Bizzaro World!

     Why do so many those of the right seem to feel that anyone in the entertainment business isn’t entitled to an opinion re: political issues? I should correct that a bit. It seems it’s only the progressive ones who should just shut up.  Clint Eastwood, who never even graduated high school, is not only welcome to speak but given the bully pulpit of the Republican National Convention to talk politics with a chair. On the on the hand, the Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwins or Kate McKinnons should just “shut up.” All those last are college graduates who have actually done course work in Political Science and Economics.

        Similarly, conservatives fawn over Roseann Barr, and an entire clan of Swamp dwelling, duck call making, rustics, most of whom look as if they get erections any time the sound of a banjo wafts through the bayous. What’s the common factor? Again, minimal education, racism, disdain for others unlike themselves.    

       In general, but unfortunately not always, a broader degree of education carries with it, the opportunity for understanding other cultures, religions, and societal norms. This in turn, generally instills curiosity, the love of knowledge and a degree of tolerance of those with whom we differ, physically or philosophically. This is not, by any means, to imply that formal education is the sole conveyer of these attitudes, as many grow up with these same values, instilled by parents with concern for the fully functioning adults they wish their children to be.

       In the nature versus nurture, discussion, nature more (too) often wins, I think, but a formal education, replete with exposure to a more global range of concepts and cultures which are unlike that of, possibly, the home, is often the last best chance for functioning adulthood. This is contingent upon the educational institution fostering the appreciation, or at least, understanding   of, the diversity of the human condition within the body politic. This is not always provided (Liberty University, Oral Roberts, and almost any “college” run by an evangelical Christian organization.) Predictably, their graduates frequently reflect that deficiency.   In the discussion at hand, I would posit that those who “missed it” are those who tend to flail at the “Hollywood elite” as having no right to an opinion. In the rare triumph of nature untouched by reason or extra-familial nurture, we have the current president, who has maintained his distrust of the “other,” willingness to cheat to win, and fatherly instilled greed to a degree seldom excelled. All the while, he carps about the “Hollywood elite” as exemplified by Meryl Streep (BA, MA, Vassar, Yale) or any of a host of others.

       In fact, some conservative writers have said these folks despise trump, not because he’s an arrogant ass (he is), but because he espouses “conservative values.”  Any values Mr. Trump may have, are, at best, pragmatic, and then only to the degree that they benefit D.J. Trump. To a degree not seen before, except around the fringes of the truly disturbed Richard Nixon, it comes down to what He believes will make people like or respect him. Morality is not part of this picture. The term “conservative values” cited by Rightist op-ed producers is in truth a set of code words for discrimination against those who differ from their own, conservative religious, social and ethnic biases.

         Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, although it’s hard to fit him into that box now, famously said that he was, “Conservative when it comes to money and liberal when it comes to people.”  That Republican party has gone the way of the buffalo, beginning with Reagan’s “ketchup as a vegetable” and record deficits. While for decades, Republicans at all levels have used the term “Tax and Spend Democrats” as a campaign pejorative, recent history has shown the opposite. Reagan and Bush - record deficits, while cutting taxes on the wealthy. Clinton – near zero deficit at end of term, and on track to actually “pay down the debt,” right up until Bush 43’s Iraq adventure. Obama- huge recession, large, but steadily decreasing deficits, criticized by Republicans for extending unemployment so people could eat, economy recovered to Bush highs by 2015, still “blamed” by Republicans. Trump – took office with fully recovered economy, cut taxes on the wealthy (third time in last 50 years) huge (actually largest ever) deficit, (third time in last 50 years). So, this is the New Conservatism?  

        One conservative author, pulling an old rabbit out of the hat, carped about progressives, in this case the LGBTQ community as not satisfied with equal rights, “They want more.”

This particular article, like all the rest never defined or attempted to define “more,” in the same way the term “gay agenda” which I have sadly heard from those who should know better, is used. There is no “gay agenda” other than equal protection under the constitution, although ultra-evangelicals have invented a series of blatant lies to create one.  The term was invented by Evangelicals who believe their particular faith, complete with its entire set of religious/social biases, should be thrust upon others. Even a new conservative book on the subject distills down to simply their fearful conclusion that: “More Americans today, than 30 years ago, believe that what two individuals in love do isn’t anyone else’s business." Period. See, I just did it in one sentence! They then go on to express their grave concerns over how this will cause them ..oh, I don't know, ingrown nose hairs, dandruff, jock itch?  

        These are, to a great degree, the same people who are still smarting from USSC decisions regarding school prayer, School desegregation, interracial marriage, and gay marriage. The worst part of all this is that none of these people unless they choose to, will be affected by any of these, yet, the fact that others are free to live their lives in a manner different from their own, self-imposed, strictures, is sufficient to evoke their hatred, and hatred is precisely what it is.

        In today’s  other dimensional, upside down political arena “Conservative” as defined by Barry Goldwater in 1964 (Gays should be allowed to serve in the military, religious “nuts’ (his word) were a danger to America, and the government should protect all of us equally) has become the New Progressivism, and the Republicans have lapsed backward into a Strom Thurmond ("The white people of the South are the greatest minority in this nation. They deserve consideration and understanding instead of the persecution of twisted propaganda") sort of “Bizzaro world.”

Trump Revisited in Retrospect

This is a retrospective of a repost from a some time ago, with a few added comments. I'm reposting because it reads like prophecy at present. I would hope, with no actual belief that it will happen, that the voices raised in futile rage against the recent election results would, if it is even possible, take 5 minutes, read, and reflect.  

At last: someone actually gave me reasons why they “like Trump” 

Below are the areas this person likes. Below that will be my attempts to examine them:

First, "their" comments

"North Korea, Jerusalem and supporting the Jewish people, lower taxes (even though I don't think Congress helped the middle class enough with this plan), making our allies pay more of their share for NATO, more support for our military, allowing vets to go to private doctors, negotiating better tariffs prices for the US, getting out of the Paris agreement where we were paying billions and getting nothing back and, most importantly, recognizing that there were millions of people whose voices weren't being heard. People whose previous administrations' (more than one) policies created hardships but no solutions. The same reason the "yellow vests" in France are revolting against their government. These are just a few of the policies I like and all of them accomplished in just 2 years. And having to fight against everyone to get them done. I personally don't care if he's an ass as long as he continues to make things better. And, even though the media won't show it, people in other countries are taking notice and yelling "We want Trump" during their demonstrations. He's not a glib talker, not a charmer, but he doesn't say one thing only to do another. I really don't want to debate this. You asked, I answered and neither of us will change each others mind."

Me:

How to start? Let’s begin at the very end. If facts are different than what one previously thought, then perhaps one should change one’s mind. All I write will be factual in derivation.

“North Korea”: Not sure what Trump has done here, since there has been no actual change in North Korea’s nuclear program, other than their closing down an underground test site which in fact, collapsed on itself. What Trump did do, by the way, which was less than hoped for was semi-legitimize the North’s dictatorship and elevate the status of Kim in his people’s estimation. As of today, there is no less threat from North Korea.

“Jerusalem and supporting the Jewish people”:  This, if anything ramps up tension in the Mideast. Trump knows relatively little about history, but has a significant number of Jewish friends, and, especially, business acquaintances. He is appeasing them. A better question would be why should we support Israel over the people whose land they stole in 1948?  Moving the embassy to Jerusalem was also an unnecessary escalation. Did we really need more tension in that part of the world?

