BENE – FIT TO BE TIED

   The radio station my alarm clock wakes me up to has a political show on Sunday morning. for the third week in a row they played our own newly minted North Carolina Governor, Charlotte's  ex-Mayor McCheese - Pat McCrory's first State of the State address.  And true to his Republican roots he has announced he's gutting unemployment benefits by 33% to repay the federal government. He also states that this money never would have borrowed by his administration to begin with.

   Really? Those benefits have kept people in their homes, paying their mortgages and utility bills. Without it there would have been many more families losing their homes. What would Bank of America do with 100,000 more repossessed foreclosed on homes? And with thousands of families no longer paying their Duke Energy or Piedmont  Natural Gas bills, those companies would no doubt be forced to enact even more lay offs and in turn forcing more families to apply for and depend on unemployment compensation. So how does not borrowing this money help exactly?

   I understand no one likes to borrow money, and I understand the need to pay it back. But that doesn't have to be done right now, in the midst of a recession when tax revenues are at their lowest and the number of families depending on this program are at their highest. Cutting benefits now will only prolong the recovery and the suffering of millions from years to possibly decades. Once someone has lost a home to foreclosure they may never be able to qualify for another mortgage. Borrow the money if you have to to keep these families viable. Once the economy starts to grow again, and people have gone back to work, Tax revenues will increase- then you can pay back the loan. It is not only the right thing to do economically, but I believe it is the moral thing to do.

   Doing anything less would be inviting economic disaster. Can McCrory really be that short sighted? Or is what I've always suspected actually true? That Republicans really do hate poor people, even the recently poor ex-middleclass.

FACTS & TRENDS OF TAX & SPEND

Is there in truth no beauty?
Please read this if you care about your investments/retirement. It's time to put the myths to bed.
From Forbes Magazine on the book "Bulls, Bears, and the Ballot box" By Bob Deitrick and Lew Goldfarb.

Personal disposable income has grown nearly 6 times more under Democratic presidents
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown 7 times more under Democratic presidents
Corporate profits have grown over 16% more per year under Democratic presidents (they actually declined under Republicans by an average of 4.53%/year)
Average annual compound return on the stock market has been 18 times greater under Democratic presidents (If you invested $100k for 40 years of Republican administrations you had $126k at the end, if you invested $100k for 40 years of Democrat administrations you had $3.9M at the end)
Republican presidents added 2.5 times more to the national debt than Democratic presidents
The two times the economy steered into the ditch (Great Depression and Great Recession) were during Republican, laissez faire administrations.

The book covers only Presidents Hoover through W. Bush.  But as we near this election I asked Mr. Goldfarb his view on the incumbent Democrat’s first 4 years.  His response:
“Obama at this time would rank on par with Reagan
Corporate profits have risen under Obama more than any other president
The stock market has soared 14.72%/year under Obama, second only to Clinton — which should be a big deal since 2/3 of people (not just the upper class) have a 401K or similar investment vehicle dependent upon corporate profits and stock market performance”
As to the challenging Republican party’s platform, Mr. Goldfarb commented:
“The platform is the inverse of what has actually worked to stimulate economic growth
The recommended platform tax policy is bad for velocity, and will stagnate the economy
Repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will have a negative economic impact because it will force non-wealthy individuals to spend a higher percentage of income on health care rather than expansionary products and services
Economic disaster happens in America when wealth is concentrated at the top, and we are at an all time high for wealth concentration. There is nothing in the platform which addresses this issue.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/10/10/want-a-better-economy-history-says-vote-democrat/

DISTRICT MINE

Don't like the color of your state?  Red state or blue, there's not much you can do about it now other than move.  I say now because the people in power have hashed out and fine tuned the redrawing of congressional districts to such a degree of precision That there is little chance from here on out of the political landscape changing in any meaningful way.

  This not only makes it easier for politicians to stay in office it promotes gridlock and elevates partisan uncooperativeness to extreme new levels.  It use to be that a politician had to placate the base of his party and lean just enough to the far right/left extremist to secure a primary victory while leaving himself wiggle room to dance back to the center for any chance at all in the general election.  Not anymore.  Most districts are so heavily skewed toward one party or the other that most general elections pose little risk to the incumbent.

  the real threat comes from the candidates own party.  They must now be very careful to act only as their party directs them, or there will be a price to pay.  If they are perceived as being soft on the opposing party or God forbid be seen as working with the enemy or not voting against anything proposed by them, their masters will back another candidate in the next primary where they will be portrayed as unpatriotic traitors, or worse yet - moderates. This accomplishes what Gingrich could not with his contract with America, forcing Congressmen to vote how the party tells them to without regard for what is best for their own districts or constituents. (Why would anyone vote for someone who only does as he is told? I would want a representative who thinks for themselves.)  Absolute gridlock ensues as politicians from both sides flee the negotiating table for fear that their next statement, action, or vote will be their last.

