The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.

Archive for the ‘Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce’ Category

Three-Penny Op-ed: Socialism, Ambiguity, and Short-sighted Two-sided Contrasts

Everything is presented as black and white. We, the citizens of the USA, rarely get presented with more detail about a subject. If we did, though, too many of these younger generations reject learning and removing the blinders to soak up the details. Thus, the media folks and others can make statements based only on THEIR interpretation and never taking into account considerations for black, white, gray, or other tones or colors of the rainbow. After all, the rainbow naturally occurs when rain and sunlight simultaneously appear before our eyes.

I like Joe Scarborough and have learned a great deal from him, since I first read his article in a business magazine, published in 2005. Even Joe Scarborough, though mentions “free enterprise” and a black and white contrast between that and socialism. I would like to suggest that is not the case.

A Cuban whose family was forced to flee Cuba when Fidel Castro’s troops confiscated her family’s property helped me learn these differences. There is socialist autocracy as dictated by Fidel Castro and there is supply-side economic centrally planned autocracy as dictated by Battista, masquerading as capitalism and “free enterprise.” When this Cuban person visited a socialist democracy where the people are the happiest on earth, Denmark, she commented about how their mobile phone system far surpassed that in America. No wonder the people of Denmark, time after time, have been rated the “happiest on earth.”

The people of Denmark have socialist-capitalist democracy, not autocracy. They also have free enterprise, too. Yet, the American herd mentality, generated by the media in the USA, just use the word, “socialism” to describe Denmark and other Scandinavian nations. Mr. Scarborough, there does not need to be a differentiation between socialism and “free enterprise” capitalism.

In 2005, Mr. Scarborough wrote about the need for regulation. This COULD mean regulating the capitalist markets with an infinite demand or supply. Few supply side industries are infinite. One would think oil is infinite when listening to those who control the status quo in oil, from Texas to the Koch brothers to Saudi Arabia (whose royal family was responsible for 9/11 and for cutting off the heads of their citizens who disobey the autocratic monarchs), and many others. The net result is that we pretend oil is an infinite supply, when it’s not. Big oil works to block the R&D efforts and businesses which can provide more capitalist competition and help do what capitalism is designed to do: competition can help keep prices lower. Supply-side idiots controlling and regulating the markets. In criticism, I say that Mr. Scarborough appears to follow the American supply-side fat cat herd mentality when putting forth the “norm” of there being a black and white contrast between socialism and free enterprise. I just mentioned something which pretends to be free enterprise and it is not, so it regulates its own market and works to destroy a third-party regulator, the government. There was an American family with two presidents who side with Saudi Arabia and the oil monopolies, with one saying, “what is good for business is good for America.” Wrong. Balance is good for America.

The Scandinavian nations prove that socialism can coexist with capitalism and democracy. The Scandinavian nations are more racially homogeneous than the USA, so they don’t have to consider only two sides of the equation with “black and white.” America has to go beyond just two sides of the equation because it is not racially homogeneous. The reason why Americans are against socialism are the same reasons and the common thread which runs through so many issues in America: systemic racism. And I am not being ambiguous here because I refuse to accept those, whether black or gay (Lindsay Graham) who are “Uncle Toms” and do just what the “massa says.” This is the reason why so many white people wish to “make America great again” by going back to the days when white supremacy reigned in America. To these jackass idiots, this makes America great, not human equality as it appears in socialist notions, Social Security, Medicare, ACA, freedom to carry guns (for white folks to use the guns against African-Americans, Latino/a, indigenous folks, as in the past). This is the background of the NRA and the false ideas about the 2nd Amendment. False because it was how the 2nd Amendment was applied for many years when the “nation was great” (according to the MAGA group of the idiocracy).

This would mean that socialism is too much of an “equalizing” force.” Therefore, it is rejected by preaching ambiguous notions about what socialism is. It also means that only white people should be allowed to carry guns and kill by “standing the white-skinned people’s ground” as developed by the NRA (and Jeb Bush of Florida). America needs to BECOME great by getting over these ambiguities and simple “black and white notions.”