 “Lower taxes (even though I don't think Congress helped the middle class enough with this plan)”: I have addressed this at length (pages and pages) elsewhere in my blog but will try the “short version” here. Cutting taxes is like chocolate, in that it just “sounds good.”  The most recent tax cut, however, is actually yet another attempt to make supply side economics work. The basic premise is that cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations will have the same effect in both instances. The principle, which we were taught in high school econ, as the “trickle-down theory”, is that for every tax dollar cut on high earners/corporations that dollar will be reinvested, and the economy will be stimulated. This is contingent on the assumption, through the money “multiplier effect,” that the dollar will have the effect of more than one dollar as it trickles through the economy. Of course, for most of us this is of little consolation, as we aren’t rich, and as you pointed out this doesn’t save the middle class much at all. But wait, it gets worse. The premise is: cut taxes on the wealthy, reduce government regulations and it will boost the economy. Now for the part with the facts: Both Reagan and Bush 43 did exactly that. Both had record deficits without a recession. Reagan passed a large high-end tax cut, and quietly backed away from it 19 months later in the middle of the “Reagan recession. Even so, he also signed record spending bills, not for people, but for weapons.  The result, a massive deficit every year. Bush 43, not learning from this, did the same thing, again cutting taxes on the wealthy, and like Reagan, spending more (Iraq, second verse). Result? Again, monster deficits.  One standard definition  of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcomes.

Here’s the reality of this “theory” which, unlike valid theories, has been disproved by actual analysis. For Individual tax cuts: the actual amount “back into the economy” for every dollar in tax reduction is a mere 17 cents. Yeah, for the volume of the total individual tax cut, 83% is not seen again, but goes (who knows, off shore, savings, gold?) It’s better for corporate tax cuts, but still, for every dollar lost in tax revenue, the effect is only 50 cents back into the economy. Some “trickle”, huh? There are multiple independent studies validating these numbers but consider that the man who won’t release his own tax data is one of those wealthy persons (as were the Bushes and Reagans backers) and members of Congress are lobbied by corporations. Do you really think “we” are a concern? As for deregulation, ask the people of Flint Michigan whose water is essentially undrinkable, or those who have seen the effects of fracking (earthquakes, ignitable gas from water faucets, etc.). In summary, tax cuts on the wealthy aren’t sound economic policy and the 2018 record deficit jump proves it yet again. One definition of insanity is “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
 

“Making our allies pay more of their share for NATO” He hasn’t. He can’t; unless they do so voluntarily, which some are. This is linked to their economies just like it is to ours. Yes, it’s a good idea and I hope it pans out. Every president has had this discussion, just not insultingly in public (which has something to do with the poorer relations we now have in most of the NATO allies). If I want to chide you and get you to improve performance, would you rather I belittle or insult you in front of your friends or discuss it in private? I thought so. Trump exhibits no leadership skills. If he had been in the military during Vietnam, he’d have been shot by his own men in a “friendly fire accident.”  There is no exaggeration in that last sentence.

“More support for our military:” During the Great Recession 2008-2014 (or so) the defense budget was actually a significantly larger portion of GDP that the proposed 2019 budget. Read that again. One can only spend what one has, so how big a percentage of GDP is devoted to military (defense) spending is a good rule of thumb for “support of the military.” As the recession abated 2013-14 (ish) spending went up. Fun fact: The proposed, but not funded 2019 budget is somewhat higher than this year’s. The last Obama defense budget (fiscal 2017) was a total commitment of $582 Billion.  Trump’s first (2018) was almost the same. Not a lot more “support,” huh?  Although, while Obama sanctioned the “removal” of Bin Laden, Trump did manage to reveal the classified location of SEAL Team Six. In summary, even with recession, Obama’s defense spending was what the military asked for and in fact, a larger percentage of GDP than Trump's first fiscal budget year

 “Allowing vets to go to private doctors:” This isn’t new and should not be necessary if VA was adequately funded. It does however cost you and me much more. The VA has always sent patients out to other specialties in exigent circumstances. They have also always paid these specialists their usual fee. Privatization, just like tax cuts for the rich, is a love letter and a gift to the private sector. If it gives vets better care (and it may or may not depending on where they are and who is being treated, which is a long discussion and too complex for now) then it’s the right thing to do, however, it is not a nationwide problem. It is, however, a chance for private doctors to make more money. As a vet and 26-year military retiree, trust me I have waaay more knowledge in this area than Mr. Trump, as I’ve been researching and writing on this for years. Here is just the headline and a couple of lines from a long, well  researched, Pacific Standard article on the issue:  “INCREASED PRIVATIZATION OF THE VA HAS LED TO LONGER WAITS AND HIGHER COSTS FOR TAXPAYERS - An analysis of VA claims data shows that sending more vets to private care has not had the positive effects that were long promised by conservatives.”

And, oh by the way, the "Cares Act) was signed by Obama, not Trump, who simply signed a bill with very minor modifications and then claimed credit for the whole thing.

“Negotiating better tariffs prices for the US:”

I could spend pages explaining why they’re not only not “better’ but, in fact, “terrible,” but that’s a topic for an AP macro-economics class. What I can do is show you several reasons why they aren’t what you might think: the following are just some samples of how Trump’s tariffs have not only hurt American companies, but essentially wiped out any tax advantage:  Cummins: The diesel and natural-gas engine maker says it’s seeing $250 million in annual impact -- $150 million through direct tariffs and $100 million through higher costs of metals used in its products. It’s moving some alternator production from China to India to help reduce direct tariffs. Stanley Black & Decker: The toolmaker will raise prices for consumers and work to trim $250 million in operating expenses for 2019, It faced a $50 million increase in quarterly costs, forcing it to cut its 2018 earnings forecast by 25 cents at the mid-point. 3M Co.: The maker of industrial, safety, health-care and consumer products sees $100 million in ``headwinds’’ from tariffs but has been able to compensate by raising prices. The negative full-year drag of raw-material costs is seen now at 15 cents a share, more than prior range of as much as 10 cents. Ford: Ford CEO Jim Hackett said tariffs on metals “took about $1 billion in profit from us.”  Still think tariffs are helping anything? These are American companies being hurt by the ignorance of an American President whose signature merchandise (as well as all his daughter’s line) is still made in China and elsewhere in Asia. Of course, they will have to raise prices which will impact every American consumer.

         And oh yeah, since tariffs are rarely, if ever,  borne by the importer, but rather added to the retail price, the average US household has has felt an extra $850 every year in increased cost due solely due to the Trump tariffs, and that's before the extra $30 billion, or so, in farm subsidies or so to bail out distressed soybean farmers due to former overseas customers simply  buying elsewhere, like Brazil.

Getting out of the Paris agreement where we were paying billions and getting nothing back”:  This statement tells me one of two things. Either you are a climate change denier, in which case I see your reasoning. Assuming, however, that you are smarter than that, it then tells me that you have little or no understanding of what the Paris agreement was or what it was actually about. In brief, The Paris agreement was a commitment to assist developing countries in developing without compounding already high carbon footprints and greenhouse gas problems. Make no mistake, this is also “good press” for those who were party to the agreement with those nations where so many much-needed natural resources are to be found. First: We (the US) had not paid “billions: The US pledge was $3 billion, of which we had paid a billion. Japan, by comparison, with less than a third the population of the USA, has pledged $1.5 billion. Looking at a per-person analysis, the US pledge amounts to just over $9 a person. Sweden's pledge represents almost $60 per person, the highest out of any country. The UK has proposed almost $20 per person. So, let’s take the other part of our statement “Getting nothing back.”

 First off, the money actually came from existing allocations from The State Department's Economic Support Fund (ESF), which finances a range of development, security, counter-terrorism and humanitarian projects to advance political and strategic interests in countries such as Iraq, South Sudan, Colombia and Afghanistan.  This a separate fund from the $10 billion in foreign aid in the current budget.

