Category Archives: politics

The absurd scam of “Reaganomics”

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I don’t claim to be an expert on economics, but I think I know enough to explain why I consider supply-side economics to have been such a disasterous failure since the Reagan years. It was nothing more than a scam to trick people into voting Republican.

When you cut taxes for the wealthy during a recession, they do indeed invest more in the economy, but mainly to benefit themselves rather than to benefit society as a whole. As a result, the gap between rich and poor increases, even as economic activity skyrockets. People become rich by hoarding money rather than spending it, and so the money supply circulating decreases. The Federal Reserve may attempt to solve the problem by printing more money, but this causes inflation, itself a sign of economic distress. Inflation hurts the poor and middle classes, while the wealthy accumulate still more money. Eventually, we end up with ANOTHER recession only a few years after the earlier one ended! So the economic growth caused by the tax cuts may make revenues appear to increase for a short time, but the crash that comes later makes that issue moot. And the default response of the “conservatives” to the new recession is…….more stupid tax cuts!

One thing that can definintely be said about the lies and hypocrisy of many Republicans was that while they did cut taxes, they did NOT reduce the size of government. In fact, they INCREASED it! The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security were both started under Republican administrations (and even this Liberal wants them shut down as unnecessary). And even Reagan blew up military spending while denouncing the excess size of government. Hey, the military IS part of the government! HELLO!!!!

The mistake the “conservatives” kept making was to judge the success of their economic policies by their short term effects, and ignore the downturns that their own policies caused later. What we really need is a set of policies that can generate long-term, slow, and steady economic growth and development that is not likely to result in a crash later. As the old saying goes, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” So maybe we could try this:

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/my-plan-for-economic-recovery/

Why I hate political parties

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It seems that no matter which party is in absolute control of the American federal government, corruption and prejudice results.

Here are several ways the parties screw up the government, and with it, the American people:

  1. RULE BY SHUTTING OUT THE OTHER PARTY – Never mind that the party out of power represents a considerable portion of the people who pay taxes just like the supporters of the party in power. And even that the party out of power has many legitimate concerns that most moderates and independent voters may share.
  2. LET THE PRESIDENT OF THEIR OWN PARTY DO WHATEVER HE WANTS, BUT GIVE THE SHAFT TO HIM IF HE IS OF THE OPPOSING PARTY – Relates to the first point, but even more serious since the President in theory is representative of the American people as a whole. He is also Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Thus, partisan matters shouldn’t even be played so much here.
  3. SPEND, SPEND, SPEND ON WHATEVER YOUR PARTY FAVORS – Never mind that we really need to curb spending completely to get our government out of debt!

We never needed political parties, because they are not even mentioned in the U. S. Constitution. If our Founding Fathers had thought more carefully, they might have prohibited them altogether. Maybe we still should!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-party_democracy

Nancy Pelosi, please RESIGN!

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After all, if you think sending me stupid e-mails like this is in any way, shape, or form appropriate for a House Speaker to do, you don’t belong at that position at all.  We have two wars going on, our economy is a mess and you are doing THIS?!

Dear Dale,

You are among a special group of committed Democrats whose sacrifice and dedication made our victories last November possible. For all you’ve done to support the Democratic Party and to move America in a New Direction you have my deepest gratitude.
 
Now, I want to offer you and a guest a special invitation for a chance to join me at my table at our dinner with President Obama in Washington, DC on June 18th for the President’s Dinner.
 
Contribute $5, $10, or more and be automatically entered for a chance to win a free trip to Washington, D.C. to join President Obama and me on June 18th — and go home with a photograph with the President!Thank you again for everything you have done to support the Democratic Party and President Obama’s agenda for change. Whether you attend the President’s Dinner or not, your generous support will strengthen our Democratic majority in Congress as we move President Obama’s agenda forward. We cannot become complacent. We must keep working together for change. You have my commitment and I hope I have yours.
Sincerely,
Nancy
Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the HouseP.S.  The deadline to enter to win to meet the President and have a photograph with him is in less than 48 hours! Act now.
 
picard-facepalm

Vote for Jake Towne for Congress!

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If you live in Pennsylvania, please consider supporting Jake Towne, a libertarian, in his quest to get elected to Congress and defeat Republican Congressman Charlie Dent!

http://towneforcongress.com/

I want to see the libertarians become more influential, to the point that they completely overthrow the Republican Party, thus becoming the Democratic Party’s main opposition. Even if Jake does not win, Dent is likely to be defeated by a Democrat. Either way, I am determined to keep the Republicans from ever regaining the power they had under Bush Jr!

I want MORE economic freedom, not less!