This is all said with all due respect to Joe Scarborough. I also say, with due respect, that Bernie Sanders and “socialism” is not, in many respects, the socialism of Scandinavian socialist-capitalist democracies. For instance. According to information I have read, out of Sweden and other Scandinavian nations, there are no government-instituted minimum wages. Why not? My impression is that we are describing a situation in which these nations recognize the role of balance in capitalism. Just as supply and demand in industries helps create a competitive environment in order to provide better prices and for being able to obtain products and services with more “bang for the buck” (value at a better cost), a lack of minimum wage will help maintain this. But. What are these nations doing to train its people so that industries in the future can better serve the demand side of the markets? Are they using privatized education and hospitals in order to accomplish the goals to solve problems? I really doubt it. It is another style of regulating what is done, but doing the regulation responsibly.

Are these nations perfect and more perfect than America? Not likely. There is no perfection. But they might be more reasonable and rational. One could say, “well they don’t have very many black people there.” OK. That might be true, when contrasting with America. But what is that worth? You mean to say, Americans are not able to learn to coexist in a nation where we do have multi-colored people? Bull. I don’t believe it.

I invoke, once again (and again and again and again and again) Frank Sinatra: “we can have fun in fixing an imperfect nation.” Frank Sinatra had a black friend in his “rat pack” who experienced systemic racism in this nation. From white Army troops in World War II pissing on Sammy Davis, Jr., to being denied the same entrances to the same hotels where he and Sinatra were performing, there was a problem in America and that problem was NOT what made America great. No wonder Sinatra described America as “imperfect.” Sinatra was not willing to give up solving the problems of the land he called, “home.”

If people feel they don’t want to be contentious with others, so they just shut their mouths, out of fear of retribution and willingly accept lawyers who pit Americans against Americans with personal injury lawsuits and workman’s comp (rather than equalized healthcare for all), what a shameful, shameful, shameful bunch of Americans. I feel sorry for such people in their scummy ideas against anger and contentiousness when people say, “I am mad as hell and I ain’t going to take it anymore.” Anger and contentiousness against inequality in America, in any form, means we stand up for what is the correct thing for America to do to combat systemic racism (and homophobia, too).

Also to be mentioned is the idea of unions. When either side of unions is irrational and unreasonable, they destroy the balance which should be achieved. The ones with the whips had enough control to knock down the unions which went too far in America. They developed NAFTA and shipped jobs overseas. The irrationality of such bastards on the management side felt forced into a corner by irrational unions. Perhaps that is the case. In the process, these management bastards have increased their salaries and bonuses exponentially, as they still continue to work to destroy unions, in a vengeful attitude which then puts the union people in a corner. These working people think a Trump will solve their problems. Think again, you idiots. His cronies are the ones who wish to continue to replace workers with robots, you idiots, so go vote for idiot Trump and his followers, but be careful what you wish for because you might get something you don’t like or enjoy. As a member of a union, I can say that we faced this irrational attitude with an administration which refused to acknowledge our rationality while attempting to work out compromises at the negotiating table. I suppose I can say I understand why such Republicans acted in the manner they did, due to the lack of balance in unions and their delight at destruction of good things.

One more thing. Regulated capitalism might have elements of socialism, as what I have described here, but only when there needs to be regulation on both sides of the supply and demand considerations (on both sides of union-management negotiating table) and the goal is balance. Lacking this kind of balance and pushing the one-sided aspect of “free enterprise” and we end up getting rid of the “referee” in government (third party). This can be likened to letting Roman gladiators go in an arena and killing people like Christians. Supply-side economics with centrally planned economics from top-down of monopoly-style big corporations is not capitalism because, like the gladiators in an arena, it destroys and “kills” the opposition.

This can also be likened to a what-if scenario. What if an NFL team played a high school football team? What if there were no referees and all the rules were established by the NFL team, including the possibility of destroying human beings in the process? What if such a situation existed? If you would love to see this, then go to h-e-double hockey sticks because you are a savage barbarian trying to invoke your will upon a civilized nation.

My Cuban colleague I mentioned who came from Cuba at an early age in her life, also served on a Civility Committee which recognized coexistence and attempted to teach our students such concepts. Not barbarism. Civility. Coexistence. In America, the imperfect nation that it is, but being able to have fun in fixing it.