 So, tell me what do we expect to “get back” for that money? What will Israel do in exchange for the $3.1 billion we send them this year? Or perhaps Egypt, with it’s $1.4 billion? What do we expect to “get back” from them? Or perhaps Jordan’s $1 billion?  Or the $1.2 billion to Tanzania and Kenya? See where I’m going here? We give away a whole lot to other nations, in essence, “so they’ll like us.”  Paris accord Green fund money actually helps people. Do you care? Trump apparently doesn’t. By the way, contributing to the fund is voluntary and members are under no obligation to do so.

     Additionally much of that funding would be used to purchase technology, presumably from donor nations. So why would Trump withdraw? I know, I know, pick me! First, he has long been a vocal denier of man-made climate change, even at one time saying it was “invented by the Chinese,” whatever that could possibly mean. Second, and more telling by far, is that it was Barack Obama who made the US commitment.

Most importantly, recognizing that there were millions of people whose voices weren't being heard. People whose previous administrations' (more than one) policies created hardships but no solutions.

Let’s take this one in reverse order. What hardships? I certainly hope you don’t mean seeing gay couples married or having to bake them wedding cakes. Oh, the horror, the horror. Or is your military unit impacted by LGBT or Trans persons? You and I have both lived through the past years, and I’m fairly perceptive and have a business degree, so again, “What hardships?

        As for people whose voices weren’t being heard, I’m left to assume you mean white supremacists? Or Westboro Baptist Church? Or is it the scary feeling that we are not going to always be a nation where being white is an advantage from birth? I know it can’t be religious freedom, since you are free to worship where and as you choose. Ah, but you aren’t free to tell anyone else how to do it and then force them to allow it. Is that it? And, while you feel this way, you lose track of the fact that the current occupant on the White House is by far the least Christian man to hold that job since Warren Harding’s mistress came and went.

       Seriously, and  in closing, I am well aware that, for some Americans, the fact that someone they don’t know and will probably never meet is free to do things they themselves wouldn’t do is troubling. Those things in many cases are things they’ve been told they should dislike (abortion, being gay, being Black, yellow or brown, or simply not worshipping the right deity in the prescribed manner.) These folks have been engineered into harder positions by those who see votes in the situation.

 The Religious Right is the creature of the Republican party, and I’ll give one example and then close. When the Roe V Wade decision was handed down, the Southern Baptist Convention applauded it (yes, they did!) as a victory. Shortly after the decision was handed down, The Baptist Press, a wire service run by the Southern Baptist Convention — the biggest Evangelical organization in the US — ran an op-ed praising the ruling. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” read the January 31, 1973, piece by W. Barry Garrett, The Baptist Press’s Washington bureau chief. Really? Yes. So, what happened? Well, several persons, Republicans first, political operatives second (think Roger Stone here) and Biblical literalists third, gradually infiltrated the SBC and, with little regard for religion and a lot of regard for votes, gradually saw this issue as possible glue for a voting bloc. The rest is history.

    As far as the “we want Trump”, these are the same segment of French society as the Charlottesville mob is in the US. Most of their current complaint is actually about the price of gas! I guess they want to drive into a crowd? 

    Speaking for the one of us who I am sure has actually travelled extensively overseas (me), (Sweden, Finland, Russia, Denmark, Portugal, Hungary, France, UK, Ireland, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Morocco, Estonia, Caribbean,) I can honestly say that at no time, ever, in any of those places did we ever hear a negative comment about Barack Obama. We did however hear serious negative concerns about Donald Trump, most of them since far more than justified by his horribly ignorant and misguided actions.

Good riddance!

Let it Go!

        There has been a fair amount of discussion re: the recent decision to reopen the government (end the partial shutdown). There has also been talk of not gloating” about it and I agree, but not exactly as some have suggested.

         First, let’s discard the “blame the Congress” thread. That’s a red herring. Of course, some will believe, in spite of a mountain of contradictory data, produced by the Government itself, that building a wall at great expense would be the most effective use of our tax dollars to stop drug flow into the US when most, by a large margin, actually comes across check points and even more into ports. Those people will blame the House majority, which since, early January has been Democratic. On an informative note, all bills related to spending must originate in the House. Moreover, both House and Senate must pass the bill in the precise same language before the President can even consider it. I’m frequently surprised by the number of Americans who vote for the people who spend their money without knowing the mechanism by which it is required to be done.

       A veto by the President can only be overridden by a 2/3 majority of both Houses of Congress voting to do so. Now the questions Republicans should be asking themselves, rather than admiring their leader for ending what should never have started in any case, is, “If we now blame Democrats for the shutdown (and some are) why did we not blame the Republican legislators when they actually had held the majority in both houses? Why didn’t the Republican controlled House and Senate simply pass, over whatever objection the Democratic members might have had, a bill to fund “the wall?” He had two years of majority to do it. He had a Republican House, and a simple majority of one vote would have sent the bill to the Senate where he also had a majority. So again, why not just do it?

        I am relatively sure most cannot, or will event try to, make an honest answer to that question. Allow me to offer an opinion as to why this happened now, as it did.

       First, while the House, pre-2018 elections, almost assuredly could have passed such a bill, the Senate was very close to evenly split. Additionally, there was much less enthusiasm for the wall in the Senate and still is. Trump, lives and dies by, “I won, look at me.” If you think that’s wrong, open “The Art of the Deal” (his ghost-written book) to any page. He could, in 2017 or 2018, easily have called speaker Ryan and Senate Majority leader McConnell to the oval office and asked them to send him the bill, but he was well aware that it would probably not pass the Senate because several Republican Senators would vote against it. He was simply unwilling to not get his way with a majority in both houses.

        But with the House now with a Democratic majority, he could avoid all that unpleasantness and embarrassment, so waiting until a continuing budget resolution was due, he called McConnell, (the real villain, along with Trump here) and tells him, (this, by the way is factual, McConnell has said as much) “Don’t send me a continuing resolution bill unless the money for the wall is in it,”  knowing he wasn’t going to see the House pass such a bill anyway because he’d lost the majority. The end game was his belief that as the deadline approached, the House would cave, and send the Senate a bill with wall funding included. After all, the House had offered funding for far more practical and effective measures in almost the same amount (in the high $4 billion plus range.) His fall back was to, if he didn’t get his way, allow a shutdown, for which he and his supporters could than blame the Democrats, and after a while they’d cave in and he’d get his way. Make no mistake, “Get his way” is precisely the way this man-child thinks and has been for decades.

        The other piece of the puzzle, and we saw in in some of the most irresponsible comments ever to come from any administration official, was Trump’s and his advisors’ complete lack of understanding of what common working folks live with every day of their working life – mortgages, utility bills, food costs, etc. He has the disadvantage of never having had to work for a living, and so out of the loop as to guess that “Grocers will just let you get food on credit, or “offer to do odd jobs for the landlord in lieu of rent,” or the obvious fact that many of his inner circle simply had no concept of people actually living paycheck to paycheck. As a data point, a newly hired TSA screener makes about $25k annually. If they’re married with a child, the family is under the federally established poverty level!   He also failed to assess the dangers of not paying the Coast Guard (you know those persons who do more drug interdiction that at the border,? TSA, or maybe most significantly, Air Traffic Controllers.

        So, what happened to change his mind? This we’ll never know, because he’ll never tell us truthfully. However, and this, unlike everything else in this post which is factual, is my opinion; I believe that when La Guardia was forced to suspend flight operations, it dawned on Donald Trump that one group of persons he wasn’t paying, Air Traffic Controllers, could easily crash the economy in a matter of days by walking out and closing all the nation’s airports. With every report showing that he was taking a steadily  increasing amount of blame for the shutdown, Trump, again in his own words, “Told Senator McConnell to send him a bill.” Why is this unusual? First because the Senate majority leader doesn’t take orders from POTUS. Secondly, because he knew the House would readily pass and send such a bill. The Senate (McConnell at Trump’s request) was the stumbling block, all along. McConnell would not even debate or consider a bill without wall funding, even though neither House had the votes to override a veto.

