Kiss Up, Kick Down. The Money Politics of Cruz and Trump and the GOP.

Ted Cruz is as perfect a demonstration of the corrupting power of money in politics as we are likely to see. He bragged about his personal sacrifice and opposition to Wall Street but secretly took a million dollars from Wall Street banks to gain office. This is called hypocrisy. The lie makes it worse.

VOX explains the special deal Ted Cruz secretly obtained from Goldman Sachs, his wife's employer.

People with large fortunes dominate our politics. They can afford to run for office or else they fund other people’s campaigns, people who will further their interests. We have a religion of money in this country. We are told every day by our media that the rich earned their riches, that entrepreneurs are braver and bolder and smarter than humble working people. They are often smart and usually better educated because they can afford to be, but are they bolder and braver? They are depicted as swashbucklers who dare to take risks, but they aren’t risking much. They take these risks with a large margin of safety their wealth provides, and their losses are seldom catastrophic because they can afford to hedge everything. They can escape losses entirely the way Trump did via multiple bankruptcies, leaving others holding the bag. When they win, they collect; when they lose, we all pay.

From QUARTZ, the myth of the brave risk-taker. It's brave to be born rich, apparently.

Working people who use our democracy to demand changes to improve their lives are called greedy. The hard won privileges that are taken away from them are called “entitlements”, which is an insult because, of course, only rich people are entitled to things. Working people must prove themselves worthy every hour of every day. The rich? The born rich? They take special privileges for granted but questioning those special privileges is dangerous.

From the NYTimes, the special tax evasion system that keeps the rich rich, and lets us pay their bills.

We live in a period when working people are fed with crumbs that fall from the tables of people who own for a living.

From PACIFIC STANDARD, a useful IMF debunking of Reagan's trickle down fairy tale.

Meanwhile we’re sold this fairy tale of brave independence, the lone American who doesn’t need government. This fairy tale is sold to us by monied interests who live off government contracts or are dependent on government subsidies. Who evade taxes but accept bailouts. The fairy tale is very popular, especially in the West, where public lands are used by private operators, who sometimes resent the privilege and refuse to pay. If the land were owned by mining or timber interests how much more would they pay? The libertarian argument is riddled with contradictions and magical thinking.

From PACIFIC STANDARD, a description of how dependent the libertarian Bundys are on government handouts.

USUNCUT lists five government freebies the Bundys live off of.

This is the Right Wing’s big idea: give all public land and public infrastructure to private businesses to profitize, but when they cheat or fail or harm the public or poison the environment let the government clean it up.

From REUTERS news service, a report on how Michigan's governor shifted public responsibilities to private operators, who then cut corners to earn profits and wound up poisoning a whole city.

From THE WEEK, a shorter summary of what Governor Snyder and his private enterprise cronies did to the city of Flint, Michigan.

What people forget about the “corporate model” is that it was first invented to allow individuals to avoid responsibility for their failures.

They are called “limited liability corporations.”

They privatize profits and socialize risks. When they win, they pocket the cash. When they lose, we all pay for their failure.

Being able to fail and go on to try again is not a bad idea. It’s based upon the notion that we need to share each others risks and help each other succeed. We shouldn't leave anyone behind... but increasingly we do.

Increasingly the ability to fail and try again is limited to the monied classes. It has been tailored to protect property above all. It is a right given to people with property rather than people who work. It favors those who own for a living and ignores those who work for a living.

Kiss Up. Kick Down.

The GOP Math Problem

FoxNews morning hosts are disappointed with 271,000 new jobs. They were expecting more than 180,000.

Congressional Republicans show a graph that contradicts the numbers on it.

The ur-document of all the goofball Republican math is something aptly called “The Laffer Curve.” Don’t laugh.

Republican math is given more active heroic labels like “Dynamic Scoring.” DS measures what will happen after their next tax cut in the Republican Utopia. (Reuters offers this explanation.)

Like in the Republican Wonderland called Kansas where lower taxes was supposed to increase revenues and balance the Kansas budget but did the opposite.

(Forbes examines the corpse.)

TIME gives a second opinion on cause of death.

Salon explains the mathematical deficiencies of Reaganomics' faith-based math.

