== Ah the ‘flat tax’ ==
Two catechisms of the American right? The bizarre notion of a “flat tax” on incomes and idolization of Russian President Putin – who happens to have instituted a flat 13% income tax a decade ago. And how’s that working out? (Note if Gary Johnson gets on the debates, you’ll hear him convey love of a flat tax… proof that 50% of the libertarian movement’s message is lunacy paid-for by Steve Forbes and the Koch brothers. The other half? Actually, kinda interesting stuff and vastly more so than the loony GOP.)
One can understand the right’s bromance with Vladimir Putin on many levels, but one that’s seldom mentioned is the steady re-emergence of the Communist Party in Russia, as millions recall that they felt both powerful and equal once, across the last thousand years, and it was not under the current oligarchs. Ah but this article shows the CP’s slog will include overcoming a top echelon that is loyal to… guess who? “With the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution looming, Russia’s Communists are confident that history is on their side.”
This article offers up a chilling way in which the GOP has been consistent, at least: “Over the course of the last year, as Trump positioned himself as the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, there’s been no shortage of Republicans who’ve asked, in panicked tones, how their party and its voters could embrace someone so ignorant and dangerously unprepared for national office. And yet, many of these same Republicans, just two presidential election cycles ago, were prepared to put Sarah Palin one heartbeat from the Oval Office.”
See some of her recent remarks and remember… this lobotomized mess is what the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Barry Goldwater has come to. If they were alive today, those three would join forces to drive a stake into the heart of the undead zombie elephant that is shaming their memories.
.. such as rates of entrepreneurship and small business startups, military readiness, U.S. military casualty rates, terrorist attacks and the rate of change of deficits. All of these conservative desiderata do dramatically better across democratic administrations, which should attract party-switching by those who are sincere. (It should not have taken Trump!)
Others, like declines in poverty, environmental protection and rates of investment in science, education, culture and infrastructure, should please more than just liberals.
Roth explores likely explanations, several of which boil down to the same thing — that the Republican Party’s controlling oligarchy simply does not care about outcomes-based governance or long term metrics of national health. Their executive and legislative branches have shown interest only in impulsive self-interest, using specialists to concoct incantations — like “WMDs” and “Supply Side Economics” — to justify what amounted to raids upon the commonwealth.
The fact that the Congressional GOP leaders - Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan - have shown no interest in adapting laws to fit 21st Century changing circumstances, blocking even minimal legislation that does not benefit the clade, is entirely consistent. To be clear, GOP Congresses in this century have been the laziest in the history of the republic.
But read Roth’s article. It’s a bit partisan, but offers possible explanations for a flat-out fact. That no one who looks at history or evidence should trust the Republican Party with governance over even a local pest control district.
==Will we see an oil crash? ==
I have seen very few “economics” articles more blatantly stupid than this one on Yahoo Business by Mr. Sam Ro, who asserts that low oil prices hurt everyone, not just petroleum producing nations. As they even-out on a low plateau, “importing countries will lose their one-time windfall from falling prices,” Ro quotes High Frequency Economics’ Carl Weinberg. At first I thought both the quoter and quotee might be shill-propagandists for a petro house.Or possibly insane, Then I realized… it’s much worse.
They might be sincere. They are actually capable of ignoring the fact that low oil and especially natural gas prices have been luring investment in manufacturing in the United States. Those manufacturers and everyone from railroads to airlines to consumers are delighted to have energy prices stay nice and low and flat for the extended future.
The oil price plummet could have been a disaster to the planet, had it happened a year or two earlier, undercutting the rise of sustainables. But now even solar and wind power producers are fine with it, since they have reached breakeven with fossils and their ongoing, spectacular takeoff will benefit from low manufacturing overhead.
Are Ro and Weinberg shills then? Or dumb? Or is something else at work? Chillingly, there is. The mindset of “Margin Parasites.” Brokers who do best when markets gyrate and swing, giving their kind of leech a chance to grab nibbles with every fluctuation. And they rave a 50 year excuse that they do a “service” by helping to “discover true prices.” A mystical chant that has no bearing on actual economics.
Parasites who actually convince themselves that sucking from the arteries of manufacturers and commodities users (who suffer when they scurry to adapt to rapid swings) is a gooood thing. Value extractors who turned “finance” into a lamprey industry, weakening all the makers and do-ers and innovators and hard workers. Seriously I take it back. This is insanity. Alas, it is an insanity that controls much of our economy and is trying to become our feudal lords.
== Mistrust of Science ==
==Will we see an oil crash? ==
I have seen very few “economics” articles more blatantly stupid than this one on Yahoo Business by Mr. Sam Ro, who asserts that low oil prices hurt everyone, not just petroleum producing nations. As they even-out on a low plateau, “importing countries will lose their one-time windfall from falling prices,” Ro quotes High Frequency Economics’ Carl Weinberg. At first I thought both the quoter and quotee might be shill-propagandists for a petro house.Or possibly insane, Then I realized… it’s much worse.
They might be sincere. They are actually capable of ignoring the fact that low oil and especially natural gas prices have been luring investment in manufacturing in the United States. Those manufacturers and everyone from railroads to airlines to consumers are delighted to have energy prices stay nice and low and flat for the extended future.