I would have fun in creating a democracy NOT based on a two-party system, as well, but based on something similar to the parliamentary system in Britain which went against King George and removed some of the taxes he imposed on the colonists. Bet Americans don’t know about this little aspect. But a parliamentary system night have two parties in control, but there are other parties to which the party which is in control has to make alliances with the parties with smaller numbers in order to name a prime minister. That prime minister has to maintain that coalition and partisanship is shot in the foot in the process. I do not believe the upper house of the parliament has any stupid freaking filibuster rules, either, which decimates the ability for compromise. Go to h-e-double-hockey sticks, Mancin.

With all due respect to those who continue to invoke a two-sided contrast in any form, it’s the resulting ambiguity and lack of compromise in actions (not values), stupid.

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Short & To the Point: It’s Jobs Shipped to Foreigners and Robo-answering-message-menu-machines, Stupid

We hear complaints that unemployment checks cause laziness in the work force. I have to ask, who really are the lazy ones? I believe the lazy ones are the CEOs who have mastered plans for 1000% rise in salaries and bonuses, take pensions and benefits from their employees (the hard working ones), and hoard the money, doing little for America while trying to avoid paying taxes. They put customer service jobs overseas so Americans often do not get hired to do such jobs. They utilize the most ludicrous computerized systems to answer customer service calls with questions galore which never address the reason for a customer to call, then follow up with the customer service human being asking some of the same questions again! In the corporation where I once worked, we would classify this as a waste of time for the business. It’s not the unemployment checks making people lazy. There are many other reasons. One is this: it’s customer service jobs hipped overseas and rob-answering-message-menu-machines, stupid.

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Short & To the Point: It’s the Huge Increases in CEO Salaries & Bonuses, Stupid

Statistics show CEO salaries in America have risen exponentially since the 1970s by more than 1000% over that time span. If my salary had increased that much, I would have been making a very handsome three-figure salary. I ended my career in the five digits which is where I began in the 1970s. I am not complaining because I did better than many other hard-working Americans. The lazy CEOs took money from the workers. Now we call American workers lazy, right, when they use unemployment checks and not go to work, right? Lazy? Who is really the lazy ones here? Meanwhile, these lazy CEOs have shipped jobs overseas, too, making customer service answering lines a joke with robots, a long wait, and some foreign person eventually answering us (if we are lucky to even get someone). Meanwhile, the American worker is lazy when he/she receives unemployment checks? Go blow it out where the sun doesn’t shine, will you please? It’s the huge increases in CEO salaries and bonuses, stupid. Lainbrains who shoot themselves in the foot while supporting the white cronies of corporate supply-side American near-monopoly centralized planning businesses, run from top-down.

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Short & To the Point: Property Taxes or Not?

Property taxes have been around for a long time. At one time, property could only be owned by white males. They paid the property taxes. It is pleasant that we live today with human equality. Or do we? Perhaps, because if one can afford property, they pay the taxes, irregardless of sex, color of skin, religion, or sexual identity. Thank God for that. But are property taxes the best form of tax or should we have other forms? This author is not certain and has wrestled with this question for some time. Property taxes are used at the local level to support streets, sidewalks, public schools, public hospitals, and other local community facilities and actions. Property taxes are paid whether one owns the property or rents the property. If one rents the property, the tax is like a value-added tax (VAT) and is opaque to the renter. The owner of the property sets the price of rent based on the property taxes (supposedly, if the owner is an intelligent one who pays the taxes). What is the alternative? Opaque taxes like a VAT take less paperwork and less work by accountants and lawyers, so we save money. If the VAT causes too high a price for the commodity, then people have a choice in a capitalist market. Thus, the price can be controlled by the value of the commodity PLUS value of the tax on the commodity. With property taxes, this can become a more complicated matter, as the demand side of the housing market is quite an infinite demand, unless people choose to pitch a tent in a public park, as what happens with the homeless. Also, property taxes are applied whether there is a home for residents or a building for commercial or industrial use. The tax is lower when it is an open field or wooded area with no buildings. Then there is the farmland consideration. Too complicated for me to consider here at this time. Homestead exemption options (primary residence, so get a deduction, but 2nd property and/or property only used as an investment not residence, and there is no deduction) and STAR (NYS). People who own rental property do so as an investment, so to lower the cost to renters, rental property for personal residences could have a higher homestead exemption, could they not? After all, owning a piece of real estate with no building does have a lower assessment and a lower tax. I know. I was once in that position. So, why can’t we give residential rental property a higher exemption? Owners of business, commercial, and manufacturing rental property are leasing to people who are more likely expected to make a profit. Residents are often pushed into a position to make little profit, especially with an income tax which considers profits for the “little guys” – the common folk – to be “disposable income.” How insane, which also makes me consider how irrational the regressive income tax is in punishing people for making a profit.

