Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter

Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #226

Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in Puget Sound and Beyond

Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.

Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed Puget Sound Liberals working together.

3500 members May 14, 2010 formerly Lake Hills Liberals

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              Table of Contents      * Featured Articles

Opportunities

Petitions

Communication to Our Members

Important Financial Regulations Are Being Made

Commentaries from Our Members

Donald Smith: Income Tax Has Merit

Rich Austin: Employers Pay Fines Instead Of Providing Health Insurance

Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef

Senate Rules

Job Creation

Simple Explanation of Derivatives and Hedge Funds**

Regulating Wall Street**

Fiscal Responsibility*

Health Care Reform

Immigration Reform

President Obama Nominates Elena Kagan to Supreme Court

What Does Sarah Palin Want?

State and Local Links to the Beef

Help Get Income Tax Initiative Signatures*

Nation and World Links to the Beef

Featured Advocacy Group: Media Matters for America

2010 Census: Demographic Transformation

Value of Dollar increases and Cost of Oil Decreases

Why Can’t Our U.S. Control Our Dependent Allies?

Our Liberal Spirit

Americans Are Addicted to Consumption**

Recommended Books

Our Political Values

Our Political Priorities

·       Fair Clean Elections and Open Government

·       Fair Taxes and Competent Spending

·       Investment for Productivity

·       Quality Health, Education, Jobs, Income

·       Environmental Protection and Energy Independence

·       Security and Equal Rights

·       Justice and Peace Everywhere

·       International Cooperation and Leadership

Conservatives oppose all of these

     Let’s End Our National Nightmare

         Let’s Restore Our American Dream

More on Conservative opposition to our American Dream

Washington State’s 5 Major Needs

·       Federal Funding for Health and Education

·       Public Campaign Financing

·       Substituting a Progressive Income Tax

·       Replacing Conservative Legislators

·       Stopping Corporate Abuse

Quote of the Week

We admit that we are powerless over our addictions and our lives are unmanageable. First Step of 12 Step Programs

Health Care Reform

Job Creation

Regulating Wall Street

Fiscal Responsibility

Calendar of Events

Saturday, May 22 at 6:30 PM at Alki Congregational United Church (61^st SW and SW Hinds, Seattle) - InspireSeattle Potluck and Forum, featuring Education – a Key for Building Peace in Afghanistan

Calendars of Events

King County Democrats - LD Meetings            Some 2008 Legislature Lobby Days

Thurston County Progressive Net                  Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation

Alliance for Democracy                               Democratic Underground.Com

Sierra Club Cascade Chapter Calendar           Cool State Washington

Washington Public Campaigns Calendar          Town Hall Seattle Calendar

Washington State Labor Council                    Whatcom County Peace and Justice Calendar

Conversation Cafe      Drinking Liberally          Seattle NOW

Wallingford Neighbors for Peace and Justice – Friday Night Movies      Liberal films on PBS

Opportunities

About Puget Sound Liberals

Basic Training

Commentaries that have addressed major issues

Helpful websites

Obtain a free ‘Corporations Are Not People’ bumper sticker.

Petitions

Tell senators to support Bill Nelsons’ No New Drilling legislation.

Tell your senators to maintain EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Tell your congress members to strongly protect whistle blowers.

Communication To Our Members

Important Financial Regulation Decisions Are Being Made

A financial regulation bill will hopefully be passed by Memorial Day (May 31^st). Until then, passing or rejecting amendments to it will be our most important political decisions. For more.

Commentaries From Our Members

Donald Smith: Income Tax Has Merit

Published by Bellevue Reporter on 5/7/2010

Without an operating system, your computer would be a useless hunk of metal and plastic. Government plays a similar role in the functioning of modern society. Government provides potable water, clean air, safe food, roads, public transportation, national defense, public health, education, police protection, courts, parks, libraries, contract law, zoning, emergency services, land use planning and wilderness areas.

So come November, when it’s time to vote on ballot initiative I-1077 establishing a higher earner’s income tax on the top 3 percent of earners, remember our analogy.

