Breaking: Senate Dems Continue to be Worthless

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Tuesday December 08, 2009 · 6:30 PM PST

2009/12/08 · 18:30

Apparently there will be no public insurance program in the Senate version of the health care bill. There is no end to the disappointment inflicted upon the party base by the Democratic establishment.

Remember the Dean campaign? I actually had some hope then that we could get real change. I've been so consistently disappointed ever since then that I've long since given up all hope for real change, and, no, the Obama campaign did not give me any real hope of change--I knew he wouldn't actually change much.

Seriously, have Democrats in Congress accomplished anything substantial over the last 10 years? Has Obama?

How California Can Fix Its Budget

klarfax

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Saturday July 11, 2009 · 3:29 PM PDT

2009/07/11 · 15:29

Here's an idea posted by Ellen Brown on the Huffington Post. It basically involves having the State of California create a bank of its own, which would allow the state to make use of fractional reserve magic to create loans to pay for state services. The deeper issue pushed by Ellen Brown here involves the creation of money and why we allow private banks this privilege rather than keeping it within the domain of the government. An excerpt is pasted below:

klarfax

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Monday May 25, 2009 · 11:24 AM PDT

2009/05/25 · 11:24

This is a great article on economics and what's wrong with the current economic debate. I'll include a little in this post.

Hudson on Junk Economics

The Toll Booth Economy

By MICHAEL HUDSON

America's regressive tax policies and the leeching of the finance/insurance/real estate (FIRE) sectors on the real economy are reducing American competitiveness:

What is not heard is a call to finance Social Security and Medicare out of the general budget instead of keeping their funding as a special regressive tax on labor and its employers, available for plunder by Congress to finance tax cuts for the upper wealth brackets. Yet how can America achieve industrial competitiveness in global markets with this pre-saving retirement tax and privatized health insurance, debt-leveraged housing costs and related personal and corporate debt overhead?

klarfax

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Tuesday December 09, 2008 · 7:04 PM PST

2008/12/09 · 19:04

It's time to stop throwing taxpayer money into the hole that is the banking system. Instead, I propose that we send each US citizen a $3000 check. This would cost taxpayers approximately $1 trillion, and it could be done in addition to other stimulus packages such as infrastructure spending.

It might sound ridiculous, but there are in fact some very good reasons for it. First, right now we are experiencing significant deflation of every category of asset. Spreading this amount of cash among the people would immediately halt the deflation and return us to an inflationary environment. As you probably know, deflation is worse for the economy than moderate levels of inflation because borrowing and investment simply halt in deflationary environments. Additionally, inflation would ease debt burdens by reducing the real value of debts.

klarfax

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Thursday October 23, 2008 · 4:00 PM PDT

2008/10/23 · 16:00

In this post I'm going to try to identify what's really going on in our economy and how we can fix it.

(originally posted elsewhere last week, with some additional editing)

klarfax

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Monday August 25, 2008 · 6:12 PM PDT

2008/08/25 · 18:12

For years, the most effective line of attack against Democrats has been that they don't stand for anything. Kerry was portrayed as a flip-flopper while people said that even if they disagreed with Bush, at least they knew where he stood. Bill Clinton was attacked as following the polls rather than leading. Gore was perceived by many as a bland policy wonk without clear principles.

klarfax

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Wednesday January 23, 2008 · 11:37 AM PST

2008/01/23 · 11:37

The economy is suffering from the effects of neofeudalism. The economy has turned into a winner-take-all lottery where wealth concentrates among a few winners, and labor has declined in value due to technological changes, international competition, and government policy. Wealthy individuals and large corporations control the government, and the resulting deregulation has allowed them to exploit workers and the commons to concentrate their wealth even further. Economic inequality has soared to new heights reminiscent of the Gilded Age.

klarfax

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Tuesday January 15, 2008 · 10:20 AM PST

2008/01/15 · 10:20

John Edwards is no Ralph Nader, as some here accuse.