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Short & To the Point: Replace Income & Sales Taxes with Value-Added Taxes Applied to Domestic Goods & Imported Goods

The income tax is regressive. It punishes people for making money, to the point that now we have a class of people who invoke a love of money. Like the income tax, sales taxes require business entrepreneurs to cut into their profits in order to pay people to maintain their books, or else cut into their OWN time for doing the business they are trying to do. This was once pointed out to me, as a kid, by a DEMOCRAT and small business owner when REPUBLICANS were implementing a sales tax in the state of New York. Who was Rocky? The small business person deemed the sales tax, “Rocky’s Tax?” Think about it and answer, who was Rocky? It was not Silvester Stallone, either. A value-added tax, or VAT, is a tax one time proposed by CONSERVATIVES because it returns us to the days before the income and sales taxes. As a solution, I don’t give one damn whether it is liberal or conservative. All Americans should be the same and stop the BS that goes into their ears from propaganda broadcasting owned by an immigrant from Australia. It allows a tax to be collected on products, perhaps not services, at the time the products are created or re-made and appraised. The cost to the consumer is the price figured with the tax added in and there is no damn paperwork and ledgers required by business. It would “save businesses” all this money that the big fat cats keep drying and moaning about not being able to save in order to make a profit. But really. These big business fat cats don’t have to worry about it because they can dip into their profits and pay lawyers and accountants, plus pay for lawyers and accountants to run for Congress. For the small business people of America, which is greatly declined, due to the deregulation and monopolized status resulting from supply-side non-capitalist, non-competitive business in America (which is like centralized business planning in a communist state like Cuba, China, or the former Soviet Union). Fat cat Ray Kroc, and other bastards of this non-capitalist model really did work to deliberately put small business people out of business. This is how we have ended up where we are, with jobs created for lawyers (ambulance-chasing bastards when there was a glut of lawyers with no jobs) while so many other jobs and businesses in America suffer or go under. This CAN be changed. It won’t be changed until the lousy no-brain idiocracy stops soaking up propaganda broadcasting, read newspapers and other publications with knowledge, not propaganda, lies, fibs, hatred, hypocrisy, and irrational crap. Replace income taxes and sales taxes with the VAT. Period. Another time, this author wishes to speak about other taxes, like property taxes, inheritance taxes, and professional fees required for those in the trades and in work such as EMTs to attain licenses to work for America and its people.

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Short & To the Point: Small Business Incubators and Planning?

What has happened to the small business incubator concept which this professor taught students in business at the college level in the 1990s? We never hear about these anymore. We taught students about developing a small business and taught them how to use databases to do market research in order to identify the market portions which would help make them profits in a business. For instance, there was a database which could provide information to fulfill the requirement of “location, location, location” by examining the numbers of drivers going in dual directions on any street or highway. This could be utilized for best placement of a business. This was not the ONLY database, but it was useful for determining placement of brick and mortar retail establishments. You say, “well things have changed today.” You are correct. If it is not just “brick and mortar” alone, then there are statistics for the impact of ordering online and delivery services today. One could put together a successful business plan, according to such marketing trends which never end once the plan is made. So, of the idiocracy which finds fault with unemployment checks being issued (and just salivating about complaining about Democrats) and causing negative pessimism in order to DESTROY rather than fix, I never hear ANY of the lawyer-accountant politicians come up with optimistic ideas such as, “give unemployment checks” to those who will utilize and PROVE the use of business plans, business incubators, and other methods of doing supply and demand capitalist marketing. Provide options for training in corporate and business intelligence, something the big fat cats at the top of monopolistic centrally planned corporations figure they are above such use. These lazy fat cats at the heads of corporations believe we should just hand the money over to them so they can line their pockets and pay off lawyer-accountant politicians to do favors for them in government, lobbying for their fat ass benefit only. Small business incubators and other considerations could be pulled in, but who is doing this? Silly me that I don’t go along with the large numbers of people with their simplistic shallow no-brain lazy listening to Fox and other propaganda, lies, hatred, love of money and guns talk. They refuse to think for themselves so perhaps would find it hard to accept a check for unemployment with strings attached to do something to improve America by means of the business environment and other concerns for America.