Also remember that Washington State has one of the most regressive tax systems in the nation: the rich pay a much lower percent of their income on taxes (about 3 percent than the middle class (about 11 percent). Vote against it if you’re super rich - and selfish. Donald Smith For more.

Rich Austin: Employers Pay Fines Instead Of Providing Health Insurance

Lest anyone think I am playing the know it all, please understand that I was not alone in predicting that corporations would gladly pay fines in lieu of providing health care benefits. It was a foregone conclusion, recognized by everyone who studied Negotiating 101 - i.e., bonehead bargaining for the novice.

Sociopath/Economist Milton Friedman said, "There is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."

We all know that business has ignored the "so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud" part of his treatise, but now Congress has memorialized social irresponsibility with its passage of the PPACA.

Look at what all the retreating by faux-progressives, labor pie cards, and deer-in-the-headlight true believers has gotten us. "Single payer or fight", they howled. "Public option or else", they wailed and finally, with no more room left to flee, "anything with the word 'affordable' in its title" they mewed. Our corporatist Congress had their numbers from day one. Once lawmakers had them running there was no end to the flight. Then, recognizing their backsliding had gotten them nothing, the go-along-to-get-along crowd decided to accept defeat while declaring victory.

If we the people don't wise up, we'll be singing a refrain by Richard Farina - by way of Janis Joplin: "Been down so long it looks like up to me". Rich Austin

Liberals and Democrats

Senate Rules

Given the seriousness of the issues with which the Senate must deal, I and most Americans find their inefficient procedures disgusting. If the senate is to take these issues seriously, I believe it should change their procedures as following:

· Meet from Monday noon until Friday noon

· Eliminate filibusters such that decisions are made by a simple majority

· Eliminate holds, both secret and open

· Hold 4 minute votes recorded electronically and displayed publically

· Eliminate continual quorum calls

Such rules would allow more actions by a party which controls both the presidency and both houses of congress, as occurred under the Republicans during the Bush presidency. But the Republicans were able to do most of what they wanted in spite of the existing senate rules. Democrats should do what they can to change the rules, while acting to ensure that Republicans never again control both the presidency and both houses of congress. In any event, Republicans are unlikely to have such control in the near future. With the above procedural changes, Democrats could now achieve much during their present era of control.

Our President Must Attend To Many Issues

As President Obama said to John McCain during the presidential campaign, a president cannot just deal with one issue at a time. To cope with our present crises, President Obama must attend to various reforms at once: regulating Wall Street speculators, federal deficits, health care reform, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, immigration reform, unionization reform and stimulating employment, instead putting all his efforts into only one or a few reforms. External events affect the priorities and sequencing of promotion of these various reforms.

In addition, our president must react to various disasters: earthquakes (Haiti), snow storms, floods, volcanoes (Iceland), plane crashes (Poland), Oil spills (Gulf of Mexico), domestic terrorists, etc. He is now defending his Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kalin. It is no wonder that President Obama finds it difficult to emphasize one or a few priorities.

President Obama is has just nominate a replacement for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Events Affecting the Selection of Congress Members

Many events are demanding President Obama’s attention. But only a few of these will affect the selection of congress members this fall. These include the job creation, the regulation of Wall Street speculators, fiscal responsibility, the benefits of health care reform and immigration reform.

Job Creation

In spite of limited credit and demand for credit, more jobs are being created, enough to provide jobs for people who are newly entering the job market and some more, such that people who have quit looking for jobs are now looking again. Even more jobs could be created if state and local governments would adopt best practices of those state and local governments which are stimulating job creation by encouraging successful entrepreneurs to serve as advisors to would be entrepreneurs. And if people would transfer their savings from stocks offered by Wall Street speculators to smaller local banks and credit unions. In addition, the Obama Administration could increase penalties for companies which use illegal means to oppose unionization. And it could provide jobs for young people through a program similar to the WPA program instituted by President Roosevelt.

Why is President Obama doing nothing to increase unionization which increases employee earnings, creating more demand for jobs?

Simple Explanation of Derivatives and Hedge Funds

We know what bets are. We make a contract with someone else that something will happen, with the other person paying us a certain amount if it happens and we pay the other person a certain amount if it doesn’t happen. It happens or doesn’t happen and hopefully the loser honors the contract by paying the other person. We often check each other’s ability to pay before making the bet.

