on vacation more — 1,020 days — than any U.S. President since Herbert Hoover. GW Bush took off 69 days in his first year.

What about the rest of the Presidents?

Reagan spent all or part of 335 days in Santa Barbara over his 8 year presidency, 42 days in his first year.

Bush the elder took 40 days his first year,

Eisenhower was on vacation for 456 days during his 8 years in office, 57 if his first year was average

But there are two Presidents who took fewer vacation days than Obama!

Presidents Clinton and Carter vacationed the least of any of the last seven chief executives.

Presidents Clinton took 21 days his first year, and only 174 in eight years

President Carter took just 19 days his first year.

So the three Presidents who took the fewest days off are, in order, Carter, Clinton, and Obama.





Hmmm, is there a pattern here?

Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in office 12 years from 1933 to 1945, was on vacation fewer days than President Bush, at 958 days

Oh, but it's not about the number of days, it is the cost of the trips!

How about that?


Bush used Air Force One 77 times to go to his ranch in Crawford, TX. Using the low end cost of $56,800, each trip to Crawford cost taxpayers $259,687 each time, or $20 million total for Bush’s ranch flights.

If cost of the flight was the only expense involved to taxpayers Bush’s vacations would still seem rather economical, but there is more, much more. Unlike the Obama’s $4 million Christmas vacation price tag, which includes the cost of everything, from transportation to accommodations for the First Family, the White House staff, and the White House press corps. Bush’s numbers only include the cost of flying the president to Crawford. The cost of transporting and accommodating staff, media, friends and family is not included in Bush’s vacation numbers. 

Oh, ok, not really particularly expensive, especially when compared to flying Air Force 1 on vacation, then taking a few 'one-day-work-breaks' where he would fly to an event for an hour or two, and then fly back to Crawford later that same day, so it wouldn't seem like he was taking too much time off.

And we certainly can't bring up the fact of the looming sequester cuts to call foul on Obama, when Bush was involved in two wars and a deeply sliding economy that was squandering Clinton's surplus years. 

The truth is that every modern President has had to deal with a deficit and times when the economy is less than solid, and they all also need some time to relax and to get away from the demands of the job. Now is no different.


Consider this quote:

"The reality of the matter is that no matter where they go or what they do, Presidential trips are going to be expensive, because the Secret Service has to go, first to check out the security of the site, then enough of them need to go along with the President to provide security for him, his family and everyone else that goes."*


*As said out loud by me, a few minutes ago

It is unfair of the Republicans to berate President Obama for his vacation time, he is taking less vacation time than any of the GOP Presidents, and as we have seen, Democratic Administrations take far fewer vacation days than those of the GOP.

So in the end, it turns out that the 'Obama Golf' hysteria is just part of the "False Outrage Machine" that the GOP gins up anytime they can distort a few facts and build a whole misinformation campaign against Obama.

"Tee It Up, John, and get out your 'Lyin' Iron'
"Obama is playing Golf!"



Oh, and Golf? Turns out that John Boehner once told Golf Digest that he plays upwards of 100 rounds a year. Obama played 104 rounds from 2009 to August 2012.  So when we talk about hypocrisy, if we can be outraged at Obama, we should be doubly outraged at the politicians who were a lot worse, which, coincidentally, are all Republicans.




Here are some deeper historical facts, which in my view don't mean much, things change and circumstances are different, and I don't begrudge any President time off, I just care about how well they do the job. But it's fun to consider....

• In 1798, President John Adams left the capital for seven months to care for his ailing wife Abigail; his enemies said he practically relinquished his office.

• Thomas Jefferson and James Madison routinely went away for three- and four-month stretches. 

• Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War, was blasted for spending about 25 percent of his time away from the White House.   (see? Bush is just like Lincoln!)

• Dwight Eisenhower took long summer breaks in Denver and spent almost every single weekend at Camp David.

• John F. Kennedy rarely spent a weekend in the White House, staying at family homes in Palm Beach, Hyannis Port, and the Virginia countryside.

•  Lyndon Johnson spent 484 days in five and a half years at his Texas ranch.

• Ronald Reagan was away for 436 days, usually at Rancho del Cielo (his mountaintop retreat in California) or Camp David.

• Bill Clinton, who didn't own a vacation home, loved to party with his elite friends in Martha's Vineyard and the Hamptons.    
• George W. Bush spent 32 months at his ranch (490 days) or Camp David (487 days) — an average of four months away every year.   WE HAVE A WINNER!