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Short & To the Point: Supply-side Economics is NOT Capitalism

Supply-side economics in America was promoted with deregulation by Ronald Reagan. The stupid man thought it would be about less regulation from the third-party government regulators. Instead, it has turned into a Roman gladiator game by big fat cats of corporations who destroy small business and any competitors. They act like cowards unable to know how to win in a competitive war. For instance, big health insurance helped sabotage and destroy the health insurance marketplace created for the purposes of CAPITALIST competition, by Democrats and President Obama. Corporate utilities have been deregulated and have turned into merged companies of large proportions. Newspapers and publishers have merged and become huge corporations. In each case, the excuse, without the competition, is usually these moans and groans about how “there is not enough profit.” It’s about the top corporate fat cats making the money to the tune of increased salaries and bonuses which have risen exponentially since the 1970s when we had smaller corporations, small businesses and more capitalist competition. The big fat cats at the top have been winning and don’t give one damn about the demand side of a capitalist market. Yet, the corporate where I worked, when it was deregulated and merged into a larger one was known as being a “cash cow.” There was no reason for doing this because more people took advantage of the “cash cow,” but now only a few at the top and those who own the most stock benefit from the profits. Thus, there is top-down control which does not benefit the Middle Class or lower classes. In the process, R&D money has been snipped and America has fallen far behind in the world economy. R&D being done in the company where I once worked has been moved to Europe and Asia. All due to supply-side economics in the name of “free markets” which then turn the big fat cats at the top into those similar to the big fat cats in a communist politburo who make all the money and CLAIM the workers do well. It’s centrally planned supply-side economics, stupid, not capitalism with its capitalist competition which creates “wealth of a nation” (18th Century theorist, Adam Smith who ultimately rejected “free markets” because he said human beings had no self-control, follow the model of Jesus Christ, and be moral and ethical when dealing with each other, so they need to be REGULATED).

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American Customer Service Sucks Big Time

American fat cats at the top of the big corporate conglomerates, go screw yourselves with your pockets being filled at the expense of employees and the consumers on the DEMAND SIDE OF THE MARKET.

Right now, there is a damn delay in everything I type and my keyboard sucks. Who does this and sets my Internet and computer up this way? Scam artists who suck. Lousy customer service. LOUSY in America.

Customer service sucks when you call and “due to COVID-19, we are inundated,” is the reply. I don’t believe it. I think there are a bunch of lazy liars in big corporate offices who don’t want to pay employees to do the job so they can take money from the consumer the lazy person’s way. Screw such American fat cats. SCREW them. So, what is it we do? We can wait fifteen minutes for someone to call back. Yes, and we on the consumer side have nothing else to do in our lives, do we? The lazy ones are at the top of the freaking fat cat line. We are not lazy. What are we supposed to do in these situations? Sit around twiddling our thumbs and wait for a phone call? That is BS and describes a really LOUSY American business today.

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THREE-PENNY OP-ED: American Big Business is Supply Side Economics, not Capitalism

George W. Bush once said, “what’s good for business is good for America.” I never liked it when he said it in the past. It has gotten worse today. What he TRULY means is that what is good for supply-side economics in America is good for America. In other words, what’s good for fat cats at the top, with a love of money, taking and hoarding the money for themselves and working “trickle-down” economics otherwise, like WE THE PEOPLE are a bunch of slaves designed to get a pittance of money to live on. At least we get more than the Africans who were brought to these shores beginning in 1619.

What’s good for America is good business and capitalism with supply AND demand side considerations, with competition and regulation by government. This was actually what theologian and economist, Adam Smith, a contemporary of our Founding Fathers, said was best, due to the natural human tendency to be greedy and selfish.

