The Real Reason why?

 

                 The Real Reason Why??

Trump’s sycophant fan base would have us believe that he is the most unjustly picked on and set upon political figure ever. Some have even compared him (favorably!!??) to Jesus. In their eyes, no criticism, no matter how valid and data driven has merit, simply because Trump is their guy. This blindness had made itself manifest in blatant lies by media shills and tacit support by those “one percenters” who see oligarchy and absolutism as profitable for them, which is their sole standard of political supportability. Perhaps the real question is, or should be, “Why?”  What motivates the rank-and-file Maga supporter to endorse and defend such a demonstrably and monumentally flawed individual? What follows is my poor attempt to offer some explanation. His legal woes are myriad and justified, but beyond the scope of this essay.

Typical of the Trump sycophant is a phenomenon we have seldom seen to this degree, which is that if his idol, is insulted or criticized, the proper response is to immediately attack someone else. “Deny and deflect.” For example, Trump insults a handicapped person and the response to justifiable outrage by such a person is to attack Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Similarly, while Obama was the target of a great deal of far right (including Trump) abuse because of federal deficits incurred while slogging out of the great recession, caused largely by persons like Trump, the first Trump budget sported  the largest deficit ever, which is odd, considering how proud Trump is of his financial genius. He did it, it must be ok.

        The criticism of those who dislike Trump seems to stem from the inability of his supporters to understand that their anger is a response and reaction to his bad behavior. This is the social equivalent to Newton's Third Law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." One wonders how many times these folks can tolerate Trump’s blatant lack of concern for those he governs. And then the light comes on! It becomes clear on reflection that those who take such umbrage at criticisms of Trump’s behavior do so for primarily one reason. That reason? Trump’s racism, sexism, disregard for the welfare of children, intolerance for the truth, and inability to get along with anyone who doesn’t worship him are matched by the inadequate personalities and lack of empathy of his supporters.

        Trump attacks for such simple reasons as someone asking him a reasonable question and then continuing to ask when he evades answering. Those who oppose him criticize him because those actions were and are unpresidential and mean spirited. No president in the modern era has ever used the office to bully and slander people like Trump did as President. His supporters don’t care, because many of them are people with various emotional disorders, among which are feelings of social inferiority, racial bigotry (“Oh, but some of my best friends are black!), economic failure or fear of it, simple greed, xenophobia, inability to empathize, and/or the same malignant narcissism for which Donald Trump should be poster boy.  Criticize Trump, you’re criticizing them. Many probably have few, if any, friends whose opinions, religion, sexuality, or ethnicity differ from their own, another Trump characteristic. Deplorably, Trump seems to simply have no friends, period. Seriously, stop, reflect, and then name one individual that has ever been identified as a Trump personal friend. Can’t do it.

        In like manner, the MAGA crowd ignore the sage pronouncement made by, then candidate, Bill Clinton – “It’s the economy stupid.”  For most, that would seem to be a relatively accurate statement, but not for Trumpers. Many of us tend to make decisions based on how those decisions affect our own and our family's personal economic welfare, short and long term. The Maga cultists essentially ignore this even though many of them are already economically marginalized. Trumps actions while POTUS clearly proved him to be an economic dunce (hideously bad retaliatory China tariffs, costing billions to US consumers and gutting US farm product markets, adding billions to farm subsidies. A tax cut which will add trillions to the deficit). 

    Why should we be surprised, when he had declared bankruptcy five times pre-White House, and has now resorted to huckstering trading cards, sneakers, and bibles? The lonely, angry, disaffected and socially inadequate identify with this emotional train wreck because lots of them are already off the rails themselves. What they may classify as “hate” by non-Trump fans is simply a predictable and justified equal and opposite response to his continuing and monumental bad behavior. Newton got it, but then most Trumpists think Newton is a fig bar.

 

                  Common sense re: fuel costs

Amidst all the mindless GOP chatter blaming Biden for inflation, especially in the cost of gasoline, I would point out three significant facts:

     First, the President doesn’t have any control over the price of gasoline, which is, in fact, a consumer commodity. The Federal impact on gasoline, the “per gallon” tax, remains exactly the same as it was during the Clinton administration at 18.4 cents, while 47 states have higher fuel tax rates.

Second: There is no shortage of gasoline and production costs are stable. Producers regulate prices, and, in the absence of any federal price controls, are free to do so as they will. As an aside: such government regulation of the energy industry as did exist was removed during the Reagan years! 