Insurance is a form of bet. Believing that I will suffer financially if my spouse dies, I buy insurance on my spouse’s life. I pay a life insurance company and if my spouse dies, the life pays me a much larger sum. The life insurance company is betting to win if my spouse doesn’t die. I am betting to win if she does.

I am allowed to insure my spouse because I will suffer financially if my spouse dies. I am not allowed to insure a stranger because the stranger’s death will not cause me financial harm. We say that I have an insurable interest in my wife, but not a stranger.

Like an insurance policy, a derivative is a bet. We allow farmers and others to buy insurance called a derivative to ensure that they will not suffer harm if the price of their products or inputs changes. The farmer is said to hedge when he pays a small fee to obtain the larger reward of being able to receive or pay present prices. The farmer or other person has an insurable interest, which makes his derivative legitimate. But we have allowed the buying of derivatives where no insurable interest occurs. Such naked derivatives are simply speculative gambles, which serve no useful purpose except to make money for those who arrange them.

For example, mega-banks bought derivatives from insurance firms like AIG and from hedge funds. They paid AIG or the hedge funds small amounts of money so that if housing prices declined, AIG or the hedge funds would pay them the money that the toxic mortgages which depended upon continually increasing housing prices would cost them. The small amounts of money that the mega-banks paid AIG were passed on to those who bought the mega-bank’s securities. As long as housing prices continued to increase, AIG and hedge funds made lots of money at the expense of those who bought securities based upon toxic mortgages.

It appears that the mega-banks had an insurable interest in that a drop in housing prices would adversely affect their finances. But the mega-banks should never have fraudulently sold securities based on toxic mortgage and should never have had any insurable interest in whether housing prices dropped.

Since AIG and hedge funds didn’t believe there was any chance that housing prices would drop, they didn’t change very much and didn’t build up reserves to be able to pay claims. When housing prices dropped, they couldn’t pay claims, the mega-banks and the customers to which they had sold toxic securities were financially clobbered. The credit bubble collapsed. Our government bailed out the mega-banks and bailed out AIG so it could pay its claims which further bailed out the mega-banks and other hedge funds.

To review, those mutual funds, pension funds, municipal funds, charities and others who bought toxic securities paid the money that enabled naked derivatives. Then when the naked derivatives collapsed, our tax payers bailed out those who were responsible for them. The general public was twice clobbered financially, first as participants in the various funds and then as tax payers. And so far, the mega-banks and hedge funds are able to continue to create naked derivatives.

The Lincoln amendment would regulate derivatives. What is needed is the complete elimination of naked derivatives, including derivatives to hedge against the collapse of fraudulent securities. Opponents argue that if we ban naked derivatives, business will go to other countries that don’t ban them, thus producing a race to the bottom in which regulation is destroyed. It is not clear that other countries will be any more likely to want the risks associated with naked derivatives. If they are willing to take the risks, in the long run they will be the ones who suffer instead of us.

I hope this commentary clarifies the distinction between hedging where there is an insurable interest and where there is not and thus the distinction between naked derivatives which aren’t based upon a legitimate insurable interest and other derivatives which are based upon an insurable interest. There is justification for derivatives which involve a legitimate insurable interest. I don’t believe there is any justification for naked derivatives, only an enormous cost to our Main Street taxpayers. Naked derivatives should be completely banned. Dave Thomas

Regulating Wall Street

A Whitehouse blog lists 10 loopholes that large financial companies seek to maintain.

Hoping to finish by Memorial Day (May 31), our Senate is considering various amendments to the Dodd measure to regulate Wall Street, including:

1) Brown/Kaufman amendment to break up the too big to fail banks For more.

2) Merkley amendment to ban conflict of interest trading by banks (PROP Trading Act) For more.

3) Lincoln amendment to regulate derivatives For more. For more.

4) Paul/Sanders amendment to audit the Federal Reserve For more. For more. For more.

5) Cantwell/McCain amendment to reinstate Glass-Steagall

They have rejected charging large financial companies a fee to fund any bailouts which might be needed.