  The worse part of this is that it gives unprecedented powers to the political parties and leaving public policy to be decided by a very few unelected officials, robbing the voters of any real power or say about the direction of their futures.  The people are rapidly losing what little power they had.  This has happened to my state ahem..  North Carolina   .. which voted for Obama in '08, but in 2012 went blood red.  The republicans now have firm control of both houses and the Governorship, with the Democrats in such a small minority that we now effectively have a one party system with little hope of change.  True to Republican form, this week they are expected to vote to cut unemployment benefits. For you coastal residents, it's just a matter of time before those oil derricks go up all over the OBX. That will be a sad day.

SUB PAR

The Subway restaurant chain had a bit of a mini scandal a few weeks ago about the length of their "footlong" sandwiches. It seems that some of these sandwiches may have been a mere eleven to eleven and a half inches! For shame! How dare they rip us off by half an inch? why after only twenty-four customers, they have saved themselves a whole sandwich! Oh, my bad- twenty-three customers.

  Big freakin' deal! There is a lot to complain about at Subway, but this isn't it. First of all, let me remind you that a half an inch is about this [-----] big. Double that for for the full inch cheat and you still have nothing. And try to remember they gave the sandwich to you in a bag that is carried vertically, so even if it started its life a full twelve inches it would be folly To expect something as soft and pliable as bread to maintain any set length or not compress under it's own weight.

  Where they need to be investigated is in the disparity between the pictures on the menu board and what they try to pawn off on their consumers. The pictures show sandwiches stuffed with over an inch of meat (in this direction that inch means much more) but what you get is a head of lettuce stuffed between two pieces of bread with, if you are lucky- a tissue thin slice of deli meat. My brother asked his wife why she always gets the vegetable sub, she answered that they don't give you enough meat to taste anyway, why pay for it? They even spread (so to speak) this policy to the tuna as well. A six inch tuna sub used to get you three scoops of tuna, now? Just one then they try to spread it across the whole sandwich. Not cool.

  And what exactly is a "regular sub" ? They always advertise that "all" "regular” subs are five dollar footlongs, yet everything I order costs eight bucks.

  This year's SuperBowl featured a subway commercial congratulating their spokesjerk Jared for keeping the weight off he lost eating at Subway. Big deal, considering the amount of meat you get for your money I'm surprised he didn't starve to death.

THE WARS OF THE WORLD

A conservative friend of mine who shall remain nameless (Scott) Was telling me why he disapproved of social welfare programs "that they didn't work, that there are more poor than ever." Well setting aside for a moment that the population has doubled since WWII, I asked if the war on poverty should end because it isn't working, why does he still support the war on drugs, which is a much bigger failure, and hasn't helped anyone. We've spent billions, imprisoned millions and anyone can still get any drug they want, practically any time they want. There are more drug dealers and drug users than ever before. He replied That "It would be much worse if we did nothing." So why doesn't that apply to helping the poor? Wouldn't poverty be much worse if we did nothing there as well? I for one don't believe that the drug problem would be worse if we did nothing. I believe that the people who want to use drugs already do so, and those who don't, aren't going to start simply because it was now legal to do so. So what is the difference? I know conservative love rules and the assigning responsibility and blame. Could it be just about law enforcement? Maybe we should outlaw being poor? At least it would clear up the homeless problem putting them all in prison.

Another aspect of this phenomenon is the war on healthcare costs. This same friend was complaining that under the affordable care act, healthcare cost would go up due to the fact that more people would have access to medical treatment. Which led me to ask; "As a Christian, shouldn't you be happy more people will be getting healthcare? Aren't you suppose to love thy neighbor, more than thy checkbook?" ( chirp...chirp...chirp..) Why is it just Godless liberals fighting for universal medical coverage and an end to poverty? It certainly seems like conservatives are religious about the issues until it affects their bank accounts, then they forget that Jesus said to help the poor, heal the sick, and feed the hungry.

No where was this more obvious than on facebook. During the last election Republicans posted time and again about what would happen to THEIR money, THEIR taxes if God forbid Obama won re-election. My liberal friends and I were dismayed by this difference, as our concerns were about what would happen to the old, the sick, the poor if Romney were to win and gut social programs as promised? It seems to me that many conservative Christians have adopted a new Holy Trinity; consisting of unregulated Capitalism, blind Patriotism, and Jesus. In that order.