"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal..."
However, this country was not founded on the principle of strict equality, which would be impossible to enforce and, if enforcement were tried, would be stifling to any society and economy.
No, friends, Ned is no advocate of legislated equality, but the situation in which we find ourselves, thanks largely to our Republican friends and their craven Democratic enablers, makes Ned's blood run cold with fury. Here's what we mean: As of 2007, the last year for which we have IRS data, the top .1% of households appropriated 11% of national income. The top one-tenth of one percent. This is the worst inequality of income since around 1928, and we all know what happened a year later.
Ned feels it's outrageous enough when the top 1% of households stole (legally) 23% of national income that same year, but to have the top 13,000 households collect 11% should make any American who has any concept of what this country stands for, mad with rage.
And yet, what do we hear in the hysteriasphere (Ned's friends know that this is his term for the Mass Media and blogosphere collectively)? That Republicans who gave us this economy, this regulatory apparatus in shambles, Katrina, the housing collapse, and two unwinnable wars, not to mention this gridlocked Congress, are slated to pick up massive gains in the House and Senate because voters are "disgusted with the mess in Washington."
Let Ned ask the more rational of his readers to consider for a moment what this obscene income inequality means.
First, the NYT reports that an income of about $75k is necessary to relieve the average person of anxiety towards the necessities of life: anything over that is increasingly gravy.
Second, spending (which, like it or not, drives this consumerist economy) is inversely proportional to income, in that those with the lowest incomes spend more proportionally than anyone else, and those at the highest levels hoard most of their lucre and spend comparatively little.
Here's Ned's point: the more we concentrate income at the "top", the less of that money is spent to drive the economy.
So, not only is it positively unAmerican to support such an obscene wealth misallocation, it is calamitous practical fiscal policy.
Never forget that from the '30s until 1962 we had a marginal income tax rate of 90% on incomes over $200k. The period from 1947-1965 was, not coincidentally, a period of great national prosperity.
So, en fin, what sort of amoral creature would support and even advocate MORE such income inequality?
Why, your average Republican candidate. And the fact that the voters seem to be agreeing with them tells Ned all he needs to know about the level of analytical skills and basic morality at large in this degraded country today.
But, perhaps, as the poets say, 'it's always darkest just before dawn.'
Ned Pepper's Outrages
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Public Space
Ned finds much to amuse and astonish him in his near-daily visits to his gym. One is the extent to which individuals will try to convert public space to private use. Ned has observed on at least two occasions individuals spitting on the floor of the communal shower, and a more disgusting sight can hardly be imagined. Ned is however amused by the number of persons who exhibit behaviour that shows their deadly fear of having any unwanted contact with another human being, either directly or indirectly. Many wear flip-flops into the shower (perhaps reading the above Ned has more sympathy for this practice). There are also those who bring their own mat into the steam room, apparently loath to plant their bottom on a surface where some alien bottom at one time occupied. Other bring towels to sit on wherever they are.
The point in Ned's gentle remonstrance is this: the more we try to avoid contact with ANY "germs" the more likely we are to become susceptible to infection from the really nasty critters that can resist "antibacterial" soap and the like. So, Ned encourages everyone to try and get along with the germs of others. It'll pay big dividends in the long run!
The point in Ned's gentle remonstrance is this: the more we try to avoid contact with ANY "germs" the more likely we are to become susceptible to infection from the really nasty critters that can resist "antibacterial" soap and the like. So, Ned encourages everyone to try and get along with the germs of others. It'll pay big dividends in the long run!
THEY MEAN WHAT THEY SAY
Ned is constantly amused by some of his "liberal" friends' refusal to take extremist Republicans at their word, and denying they could mean what they clearly do mean. Take for example Grover Norquist. Norquist is nobody's fool, having been editor of Harvard Crimson, but somewhere along life's pathway somebody dropped him on his head. He has turned out to be the most fervent and even fanatical tax cutter and opponent to government of any educated person in the country. Witness his famous quotes: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." And "Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal. If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050"(h/t Wikipedia).
Now, Ned, has no intent to compare Norquist and his ilk to Hitler, since Norquist is apparently tolerant of religious beliefs.
But Ned is reminded of the British establishment in the 1930s, except for Churchill, who refused to believe Hitler was serious when he laid out all of his plans in Mein Kampf, for all the world to see.
Now, let Ned say he would support reducing the size of the federal government by 1/2 if that involved reducing the military by 1/2 and eliminating spending on nuclear weaponry. But Norquist and his followers do not support this, apparently.
So let Ned ask his skeptical conservative readers, in the words of Oliver Cromwell to Parliament, "Gentlemen I beseech ye, by the bowels of Christ, only think that ye might be mistaken."
In other words, only think WHY we have all the government agencies we have now: the FDA because food manufacturers were selling rotten food and pills that killed people; The Department of Labor because plutocrats were forcing children to work 14-hour days and industrialists were killing men and children in mines and factories; EPA because companies were spewing poisons into our air and water; an FAA for obvious reasons (Let everyone just fly wherever and whenever they want without instruments or flight plans. Try that one on for size.)