They have also rejected breaking up large financial companies whose failure would again drastically harm main street jobs (the Brown/Kaufman amendment) by a vote of 61 to 33 with 6 abstentions, with the various senators voting as follows:

Notice that 28 Democrats voted nay. They may have been influenced by the large financial companies’ argument that if broken up, they would not be able to compete with foreign companies, which produces a race to the bottom in which there is the least regulation of large financial companies. For more. For more. But under the Dodd bill, it is still possible for regulators to break up large financial companies which pose a systemic risk.

Note that our Washington senators Cantwell and Murray voted yea.

The senate did vote for the Paul/Sanders amendment to audit the Federal Reserve’s bailout of large financial companies, including who received how much and under what conditions, thereby rejecting the Federal Reserve’s contention that this would harm its independence.

The senate voted 93 to 5 for an amendment which would preclude taxpayers from paying to help large financial companies that fail.

The senate voted 64 to 35 for Democratic Senator Al Franken’s amendment to reform credit rating agencies.

U.S. senators voted 90-9 yesterday to void a provision in regulatory-overhaul legislation that would have stripped our Federal Reserve of oversight of 5,000 banks with less than $50 billion in assets. A day earlier, senators rejected a measure to allow continuous congressional audits of Fed policies. For more.

Read a summary of the 7 amendments that have passed, the three that have failed, and others to be considered. Majority Leader Harry Reid intends to complete consideration of amendments next week, allowing the financial regulatory bill to be passed before Memorial Day.

It remains to be seen whether the senate will accept the Merkley, Lincoln, Cantwell/McCain or other amendments. As of Tuesday, May 11^th, only 18 senators have indicated support for the Merkley amendment, with none indicating that they oppose it.

Warren Buffett earlier called derivatives weapons of mass destruction. But now he is defending ones that he owns.

Fiscal Responsibility

The Obama Administration still shows no sign of increasing taxes on Wall Street and other high income earners in order to reduce the federal deficit, with possibly one exception; thus continuing to be vulnerable to concerns by Tea Bag Conservatives and others about the high deficits. For more. For more. House Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee want to raise taxes on hedge fund managers and venture capitalists to pay for an extension of popular tax breaks. Without raising taxes to reduce deficits, the emphasis is upon reducing Social Security benefits. For more. For more. For more.

I believe that fiscal responsibility requires increasing taxes on Wall Street and other high income earners. Dave Thomas

Defense Secretary Robert Gates promotes eliminating wasteful Defense Department spending. For more. I believe many more reductions should be made. We could greatly reduce the number of troops that we have in Europe, South Korea and Japan and eliminate perhaps 90% of our foreign military bases which exist more to further American influence over other countries than to counter terrorism. We could also eliminate much other military spending which is not useful with respect to any realistic assessment of present and future enemies. Dave Thomas

Health Care Reform

Having emphasized the benefits of health care reform immediately following its passage, attention has shifted to regulating Wall Street speculation. But the Obama Administration will continue to describe the benefits of health care reform before the fall elections.

Citizens in 18 states are promoting state level single payer health care.

Immigration Reform

Passage of immigration reform appears impossible, due to Republican opposition. If passed, it would motivate Hispanics to vote for Democrats this fall. But simply knowing that Republicans are blocking its passage may be enough to motivate them.

President Obama Nominates Elena Kagan to Our Supreme Court

President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to our Supreme Court. For more. As usual with Supreme Court nominees, Conservatives fear that she will be too Liberal and Liberals fear that she will be to Conservatives. Not having served as a judge, Elena Kagan has made few decisions that would serve as a smoking gun for Republicans to reject her. She will replace Justice John Paul Stevens. Let’s hope that President Obama also gets to replace Chief Justice John Roberts or at least one of the Conservative justices.

What Does Sarah Palin Want?

It seems clear that Sarah Palin mainly wants to make lots of money, through attempting to lead the Tea Party Conservatives. To do this, she needs to pose the possibility of running for president in 2012. She claims to support Tea Party Conservatives against Conservatives that are more willing to reach out to non-conservatives.