Don't Pay Your Bills! (or how to be a Tea Party Person)

warning: this is sarcasm, and not very subtle sarcasm at that. In truth it may be mean spirited sarcasm as well. it certainly isn't funny. Just in case any really stupid people read this (as opposed to writing it), It's about the debt ceiling insanity. So I apologize if you are offended. Oh hell, no I don't, I meant to offend some people. (unless you are my mother, then I sincerely apologize and I am just kidding).  Otherwise, fuck it. read at your own risk.


Here's a great way to control your families' finances. First, run up a bunch of bills, cable TV, Internet, a couple of cell phone bills, maybe some credit card charges for groceries, and of course that vacation at Sea World that the kids loved so much.

Then, when it comes time to pay those bills, 
refuse pay them!  Yeah, just refuse to pay the bills you already owe, unless the family agrees to give up food, their bedrooms, Doctor checkups, new clothes and a bunch of other stuff they need next year!

Sure, the kids will be hungry, and your spouse may get sicker and lose some teeth by not going to the Dentist, but boy, will you cut that spending!

Of course, you'll pay a lot for the refusal to pay those bills when you finally do pay them a month later, which of course you have to do eventually.

But think of the benefits of doing useless protesting when it's time to PAY the bills, instead of agreeing to spend less when you PLAN your budget!

Umm, I can't think of any benefits.
(Unless being the stupidest person in your family is a benefit).

But golly, that is just what the Tea Party in Congress is doing to the USA, and it's messing up the U.S. economy just as surely as your refusal to pay your bills would mess up yours!

And if the kids complain, insult them, give them a smarmy look as if you knew what you were doing (and even though your spouse is a lot smarter than you, act as if THEY were the idiot!). 

 Tell them they have to spend less money, even though they already cut back and gave up half their spending money already. Just LIE to them and tell them "the right time to focus on spending is when it's time to PAY, not when you actually SPEND the money."

They won't believe you, unless they are clueless morons. Or unless they are 26% of the American public.  


If they go talk about what you are doing with the neighbors, compare them to Hitler! 

Don't worry about being illogical, if you want to be a Tea Party Person you have to learn to ignore logic. Be sure to finish learning to ignore facts first, which we learned in Lesson 1.


One final thing, even if you could borrow money by refinancing your house at today's low low interest rates (and save thousands of dollars), and even if you could invest some of that money to take a class and finish your Masters, which would give you a raise of about 20% more than what you make now, DON'T SPEND THAT MONEY. 

Oh, no, because the way to help your family is to cut spending no matter what.  And when you  don't get that promotion because you don't have the skills because you didn't invest in training, don't worry. With less spending you won't need a promotion, you can just do with less. Your family will understand, because they know that they have to sacrifice so that your rich Uncle can get even richer! You can always get support from the government, then blame it on the Democrats!

Then you will be a real Tea Party Person! First, pretend you want to balance the budget. Second, make sure the richest members in your family don't give you any money to help with the kids' medical bills, just don't take your child to the Doctor. Third, cut spending for food, don't invest in any training, and fall behind the rest of the people at work. Then when you lose your job, you will REALLY spend less money, because you won't have any! 

 You will then be a real Tea Party Person!

Pay no attention to the (damn) liberal next door, who now makes twice what he did last year due to the training he took, and whose medical bills are far reduced because he invested in healthy living and eating, and who can afford to send his kids to a good school, so they will also make good money. Ignore him, and ignore his friend that old-school conservative too (you remember him? The smart one you threw out of the Neighborhood Association last year for talking to the Damn Liberal?). He is using reasoning, he is looking at what worked before and doing that. DON'T FALL FOR THAT!

It's too intelligent. YOU are an American. A White American! This is your country, and whatever those English people are doing, ridicule them! They're foreigners from across the ocean, you just can't trust 'em. 

 No, that liberal is wrong, the way to get ahead is to cut off all your spending, period.  So what if it hurts your family? You can rest happy in the fact that your wealthy relative is still rich. And you still have your gun.

STIMULUS NOT SEQUESTER

The GOP is currently refusing to add any revenue to the attempt to get our budget under control.

My last post showed how under Obama we are already at the lowest level of spending in many years, and within a couple of years, under legislation already signed into law, our Discretionary Spending will be a the lowest rate since WWII. If we could get our GP going again, it will be an even lower %.

The GOP need sto add some revenue to the mix. WE lost a great deal of revenue for the government to operate on during the Bush years. The wealthy have profited mightely due to that, while everyone else has seen a net decrease in earnings.

It's time to add revenue, buy elminating corporate subsidies and by reforming the tax code, in order to stop so many large coroporations from not paying any tyaxes.