Doonesbury explains Kansas more humorously and clearly than anyone else.

In Kansas the people who live there are living with their mistake. How much do they regret electing the math-impaired Governor Brownback? The view from Kansas.

In Wisconsin, Brownback’s evil twin, Scott Walker, has similar problems with the numbers. The Washington Post explains.

Despite all the evidence, Republicans keep doubling down. Down is Up. Subtracting makes the number larger. The Atlantic reports.

If you have a dismal record as a CEO that makes you a stellar Republican candidate for president. Carly Fiorina is the reincarnation of W, the perfect Republican who fails upward and upward.

Is it real math or “Republican math”? Even FoxNews's favorite Fox Blonde has her doubts.

In Congress the math is also upside down. The Democrats got 1.4 million more votes nationally and still have far fewer seats in the House. Bloomberg explains, or tries to.

Since the Right and the GOP begin and ends with FoxNews, here is a graphic they used to describe the failure of Obamacare.

Jesus the Corporate CEO

Bill Moyers asks the question: Why have Americans gone along with the concentration of economic privilege?

Where did Americans get the idea of Jesus the Venture Capitalist? Salon has the history.

This man works full time preparing gourmet meals for wealthy New Yorkers while his family lives in a homeless shelter. God bless our free economy. From Raw Story.

The gospel of trickle-down is proving untrue in the Deep South. From the Washington Post.

And finally, a Republican wonders why money always flows uphill in America, unlike in other countries. But he’s only pouting because it’s hurting him. Washington Monthly talks to poor deprived Republican candidate Lindsey Graham.

Oh, and one more thing... The problem of homelessness? There is a solution if you want to solve the problem. From Nashville Public Radio.

Of course it would cost money. The problem then is the Republicans, who think if you don't spend money on a problem there isn't a problem.

Good Economics vs. Bad Economics-You Choose

It's time to choose sides. Despite what you hear on the money programs and from the Wall Street cheerleaders, there are very good economists who think austerity economics is a bad idea. Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, our most recent Nobel economists, are on the Democratic side of this argument, the side of the 99%. Others are stepping up too.

"On November 13th 2011, economists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst drafted an open statement to the Occupy Wall Street movement pledging their support. Since then, more than 250 economists from around the world have added their names. Read more at econ4.org "

To be fair, there are two sides to this argument. Having watched the documentary Inside Job, I know that some economists know exactly who butters their bread and it isn't working people. It's the people who now have all the money who butter their bread. Some economists are happy to tailor their ideas to suit their benefactors.

Then there are the mouthpieces for the 1%, who earn a lot of money just by being mouthpieces. For instance, there's Ann Coulter, who said recently that she thinks the horrible dirty worthless people of the Occupy movement should be gunned down by the police. It worked on the Vietnam protesters, she says.

Larry Summers, who led Obama's economic team, doesn't come off very well in Inside Job, but he is on the right side of the argument now, favoring aggressive stimulus and tax cuts to working people––instead of more billions thrown at the rich, at corporations and banks. He's no fool.

Concentrated wealth got us here. It made our economy topheavy and fragile. It sucked the life out of the consumer economy by making working people less prosperous and less able to make ends meet.

Our economy will only revive when working people feel prosperous again, confident that their jobs are secure, that their health and their families are secure, that their children have a future. We need to shift from the Reagan economics of concentrated wealth. Those economic policies promoted and exploited broad insecurity and vulnerability rather than broad prosperity and strength.

Today, more than 2 million Brits took to the streets to protest their government's austerity policy. What is Austerity? It's the rich elite's answer to global recession. "We have money so we get to buy. Everybody else is poor, so they should live that way."

AUSTERITY IS HOW THE RICH AND POWERFUL TEACH WORKING PEOPLE TO BE POOR.

That is where austerity measures bite. They bite the poor, the working people, the middle class who are getting poorer every year. Austerity bites the victims of the global collapse which was caused by the very rich.

In this country it's the Republican economic policy. They want most Americans to be a lot poorer, a lot less secure. When Americans are afraid they work harder and longer for less. That's the long term Republican goal. In the short term the Republicans simply want Americans to suffer, figuring an unhappy populace will vote for Republicans next year. They are happy for Americans to fail in order for Obama to fail.

