As we enter a period of suboptimal economic performance we should recall that this has happened before, in the 1930's and in the 1970's. Below the fold is a table providing growth rates in GDP divided by total employment or GDP/worker, which can be considered as a crude definition of productivity.

The frustrating thing about universal health care is that a system like the French have is clearly superior to anything that has been proposed, but implementing a system is considered politically impossible.  In this article I explore why such a system is politically impossible.

Why haven't we seen a Democrat making an argument like this (or have I missed it)

Let's pull the troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe, Korea and Japan back to the USA.  Instead of building bases in Iraq to "fight them there" let us build bases on our Southern border to "stop them there".  

We haven't been able to get Osama bin Laden because he is hiding in Pakistan with the Taliban.  To go after him would mean invading a sovereign nation (with nuclear weapons) which we can't do.  Yet the Pakistanis can't get him either because, simply put, they aren't really sovereign over their western border with Afghanistan.  

BUT, can we really complain about Pakistan?  Millions of undocumented immigrants have entered our country illegally over the years.  We are no more sovereign over our borders than is Pakistan.  Terrorists can walk into our nation at will to do us harm.  And, right now, we can't stop them.  This is why, if I am elected president, we will bring our overseas troops home and put them on the border defending America.

Assuming we end the war, we need to make sure the Rethugs don't start another.

Hillary Clinton frequently takes the more hawkish position on foreign policy debates in this campaign.  If we are to believe what she says, those of us who desire an end to the Iraq war are right to be concerned.  But is she really hawkish?  Might Clinton’s hawkish views be like her husband’s 1992 middle class tax cut in the face of massive deficits.

Recently I wrote a diary on liberalism and populism.  I received a lot of comments, many of them informative.  In particular, I was asked to define was I meant by populism.  Here I give an example of a populist approach to the Social Security "crisis" issue.

Both liberals and populists support the rights of the common man, but populists also argue for the wisdom of the common man.  As such, populism can feel more democratic than liberalism and can have appeal to progressives.

Yet, the record of populism is one of failure.  Most of the goals of populists were right and proper things to desire, but they weren't achieved by populists.  Because of this, I argue that progressives who wish to achieve change should embrace liberalism and not populism.

In a previous diary I proposed a Democratic philosophy that lies behind Kos’s slogan "Democrats are the party for people who work for a living".   I received a number of comments that I will address in this diary.  One noted that economics is not philosophy. My use of philosophy referred to the common use of the word (e.g. a philosophy of life) and not philosophy as a field of intellectual endeavor.  A better word might be a worldview or paradigm that to various extents is held by people who consider themselves Democrats.

Democrats are the party for people who work for a living -Kos

I decided to take a stab at some unifying economic principles for Democrats leading to this slogan.

Both parties seek prosperity for the nation.  I will define prosperity as a sense of economic well being held by a large majority of the voting public.  The two parties represent different sections of the electorate and their notions of prosperity reflect this.

Many progressives are frustrated with the lack of Congressional action on ending the war.  The concern amongst Democrats, it seems to me, and a great many others whose diaries I have read, is that if they end the war the Democrats face being blamed for losing the war.  It is feared that this will just reinforce conservative talking points about neo-isolationist Democrats who don't have what it takes to defend this country.  Such memes can (and have been) used to win elections--which understandably worries Democrats.

So how can we end the war without reinforcing any of these talking points.  Simple, we don't.  We get the Republicans to end the war.  This costs them nothing, running away from a fight is one of those things that is OK if you are a Republican (e.g. Reagan and Lebanon).  This means the Republicans can (and will) pull out of Iraq any time they want to.  The reason they stay in Iraq is because they want to.

Out task is to make them not want to.  The way we do that is by creating unpleasantness that goes along with the war.  Here's how.