Here are some faxes about taxes

In the Atlantic Magazine was an article with this:


"No, the U.S. is not a high-tax country. But saying exactly how not-high-tax we are gets a little tricky.   The graph below comes from a KPMG report excavated by Henry Blodget. It shows personal tax rates on $100,000 around the world. The U.S. comes in at 55th out of 114."

Here's the source:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/how-low-are-us-taxes-compared-to-other-countries/267148/

Here's the graph, which makes it easy to see we are nowhere near the "high tax" level compared to other countries:
 


SO WE DO NOT HAVE HIGH TAXES COMPARED TO THE REST OF THE WORLD.

WHAT ABOUT IN THE USA?


This is from factcheck.org:

"Politicians talk about the burden of taxes incessantly. Now comes a rare chance to check the facts. And the fact is that federal tax rates had fallen to the lowest in 30 years when President Barack Obama took office — and fell again in his first year in office."

"LOWEST IN 30 YEARS"

HERE'S A CHART:




THESE ARE THE FACTS, H, YOU SHOULD LEARN SOME OF THEM SO YOU DON'T SOUND OFF WHEN YOU ARE WRONG.
Do you see how I use evidence to back up my points? If you want rational people to believe you, try doing that. knee-jerk repetition of right wing talking points is not persuasive to anyone but right wingers

now, back to taxes. CORPORATIONS DON'T PAY TAXES AT THE POSTED CORPORATE RATES, MANY HUGE HIGHLY PROFITABLE CORPORATIONS PAY NO TAXES AT ALL

THIS IS FROM INDEPENDENT SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS:

"Mitch McConnell was on the floor of the Senate saying the revenue discussion is over. Well, not for me. The truth of the matter is that right now you have one out of four profitable corporations in America paying zero in federal taxes. The percentage of revenue that we get compared to GDP today in corporate taxes is much much lower than it used to be. As I mentioned many times, we’re losing one hundred billion dollars a year from corporations and wealthy individuals who stash their money in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens. We have just enormous loopholes that corporations and wealthy people continue to take advantage of. "

hey tea party!  
  ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

One in Four profitable corporations pay NO taxes!


SAY WHA..?

One in Four profitable corporations pay NO taxes!

DAMN! THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT YOU SAID!

Here's an article from Bruce Bartlett, who held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/are-corporations-overtaxed/

Read it and learn about corporate taxes from a genuine Republican conservative.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

"One problem with the Republican theory is that many big corporations actually pay little, if any, federal income tax. For example, The New York Times has reported that General Electric, the sixth-largest corporation in the United States, earned $14.2 billion in 2010, but disclosed in federal filings that it had no federal tax liability."

"According to Citizens for Tax Justice, G.E. paid a federal tax rate about the same as Continental Resources’ over the last 10 years – an average of 2.3 percent, including four years in which it received a net tax refund."


Considering we have cut the deficit under Obama, and are about halfway back where we were when Bush took over from Clinton, it is silly to focus on cutting government spending any further without first stimulating the economy.

STIMULUS BRINGS JOBS!   

STIMULUS BRINGS JOBS!    

STIMULUS BRINGS JOBS!   
 

Sequester This, Boehner!

Republicans like to portray President Obama as a big government spender, despite the fact that government spending under Obama has grown at its slowest pace since the Eisenhower administration. 

The GOP is also trying to pretend the spending cuts that Obama has signed into law over the last two years simply didn’t happen.

Check out how discretionary spending has gone down..

In fact, under its current trajectory, non-defense discretionary spending — everything from education to food safety to transportation to housing to veterans’ benefits — will hit historic lows in the next decade, as Center for American Progress Director of Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden showed in the charts in this article.

 

If the so-called “sequester” comes into force in March, which House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) says it will, domestic spending will fall even more. “Instead of totaling 3.2 percent of GDP in 2017, non-defense discretionary spending would total less than 3 percent of GDP and would be on its way down to 2.6 percent by 2022. This is less than two-thirds of what was previously its lowest level.

Most galling is the GOP insistence that the sequester "is Obama's idea", as if Obama wanted it to pass. This is a straight up denial of reality (and if you know this but still say it to people as if it were the truth, it's what we call 'a LIE').

Obama, and other rational people  thought no one would be cruel enough to actually let these cuts happen. He failed to recognize the depths of hatred the right wing holds for him and the level of their contempt for government. Not to mention their willingness to hurt thousands or even millions of people in order to protect the greedy money-grubbing of the top income-takers.

There are legitimate reasons to slow spending, but there is precious little evidence that drastically cutting spending will do anything other than hurt an already anemic recovery.