Finally, and of the most significance: The Oil and Gas industry is one of Trump’s most lavish “big ticket” donors as an industry and even more so when individual contributions are factored.

        “So, Mike, you’re saying that the prices of gasoline and other fuels are being artificially jacked up as an election ploy to blame inflation on the Biden administration?”  You bet your ass I am. No other explanation is even close to rational.

 

                   Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest?

 We’re used to epic and blatant lies from Donald Trump. That said, a new GOP contestant, one Senator Katie Britt, has entered the arena. We’re fairly used to the other party “rebuttal” to the State of the Union address having become little more than a smear campaign of the sitting POTUS and his adherents. Ms. Britt, however, managed to achieve a new nadir with a myriad of outright falsehoods and even time travel anecdotes. What follows details just one.

        Her story of the young Mexican woman who was trafficked went so far off the rails as to be in another time zone. Let’s take the lies serially:

First, she attempted to place the majority of the blame for the events she was about to chronicle on the Biden administration.

Fact: They happened twenty years ago, in 2004, three presidents ago and a Republican one, at that.

Second, she implied that the scenario played itself out in America and Mexico.

Fact: It all happened in Mexico

Finally, she attempted to link the events with the Mexican drug cartels, some admittedly horrid persons, and then in a bizarro world lapse of logic, imply that somehow this, too, was somehow linked to Biden policies, twenty years after the fact.  

Fact: while I would never defend Mexican narco-terrorists, this one wasn’t on them, either.  

Added to the GOP’s Taylor Green/Boebert duo, Ms.Britt is yet another national embarrassment masquerading as a dedicated legislator.  

 

The Green Eyed Monster

    Right up front, let me say that I don’t particularly care for Taylor Swift’s music, not because of her performance or writing but just because it isn’t the sort of music I listen to. In the same vein, I was never much of a Dolly Parton fan, simply because I don’t care for country music.

Having gotten that established, I would also state that I have great admiration for both of them, and while we’re at it, let’s add Lady Gaga to the mix. All three are more than generous with their resources and time in areas far removed from performance and all three are masters of their chosen genres.

So why the Taylor Swift haters? Let me write the rest as if I were answering one of the several nasty comments related to her.

“Dear Dog in the manger,

Your comments re: Taylor Swift say much more about you than they do about her. She is the supremely successful product of a supportive nuclear family. Everyone she has worked with holds her in high esteem. She has been a successful song writer and singer since her teen years. What were you doing in your teens? She has given millions to charity with minimal publicity. How about you? She has sold out world tours and treated her staff supremely generously everywhere (tipped every tour bus driver $100 k above salary). She has lived a life in the public eye, free of even a hint of inappropriate behavior. She has done so without trying to gain public attention ala all the Kardashians and their ilk.

     I suspect your real problem with Ms. Swift is that she has done all these things with a grace and style which you don’t possess and never will. Jealousy is like an acid. It corrodes the vessel that contains it."

    

                              Straight Talk to Trump Supporters

02/001/2024

What follows is not an opinion or distortion of the facts. I point this out because Trump supporters are used to both and may or may not recognize a factual account (or care).

Trade: Candidate Trump is again flogging the idea of more, and more aggressive, trade actions against China. The problem? Trump proclaimed, when he did it (tariffs) the first time, that “China will pay them.”  Yes he said exactly that. (you know, like Mexico would pay for the border wall?) Any high school economics student knows that tariffs are paid by the importing entity, not the exporter, yet against the advice of almost every sentient economist in America, Trump imposed additional (and punitive in intent) tariffs on China.

 The results? Threefold for simplicity’s sake:

 First, the National Association of Manufacturers, the business entities Trump proclaimed he was “protecting”, has determined that the average American household has been impacted by an additional cost of living of about $850 annually in extra expense specifically as a result. Here’s a simple example: Black and Decker buys some electronics parts for (just an example) power tools from China. They import the parts; they pay a tariff. No, they don’t “eat” the extra cost, rather they pass it on in a slightly higher price to the US consumer.  

Second, China simply retaliated with tariffs on American exports to the People’s Republic, a huge portion of which is (was) soybeans. China did not pay the tariffs; rather they found cheaper sources, Brazil chief among them. This negatively impacted American farmers who relied upon the Chinese market. This led to unintended consequence #3.