Edwards will win a decent proportion of each state's delegates as long as he finishes above a 15% cutoff. Unlike Nader's chance of winning any electoral college votes, polling shows that Edwards is currently positioned to take 5-10% of delegates, and those numbers could easily improve.

If no candidate gets a majority of the delegates, then Edwards could play kingmaker by asking his delegates to vote for one of the others. Based on his recent statements, I suspect Edwards would throw his support to Obama in such a situation. Those of you who compare a vote for Edwards with a vote for Hillary are wrong--voting for Edwards is no wasted vote at this point since it will give him influence at the convention.

klarfax

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Friday January 04, 2008 · 11:14 AM PST

2008/01/04 · 11:14

Here's some interesting Iowa entrance poll data for you: http://www.blueoregon.com/...

Obama Edwards Clinton
Liberal 40/36 16/25 24/25 (very/somewhat)
Moderate 33 22 31
Conservative 21 44 22

klarfax

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Friday August 31, 2007 · 10:30 AM PDT

2007/08/31 · 10:30

Should we always support Democrats because the Republicans are so much worse, or should we focus on using our influence to guide Democrats in the right direction? These ideas are in constant tension on this blog, and opinions vary widely. Note that the latter requires substantive discussion of ideology and policy while the former is merely about partisanship. Occasionally I see people here say, "Why are we wasting our time attacking Democrats when we ought to be attacking Republicans?" The proper response is, "if we don't advocate for change within the party, who will?" The Democratic establishment has a great deal of room for improvement.

Kos is wrong when he places partisanship above all other concerns--what we really want is to get the best possible policies actually implemented. (For this reason, I think the front page should delve a little deeper into ideology. Jerome a Paris recently made a good argument about this: http://www.dailykos.com/... )

klarfax

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Tuesday July 03, 2007 · 7:52 AM PDT

2007/07/03 · 07:52

I think this could be the moment we've been waiting for. Bush's crimes have always been a little murky to most people prior to this--there hasn't been the kind of smoking gun (blue dress) that's needed to get the American people's attention. Most people need very simple proof, and they're not necessarily paying enough attention to connect the dots like we are.

However, this is a crime that we can convince the American people about. This is very simple:

Bush commuted Libby's sentence as a reward Libby for obstructing justice to protect other top Bush administration officials from an investigation, possibly including Bush himself. This is an inexcusable conflict of interest.

klarfax

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Tuesday June 12, 2007 · 3:20 PM PDT

2007/06/12 · 15:20

Wealth is distributed extremely unevenly in the US, with the top 1% of households owning nearly 40% of the wealth. This number has increased dramatically from the mid-70s, when the statistic was around 20%. Why we've had such a change is a subject for another diary, but the triumph of free-market fundamentalism ("markets good, regulation bad") has a lot to do with it.

Progressive income tax rates deal with the problem somewhat, but income taxes are complex and difficult to enforce, cause some economic distortions, and reduce the value of labor vs. capital. The inheritance tax is one way of dealing with the problem, and it should continue to be relied on (and rates should be increased somewhat). A direct wealth tax is another option, and it is used successfully in some countries. However, a wealth tax may be even more vulnerable than an income tax to the use of creative methods to bypass it. This diary suggests one other way of reducing the extreme concentration of wealth in the US--the Land Value Tax.

Poll

64 votes Show Results

Does the land value tax sound like a good idea?

64 votes Vote Now!

Does the land value tax sound like a good idea?

Yes

31 votes

22 votes

Not sure

11 votes

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Breaking: Senate Dems Continue to be Worthless

How California Can Fix Its Budget

Michael Hudson on our neo-feudal economy

$3000 checks per person

How to Fix the Economy

Obama must clarify his principles

Ending Neofeudalism with a New New Deal

Edwards is no Nader: how he can still win

Edwards wins among Iowa conservatives!?

Democrats need to EARN our support

Impeach now--Bush's high crimes now easy to understand

Progressive Tax Reform: The Land Value Tax [w/poll]