For example. Local newspapers in America no longer feel compelled to compete, especially where there is a less dense population, such as the areas around Binghamton, Ithaca, and Sayre, PA. Three newspapers serve this area, but only ONE newspaper, from Binghamton, will deliver to an area situated DIRECTLY BETWEEN ITHACA AND BINGHAMTON, as the CROW flies. Communist style Moscow Pravda runs it all from Virginia and at offices of Gannett. They don’t find good delivery people, in the midst of a population which is crying out, due to the lack of money. So we constantly get screwed and feel po’d about the services and get no satisfaction. The lazy bums at the tops of the corporations simply write it off as no problem and insist we read it in digital copy. BS. Most people do not want to read it that way, but it is the way the freaking fat cats can horde more money, proclaiming that “they cannot make as much otherwise.” Sure. THEY, the FAT CATS cannot make more money, so they push a LAZY MAN’S way of delivery – electronically, which uses MORE energy to do so and they proclaim they are “saving trees.” BS. I have an answer. Publish on RECYCLED PAPER and you can save more TREES and use LESS ENERGY. You BS artists with a love of money.

Then there is Verizon Wireless in this low-density population area. We can look out of our yard and can see the Verizon tower. No hills to interrupt it. Hell. There were more high-rise buildings in Palm Beach County to block the signal there and we COULD NOT VIEW the damn tower from our home. But the service was far better and we seldom had connections in which people keep repeating, “Did you say something? Hello? Hello?” Constantly on Verizon Wireless in this little town in America. One can travel down the road and receive NO service at all. That sucks and I am here to say, “I am sick and tired of this BS and ain’t going to take it anymore.” Will anyone join me in saying this?

No one wishes to join collectively and say anything about this in loud voices. Instead we are forced to listen to the BS of QAnon or Proud Boys with their damn guns of the NRA. Instead, with regard to Verizon, which has a tower near my home, this is what people say. “Well, it gets worse when the leaves are on the trees.’ REALLY? In Florida with high rise buildings blocking signals there is one more thing. THEY HAVE LEAVES ON THE TREES 12 MONTHS OF THE YEAR, DAMN IT ALL. That is making excuses for big business and their love of money attitude which pays no attention to the DEMAND SIDE of the market and MEETING the demand. They put money in the pockets of Claudia Tenney, the bitch who won a congressional seat by only 100 votes and into the wealthy of fat cat Mitch McConnell who uses his money to sabotage efforts of Biden and the Democrats to accomplish something. While wimps among the damn Republicans GO ALONG out of fear of being attacked. Poor people. Feel sorry for such wimps.

Then there is Spectrum which also contributed heavily to BITCH Claudia Tenney who won by only about 100 votes. They are in denial about attacks online against their customers and do nothing. Their streaming service sucks big time as we get constant buffering all the time. CONSTANT. Are they interested in giving more than, “oh, we apologize,” and DO SOMETHING? Nope. The dopes of Spectrum with fat cats at the top, trying to preserve their supply side trickle-down economics, while in denial to the DEMAND SIDE of the market. At least in Florida, there was Laurie’s TV which provided us with a Community Antenna TV (CATV) option which was far better than the crap from a monopoly here. And get Haefele TV or others to COMPETE effectively with Spectrum with CATV? Forget it. We take more than just one step back in this situation, when one considers the BETTER service we received back in the 1960s and 1970s, due to LOCALLY OWNED cable television. We did not have hundreds and hundreds of channels, as what is provided by Laurie’s TV in Palm Beach County, but we on the demand side were happy. It was a capitalist competitive means, too, of selling homes in the community which had Laurie’s TV. Capitalist competition at the local level.

We’re mad as hell and ain’t going to take it anymore. Anyone with us, collectively, or do you continue to be a bunch of wimpish people afraid of confrontation and retribution and who won’t do one damn thing to maintain America’s capitalism and democratic forms of government?

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Three-penny Op-ed: Let’s Stop the Lack of Ability to Identify Business Opportunities for the Future by Means of Good Investments in Infrastructure

Once again, we are forced to listen to the news on a station like channel 12 as they bloviate the stupidity of Republicans who are not able to think about the future with an overall look at what it takes to improve the lives of ALL Americans in the future. They are stupid.

This is similar to not re-building a bridge to an area which is flatland and could help in the development of new housing and improve an economy, while the hilly side of a creek is not good for constructing houses on the hill because of the flooding which comes down the side of the hill. Progress does not happen because the development on the side of the hill is halted, due to the flooding, and no one can expand construction on the other side of a waterway, on flat land, because Republicans oppose building a bridge, saying, “there are not enough people on the other side of the waterway.” Stupidity with no concern for, it’s the future possibilities, stupid. Just as Clinton’s advisors, during the Bush-Clinton campaign of 1992, said, “it’s the economy, stupid.” And by the end of Clinton’s second term, working with the Republican side, gave enough money back to the Middle Class that the economy improved AND the Federal budget was balanced.