But she makes exceptions. She supports John McCain against a Tea Party Conservative out of gratitude for his choosing her as his running mate. She supports Carly Fiorina instead of Tea Bag Conservative Chuck DeVore, presumably because she has a better chance of beating Barbara Boxer.

Here’s the Beef

Utah Republicans rejected 3 term Senator Robert Bennett in favor of more consistently Conservative candidates. For more.

Democratic Chair of the House Appropriations Committee David Obey has decided to not run for re-election. He will likely be replaced by Washington Democratic Representative Norm Dicks, who has continually made decisions to advantage his campaign contributors.

Democrats in other states are trying to use the strategy used by Colorado Democrats to turn their state from Red to Blue.

State and Local

Help Get Signatures to Qualify Income Tax Initiative

I-1077 offers sensible path to tax fairness for everyone

We all patronize our local small businesses. Owned and operated by our neighbors, they provide our coffee, sandwiches and the small things to fix up our homes. They fix up our cars, and sell us bicycles and books. Most of all, they create the web of neighborhoods and community. One thing that irks small businesses is the business tax. It is not a high rate, but it is onerous: You have to pay it even when you lose money. The large corporations have figured out tax loopholes and avoidance schemes so that their proportion of state and local taxes is about half that paid by small businesses. So if you run a small business, and you are offered an exemption from paying the business tax, would you turn it down?

This time is the time of year when the semi-annual property tax bill comes due. Property taxes are crucial for public services, for fire protection, public safety, schools, roads, and most of the things we take for granted because we don’t pay for them directly. But these taxes weigh heavily on homeowners and businesses, especially in the middle of this great recession. So as a property owner, if you were offered a cut in your property taxes, would you reject that?

If you are a parent and your kids are in public school, you are probably worried about the cutbacks in education. Class sizes are going up, courses in high school are disappearing, and you’re wondering if your kids are getting shortchanged for their future. If you have lost your health coverage, you are probably hoping that the funding for Basic Health will increase, so that you can get coverage before something bad happens. So if you were offered a way to decrease class sizes and expand health coverage, would you look the other way?

In all three instances, you might. That would be a bad case of ideological blindness trumping common sense. But it does seem too good to be true. How could we exempt four-fifths of all businesses from the business tax? How could we afford an across-the-board cut in the property tax for homeowners and businesses? How could we come up with the extra money for education and health?

It’s possible because in our state we have excused the wealthy from paying a fair portion of their income to support public services. While middle class families pay about 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, and low income families pay about 17 percent, the families in between the 95th percentile and 99th percentile of income pay less than 5 percent and the top 1 percent of families pay only 2.6 percent. That means middle class families pay quadruple the tax rate of the very wealthy.

Can we put all these pieces together to create a common sense solution? The people behind Initiative 1077, and I am one of them, think so. What does this initiative do? It cuts property taxes. In Snohomish County, that means on average a $127 cut in property taxes for families and a $445 cut in property taxes for businesses. The initiative also eliminates the business tax for the vast majority of businesses, leaving the current tax in place only for the top one-thirteenth of businesses.

It brings in $1 billion of new public revenue, dedicated to education, expansion of Basic Health, public health and long-term care for the disabled and elderly.

Where is the magic?

The magic is in the beginnings of a fair tax structure. Initiative 1077 puts in place an income tax on the wealthy, the top 3 percent of families in our state, those with incomes in excess of $400,000 a year. It is not a big tax. For a family making $500,000, it amounts to $4,382 in net taxes, or less than 1 percent of their income. For a family making $1 million, it amounts to less than 3 percent of income. Put all these contributions together from the wealthiest 3 percent of families, and we have enough for the property and business tax cuts and expansion of education and health care.

So this may be a good idea, but can it win? A poll by KING-TV showed 66 percent support for this approach. We’ll see how that holds up.

We can put on our ideological and no-can-do blinders and dismiss Initiative 1077, or we can engage in a vital discussion for our democracy. I am rooting for the latter. John Burbank

There are three reasons to support this initiative:

1. Unless you have a very high income, you will save money

2. It will provide money for our state to come closer to meeting the constitutional mandate that it fund basic education

3. It will make our tax system fairer by making high income people pay for the legal, social and political infrastructure that previous generations have created which enables them to obtain high incomes, just as they must pay for the capital, equipment, supplies and labor which enable their incomes. For more.

