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).
Tioga Herald 
A Tale of Two Villages
A long time ago, there were two villages in upstate New York. Both about the same size. Both with manufacturing and production. Both bedroom communities of IBM. Both with one-time business sections of the village which were quite similar with the active business life in each village.
One village was actually closer to the IBM plants than the other, but both were still considered bedroom communities. How much did IBM help these communities? Did they offset taxes? Not certain. Did they pay employees? That they did.
The village closer to IBM plants had a ladder factory. That ladder factory was purchased by a big American corporate conglomerate called Werner Ladder. According to a Google search, Werner is today located in Illinois.
What did Werner do? Shut down the plant and laid off all the employees in the one village. No longer a tax base for the community. By way of hearsay, I learned that the AMERICAN corporation wanted to pay less to employees – cheapskate big fat pigs at the top of a company which, like so many others in America, are Leona Helmsley and Donald Trump types and don’t want to pay taxes because “those are for the little people.” Is this hearsay correct? I believe it is and there are plenty of other examples of AMERICAN run corporations which have shipped jobs overseas – a bunch of cheapskates who also cancelled pensions and amassed fortunes at the top with corrupt bonuses paid to such fat pigs at the top. (See the book, Retirement Heist which identifies General Electric and other companies which did this and then put peer pressure on the others at the top to do the same). Corrupt self-centered narcissists doing everything for themselves and no damn concern for the “common folk,” but lying and being hypocritical, mesmerizing too many of the common folk that their way is best.
What about the other village? See if you can guess what it is. The first village is located in Tioga County, NY, one of many very impoverished counties today in upstate New York. A county run by Republicans who side with these big corporate conglomerate assholes at the top and have achieved NOTHING for the “Common folk.” This second village has, for many years, had a production facility for another company. Can you guess what it is? They manufacture devices for the types of lifts, etc. which a Home Depot might purchase for use in their stores. BTW. Home depot also sells the Werner ladder, too. What about this other company? It is still in existence today, after about 100 years or so being there. Guess who owns this company in the second village? An overseas concern, not big fat American culprits making money hand over foot. It is owned by a company called Toyota.
Fascinating story. A production facility in upstate New York owned by the capitalist giant in a nation we defeated in World War II.
There are more examples which are similar to the first village in other communities throughout the northeast. Production shut down and work sent overseas. The claim? Too high a labor cost in the USA. To which I say, with the example of a Toyota owning another production facility: such things by cheapskates of America is nothing but bullshit.
If I am correct, the congressional district to which the other village is part of is that of Anthony Brindisi who, by way of fraud from the Republican opponent, Claudia Tenney, lost to Tenney by just a few hundred votes. But to Republicans, the only ones who perform fraud are Democrats, don’t you know? Anthony Brindisi BROUGHT industry back to that district and how is he repaid? Removed from office, for doing a good thing. Imagine that. Brindisi. A Democrat. Unlike the liars I heard recently in Owego, NY, with the lies of a conspiracy theory that “Democrats do what the Chinese want,” Brindisi worked with the military to stop purchasing products from the Chinese and producing them in upstate New York. And this is how Brindisi, a Democrat, is rewarded? I once worked for Democrats in a corporation in Florida which made good money and was considered a “cash cow.” Ripe for the picking by lousy Republican business people when they came in, took over the company, laid most of us off, and scrapped the good fortunes of the company in order to knock the stock price so low it would be ripe for merger and acquisition. It was. It is now part of a huge company in North Carolina, while the Florida part of it was scrapped. Regarding this corporation, facts not fiction. But hell, A Tale of Two Villages is supposed to be fiction, right? The fiction is the assholes who repeat Fox commentary in Owego with lies and conspiracy theories. Perhaps it is Sloppy Don and the Republifascists at fault for many of our problems? That is what I can prove with facts, not conspiracy theories.
The other day, in driving through the second village, I saw the village and its business district doing far better than the first village with the ladder factory. Most of the business district in the ladder factory village has been burned to the ground and no one has the balls to build it back up. Don’t tell me there are problems with finances because I know about villages which have had, at their disposal, grant money to help build the villages. I don’t believe the damn pessimism I hear. I refuse to believe it any more. As the writer of A Tale of Two Cities, I am sick and tired of hearing the pessimism. My Scottish family has a motto: “As I breathe, I hope.”
