Corporate Greed Grows - Still Not Shared

post from jobsanger on 08 May 2012 01:04:00 AM. © jobsanger

(The cartoon above is by Tony Auth.)

The Republicans have been telling America for years now that the path to economic health is "trickle-down" economics -- the idea that lower taxes and bigger profits for the corporations and the rich will trickle-down and be beneficial for everyone in our society. It has not worked, and has resulted in a massive inequality of wealth and income between the richest 1% and the other 99% of America. Now there is even more proof of the failure of Republican economic policy.

The first part of the policy is working. The rich are indeed getting much richer. The latest data shows that the Fortune 500 companies (America's biggest and richest corporations) made generated a record of $824.5 billion in earnings in 2011. That's a whopping 16.4% increase over their 2010 earnings and a new record (the old record being $785 billion in 2006). Add to this the fact that the effective corporate tax rate is at the lowest it's been in forty years, and it's easy to see that corporations are doing very well (and currently sitting on record amounts of cash).

If the Republicans were right about their economic prognostications, American workers should be seeing nice raises in pay and the country should be literally swimming in newly-created jobs. But the second half of their economic theory, the trickle down part, is not working -- and never has worked.

Even though the productivity of American workers has increased by more than $40,000 per worker over the last five years, none of this new wealth is being shared with those workers. After adjusting for inflation, the wages of workers in the United States actually dropped last year (and the buying power of current wages is less than it was in the 1970s). While corporations and their executives are making record profits, American workers are losing more ground every year.

The Republican policies have turned loose corporate greed and it is strangling American workers. And those new jobs this new wealth was supposed to create is just not happening. In fact, most of the new jobs created by American corporations are in foreign countries (where they can take advantage of slave labor, child labor, and poverty wages).

But the Republicans say they have a solution. All we have to do is give these same corporations (and other rich people) more massive tax cuts and government subsidies. They never learn. They must be voted out of power before they destroy the country with giveaways to their rich buddies.

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A Bit Short

post from jobsanger on 08 May 2012 01:03:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Dave Granlund at davegranlund.com.

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French & Greeks Vote Against Austerity

post from jobsanger on 08 May 2012 01:02:00 AM. © jobsanger

Europe has been led down the wrong road by the conservatives they put in power. These conservative leaders (especially Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France, and Cameron of the United Kingdom) did what the Republicans are trying to do in the United States -- they initiated a program of "austerity" for the European Union. They severely cut government services for most Europeans and cut taxes for the richest Europeans.

The result has been a disaster. Instead of bringing Europe out of recession, the austerity measures actually threw many European countries deeper into recession (like Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the United Kingdom). But the people seem to have had enough of the austerity madness.

This last weekend, the French voters booted out Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the architects of European austerity, and replaced him with socialist Francois Hollande (pictured above). Mr. Hollande had campaigned against austerity. In Greece, the voters also booted the supporters of austerity out of power. They replaced the two ruling parties, who supported austerity, with a majority of parties opposed to austerity -- which will undoubtably result in a new anti-austerity government in Greece.

The right-wing government in the Netherlands was also recently booted out, and I doubt that Cameron in the United Kingdom can survive past his first term. Europe is turning against the insane policies of the conservatives. The 600 pound gorilla of the European Union, Germany, is still demanding that the austerity proposals agreed to must be followed and say they will refuse to renegotiate the terms, but they may soon have no choice. In fact, recent state elections in Germany show that Merkel's right-wing party may be in trouble in their next federal elections.

Europe is changing directions. They are starting to realize that austerity doesn't end recessions -- it just makes them worse. I hope that voters in the United States will wake up and come to the same realization, before the Republicans are able to push through more of their austerity measures -- measures that will further trash our own economy.

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Scorpion Eater

post from jobsanger on 08 May 2012 01:01:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by David Fitzsimmons in the Arizona Daily Star.

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Late, Late Night FDL: Dazed and Confused

post from Firedoglake on 08 May 2012 01:00:35 AM. © Firedoglake

Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused[...]

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Reintroduction Of The DREAM Act-- And How DSCC
"Great Recruit" Joe Donnelly Has Guaranteed It Will Fail In The Senate

post from DownWithTyranny! on 08 May 2012 01:00:14 AM. © DownWithTyranny!

[NOTE: I stumbled on this post accidentally this morning. It was scheduled to run last May but never did. In light of the post we looked at this afternoon about the Indiana Senate race, I thought I'd run it this evening.]