        So, should we pile on Trump or gloat? No, I don’t think so, but not because he did a noble thing. He acted as he always has, in what he felt was his own best interest but which, for once, was also congruent with the Nation’s interest. Any trapped animal, back to the wall, is more dangerous if tormented. As Elsa said, “Let it go.”

Liz Warren

       It seems that the latest Far right schmuck indoor sport is bashing Senator Elizabeth Warren. From Trumps' repeated "Pocohontas" insult, to the new fave, throwing stones at her because she was a highly paid Harvard Law professor before her Senate gig.

The new slurs go along the line "Warren was paid $430,000 annually for teaching a class at Harvard." This is actually the setup for then wondering how she can claim to represent the economically disadvantaged when she is a "one percenter."

       What has passed relatively unnoticed is that Senator Marco Rubio, that hero of the poor and downtrodden, termed out in the Florida House, was paid $69,000 annually by Florida International for teaching a class during which by his co-teacher's admission, he missed  30% of the sessions altogether. The class was not a law class (Rubio's area of study, although he has no teaching credentials) Although his salary was reduced in subsequent years, he continued teaching (or at least on Florida International University's payroll) into 2013 - two years after being sworn in as a US Senator! It is no secret that Rubio has had financial "issues" since his time as speaker of the Florida House, so perhaps he needed the extra job. He has also received compensation from FIU for "consulting' whatever that is.

So to review; we have a sitting US Senator still nominally working at a teaching gig 1000 or so miles south of his office to which we Floridians elected him and for which we pay him $174,000 annually plus benefits.

       So what about the senator from Massachusetts? Was she just a highly paid “no (or sometime) show”, doing no work and being over paid?  Her salary was less than the top professor in the Harvard school of medicine, although her resume is second to no one in the nation in her field.  First issue, she was paid in the high three hundred thousands , vice the stated $430,000, the rest coming from paid consulting jobs.  A significant portion of that pay was compensation in the form of a faculty mortgage subsidy and housing allowance. Warren was not a fiscally struggling state legislator when she went to Harvard and the big bucks, but a tenured professor with 34 years of university level Law School Teaching. 

       Elizabeth Warren started her academic career as a lecturer at Rutgers School of Law–Newark in 1977. She moved to the University of Houston Law Center (1978–83), where she became Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 1980 and obtained tenure in 1981. She taught at the University of Texas School of Law as visiting associate professor in 1981 and returned as a full professor two years later (staying 1983–87). In addition, she was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan (1985) and research associate at the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin (1983–87). Early in her career, Warren became a proponent of on-the-ground research based on studying how people actually respond to laws in the real world. Her work analyzing court records, and interviewing judges, lawyers, and debtors, established her as a rising star in the field of bankruptcy law. Rubio academically, can't carry her undies to the laundry.

Warren joined the University of Pennsylvania Law School as a full professor in 1987 and obtained an endowed chair in 1990 (becoming William A Schnader Professor of Commercial Law). She taught for a year at Harvard Law School in 1992 as Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Commercial Law. In 1995, Warren left Penn to become Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. As of 2011, she was the only tenured law professor at Harvard who attended law school at an American public university. At Harvard, Warren became one of the most highly cited law professors in the United States.

        No one, as far as I can determine, has ever cited Marco Rubio about anything of substance, let alone in the area of law! Although she had published in many fields, her expertise was in bankruptcy. In the field of bankruptcy and commercial law, only Douglas Baird of Chicago, Alan Schwartz of Yale, and Bob Scott of Columbia have citation rates comparable to that of Warren. Warren's scholarship and public advocacy were the impetus behind the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

       In 2009, the Boston Globe named her the Bostonian of the Year and the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts honored her with the Lelia J. Robinson Award. She was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2009, 2010 and 2015. The National Law Journal repeatedly has named Warren as one of the Fifty Most Influential Women Attorneys in America, and in 2010 it honored her as one of the 40 most influential attorneys of the decade. In 2011, Warren was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

In 2009, Warren became the first professor in Harvard's history to win the law school's The Sacks–Freund Teaching Award for a second time. In 2011, she delivered the commencement address at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark, where she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

      In debates, some have mentioned Warren’s Harvard salary — tax returns show it was close to $350,000 her last full year — and criticized her teaching workload. Harvard Law professors spend, on average, five hours a week in the classroom, with the bulk of their time reserved for research, writing, student advising, and administrative tasks. “Professor,” as critics use it, has become a somewhat pejorative title, something less than an honorific — an image conjured of Warren as Harvard elitist, liberal ideologue, scolding schoolmarm.

       At Harvard, she is known as none of those. Widely admired by students and faculty, she is considered tough but fair, whip smart but warm, inspiring, and accessible. Warren, who is on leave, because she actually shows up for her Senate gig, has won student-nominated teaching awards at four of the five universities where she has taught, including Harvard’s Sacks-Freund Award — twice — as voted by the graduating class.

       Senator Elizabeth Warren has missed just 11 of over 1093 roll call votes in her time in the Senate, Rubio has only shown up 7.1% of the time! Based on attendance Warren is worth a whole lot more than she's being paid., and Rubio considerably less.

       The real reason, of course for the slanderous treatment of Senator Warren, is to attempt to demean and diminish the impact of her advocacy for the financially disadvantaged. I guess the twisted logic is along the lines of "How can she care about the poor when she's so wealthy?"

       Here's how; she's been there! Warren was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to working class parents.  She was their fourth child, with three older brothers. When she was 12, her father, a janitor, had a heart attack—which led to many medical bills, as well as a pay cut because he could not do his previous work. Eventually, this led to the loss of their car from failure to make loan payments. To help the family finances, her mother found work in the catalog order department at Sears. When she was 13, Warren started waiting tables at her aunt's restaurant. So, spare me the "how can she identify with the economically disadvantaged" drivel!

       Warren became a star member of the debate team at Northwest Classen High School and won the title of "Oklahoma's top high school debater" while competing with debate teams from high schools throughout the state. She also won a debate scholarship to George Washington University at the age of 16. Initially aspiring to be a teacher, she left GWU after two years to marry her high school boyfriend.

       Warren moved to Houston with her husband, who was a NASA engineer. There she enrolled in the University of Houston, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science degree in speech pathology and audiology. For a year, she taught children with disabilities in a public school, based on an "emergency certificate", as she had not taken the education courses required for a regular teaching certificate. Again, super creds!

       Warren and her husband moved again, for his work, to New Jersey, where, after becoming pregnant, she decided to remain at home to care for their child. After their daughter turned two, Warren enrolled at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark, still a stay at home mom.  Shortly before her graduation in 1976, Warren became pregnant with their second child. After receiving her J.D. and passing the bar examination, she began to work as a lawyer from home, writing wills and doing real estate closings. Hardly the high life.  

       So, the next time one decides to slander Senator Elizabeth Warren, chastise her for succeeding in a male dominated profession, or diminish he on the basis of gender, one might want to consider that she has risen not through social position or daddy's money, but by intellect, determination and skill. She stands head and shoulders above any Republican candidate imaginable.    

Binded by the Right

A dear friend asked me earlier, 

"Mike, I guess my real question is how in the hell do we get through to Trump supporters? And actually, I have another question now... How do I unfriend someone?"

        I attempted some sort of explanation, which turned into a rant, so here goes!

        Darlin’ I have asked myself that over and over. Facts just bounce off them like nerf balls. I have asked several people who I have known to be rational and sane, or so I thought, to make a list of the "good," or even just "effective", things the Trump administration has done, or tried to do, and then let's have a measured, realistic discussion on the merits of what they have recorded. So far no one has taken me up on it.