I don’t know if my first name comes from General Douglas MacArthur or not. My dad served in the Pacific and told me about working some of the time with the occupation forces there in the hotel in Tokyo where MacArthur was headquartered in Japan. When I asked my parents whether my name came from Douglas MacArthur, the answer was usually a smart ass one, “its for you to find out.” Never mentioned. But I was born in the early years of the Gen. Eisenhower administration in Washington. It was just a few years after Harry S. Truman fired MacArthur for wanting to invade China from the Korean peninsula. There still remain questions as to whether MacArthur, who had the ear of FDR, was correct in trying to convince FDR NOT to drop the a-bomb. Cannot speak to that, except to report on the William Manchester biography of MacArthur, which is where I obtained some of this knowledge. I am not going to debate the question of a-bomb or not because no one knows what the future could have held should we have done something different. I repeat. NO one is knowledgeable enough to make and assumption of a “what if the bomb were not dropped on Japan.” No one can predict the future of anything with a certainty. But we can try to find best practices which exist today, learn from history, and move forward. The preponderance of pessimism for the future makes me ill and nauseous. There is no certainty, either whether my first name comes from General MacArthur. Just a bunch of circumstantial evidence which MIGHT point to this fact.
With all of this being said, I now lead into a bit of information about Gen. MacArthur who was appointed by Truman to be the Supreme Commander over Japan, following VJ Day. MacArthur was swift in putting down the communist movement in Japan. Because it was raging after World War ii. At the same time, Douglas ended the fascist dictatorial means created by a leader who claimed to be divine like a god and to be worshiped. He squelched that, as well. He squelched the type of Medieval supply side economics which was similar to Western Europe and pushed by Hitler and Mussolini. MacArthur was the one responsible for putting Japan back on its feet, even if it took a couple of decades for the results to be noticed.
Thus, for the one village with manufacturing facilities owned by Toyota today, it demonstrates that the Japanese have developed a mentality to hire American labor and not be cheapskates about providing living wages and benefits.
I have no objections to those claiming the unions were at fault. Perhaps they were? But in comparison to the Reagan supply-side economics and Trump cronyism for corporate welfare (and DeSantis and Scott of Florida), a good leadership SHOULD have been able to mange by checks and balances. Sure. Perhaps the UAW pushed the envelope too far. But did Lee Iacocca, a Democrat, have difficulty in dealing with the union, from a leadership position? (See the Iacocca book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? —- bet you will just snipe at me rather than read what I suggest here).
Ass for the village with the company bought out by Toyota, it lives happily ever after? That is a statement of fiction, in case someone reading this does not have the intelligence to differentiate fact from fiction. If you grasp and put your arms around what Fox Commentary says, you demonstrate you are not able to differentiate fact from fiction.
What can I say about the other village which once had a ladder factory for years? Pessimism rules and is a preponderance over what it could be. But the big problem are the fat pig robber barons at the top.
As I breathe, I hope. With these words, I have to wonder whether the Scottish family of Gen. MacArthur used the same motto?
For both villages to live happily ever after, there needs to be a change in attitude and stop being like a bunch of spoiled brats with pessimistic beliefs for the future. How does that happen? I know the answers, but do readers know the answers? If we put our heads together with the goal of finding the best practices as our solutions, not some dimwitted answers from people like Trump, DeSantis, Scott or others, we can do it – together. Best practices are not always those on the right OR the left. Best practices are not always those identified with conservative or liberal. Best practices are solutions which work and have been identified as working, as well as identification of consequences and the strength of those consequences where good overrides bad. I am sick and tired of the ideology. I am sick and tired of the political parties. I am also sick and tired of too many Americans who cannot see that whether ultra right wing or ultra left wing, the results are the same: dictatorship and the destruction of democracy and a democracy which CAN work effectively, even if it can be slow at times. A dictator rules with an iron fist, but that rule is usually only good for a few people, not all. Peace and justice does not exist under such circumstances. In the case of national dictators, genocide is performed for “cleansing” the population of opposition to the dictators. That might create a peace, but not justice. Only cowards want to achieve such peace in this manner by extinguishing the opposition. Such iron fists at a local level would only provide justice by literally banning the opposition from living there. I saw this happen under a local iron-fisted dictator at the local level. I saw it happen by studying the history of my ancestors who were banished by puritanical shitheads from Boston in the late 1600s. In those cases, people had a place to escape. Today, where can the opposition escape to, should such things happen at the national level? They can only escape by means of death? Only cowards would want such a thing because it makes their lives easier. Lazy bums. Both villages now have solutions for the future. What are those solutions? Solutions so as to live “happily ever after and do so with solutions which does not make for a hell on earth for many and a paradise of money loving bastards on the other side?”
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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce
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