Today, we hear of the stupidity, once again, from Republicans about “spending too much for infrastructure.” Once again, we can say, “it’s the economy, stupid,” not the accountants shallowness with a ledger book. Accountants opposed to giving money to the Middle Class in the late 1990s were stupid, too, but it paid off, both economically and with the Federal budget.

Do these Americans who challenge President Biden have any brains about what it takes to make a good future for America? You spend the money in the economy and the money can head back into the government coffers and help balance that budget. What the hell is the problem, here?

Economist Paul Krugman says that, when President Obama first took office, he did not spend enough and the money was pitched at the big banks, not at the people who were having difficulty paying off mortgages or being foreclosed. These problems with mortgages were due to banks giving freely to developers who, along with the flipping of houses and extensive increases in prices at a much higher rate during the early Bush years (125% increase in prices over short term or just a few years, not a long-term investment as it always has been). Then, mortgages were given to so many people who really did not have enough income to pay for the mortgages, the consumer got hung, the developers walked away with their money, and the banks could then confiscate property in the same manner as Rubio’s enemy in Cuba (Castro) did to people there (including Rubio’s family). Paul Krugman’s comments in the early years of the Obama administration and the evidence that money was being given to big business, while there was proof that the SAME money could have been given to homeowners who were stuck in situations which I described when they were given mortgages they should NOT have received. Things worked out with the results of all that and the implementation of the HARP program, but could they not have been better had those large amounts been given to the consumers who were suffering with houses “under water” due to values going below the amount being mortgaged and, ultimately, foreclosures with a Castro-style confiscation of property? One could say these big bands were not communists, but were the centrally planned big fat cats no different than communists trying to form communes? I don’t think so.

Although I applaud President Biden for working to improve the infrastructure of this nation, the cost is rather high. But on the other hand, we should have been improving this infrastructure during the years Republicans were in charge and we did not. Working in the 1980s and 1990s for an electric utility, we knew at that time that there were infrastructure problems identified by the North American Electric Reliability Council in their Generating Availability Data System, we were heading for problems in the future. That infrastructure was not fixed and the results were disaster this past winter when snow and sleet hit Texas and other areas of this nation. I recall working, at the time, with friends of Laura Welch Bush at Texas Utilities in Dallas, TX, on gathering statistics and so forth in the industry.

R&D was murdered in the 1990s and after. Why? Because of the greed and selfishness of individualism, deregulation, and the formation of larger monopolistic business ventures which can be comparable to centrally planned economics of the Soviet Union. All of the important matters were passed over in favor of a few people gaining all kinds of wealth at the expense of employees and the small amounts of stock the employees owned. Today, CEO fat cats make an increase of 1000% or more compared to those of the 1970s, but the employees doing the work have come no where near that accumulation and hording of money by a few egotistical and lazy people in the boardrooms of America. Yet, number crunchers destroy ideas for making things better in America and apparently have so dang much power that we all suffer as a result. Many of us lost our jobs, due to the reduction of R&D. Yet, in capitalist Taiwan, we learn that they spent tons of money on R&D and have developed a corporation so good that Communist China plans to invade Taiwan to take control of it. Sort of like the South never being able to develop industry so it stole the established industry begun in the North of the USA. That is another whole story to tell.

Then, China is working to strategize for the future, while American Trumpicans complain about it and do nothing substantial to challenge it. According to a Sixty Minutes report many years ago, America was investing in the development of alternative energy sources with renewable energy. When America saw it was going to cost too much for long-term investment before there would be a payoff, American investors threw it all away, while the Chinese picked up the pieces by purchasing the businesses started up with initial “incubation” investments. Why did America want to begin developing alternative energy sources? Because we know that the oil and gas stuff from the ground will be depleted one day, so we work to prepare for the day when our next generations of people have to deal with the eventuality of the end of oil from the ground. Republicans get out their damn accounting ledger books and don’t even consider this. What happens? Such businesses came into the hands of the Chinese, in a free “global” economic system. And Trump thought tariffs would tell those Chinese off. Meanwhile, Taiwan is threatened by China which, like Dixie, wishes to steal the successful technology business developed by those on Taiwan. Dixie and others stole IBM from the North and the Binghamton area, too. The stupidity of Americans who follow the fat cats BLINDLY along, like lemmings being led off a cliff.