        When an individual defends the indefensible, and cannot or, more to the point, "will not" lucidly tell you why, we are pretty much left with the conclusion that their reasons are ugly enough that they don't want to give voice to them.  These could be racism, bigotry, LGBTQ bias, xenophobia, whatever. Unfortunately, more recently we have also seen a disturbing increase in what I would call “religious supremacy bigotry” since no one talks about it or has named it yet. Not talking about any particular faith, here, but about the segment of society which is so convinced that the dogma of their particular brand of religion endows them with moral superiority sufficient to justify forcing their beliefs on their employees and society in general. These are American Mullahs - the Robertsons, Falwells and Franklin Grahams among us who apparently see Trump as a new messiah. Some have even analogized him to King David and Jesus. Of course, his secular bullying mirrors their extremist Evangelical polemics. This isn’t accidental, since he has played to their particular brand of bigotry from early days of his campaign, even though privately, he would almost surely avoid contact with them if possible. Then we have that perfect storm of religious intolerance and toadyism, Mike Pence, who just yesterday publicly compared Trump favorably with Dr. King!

        One exception is that set of true believers who actually believe that tax cuts on the wealthy are sound fiscal policy, even when: 1) They, themselves are not, and never will be, in any higher marginal bracket than they presently are, or 2) They have continued believing in Supply Side economic theory even when data from Three Republican presidencies disproves it. Eisenhower was POTUS when we had the highest marginal tax rates ever (91% top bracket) and the economy performed well, despite inflation. Reagan and Bush 43 both ran on a “Tax cuts for the wealthy” (Reagan backed off in 18 months!) platform and both left record deficits.

       These folks also tend to cling desperately to the conviction that all private enterprise is more (efficient, moral, fair?) than any government enterprise. This, of course, in spite of the fact that two such federal (and Socialist!) programs, Medicare and Social Security are efficient and well run and, in fact, the odd fraud cases which have made headlines are the result of non-government entities defrauding us all.

       The first set of stimuli, the biases, is at least understandable if reprehensible. Prejudices are learned behavior in most cases, and Trump has simply and, without a doubt, intentionally, stoked the fires in these people’s dark hearts. These are unfortunates who will never have friends who are appreciably different than they, themselves, because they’ve been taught that all (insert racial/religious/national label here) are not to be trusted, befriended or treated fairly. The person who pre-judges, based on appearance, has never eaten an oyster.

        The second, the economic policy “reason,” is more unfortunate because economics misconceptions spur social prejudices, too. “They’ll take our jobs!” No, Abner, they won’t, because ether they’re too skilled to do the manual labor for which you are suited or, needing to survive in an increasingly hostile economic environment, they’ll take the jobs you’re “too good” to do. Even Reagan’s ultimate VP (Bush 41) called it (supply side, or “trickle-down” initiatives) “Voo Doo economics” and he was wealthy. People who look to Trump for economic wisdom are looking at a man who, given just under half a billion dollars by the time he completed college, the vast bulk of it the product of his father’s tax evasion, has still managed to be forced to declare bankruptcy 5 times!

         There are reasons, mostly perhaps ugly introspection regarding his own financial rocks and shoals, why Trump disdains the likes of Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Paul Allen and Bill Gates. They started with nothing, worked hard, and became wealthy. Gates and Buffett have, Allen did, and Bezos is in the process of, giving much of that wealth away charitably.  Trump, on the other hand, started very wealthy, went bankrupt several times, alienated almost every working person who ever did contract work for him, defrauded students in a sham university, and spent much of his pseudo-foundation’s money on himself (portraits, autographed Tom Brady helmets) even though there was precious little actual Trump money involved. In fact, the Trump foundation’s single largest “donors” were Vince and Linda McMahon (yep, from pro-rasslin’s WWE!) She now heads Trump’s Small Business Administration. How weirdly coincidental is that?

        Of course, none of this resonates with the true believers. For one or more of the reasons limned above, they are immune to facts – “Blinded by the light, their brain cells are loose, another blunder of the Right!” (apologies to the Boss.)

Bubble Economics

This is a response to a friend who wanted to know what I read and where I got information about an economics discussion (which had continued far too long) following a post he made which was a letter he wrote to the Republican National Committee re: why he was no longer playing with them. Among the respondents was one particularly ignorant man who had far too any misconceptions to list here, but to whom my previous post relates.  My friend, opining that I had sliced and diced him, then asked: Mike. What are you reading? You have been cutting xxx xxxxx a new one for days now, and this is the stuff about which I wish to know. What are your books?

My response:

    This is largely just off the top of my head, xxx, I was a Government/Economics/history (World and AP US) for 20 years after leaving the NAVY, which, bless the GI Bill's heart, put me through two BAs and a MS in management. What stuns me is that absolutely nothing I've told that guy is obscure or difficult to grasp or to document. I just noted this morning that he's a mortgage broker. He isn't the first person in that field that I know (I sometimes play golf with another one) to seem almost to be bending over backwards to deny the critical role that under-regulation of financial markets played in causing the bubble collapse. It's sort of like a pimp blaming hookers for his bad rep.

         The Clinton administration believed home ownership was a positive factor in a healthy economy at a time when many lenders (banks as well as independent brokers) axiomatically “red lined” (denied loans to) certain ethnic groups, based, not on their individual ability to pay, but on where they lived or their race, etc. The Clinton initiative - "encouragement" to stop this blatantly unfair lending practice - became an excuse (based on potential profit) to some, but not all, in the industry (banks, realtors and brokers) to simply sell/loan to anyone who walked through the door. Adding to this incentive for mortgage brokers especially, was the belief that these mortgages, risky or not, or a least a  majority of them, would be resold before any risk of default came back to the original lender.

        In truth, many of these mortgages were sold very soon after closing to other financial institutions as investments. (I pay you, then I get to collect the $200,000 (or more) in interest over the life of the loan!) By 2004, an early “what if” report came from economist Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust, a nationwide wealth management corporation.  It was probably the first report pointing to the potentially disastrous effects of a collapse in housing on financial institutions and dates to July 30, 2004. He noted that 60% of banks' earning assets were mortgage-related--twice as much as was the case in 1986. What made this so bad was the extra step, which was considering these for investment purposes, as real money -that is, that you could lay it down and when you picked it up later it would still retain the same value. Another "twist" was "bundling” these, essentially making one big instrument out of many mortgages, some "good” loans, some “fair”, and some really, really, bad (risky) loans issued to naive buyers who were told, in many cases by a realtor and mortgage broker in tandem, that the property  would continue to appreciate and they'd "be way ahead" in a year or two. Property values always go up, right? Yeah, until they don't. At the edge of the collapse you had some who "owned" (had mortgages on) several condos, bought as investments with almost no true collateral. When prices tanked, these folks were “upside down” (or “under water” either sucks) in three or four properties.

        Meanwhile mortgage loans of all levels of “quality,” for want of a more descriptive term, were being “bundled” as one financial instrument. These bundles had several tranches, or tiers, of loans, themselves bundled. These bundled promises to pay, like all securities sold as investments, were submitted to a rating agency and assigned a value rating, which is sort of like setting the odds that they’re worth what is asked, on a risk basis. These ratings go from rock solid guaranteed (AAA+) - “investment grade” - all the way down to D-. Anything lower rated than a Baa is generally considered speculative and not investment grade.  Although there might be a tranche of AAA loans in a given mortgage bundle, many had even more B, C, or even D rated (highly speculative, not investment grade) tranches also.

        Not to worry, though because all the owner and prospective seller of these bundles had to do was get the entire bundle rated as investment grade, (AAA or AA) irrespective of the shitty, high risk tranches which comprised as much as half or more of the bundle. Unfortunately, here’s where the guys who didn’t get punished nearly enough come in. Almost all financial investment products rated in the US are “risk assessed” and rated by Standard and Poor, Moody’s or Fitch, all of whom perform this service, supposedly a realistic, good faith, analysis of the likelihood that, as long-term investments, they are good investments for State pension plans, Municipal retirement plans, and even big individual investors or Brokers as resale paper.