Third: as a consequence of the radically decreased market for soybeans, The Department of Agriculture, at Trump’s insistence, increased aid to farmers in the form of subsidies. How much? More than the annual operating budget of the State Department or the Navy’s annual ship construction budget! The cost of Trump trade policy in farm subsidies alone was an estimated $28 billion in 2020.  That’s $84 for every living soul in the USA, parceled out to US agriculture, and some of which recipients are members of Congress. Note: It’s also billions more than is allocated for children’s health insurance!  

Remember, Maga people, this is but one economic legacy of the man who bragged about his academic brilliance while never making the Dean’s list and being unable to qualify for grad school.  

Taxation: Trump, as have Republican Presidents before him, also ballyhooed tax cuts as examples of his grasp of macro government economics. He vaguely referred to the long discredited “trickle down” theory which claims that dollars not spent on taxes will somehow be plowed back into businesses with a resultant Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and federal revenue of more than the loss of tax dollars. The results of the Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43 and Trump tax “reforms” show a markedly different result.                   

        Reagan cut taxes and then spent far more money than we had on military buildups. The deficit blossomed. Bush 41 ran in 1988, on a platform of “No new taxes” right up until the steadily increasing deficit led to his signing of a budget reconciliation bill in 1990 which included new taxes in an attempt to deal with a burgeoning deficit. To GHW’s credit this was effective and his successor, Bill Clinton actually increased taxes somewhat and slowed the National debt growth by decreasing the deficit. In fact, from 1989 to 2001 (all Clinton budgets) the deficit dipped to negative numbers for the first time since 1969!  

Unable to leave well enough alone, Bush 43 again reduced taxes, especially on those most able to actually afford to pay them, and then went to war in the Mideast. Two conditions resulted by the end of his 8 years. One, federal annual budget deficits had drastically grown due to (wait for it) spending more and collecting less in federal revenue.

 The second result was a massive lack of oversight in the commercial banking industry, culminating in the housing bubble collapse and the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The Obama administration suffered significant deficits due to recession-based spending (including the 2009 Bush legacy of TARP spending of $700 billion) yet the period of 2009 to 2013 saw the most rapid rate of deficit reduction over time to date.

     The deficit remained relatively low until 2016, when Trump was elected and again touted a massive tax cut plan. Understand that, by this time, the “trickle down” myth had been thrown in the trash bin by essentially all real economists. In fact, one Australian Prime Minister referred to it as “The rich pissing on the poor.”     

By the time the Trump tax cuts were enacted, research had repeatedly shown that, for every dollar in tax cuts, only about 70 cents ends up back in the federal pocket, even in the form of GDP growth. Trump knew (or should have known) this but he ploughed ahead, and the deficit blossomed. In fact, the Trump tax cuts will add as much to the federal deficit ($1.9 trillion) as Covid spending has!

To make matters worse, Trump has continually supported, and even pushed for, weakening the Obama era Dodd-Frank legislation designed to avoid another disaster such as the housing bubble collapse of 2008. The failure and risky policies of Silicone Valley Bank are but one early result of these efforts. It should not be lost on any of us that taxpayer bucks bailed out that failed institution.

  Interestingly enough, but characteristic of the Far Right, the initial blame hurled at SVB cited what were characterized as “Woke” policies, when in fact the fault lay with the greatly relaxed oversight and regulatory control which was removed or greatly reduced from the original Dodd-Frank legislation.  

 Why anyone still believes the myth of Trump economic prowess is unfathomable.                

                                     

            Star Parker, Still at it; Still Wrong

 

The unfailingly reprehensible Star Parker has started again. Today's op-ed column in the local paper starts by blaming Social Security for being a “failed Socialist program.” She then speaks with some truth to the fact that the return on the trust fund investment is lower than current interest rates, which it is. What she doesn't say of course is that trust fund assets are invested in long-term government instruments and less liable to fluctuate either up or down depending on markets.

The other thing that Ms. Parker ignores completely is the fact that, as I have written several times before, the Social Security system, as incepted, did not forbid either increasing the withholding rate or modifying the age of eligibility. At the time Social Security was passed in 1936 the average American would not live long enough to receive it because the average lifespan was about 61 and a fraction years. Now the average American lifespan is 78. By 1955 it was already 69 and any Insurance company actuary could have predicted the current status.