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One of the most laughable misconceptions people have about economics is that laissez-faire capitalism is somehow an example of economic freedom, while socialism is a form of economic tyranny. Certainly the type of socialism that Communism was came across as tyrannical and deserved to be abolished. But not socialism itself. Socialism coupled with a democratic government that has a written constitution that guarantees civil rights for all citizens actually promotes the most economic freedom, while laissez-faire capitalism is economic ANARCHY that eventually results in both chaos and tyranny, like political anarchy does. With no restraints by government, corporations will only get larger and more powerful by merging with smaller and weaker corporations and will so dominate the market that small businesses started by individual owners seldom have a chance to even get off the ground. That is NOT a free market! Such a concept doesn’t really exist, except in the deluded minds of many Conservatives and Libertarians. You either have a market in which government occationally intervenes to break up giant corporations (trust-busting)  to allow small businesses to thrive and maintain their independence, or you have a market in which individual efforts at owning one’s own means of production and income are destroyed by the giant corporations themselves. The Founding Fathers of the United States understood that unrestrained government destroys individual liberty, so they made a system of checks and balances in the Constitution to restrain government. They should have done the same with the American economic system. If a democratic government can have its own method of checks and balances against corporations, and thus prevent corporations from ever merging and even buy out and sell off the properties of failing corporations to individuals who wish to start their own small businesses, then we will have more economic freedom. Corporations themselves are more like governments in their makeup and operations than like individuals. They should never be “free” to exploit resources and people as they please. Only INDIVIDUALS should be free for freedom to have any real meaning! We see imperialism, which was the norm 150 years ago, as evil today, because it involved governments conquering and ruling other peoples for the gain of the conquerers. Why should laissez-faire captalism be seen any differently? Can we not abolish that as well and promote real economic freedom instead?

Economic growth vs. economic justice

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One of my biggest concerns is the blatant inequality of wealth in many societies and how that often translates into total injustice. Those who are raised in wealthy families tend to remain wealthy. And where there is wealth, there is also power. Meanwhile, those who come from poor families tend to remain poor. Because there are a finite range of resources in any society, those who already have wealth also have access to the highest technologies sooner than others, thus enabling them to maintain and even increase their wealth still further at the expense of the impoverished. And I’m not just talking about individuals, but about nations as well. The United States is far, far richer than Afghanistan  and will probably always remain so. Thus, while America is on the cutting edge of technology, the people of Afghanistan still live largely like they did a century ago, because they simply cannot afford the latest computers, cars, or private jets.In a capitalist economic system without any restraints, the rich will get richer and the poor remain poor until finally you have a few ultra rich and masses of the poor that will never have a chance to get better. And because cash flow then drops to minimal levels due to the tendency of the rich to hoard their fiances while the poor cannot even spend much money, the capitalist system collapses under its own weight.Karl Marx forsaw this. His mistake was to assume there was no way to prevent this and it was actually a good thing. Wrong! A restrained capitalism in which the government taxes the rich highly to prevent them accumulating too much wealth for themselves and does not tax the poor at all is both just and more productive in the long run. That is why I cringe whenever I heard about President Bush taking credit for his tax cuts for the wealthy helping the economy grow. Such growth will not last forever, of course. I’d rather have economic JUSTICE and STABILITY rather than merely GROWTH.

Why did Communism fail?

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When I look at Communism, I see a system that had entirely good intentions in the beginning but also had flaws that became more and more obvious as it was put into practice. It is ironic to me that the proposed solution to the abuses of capitalism, resulting as they did from the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few, was to take that wealth and power and transfer it all to the GOVERNMENT! That’s a bit like treating a burn by putting the burn victim into boiling water. So the whole point of Communism was a farce from the start, but those who followed it acted like religious fanatics, never allowing its contradictions to really impact their minds until it was too late. Yet they claimed to be atheists? What HYPOCRITES!!!

Communism failed because it had the same results as extreme capitalism, concentrating power in the hands of a few elitists. If the cure is as bad as the disease, why bother?

A clueless pro-America zealot

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In the Care2 group titled Hot Debates and Shocking News, which is one of the oldest and most respected groups in Care2, a member named Simon W posted a link to a story about supermodel Naomi Campbell visiting Venezuela, ruled by Hugo Chavez, to check out the reforms he has made under his socialist government. While I find some of Chavez’s actions towards his political opponents highly questionable, I found it commendable that someone in America, rather than just take her government’s propaganda at face value, would actually go to Venezuela to check out the facts for herself. But this did not seem to impress one bigoted observer.

Tony S: i didn’t respect her much before … i certainly respect her less now … reminds me of the old billy martin line … ” one’s a born liar, the other convicted”

Later, he said: well i’m sure simon put this post up because he is a fan of chavez … but to me chavez is an enemy to the u.s. and a tyrant in his own country. campbell’s visit to me and other celebs who have gone there, just make me sick. well pretty much most of hollywood makes me sick. but to me it reminds me of hanoi jane cuddling up with the enemy .. maybe not that bad, but close.  any visit gives him propaganda and a look of validation. and like i said … chavez is a born liar, campbell convicted… if these are hero’s to anyone that’s pretty sad.

So I answered him with one of my deadly “brief and to the point” replies.

Dale Husband: And you think Bush Jr is any better than Chavez, Tony S? If so, you are no less naive than Naomi Campbell.