        Sadly, S & P, anxious to keep the business of large commercial banks like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and AIG (who insured a lot of these investments…..see the need for reasonable regulation yet?) rated far too many of these bundles far too high (fearing the bank would go down the street to Moody’s or Fitch?) and thus they were bought and sold as if they were gilt edge securities. The more these sold, the more even  sketchier, and lower quality, bundles hit the market, until one day, some guy, somewhere, said something like “Hey, what are we doing here? These aren’t worth anything close to what they’re selling for if housing prices don't always go up.

        The “bubble", which had peaked in 2006, began to “leak” by year’s end, and the worst hit on December 30, 2008, when the Case–Shiller home price index reported its largest price drop in its history. An example of what was contained therein is offered here to give a sense of scale: Median home prices in California’s Monterrey County, an already high cost of living area, were $799,500 in August of 2007. By November of 2008, 15 months later, they were $275,000, a drop of 65.6 %!   Sadly, this was reminiscent of Black Thursday, (October 24, 1929), when panicked sellers, having had similar “oh shit” moments, dumped nearly 13 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange (more than three times the normal volume at the time), and investors suffered $5 billion in losses. Almost immediately, persons who, for example, were paying on an $800,000 mortgage for a house now worth only $400,000, simply walked away, their mortgage now just more paper with little value.

        And, finally, back to the original question. While several good analytics have been made of these events, a fairly readable version is “The Big Short.” I’d read the book for understanding, then watch the movie. Much of what I told our “friend”, xxxxx, is mandatory 12^th grade Economics in Florida. It’s a 1 semester required course, which, sadly, still focuses too much on Micro and not enough on Macro, but a good course will discuss “trickle down,” “supply side,” The Depression, and, I hope by now, the background and causes of the Great Recession. I covered the economics of the depression in US History as well.

There is an Arab proverb which starts, “He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool; avoid him.”  Sadly, for purposes of this discussion with xxxxx, we need go no further.

       Hope this answers your question. By the way, my late brother, Steve, always said you were a swell guy for a five string bass player. That last part was just gratuitous joshing; be well, my friend!.

So Much Ignorance, So Little Time

I got involved in a "Facebook discussion" part way through. And yeah, I should know better. You can’t fix stupid, but you can try to enlighten its practitioners sometimes. This was one of those times. Let me set the stage: A friend, a lifelong Republican, published a letter he’d written to the Republican National Committee in which he explained civilly and, in some detail, why he was no longer a Republican. It drew mostly measured responses, but as is so frequently the way with the Book of Face there were several who reeled in stunned disbelief.

The first was a response to another  friend’s statement regarding the exorbitant cost of college and of medical care. He dared to opine that perhaps the health of our citizen, all our citizens should be “not for profit.”

Here’s the response:

“That is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Of course, it should be for profit! How else would you ever get advances in treatment be it with medicine or technology! If it wasn’t for the capitalism and the free market, we wouldn’t have half of what we have now.

The earlier discussion had focused significantly on drug pricing. I responded:

       “XXXXX, where do you think most "new drugs" come from? No, it isn't any one or only, Big Pharma corporation(s). At one time they rationalized high drug costs as a result of their number one expense being research and development, and at one time (decades ago) that was true. Of course, Jonas Salk “gave away” the polio vaccine, as just a reminder that not all research is profit driven.

       A prime example of how wrong this is (the correlation between price and research cost) is the recent ultra-price gouging by the manufacturers of the Epi-Pen. Epinephrine (Pseudo-Adrenaline) was first synthesized in 1904. There is no patent on the substance! The amount in an Epi-pen is about $1.50 worth. yet we saw the price as high as $600 until popular outrage prevailed. Why so high? Simply because Insurance companies cover most of the cost for the insured patient. So, who paid the high price? Every single Medicare patient, because Part D (Bush 43's love letter to Big Pharma) bans Medicare from ever negotiating drug prices! There was/is Zero R& D, except for a $4.50 per unit delivery system. (do the friggin' math)

        The United States and New Zealand are the only two nations in the world which allow DTC (direct to consumer) drug advertising. Accordingly, advertising is now the number one cost item for every major Big Pharma company in America. R & D is second. “Lobbying” is close to a tie with R & D for some companies. Much (around half) of "new drug research and development" in America is funded not by Pharma, but by National Institute of Health Grants! By the numbers, in 2017 alone, our tax dollars (NOT private money) in the amount of $11 billion plus!!! went to about 16,000 drug/treatment University research grants.

        Oddly enough, if a researcher (college professor, for example) develops a new drug (like Harvoni, developed at Emory University with an NIH grant) he can do initial trials and sell the patent to a private firm (and keep the money!). In the case of Harvoni, that was a $4 million-dollar payday from Gilead pharma, who promptly made that investment back in about six months selling (and advertising) "their" new drug at, initially, $92,000 per course of treatment. Harvoni is now down to about "only" $34,000 with insurance, but in India, where Gilead sells the generic, it is $127. Do you really think they're selling in India at a loss?

        Drug companies spent more than $3 billion a year marketing to consumers in the U.S. in 2012, (double that by 2016!) but an estimated $24 billion more marketing directly to health care professionals. These numbers seem low by 2017 standards, as we are all bombarded with an ever-increasing number of drugs for diseases we've never heard of with side effects which ought to scare us shitless! Since 2012, there has also been a shift toward more DTC ads, as I'm sure you've noticed.

       I guess what I'm getting at is that many Americans know little or nothing in factual data about what drug companies do, or that they are by a landslide the highest NET profit (after taxes) corporations in the USA, at around 25-30% annually for the top 6 or 8. (most corporations would jump for joy at 6%) Unfortunately this ignorance usually doesn't stop them from saying things which are monumentally ludicrous in their "wrongness."

       Regarding the con that private enterprise is responsible for most of the tech we have today, the truth is that, again, government grants drive much of this research, as so much of is related to, or “spun off” from, the space program and military research. Quick examples. Location services are part of almost every electronic communications device. Say “Thank you, military Navsat program. Your internet? DOD research (darpanet). Digital devices of all sorts? Thanks, space program. So there!

       This, then,  in response to another  member joining the thread and opining that Trump has done little substantively and the Russians were involved somehow)  

       XXXXX: “So how are they doing that? Did the Russians tell the president to lower tax rates to jump start our economy? Did they tell him to attack the fed chairman who wanted to raise rates to choke off a booming recovery? Or maybe they told him to go make peace with the North Korean government?”

Ignoring the “peace with North Korea” comment as simply too stupid to waste ink on, I addressed economics instead:

       Me: XXXX; Taxes lowered to jump start the economy? Trickle- down theory? Supply Side? Bush 43 and Reagan both lowered taxes. Both left with hugely increased deficits. So, tell me again how that worked. And The economy didn't need "jump starting" since by 2015 it was already back to where it was at the Bush 43 peak before the housing bubble collapsed. If the economic growth curve had stayed at about the exact slope it had while Obama was president after the recession cleared it would still be where it is today. There is no “Trump miracle," just continued growth. 

        Regarding taxes: One of the strongest growth periods in our history was at a time when the marginal tax rate was as high as 91%. It worries me when people make statements based on not knowing what they don't know. And it really doesn't matter who tells Trump what, because if he has demonstrated anything, it is that he doesn't listen to those who are competent (what few there were) among his appointees. Can you possibly think that Trump is right and all the people who have abandoned him are wrong? You reveal a staggering a lack of economic and geo-political understanding in such a short space. Nothing to even debate.