Do you want to see what effect Republican policies have? Look at the map of the British austerity measures put in place by their Conservative government.

Austerity doesn't work during a recession. It hasn't before. It won't now. Imagine an airline pilot in a stalling aircraft. Does he see the emergency as an opportunity to save fuel? No. He pushes the pedal down and accelerates out of the dive.

Here are some sound commentaries from economists on the intelligent side of this argument, setting out the dire consequences of these ugly conservative policies. From EconMatters.com

From CNN

Here's Robert Reich's useful and persuasive debunking of the Republican austerity policies.

Sadly, cable television is dominated by a Republican network and talk radio is all Republican all the time. And a lot of Americans are easy to fool.

Two Speeches-Two Romneys-one for taxing rich people-one against

One day, two audiences, two contradictory stands on tax cuts for rich people, same Republican.

First, Romney opposes tax cuts for the rich

"I'm not for tax cuts for the rich," Romney said. "The rich can take care of themselves. I want to get America working again. And so I want to make sure that whatever we do in the tax code, we're not giving a windfall to the very wealthy."

Then, Romney supports tax cuts for the rich

...several times today, he was asked about the New York Times opinion piece by billionaire Warren Buffett calling for increased taxes on the wealthy as a way to cut the deficit. “I disagree with Warren. And I do want to keep the Bush tax cuts in place,” Romney said.

Is America Going Insane?

There's a great and eye-opening article in the Harvard Business Review by Umair Haque. He asks some key questions, and raises others.

Why are the lives of millions being broken for the enrichment of a very few? Why is it that small crime brings long prison sentences while enormous frauds have no consequences––other than multi-billion dollar rescues with consequent bonuses?

Watching political and economic news unfold it seems as if we are living inside a Swiftian or Orwellian satire. The anchors smile, the financial reporters smile, the political brokers smile, the citizens smile. Everybody smiles as if nothing is happening.

Americans are so wedded to normality that they refuse to acknowledge that normality has been undone. The social contract has been broken. But who broke it? To answer that you need to look at who has benefited. Who is winning? More importantly, who is winning enormous amounts in every game they play? Why has the game been rigged and who has rigged it?

What puzzles me most is this: millions of Americans whose lives have been diminished, whose prosperity has been stolen from them over the past 25 years, continue to side with the very rich who have benefited from their ruin. Why do these people take sides against the leaders and agencies who want to right these wrongs, who want to punish the wrongdoers from the financial class––the Enrons and AIG's, the fixers of markets and the sellers of bad securities? Why do ordinary citizens side against themselves, especially when things get tough?

It's easier to see how the perpetrators seem so normal and competent. They dress well. They live well. They have handlers and bodyguards and personal hairdressers. They are secure. Self-assuredness is very attractive. They also have the luxury of not caring. There is research that shows very very rich people tend to have an atrophied or malfunctioning sense of empathy. There's an excellent article discussing this on the MSNBC website.

There've also been studies indicating that many of the people who gain the top in business have the advantage of a psychopathic personality. These aren't fringe studies. They represent the prevailing school of thought which guides our penal systems. In our justice system small time psychopaths are imprisoned but successful ones are given positions of power.

Previously, I've cited the program about this on This American Life. There's also a provocative article on psychopathic business leaders in Fast Company.

How has this affected all of us? We should feel more than an outraged sense of fairness. It hasn't just insulted us, it's harmed all of us. It has crippled our society. It has put decent fairminded people at a disadvantage and, in too many cases, it's put the cleverest most cold-blooded people in control of our working lives and our security. Our system encourages large crime while punishing the helpless and relegated who use small crime to stay alive.

There have been recent periods when lax regulation and unwise incentives have created waves of largescale looting of the economy. Unlike the looting of a $30 toaster, which will result in a jail sentence, this largescale financial looting is legal (thanks to Republican deregulation and Republican judges). It's also massively costly to everyone in the society. Scientists and academics are noticing this and studying it (here's one study), but so far the general public isn't paying attention. Possibly because it's being hidden from them by the smiling happy people on television.