The Postal "Service" which Ned loves to genially hate, because nobody in his right mind would deliver a letter to Nome Alaska for the same price as one down the street; civil rights acts and agencies because those fun-lovin' rebs just had to go and lynch some black guy or kid from time to time just for being black. And that silly ol' Constitution, saying it was the job of the Federal Government to "promote the general welfare."
In sum, Ned encourages all of those persons emblazoned with a head to THINK about why we have the bureaucracies, unwieldy and expensive as they may be. BECAUSE the PRIVATE SECTOR WAS UNWILLING OR UNABLE TO STOP POISONING AND KILLING OUR FELLOW CITIZENS.
Now, Ned, has no intent to compare Norquist and his ilk to Hitler, since Norquist is apparently tolerant of religious beliefs.
But Ned is reminded of the British establishment in the 1930s, except for Churchill, who refused to believe Hitler was serious when he laid out all of his plans in Mein Kampf, for all the world to see.
Now, let Ned say he would support reducing the size of the federal government by 1/2 if that involved reducing the military by 1/2 and eliminating spending on nuclear weaponry. But Norquist and his followers do not support this, apparently.
So let Ned ask his skeptical conservative readers, in the words of Oliver Cromwell to Parliament, "Gentlemen I beseech ye, by the bowels of Christ, only think that ye might be mistaken."
In other words, only think WHY we have all the government agencies we have now: the FDA because food manufacturers were selling rotten food and pills that killed people; The Department of Labor because plutocrats were forcing children to work 14-hour days and industrialists were killing men and children in mines and factories; EPA because companies were spewing poisons into our air and water; an FAA for obvious reasons (Let everyone just fly wherever and whenever they want without instruments or flight plans. Try that one on for size.)
The Postal "Service" which Ned loves to genially hate, because nobody in his right mind would deliver a letter to Nome Alaska for the same price as one down the street; civil rights acts and agencies because those fun-lovin' rebs just had to go and lynch some black guy or kid from time to time just for being black. And that silly ol' Constitution, saying it was the job of the Federal Government to "promote the general welfare."
In sum, Ned encourages all of those persons emblazoned with a head to THINK about why we have the bureaucracies, unwieldy and expensive as they may be. BECAUSE the PRIVATE SECTOR WAS UNWILLING OR UNABLE TO STOP POISONING AND KILLING OUR FELLOW CITIZENS.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
MORE LICKSPITTLE RANTINGS
NED IS BEGINNING TO BEHAVE LIKE MAUNA LOA.
That great Hawaiian volcano (which Ned was privileged to observe up close and personal last January, defying the Oregon rains to do their worst), always begins an eruption with a series of deeply-buried earthquakes. After weeks the earthquake swarm gets shallower and shallower until the volcano erupts a mass of molten basalt.
Ned's responses to those who wish to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich are much like Mauna Loa, and his eruption (no, NOT erection--this is a family blog after all) has begun.
Ned recalls from a history of the '30s how Roosevelt felt it was his duty (as a plutocrat himself, but one with a sense of noblesse oblige) to free poor and working class Americans from the necessity of begging from the sneering filthy rich for their daily bread, or working as children under dangerous conditions a 14-hour day so some fat plutocrat could buy several mistresses and amass more money than he could possibly spend, or, set up a "foundation" with his ill-gotten gains so he could tell Americans how the wealth he stole from them was going to be disbursed.
Roosevelt set up social security which the Republicans rabidly opposed. He also proposed a national health care plan, which, unfortunately, got nowhere. He set up several federal agencies to police the private sector, only because it was unwilling or unable to police itself.
Now, the vipers, snakes-in-the-grass, crocodile teat shedders, and cave-dwellers have re-emerged from hibernation (or zombiedom) to propose "privatizing" social security, and "health savings accounts."
But worse, they want to eliminate taxes on the rich, especially inheritance (or "Paris Hilton") taxes. Ned feels anyone who supports such nonsense is foolish and illogical, and perhaps even depraved and immoral, and doesn't deserve to call himself (or herself) an American. This country was not founded as a monarchy or aristocracy: far from it. But there has always been a class of materialist, soul-less people who are not happy unless they have someone's ass to kiss that they think is "better" or "more successful" or "classier" than they are. This, then, is the basis of most Republican support: ass-kissers, selfish narcissists, religious cultists, and neo-racists (since the greatest Republican stronghold is in the segregationist deep south), all clothed in sanctimonious hypocrisy and empty platitudinous Newspeak ("less" government", etc).
Ned is sick of them all and wishes they would crawl back under the rock they came from, and leave the rest of us in peace.
That great Hawaiian volcano (which Ned was privileged to observe up close and personal last January, defying the Oregon rains to do their worst), always begins an eruption with a series of deeply-buried earthquakes. After weeks the earthquake swarm gets shallower and shallower until the volcano erupts a mass of molten basalt.