His response:

“Another one (Ooh!he means me!) that believes Obama brought us out of this. No trickle-down economics here. If you don't know how lowering the corporate tax rate did wonders for the economy, we have nothing to even debate.” The important issue here, is that he is disavowing that tax cuts on the wealthy are “trickle down” economics (also known to Reagan as supply side theory). I attempted to educate him:

       Me: XXXX, “Only ever in the short term. (I’m referring to tax cuts here) It's simple history. The theory is that money not spent in lowered taxes will be reinvested and multiplied. That's not debatable, but it is, apparently what you need to believe. That's Supply-Side doctrine reduced to simplest terms, and supply side is simply the pig of Trickle-Down Theory with a new coat of lipstick. Now, since you insist tax cuts are not “Trickle-down theory”, here’s the definition from my economics text: "Trickle-down economics, also called trickle-down theory, refers to the economic proposition that taxes on businesses and the wealthy in society should be reduced as a means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term." Not my words, but those of a real economist.

       “Now if we both knew something of economics, I'd ask you how much (as a percentage, by actual data historical analysis) of those unspent tax revenues actually are plowed back into the economy and what actually has been the percentage (real numbers) of that money, multiplied through the economy. It's surprisingly enough, just a not-so-whopping 17%! Here's the reality: "A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found precise figures on how much revenue will be recouped by tax cuts. For each dollar of income tax cuts, only 17 cents will be recovered from greater spending.

Corporate tax cuts do a little better. Each dollar cut returns 50 cents to revenue. This shows that, over the long-term, the revenue lost by tax cuts will be only partially regained. Without a decrease in spending, tax cuts lead to an increase in the budget deficit. That harms the economy over time." Reagan, Bush 43, and now Trump have proven this yet again.  And finally, yes, the economy did somewhat better under Bush cuts briefly, ....wait for it.....because the FED lowered the interest rate from 6% to just over 1%. Not a real good permanent fix, huh?

      So, at best, tax cuts only produce less than half of the supply sider's most heuristic promises. Real data, remember. Not what you think, but what we know. That study also points out that tax cuts are seldom evenly felt and of far less benefit to the lowest 40% of the nation (for who you obviously have little concern anyway. In private moments, economists sometimes refer to supply side/trickle down, as “The rich pissing on the poor.” Not a bad analogy.

There was no response.

MAGA?

Causative factors:

At times I find myself wondering what those of the great unwashed who wear the hats emblazoned with the letters above are envisioning when they wear it. I have concluded that several factors are at work in the recesses of their minds. I also believe that many, if not most, are cognitively unaware of all the factors shaping their angst and anger.

First, let’s think about what the acronym might mean, and what it means to the Trumpists and why. I believe there is a factor operating in most of these cases of which the individuals are perhaps unaware. Essentially all organizational leadership studies ever conducted in the 20th century reveal that, of those things which happen in organizations great and small, the one constant is fear of and resistance to change. We've all seen it. In the Navy, there was the uncertainty, every three years or so, of a new Commanding Officer. “How will he be different from the guy we’re used to?” “How will my responsibilities change?” “How will the command climate change?” The military, however, plans for and conducts changes such as this so frequently that it becomes the norm and not the exception. These changes are also abrupt, in that “the old guy was here, and now he’s gone.” The individual was assigned to one command, and then he received orders to another, perhaps across the continent. This “norm,” for military families is much like the “New” model for younger members of the workforce, especially young professionals.

The millennial generation should expect, if current projections are correct,  to change jobs 4 or 5 times during their working life. They should also anticipate that they will be required to accept far more responsibility for their own retirement finances than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. In summary, the post WWII generation (boomers), and their immediate successors have witnessed, and are witnessing, changes in the way work and post work life happens.

The days of “work for XYZ Inc. for 35 years and retire with guaranteed pension and premium healthcare,” while generally guaranteed for Boomers, are slipping away, as healthcare costs spiral and “guaranteed benefit” retirement plans (work so many years, multiply that by a percentage your “high five” wage earning years and get that amount each year for life) are being replaced by “guaranteed contribution” plans, wherein the employer contributes a specific amount to a private sector IRA and so does the employee, who manages (or can manage) that account. In these cases, when the employee retires, the employer’s responsibility is finished. This is a change, perhaps not overtly seen as a stressor by the individual, but real, nonetheless.

Likewise, societal changes, happening gradually, while in some cases inconsequential, but in more cases radical, are stress inducing to the post war and later generations who have resisted social change, perhaps not because they have even made any rational appraisal of consequence, but because they are products of nurture and parentally inculcated bias. The Civil Rights movement is exemplary. For many Americans, there was no immediate physical impact on their lives or the quality of life, yet they, in many (too many) cases resisted movements toward social equality for all Americans simply they’d been raised to do so by that same boomer generation, again resisting change, even when in much of the nation it was of little consequence to them.

Likewise, improving and levelling the playing field for women in society met much the same intransigence from many, whose ingrained ideas of the “place” of women was similar to their concept of the “place” of Black and Brown people – second class and subservient. This gender driven bias, while somewhat less prevalent, was frequently also less overt.

The LGBTQ Rights movement, like the Women’s movement, found also, in many cases opposition from those on the “Religious Right” who were, to a great extent, cloaking their prejudices in the veil of religion, and in the case of Christianity. grossly perverting the teachings of their own inceptor, real or symbolic, Jesus.

Again, all these changes were additive, but some, such as accepting changes to the nature of their financial futures, were a necessity of work life. Social changes were, oddly enough, more frustrating for many folks, even though these changes, in most cases, had zero physical effect on many of those most vocal in opposing them, which is one of the more perplexing and troubling aspects of the current mindset of the MAGA folks. For too many of those White male MAGA cap wearers it way well be the realization that their presumptive “head of the table” seat based on ethnicity and gender as a White Male in the United States is no longer guaranteed and, rather, more and more ability related.

Yet another change in America over the span of post WWII to today, is in the very nature of work itself. The era when American assembly lines churned out cars as fast as the rest of the world could buy them died and that demise was, to some extent, semi-suicidal. While it is true that “foreign cars” (remember when we called them that?) were cheaper and more economical, the Big Three (GM, Ford, Chrysler) continued producing gas guzzlers long after Americans had begun voting with their wallets for imports. "Made in Japan", in the 1950s a derisive term connoting poor quality and cheap manufacture, by the 1980s (think “Honda Accord”) had become a selling point, while “Chevy Vega” had become vomit inducing. The ubiquitous vintage Chevy in Latin America gradually yielded to Toyotas, Hondas, etc. Manufacturing, likewise, began to be shipped off- shore or southward, not because of any “government conspiracy”, but because corporate America chose to do it to remain competitive by using cheap labor elsewhere. This, of course, hit displaced American auto maker employees like a tsunami. More change, more angst.

The change described above in, but one US industry, was not confined but general. As the incorporation of rare earths in an ever-increasing array of military and consumer electronics applications mushroomed, so did the awareness than most of these essential ores were located outside our continental boundaries, in such places as Brazil and China. Likewise, as the technical nature of the requirements for higher paying jobs in manufacturing and high-tech industries broadened, some American workers found themselves simply unable to compete. Tragically, many also found themselves complacently unwilling to retrain. Sadly, this has resulted in several “fall back” positions for these folks who would rather blame than adjust

The first is to blame immigrants, especially undocumented (illegal) ones for “taking American jobs” which may well be the greatest lie since “the check’s in the mail!” In fact, many immigrants, happy to work at any job which gives then a chance to be happy and raise a family, are working jobs for which Americans don’t, or won’t, even apply for, such as farm laborers, hotel maids, roofing crews, etc. The myth of lost “American jobs” is simply that. The second lie these folks tell themselves is that there aren’t any manufacturing jobs available. The real issue is that the “new” job market requires skill sets beyond those of many Americans, even recent college graduates, many of whom have massive student load debt amassed while pursuing a degree field for which there may be relatively few job openings. In 2017, this resulted in almost 200,000 foreign graduates of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) courses from US colleges being granted work visas to fill job openings in American businesses. An additional 85,000 “non-STEM” grads were hired. There are jobs. There are also qualification and training requirements.