President Biden has also identified the need for more funds at the local level and to get back (that sounds CONSERVATIVE to me, not liberal) to the days when there was more control over infrastructure at the local level. Today, big corporations have put in place these lousy computers the customer speaks with and no longer allow the consumer to speak with someone at a local level. Cable television was created in upstate New York, as a “better mousetrap” to deal with the hills of this area in attempting to bring television into the home. It was not regulated by the FCC as much as regulated by the local communities. It was once the same thing with telephone and telecommunications, too. With EMT and fire service, too. Even with the production of electricity, there was often local control. These methods are all superseded today by big corporate conglomerate and monopolies. The electric utility where I once worked with the engineers and many energy R&D efforts, is no longer located in a city in Florida. instead, the control now comes from a big corporate conglomerate based out of state. Same in this area of New York. Rather than control from a corporate headquarters in Binghamton, it is now controlled from out of state and one has difficulty speaking with someone local. I can go on and on, even into the “local” newspapers in Binghamton and Ithaca, which have pulled the plug on local offices and one can never get in touch with a local person. This centrally planned economy, run by big fat cats of industry is supposed to be better? Hell. The USA Today Network is comparable to Moscow Pravda. Why do we do this? Selfish individualistic egotism and love of materialism and love of money, that is why.

At one point in my life, I spoke with a young Cuban man who had come to America with his family in the 1980s. He spoke about he disliked both Castro and what was told about Battista. He said he missed the urbanized America where he could no longer go sit by a waterway, as he did in Cuba, and have no big developments around. He disliked the materialism which permeates America so strongly. However, he was grateful for being in this nation and feeling like he was more free to do things without a dictatorship always watching him.

I agree with this young man’s assessment. Materialism and ledger books, with no plans for the future are what too many Republicans wrap themselves in these days. A Republican objects to spending more money than what we spent in World War II. Stupid jerk. First of all, does he think what the cost of purchasing a car was in the 1940s, compared to today? Did he think what it cost to purchase a home in those days, compared to what it costs today? No. Did he compare the living wages of those days to what it cost to purchase many items, particularly food? No.

Take this stupid jerk a step further. How many Americans died in the 1940s, due to war? How many Americans have died in this war with a virus? What are the overall facts and statistics, rather than just blowing away with ledger line accounting only? It is disgusting to many of us who see a bright future for America, if we only have the investments needed to improve the infrastructure of this nation. We need to work together collectively, but Republicans, as they did with FDR who wanted to meet the problem of war head-on while Hitler was bombing Britain. The Republicans of that day BLOCKED FDR from spending the money so as to help Churchill and the Brits. Then the Republicans later make stupid claims that “it was not the New Deal, but war, which got us out of the Great Depression.” BS to that. There is evidence that the New Deal HELPED, but the war was made worse due to the negligence of the Republicans of that era. To make Republicans of those days look good, what is done? Now make the claim that it was war which got us through it financially. But wait a minute? The Republicans did not want us to spend money and gear up, as what Trump COULD have done by fighting a war on a virus by using the Defense Protection Act. According to an owner of a consumer products manufacturing company in the 1940s, such businesses were awaiting the chance to gear up to build munitions for the British and see the economy begin to boom again with such measures and perhaps win the war and put it behind us. The Republicans of that era blocked such efforts and we spent a longer period of time at war with the Nazis, fascists, and Tojo-loving people than what could have been avoided.

Thus, we can conclude that Republicans are pulling these stunts so as to support autocratic and dictatorial government on the level of a Hitler. It takes money to make money. That does not apply solely to the individualistic materialistic fat cats of America, but for the “wealth of a nation” overall and based on “moral sentiment” for humans, as well as justice for all humans in America. This is the land I love and have hopes for achieving such measures in the future. (See Adam Smith and his writing in The Wealth of Nations and Theories of Moral Sentiment; Smith is the brains behind the development of capitalism).

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