Ned's responses to those who wish to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich are much like Mauna Loa, and his eruption (no, NOT erection--this is a family blog after all) has begun.
Ned recalls from a history of the '30s how Roosevelt felt it was his duty (as a plutocrat himself, but one with a sense of noblesse oblige) to free poor and working class Americans from the necessity of begging from the sneering filthy rich for their daily bread, or working as children under dangerous conditions a 14-hour day so some fat plutocrat could buy several mistresses and amass more money than he could possibly spend, or, set up a "foundation" with his ill-gotten gains so he could tell Americans how the wealth he stole from them was going to be disbursed.
Roosevelt set up social security which the Republicans rabidly opposed. He also proposed a national health care plan, which, unfortunately, got nowhere. He set up several federal agencies to police the private sector, only because it was unwilling or unable to police itself.
Now, the vipers, snakes-in-the-grass, crocodile teat shedders, and cave-dwellers have re-emerged from hibernation (or zombiedom) to propose "privatizing" social security, and "health savings accounts."
But worse, they want to eliminate taxes on the rich, especially inheritance (or "Paris Hilton") taxes. Ned feels anyone who supports such nonsense is foolish and illogical, and perhaps even depraved and immoral, and doesn't deserve to call himself (or herself) an American. This country was not founded as a monarchy or aristocracy: far from it. But there has always been a class of materialist, soul-less people who are not happy unless they have someone's ass to kiss that they think is "better" or "more successful" or "classier" than they are. This, then, is the basis of most Republican support: ass-kissers, selfish narcissists, religious cultists, and neo-racists (since the greatest Republican stronghold is in the segregationist deep south), all clothed in sanctimonious hypocrisy and empty platitudinous Newspeak ("less" government", etc).
Ned is sick of them all and wishes they would crawl back under the rock they came from, and leave the rest of us in peace.
MOVE TO BANGLADESH
What with all the whining about taxes from the richest and most pampered people in this country, as well as their lickspittle enablers the Republicans, Ned is moved to propose his own tax policy.
Ned believes it's time to call the plutocrats' and parvenus' bluffs, since they are just amassing their filthy lucre like the Dragon of the Niebelung anyway and dumping surplus cash into MM funds, thus taking it essentially out of circulation, since banks are loath to loan money.
Let's tax the hell out of them; in other words, let's go back to the tax rate under JFK which ushered in a great era of prosperity until LBJ ruined it with Vietnam. What rate, you ask? It would be a 70% marginal rate on incomes over $200k. Index that for inflation? Sure. That wold be equivalent to around $2 mil today. If they don't like it, they can move to Bangladesh.
Ned believes it's time to call the plutocrats' and parvenus' bluffs, since they are just amassing their filthy lucre like the Dragon of the Niebelung anyway and dumping surplus cash into MM funds, thus taking it essentially out of circulation, since banks are loath to loan money.
Let's tax the hell out of them; in other words, let's go back to the tax rate under JFK which ushered in a great era of prosperity until LBJ ruined it with Vietnam. What rate, you ask? It would be a 70% marginal rate on incomes over $200k. Index that for inflation? Sure. That wold be equivalent to around $2 mil today. If they don't like it, they can move to Bangladesh.
HP WORST CORPORATE BOARD
In a follow-up to Ned's last post, an article in the NYT today (Saturday) describes HP's board as the worst in America, for "firing" hated CEO Mark Hurd and then giving him $12 million IN CASH as well as tens of millions in stock options, and then standing idly by as Hurd joined rival Oracle. You can't make this stuff up. And the Republican lickspittles never saw a corporate executive whose ass they weren't desperate to kiss.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Short Oracle
Ned has been advised that former CEO Mark Hurd, recently "fired" from computer giant HP, has been hired by computer giant Oracle to be "co-president". Now, Ned's more prescient readers will know that Ned has moles deep inside HP, who have told Ned stories of the cold-blooded arrogance and cost-cutting frenzy, not to mention almost Stalinist terror, that characterized Hurd's "tenure" at HP. But, not to worry, Hurd landed on his feet. Even though he was charged with, among other things, sexual harassment and financial improprieties arising out of questionable expense claims, he walked away with about $30 million.
Ned advises those who follow the stock market, on the basis of Hurd's record at HP, to SHORT ORACLE. Ned is certain that Hurd will impose the same regime on Oracle that he did on HP. Relentless cost-cutting, and government by terror, while at the same time massaging the bottom line so as to enrich himself still further while doing all he can to rein in the unreasonable salary demands by the employees which after all make Oracle work. In this, of course, he is simply following the business model that has made America the envy of the world.
Ned advises those who follow the stock market, on the basis of Hurd's record at HP, to SHORT ORACLE. Ned is certain that Hurd will impose the same regime on Oracle that he did on HP. Relentless cost-cutting, and government by terror, while at the same time massaging the bottom line so as to enrich himself still further while doing all he can to rein in the unreasonable salary demands by the employees which after all make Oracle work. In this, of course, he is simply following the business model that has made America the envy of the world.
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