      See the problem yet? OK try this also: from 1947 to 1962, the average American woman had statistically more than 3 children (peaking at 3.7 in 1955)

and that remained above that figure until 1963, when the number began declining. The average now is just a hair above 2. This means that for 15 years there were over half as many more US citizens born who would eventually draw Social Security (and draw it longer). Those 1950s “Boomers” are impacting Social Security and Medicare, while a Congress which, from 1950 to today, has done little to substantively deal with the situation, bitches about the deficit.     

Not only are we living longer, but because the baby boom has pumped so many new eligible recipients into this system through the 50s and into the very early 60s we now have more people entering the system than are working and paying into the system. This in itself was not so readily foreseeable; What was foreseeable was the increased lifespan. By 1950 it was obvious that Americans were living longer or remaining healthier longer and if the administrations of Dwight Eisenhower or John F. Kennedy had been willing to do it, the eligibility age should have been increased. A simple plan would have been to pass legislation requiring a 1-year increase in full eligibility every decade until whatever age was deemed appropriate was reached. Initially the full Social Security eligibility age of 65 was based on the assumed physical and mental status of the average recipient. Unfortunately (for the system) 70 is the new 60.

There are those who argue that increasing the retirement age is a negative because it “reduces the benefit for all recipients.” This who cite such a statistic omit the words “Full Benefits.”  Of course, they say this because they cling to several shaky propositions.  The first fallacy is that in those families working 2 minimum wage jobs and struggling to get by if they didn't have Social Security deducted from their pay they would save it in some other sort of financial investment program. A far more likely reality is that, with increased but still marginal income, the decision to not spend the extra money that removing Social Security would provide would more likely result in spending the money on gasoline, a car, clothing, food or any of the other immediate expenses that sometimes are left wanting because of insufficient income.  

        Assuming extra cash would go into savings (a reasonably safe but low interest option) belies the real statistics of the whole economic spectrum.  The numbers speak for themselves. A recent survey found that most Americans had $1,000 or less in personal savings in 2023; a third have $500 or less saved, while 8.5% have between $501 and $1,000. Even more startling, 11.4% said they have no savings. On a per family basis, this means that about one in eight Americans have no financial safety net whatsoever. This, of course, also implies that they are prime candidates for usurious lenders in times of financial stress. 

        As an example, consider a 40 hour per week minimum wage earner (and forget the “Yeah, but they’re all high school kids” argument, because 55% of minimum wage earners are over 25 and 11% are over 55):

Assuming a high end $15 hourly and a 40-hour week, that comes to $600 pre-tax weekly. Federal income tax takes at least $60 dollars of that and Socia Security another $37. Do we really think that if there were no SS deduction, that extra $37 would religiously be saved?

Of course, what those who, like Bush 43, scream “Socialism” when addressing Social Security and urge privatization never mention is the impact which such private accounts could experience in situations such as the housing bubble collapse of 2008 -2010. To begin with the supporters of privatization, many of whom are deep in the pockets of people in the private banking industry, would have you believe that all private investments are safe and would earn more return on investment for the investor. What is implied here but never stated is the requirement for an entirely new branch of government simply to supervise how Social Security monies on an individual basis were invested with an eye towards ensuring the safety of such investments.

Trusting the private banking industry is a huge leap of faith considering the history of such organizations. Let's consider just one such: In 2005, 2006, and 2007 the Bear Stearns Real Estate Trust was an available investment option in my wife's retirement plan with Florida Hospital. I know, you say “Bear Stearns? Why they're a leading investment bank on Wall Street, gotta be safe, right? As I looked at the historical earnings of the trust and saw a 28% per year yield, I actually considered whether we should invest her funds with Bear Stearns. We did not because, unlike the $15.00 an hour minimum wage earner, I actually know something about finance and about reasonable return on investment. The other consideration here, before I continue with Bear Stearns, is that if your investment is a 401K, a Roth IRA, a simple savings account or most other portfolio types, other than guaranteed annuities, what you have when you retire is all you’re going to have (in the assumed absence of Social Security). When you use it all, it’s gone.