The DREAM Act itself isn't really partisan or even controversial. Last time it was polled it was supported by 66% of Americans and when it was last approved by the House (in December), it passed 216-198, 8 Republicans voting with the Democrats. 55 Senators-- from both parties-- supported passing it but a contingent of the worst of the Republican racists filibustered it and it couldn't come to a vote. This week Dick Durbin and Howard Berman reintroduced the bill which provides a path to conditional legal residency for an undocumented immigrant child if he or she:

·         Was 15 years old or younger when brought into America

·         Has lived in the United States for at least five years before enactment of the law

·         Is of good moral character

·         Has earned a high school degree or a graduate equivalent diploma

Eligible people would have six years to earn lawful permanent resident status if they:

·         Successfully complete two years of higher education, or

·         Complete two years of military service and received an honorable discharge if he or she is discharged

Yesterday, Steve Benen pointed to the shame of one of the Senate's supporters, Indiana Republican Dick Lugar. Lugar has changed his mind-- or lost his balls... or soul. As recently as March, Lugar, a co-sponsor of the legislation, was predicting it would pass this year. And then he wound up with a racist teabagger challenging him in the GOP primary. He also has one of the few Democrats to oppose DREAM, another racist, Joe Donnelly, running against him in the general. By recruiting and supporting Donnelly, the DSCC has guaranteed the failure of DREAM this year. But, ssshhhhhhh... they don't want Latino voters to know that. Benen doesn't look past the primaries and doesn't see the impact racist Blue Dogs Donnelly and Jim Matheson (UT), who also opposed DREAM and is probably going to run against DREAM supporter Orrin Hatch, are having in killing the bill's chance to win.

ADDENDUM, May 7, 2012: Matheson chickened out of running against Hatch, but Donnelly is running for Senate, either against Lugar or Mourdock, depending on who wins the Republican primary tomorrow. Lugar would be a show-in in the general election but Donnelly would have a chance against a deranged fascist like Mourdock. In any of these scenarios, though, Indiana will doom itself to backward, right-wing representation steeped ignorance and cowardice. Apparently, it's what most of them want.

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The Nightowl Newswrap

post from They gave us a republic... - Front Page on 08 May 2012 01:00:00 AM. © They gave us a republic... - Front Page

By BG & YD

@MittRomney is a lot of things. Put "coward" at the top of the list. The crazy is out early this year. And there is no danger of Mittern standing up to it. He's setting an ugly tone early by not disagreeing vehemently with a woman at a rally in Cleveland said that President Obama should be tried for "treason" which we assume is code for "Presidentin' While Black."

Hey, it's no stretch to imagine this knucklehead dead or in jail by this time next year. He's not only crazy, he appears desperate to keep his name in the news. Last week, Ted Nugent achieved this by shouting obscenities at a CBS reporter, screaming at her that he would "fuck her" and ranting about what a totally terrific and misunderstood guy he really is during an interview for a segment on the network's morning circle jerk. Remember, this is a guy whose endorsement Rmoney was desperate to get and begged the nutcase for.

Is this the end of beer-and-pizza as staples in the guys' dorm? Researchers at MIT who were looking for dietary ways to slow the aging process have found that male mice who are fed a yogurt diet "swagger" and have testicles that are 5% larger than those in the control group that were fed ordinary mouse chow.

Evolve already, Mr. President. All around him, people are coming out in favor of marriage equality and if you ask us, it is high-time the Democrats had a marriage equality plank in the party platform.

The Press-titutes in the M$M won't call out GOP asshats, so his constituents will do it for them. The media whores might be content with and appeased by Eddie Munster's disavowal of Ayn Rand and her atheistic Objectivism, but his constituents aren't and one of them shredded him on Friday at a town hall in Janesville. "Mr. Ryan, are you telling us that your political career was founded on the concepts of a rally of hers, but until recently, you never realized Ayn Rand was an outspoken atheist, that she felt altruism was evil, supported abortion, and condemned Christianity for advocating compassion for the poor?" Ryan had no answer besides insisting that he isn't "inconsistent."

In the GOP worldview, Defense Spending and Corporate Welfare are important while student loan interest rates and spending on social programs are not. And all that other stuff? We can run deficits for that, but not one penny of spending on people can be authorized without offsets in triplicate, because, you know, deficits.

Tell us again how Obama is so horrible for business and everything is rotten under him, because we're not coming up with the same answer to the problem that y'all are. Not when the companies on the Fortune 500 raked in record profits of over $820 billion last year. On that list, in the number 5 spot, is GM, one of the companies that Mittens was talking about when he said "let Detroit go bankrupt." Remember?

Why the hell aren't we rioting in the streets over this? The glorious Reagan Revolution that gave us "Greed is Good" has resulted in a massive redistribution of wealth upward, concentrating it in the hands of a very few people at the top. In the last 30 years, CEO pay has increased 127 times faster than the wages of workers.

That's a hefty fine. May it be the first of many. Abbot Labs has been fined $1.6 billion for off-label marketing of the anti-siezure medication Depakote. The Justice Department announced that the company had pleaded guilty to the charges and that the amount of the fine was $700 million in criminal penalty and $800 million to settle consumer lawsuits.

Our sympathy well is dry where gay and minority republicans are concerned. When they attack you, don't whine about it, just remember the parable about the frog and the scorpion. And shut the hell up about how Shocked! Absolutely shocked! you are to find gambling in the casino.