Meanwhile, in desperately poor towns in Kentucky, many residents blame the “Gummint” for their woes, refusing to learn any other new employable skill or relocate while bemoaning the loss of jobs in the coal industry, apparently unconcerned that if they work the mines, they are likely to live about 14 years less than the average non-miner (yeah, I looked it up). Of course, the Trump mantra of “Clean beautiful Coal” resonates with these provincial bumpkins, even though their vote will do nothing to assuage the ravishment of Black Lung.

Added to the negative (for some) dither of change was, beginning in the early 1970s, the initiation of ARPANET, the eventually exponential jump in instant information availability. Since 1995 the Internet has tremendously impacted culture and commerce, including the rise of near instant communication by email, instant messaging, telephony (Voice over Internet Protocol), two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1Gbit/sec (lots of data in little time).

While this immediacy of information had/has good intentions, it also contributes to the “change” stressors of those who can now see situations and actions as they unfold, which in years past might have been page three news items the next day. While many of us can process this for what it is – that things which are today, really not much different in frequency, or even less so, than they ever were, they are, nonetheless, perceived by too  many others as escalations. Examples might include child abuse, bank robberies, angry persons with guns, incidence of illegal immigration, etc.

Although the “I fear/hate change” portion of our nation would be distressed by what they believe to be increases in violent crime, the truth is that, after World War II, crime rates did increase in the United States, peaking from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Oddly enough, (or perhaps not), 1991 is also generally considered the first year of civilian/ “browse at home” access to what we today consider “the Internet.” Although property crime (theft/arson, etc.) more than doubled over the same period(70s to 90s), since 1991, contrary to common misconception, crime in the United States has declined steadily. It should be obvious what now fuels that misconception. I’d be willing to bet and give odds that most wearers of the MAGA ball cap would be absolutely sure that crime was higher than 30 years ago, and they’d be wrong. In fact, both rape and murder in the US (and rape is far more often reported “now” than “then”) are at levels about half (yes half!) as high as 1990. Ah, but the Internet!

In summarizing, while real change stressors, such as health care, job loss or financial uncertainties are undeniable, they have been with us for much of the last 100 years. Social change stressors, amped up grossly by instant information, however, are relatively new, vastly different and more immediate in impact and, for too many boomers and their progeny, far more difficult to assimilate. One last example: For those of us old enough to remember, try to imagine the Cuban missile crisis (1962) or events in Selma Alabama (1965) through the lens of the Internet today.


Catalyst:

This is a much shorter section, since it’s a much more direct and obvious answer. Although typically, Democratic administrations have been labeled “Tax and Spend” by most Republicans, incumbents and candidates, over the past several decades, the federal deficit has shown a somewhat different snapshot of federal finances. Because I’ve discussed this before elsewhere, I’ll try to be brief here. The strongest US economies of the last 70 years have been in periods of higher marginal tax rates, even as high as 91% in the Eisenhower administration. This is only relevant in that it shows the predisposition of some to “fall for” the oft repeated Republican mantra that cutting taxes will stimulate the economy, which they love to refer to by the Econ 101, term “The Trickle Down “Theory.” In practice, it hasn’t worked for any Republican in our lifetime. Eisenhower had high marginal tax rates and a booming post war economy, Bush 41, after saying “No new taxes,” signed a tax increase, Clinton actually had us on the way to decreasing the monumental national debt. “Supply Siders, Ronald Reagan and Bush 43 both cut taxes on the rich; both grew record deficits, neither in time of recession. I know, so what where does this get us to MAGA? Patience grasshopper.

 At the end of the Bush 43 administration’s second term, the Commercial Banking industry’s manipulation of questionable mortgages, packaged as if they had real value and grotesquely overvalued and overrated finally collapsed of its own weight, with a resultant $426 billion bailout (TARP) signed by Bush 43 and handed to the newly elected Barack Obama. The fallout from the housing bubble collapse was the result of an under-regulated and largely misunderstood financial sector, running amok with relatively little comprehension by those at the top of what their companies were doing. The result was job loss, foreclosed mortgages, unemployment, and a crisis of survivability in the Auto, Insurance and Commercial Finance sectors.

Enter Barack Obama, already eliciting from those mentioned earlier who had race “issues” barrages of insults without basis. He now also became the reason for increased deficits due to extending unemployment and propping up programs which were essential to survival for those poor among us, regardless of race. Along the way we heard “Obama phone” (actually a Bush 43 initiative) and a host of scathing and similar insults dredged up from the angst of job loss, financial crisis, and reigniting the racial hostilities some had stewed over since the civil rights era. Lost in all this for too many of these haters was the fact that, by 2013, all TARP funds had been paid back and actually generated an $11 billion return on the original outlay. In essence, TARP was a 2.5% interest loan. Not great, but not a giveaway, either. At the end of the Obama administration, the economy was back to the highest point of the Bush 43 years and climbing, as it still was when Trump was sworn in, the deficit down.

Then came the election year of 2016. Donald Trump was a narcissistic political opportunist and self- promoter who glossed over his 5 bankruptcies, and as a TV reality show host, had a media image inconsistent with his own realities. The one thing he was good at, however was tapping into all these afore-mentioned simmering resentments of some Americans, many of whom in their ignorance and in spite of all indicators to the contrary and a rapidly improving economy, blamed Barack Obama for their miseries of 2008-2011. By inference, and sometimes by direct actions, Trump fed their racism, anti-female biases, xenophobia and even their disdain for the handicapped. Although he had wanted his then-mistress to abort their first child, Tiffany, he now became pro-life, pandering to the Evangelicals. His “Make America Great Again” became the watchword of many who had no real idea of what, if anything, it meant to him, because of what image it conjured up for them.

To Trump, “great” apparently means ready credit for his wealthy supporters, a far less regulated financial establishment, little or no concern for the environment, undoing essentially all Obama executive orders, watching TV until 11 am and playing 3 times as much golf as Obama, whose golf playing he criticized as excessive. Even more to the point, it means fanning the flames of all those financial and social change stressors in order to keep his core voters focused on lesser things than his destruction of foreign relations, the environment, healthcare availability, Government day to day operation, and general ineptitude. All this while never actually defining “Great Again,” because he knows full well, he cannot, because, while “great” is attainable, it must be a different kind of “great.”

The “Great Again” of Trump supporter fantasy isn’t coming back. We no longer have all the raw materials we need within our boundaries. We are no longer alone as the economy which rules world markets. Women and Minorities will not be shoved back into White Male determined slots and immigrants will continue filling jobs, since some Americans are either “too good” or too under-educated to do them.

The “new great” would be one where all citizens have access to decent healthcare. It would be one where a university degree doesn’t leave one with the equivalent of a home mortgage in student loan debt. It would be one where children grew up with the idea that a reasonable person treats each individual as just that, rather than by parentally inculcated stereotype, and where parents encourage education for the workplace, be that post-secondary or technical. It would be a “great” where US foreign relations were cordial where appropriate, and firm but civil where differences exist. It would be a “great” where we openly acknowledge a changing world and economic reality and do what can be done to remain ahead of it, vice fostering the belief that we can “go home again.

Like it or not, Trump supporters, Richie and The Fonz aren’t coming back to Al’s Diner (torn down to make way for an Apple Store), The Dodgers are staying in LA, and your Pat Boone 8 track tapes are obsolete.