        Now back to Bear Stearns real estate trust. In the interest of full disclosure, I am approximating this, because Bear Stearns failed and the fund performance history is no longer available. At its peak the fund was hovering well above the $90 per share range and was largely based on sub-prime mortgages, although we hadn’t actually heard that term yet. Bear Stearns as an entity peaked in the $172 range. Let’s assume one had invested steadily and had watched their retirement pot turn $40,000 in actual investments into $350,000, which is actually a conservative guesstimate based on the Trust’s astronomical growth, and then retired, planning to either sell off shares for income as needed or sell them all and find a nice safe 5% annual income account and use that for living expenses. The retiree could have, over only three days, watched share prices tumble to $5 and their $350,000 turn into roughly $17,000! This happened. Bear Stearns, greedier and more poorly managed than most, failed and was bought by Morgan for $2 per share. On the other hand, of course, in the real world this poor schlub would still have Social Security to keep the wolf from the door, because Social Security isn’t market (or commercial investment bank) dependent.

 Star Parker and her ilk shout “Socialism” like a curse word and ignore the fact that Social Security’s real problem is demographic, not philosophical, and that reasonable action by appropriate legislative measures could have insured its stability. They simply ignore our longer average lifespan and the Baby Boom population “bubble” because it doesn’t fit their narrative.  Secondarily, they also choose to ignore the simple fact that, as Jesus reportedly said, “The poor are always with us.” And they are and always will be. Ms. Parker, who proudly proclaims her “born again” status apparently edits her savior to suit her purpose.

There will always be those among us who, because of various factors, will work hard for low pay, pay income tax, and sales tax and have no savings to speak of. Currently half of the US population aged 65 or older live in households that receive at least 50 percent of their family income from Social Security benefits and about 25 percent of aged households rely on Social Security benefits for at least 90 percent of their family income. Star Parker, like too many Americans, suffers from the egocentric “If I can be financially successful why can’t everyone else?” point of view. She obviously failed Statistics and Sociology.              

 

A Shameful Performance

 

         A Shameful Performance

Once upon a time, there was a school district whose upper-level administrators (read that as the “County Office”) had somehow convinced themselves that the best choices for high school principals were athletic coaches, especially former head football coaches.

        I taught in such a school and soon learned as an outsider, beginning a second career at age 47, that this was a fallacy. First off, the average Phys Ed instructor (head FB coaches primary pool) knows as much about classroom instructional delivery and pedagogy as Liberace knew about rugby. And yet they continued over several decades appointing these persons to supervisory positions which required classroom evaluation of others performing a function which they, themselves, were largely incapable of doing. Fortunately, over time that myth was scotched, and principals were far more likely to have been successful classroom instructors prior to supervisory selection.

        There is a lot to be said for the idea that someone who supervises and, even more specifically, evaluates an individual should know what that job entails. When I began teaching, the principal and two vice principals. all former coaches, had never been classroom instructors. Oddly enough, none of them ever came into my classroom as an evaluator, but I got my first several annual evaluations from one of them.

        I started with this because, apparently the same ludicrous concept has taken root in Alabama, which state has sent to the US Senate a man with zero military experience but 40 years of football coaching of athletes afraid to even question him.  I’m speaking, of course, of Tommy Tuberville, who is single handedly defying both his own Party’s  leaders and the Democratic leadership by refusing to accede to more than (so far) 200 senior military officer  promotions. 

        His objection has nothing to do with their actual fitness for promotion as determined by their superiors’ evaluations and observations, but is based rather on the senator’s personal opinion re: an internal Pentagon policy related to the reproductive rights of service personnel. Tuberville has been holding these proposed military promotion nominations hostage in the Senate as part of a protest of Pentagon reproductive health policies announced earlier this year that provide additional support to service members and dependents who must travel out of state to receive an abortion.

        The individuals whose advancements are being stalled are simply collateral damage in Tuberville’s  personal vendetta against anything or anyone not white, straight, and adamantly pro-life. Lest anyone think I’m exaggerating, here is the Senator on White nationalism: “My opinion of a White nationalist, if someone wants to call them White nationalist, to me is an American.”

Now as an exercise in logic: If White nationalism is racist (and it is) then, by definition, White nationalists are racists. Period. Tuberville apparently also objects to the military’s stance against White nationalism, because it’s simply fine with him. His “boss,” Senator Mitch McConnell, disagrees, having called white nationalism “unacceptable.” Asked by CNN if he was concerned by Tuberville’s refusal to denounce it, McConnell replied, “White supremacy is simply unacceptable in the military and in the whole country.”

        So yes, Alabama, we know you are ranked forty-first among the states in education and sending Tommy Tuberville to the US Senate goes a long way toward explaining why.