Yes, they threw the austerity hysterics out, but now there's no one left to govern. "Greek conservatives have failed to form a government, paving the way for anti-austerity leftists to try and cobble together a coalition despite Germany and EU warnings the country must stick to its bailout deal."

Oh, fuck. Cue the fetus fetishists. "South Korea has seized thousands of smuggled drug capsules filled with powdered flesh from dead babies, which some people believe can cure disease, in a series of crackdowns since August 2011, officials have said."

And if you think global warming might have had anything to do with it, you're worse than Charles Manson. "Rescuers have been digging through mud and debris searching for bodies after a flash flood swept through west Nepal killing at least 21 people and leaving dozens missing, police have said .... Forty-seven people, including three Ukranian tourists, were still missing after the flood hit, police said.

And finally...

And our burning the fossil fuels that those dinosaurs turned into is doing the same damn thing today. "Giant dinosaurs could have warmed the planet with their flatulence, say researchers. British scientists have calculated the methane output of sauropods, including the species known as Brontosaurus. By scaling up the digestive wind of cows, they estimate that the population of dinosaurs - as a whole - produced 520 million tonnes of gas annually. They suggest the gas could have been a key factor in the warm climate 150 million years ago. David Wilkinson from Liverpool John Moore's University, and colleagues from the University of London and the University of Glasgow published their results in the journal Current Biology. Sauropods, such as Apatosaurus louise (formerly known as Brontosaurus), were super-sized land animals that grazed on vegetation during the Mesozoic Era. For Dr Wilkinson, it was not the giants that were of interest but the microscopic organisms living inside them. "The ecology of microbes and their role in the working of our planet are one of my key interests in science," he told BBC Nature. "Although it's the dinosaur element that captures the popular imagination with this work, actually it is the microbes living in the dinosaurs guts that are making the methane." Methane is known as a "greenhouse gas" that absorbs infrared radiation from the sun, trapping it in the Earth's atmosphere and leading to increased temperatures."

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Fox's Bolling Is Oblivious To Positive Changes In
Economy Under Obama

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 08 May 2012 12:32:43 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

Fox's Eric Bolling said that "there isn't one" economic metric that has improved since President Obama took office. In fact, the economy stopped shrinking and started growing since Obama's inauguration, private-sector jobs and exports have increased, and employment turned from sharp declines to growth.

Bolling: "There's Isn't One" Economic Measure That's Improved Since January 20, 2009

Bolling: Nothing Has Improved Since "January 20, 2009, When President Obama Started Calling The Shots." From Fox News' The Five:

BOLLING (co-host): I'm not sure -- you can't say this, though, Bob. Here's what you do. You take a snapshot at January 20, 2009, when President Obama started calling the shots, and you take another snapshot now, and give me one, give me one metric that's better. There isn't one. It's an economic metric.
BOB BECKEL (co-host): Manufacturing, kids who have insurance, women who get equal pay --
BOLLING: Yes, the redistribution metrics are much better. [Fox News, The Five, 5/7/12]

FACT: GDP, Private-Sector Jobs, Exports Are Higher Than When Obama Took Office

BEA: Economy Shrank More Than 4 Percent In Q1 2009; Now, Economy Has Grown For Nine Consecutive Quarters. Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, with a chart from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis:

[St. Louis Fed, accessed 5/7/12]

Labor Department: Economy Was Shedding 750,000 Jobs A Month When Obama Took Office; Now, U.S. Has Had 18 Consecutive Months Of Job Growth. Data from the Department of Labor, with a chart from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis:

[St. Louis Fed, accessed 5/7/12]

Wall Street Journal: "The Number Of Private-Sector Jobs In The U.S. Economy Is Now Higher Than The Month [Obama] Took Office." From The Wall Street Journal:

Friday's disappointing employment report showed slowing momentum in the labor market since the start of the year. But President Barack Obama, who officially launches his reelection campaign Saturday, overcame one threshold: the number of private-sector jobs in the U.S. economy is now higher than the month he took office.
[...]
Private-sector Jobs
With the latest report, total private payrolls are now higher than they were in January 2009. The latest count put private-sector jobs at about 111 million in April (reported as 111.02 million), or 35,000 jobs more than the January 2009 level. Private payrolls as of April were up 760,000 from Obama's first full month in office in February 2009. [The Wall Street Journal, 5/4/12]

NPR: "American Exports Are Up 34 Percent" Since Obama Pledged To Double Exports, "And The Number Continues To Rise." From NPR.org:

In his State of the Union address two years ago, President Obama argued there were a few things the U.S. needed to do in order to recover from the economic recession: One of them was to export more of goods around the world.
"The more products we make and sell to other countries, the more jobs we support right here in America," Obama said.
That night, the president unveiled a new goal: to double U.S. exports over the next five years. It would be an increase the president said would "support 2 million jobs in America."
Most economists dismissed the pledge at the time as somewhat quixotic, but two years later, the U.S. is on pace to meet that goal. American exports are up 34 percent since the president gave that speech, and the number continues to rise. [NPR.org, 4/21/12]