The oil price plummet could have been a disaster to the planet, had it happened a year or two earlier, undercutting the rise of sustainables. But now even solar and wind power producers are fine with it, since they have reached breakeven with fossils and their ongoing, spectacular takeoff will benefit from low manufacturing overhead.
Are Ro and Weinberg shills then? Or dumb? Or is something else at work? Chillingly, there is. The mindset of “Margin Parasites.” Brokers who do best when markets gyrate and swing, giving their kind of leech a chance to grab nibbles with every fluctuation. And they rave a 50 year excuse that they do a “service” by helping to “discover true prices.” A mystical chant that has no bearing on actual economics.
Parasites who actually convince themselves that sucking from the arteries of manufacturers and commodities users (who suffer when they scurry to adapt to rapid swings) is a gooood thing. Value extractors who turned “finance” into a lamprey industry, weakening all the makers and do-ers and innovators and hard workers. Seriously I take it back. This is insanity. Alas, it is an insanity that controls much of our economy and is trying to become our feudal lords.
== Mistrust of Science ==
I confront folks on the US right with a simple fact: that their once-intellectual, but now lobotomized cult is in full tilt war against science. And not just science! Name one profession of high knowledge and skill that’s not under attack by Fox & its cohorts? Teachers, medical doctors, journalists, civil servants, law professionals, economists, skilled labor, professors… oh, yes and science.
They never even try to name one exception! Instead, they almost always blather something like (recently): "I'm amaze at how often the experts are wrong yet people are willing to call them experts." (sic)
OK then. Let's start by admitting a truth... that *not all smart people who know stuff are wise.*
We all know that's true. We've all known smart people who know stuff who weren't all that wise.
But that truism has been mutated by propaganda into something quite different, the Fox-confederate incantation that: "ALL smart folks who know stuff are therefore - automatically and naturally - far less wise than people who are dumb and don't know stuff."
It's a propaganda stretch that should never have worked... but it has! In fact it is the central confederate catechism - their core article of faith. They HAVE to swear allegiance to that mantra! Because all the smart people who know stuff are fleeing the gone-mad American right as fast as they can run.
Including those who are conservative by nature, or capitalists or libertarians. All of them! Oh, you might fish for a few Koch-paid denialist cultists or Young Earthers with PhDs. Okay and Doctors of Divinity and hedge fund managers. But it will just make you look ridiculous.
Let's reiterate: This is what these guys now rant and rave. They are NOT saying "not all smart people who know stuff are wise."
They are raving "ALL smart folks who know stuff are therefore - automatically and naturally - far less wise that people who are dumb and don't know stuff."
There is no squirming out of this. That's the core belief.
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== addenda ==
Oh, just because today's mad right CONSISTS of that message, don't think I am unaware that the far-far left CONTAINS some people like that. I am wary in that direction, too.
But I know which cult threatens my planet and children and nation, right now.
Followup: In 1974, conservatives with college degrees had the highest level of trust in science and the scientific community. Today, they have the lowest. And scientific folks have noticed where they are unwelcome. Thirty years ago, 40% of US scientists called themselves Republican, now it is 5% and plummeting. They are voting with their feet, the smartest, wisest, most logical and by far the most competitive humans our species ever produced.
They never even try to name one exception! Instead, they almost always blather something like (recently): "I'm amaze at how often the experts are wrong yet people are willing to call them experts." (sic)
OK then. Let's start by admitting a truth... that *not all smart people who know stuff are wise.*
We all know that's true. We've all known smart people who know stuff who weren't all that wise.
But that truism has been mutated by propaganda into something quite different, the Fox-confederate incantation that: "ALL smart folks who know stuff are therefore - automatically and naturally - far less wise than people who are dumb and don't know stuff."
It's a propaganda stretch that should never have worked... but it has! In fact it is the central confederate catechism - their core article of faith. They HAVE to swear allegiance to that mantra! Because all the smart people who know stuff are fleeing the gone-mad American right as fast as they can run.
Including those who are conservative by nature, or capitalists or libertarians. All of them! Oh, you might fish for a few Koch-paid denialist cultists or Young Earthers with PhDs. Okay and Doctors of Divinity and hedge fund managers. But it will just make you look ridiculous.
Let's reiterate: This is what these guys now rant and rave. They are NOT saying "not all smart people who know stuff are wise."
They are raving "ALL smart folks who know stuff are therefore - automatically and naturally - far less wise that people who are dumb and don't know stuff."
There is no squirming out of this. That's the core belief.
-
-
== addenda ==
Oh, just because today's mad right CONSISTS of that message, don't think I am unaware that the far-far left CONTAINS some people like that. I am wary in that direction, too.
But I know which cult threatens my planet and children and nation, right now.
Followup: In 1974, conservatives with college degrees had the highest level of trust in science and the scientific community. Today, they have the lowest. And scientific folks have noticed where they are unwelcome. Thirty years ago, 40% of US scientists called themselves Republican, now it is 5% and plummeting. They are voting with their feet, the smartest, wisest, most logical and by far the most competitive humans our species ever produced.