To qualify to be voted upon, 241,153 signatures by registered voters must be obtained by July 2. Education, labor and other groups which benefit from state revenues should support this initiative and assist in obtaining needed signatures. Many who will not directly benefit from the increased revenues should support this initiative because it makes our tax system fairer and will lower their taxes. According to a King 5 news poll, two thirds of Washington residents will support this initiative.

I hope that all of our members will sign the petition and obtain signatures of their Liberal relatives and acquaintances. I hope you will also volunteer to assist the campaign. You can obtain petitions and volunteer to help the campaign by calling 206-225-4610 or emailing it. The campaign website offers more information. Dave Thomas

Here’s the Beef

Washington Conservation Voters are supporting 9 Democratic legislators.

Why are none of the supposedly Liberal bloggers urging support for Initiative I-1077?

Nation and World

Featured Advocacy Group

-------------------------------- Media Matters for America --------------------------

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

Launched in May 2004, Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation — news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda — every day, in real time.

Using the website mediamatters.org as the principal vehicle for disseminating research and information, Media Matters posts rapid-response items as well as longer research and analytic reports documenting conservative misinformation throughout the media. Additionally, Media Matters works daily to notify activists, journalists, pundits, and the general public about instances of misinformation, providing them with the resources to rebut false claims and to take direct action against offending media institutions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2010 Census: Demographic Transformation

The State of Metropolitan America, a study by the Brookings institute classifies our 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas according to population growth, ethnic diversity and educational attainment, as follows:

"Next Frontier" areas exceed national averages on population growth, diversity and educational attainment. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue is included in this category, along with Albuquerque, N.M., and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas.

"New Heartland" areas are fast growing, highly educated locales, but have lower shares of Hispanic and Asian populations than the national average. Atlanta and Portland, Ore.-Vancouver, Wash., are included in this category.

"Diverse Giant" areas are some of the largest metro areas in the country. They have above-average educational attainment and diversity, but below-average population growth, owing in part to their size. Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Ill., and San Diego are included in this category.

"Border Growth" areas are mostly in Southwestern border states and, as such, are marked by a significant and growing presence of Mexican and other Latin American immigrants. El Paso, Texas, and Modesto, Calif., and Orlando, Fla., are included in this category.

"Mid-Sized Magnet" areas are similar in their recent growth and educational profile to Border Growth centers, but are distinguished by lower shares of Hispanic and Asian minorities. Baton Rouge, La., and Oklahoma City are included in this category.

"Skilled Anchor" areas are slow-growing, less diverse metro areas that boast higher-than-average levels of educational attainment. Akron, Ohio, and Milwaukee are included in this category.

"Industrial Core" areas are slower-growing, less diverse and less educated than national averages and significantly older than the large metropolitan average. Dayton, Ohio, and Tulsa, Okla., are included in this category.

For more.

Value of Dollar and Cost of Oil

Greece has large deficits and to a lesser extent, so do Spain, Portugal and Italy. Reacting to this, the value of the euro has fallen relative to the dollar. Due to the increased value of the dollar, the price of oil has fallen by about $8 to $78 a barrel.

The increase in the value of the dollar reduces our trade balance and job creation by decreasing exports and increasing imports. The associated decrease in the cost of oil reduces the drain of dollars to oil exporters which would otherwise harm our job creation. The result is a minimum net effect upon job creation. But the lower price of oil, reduces the demand for non carbon alternative sources of energy.

Why Can’t Our U.S. Control Our Dependent Allies?

Again and again, we find that we can’t or at least don’t control our dependent allies, letting them get away with actions that harm us.

After World War II, we wanted Chang Kai-shek to stop his relations with corrupt warlords. Regarding his survival as more important than satisfying our demands, he continued his corruption. In Vietnam, our pleas for South Vietnam leaders to shift their emphasis from eliminating other South Vietnamese factions to fighting against the North Vietnamese were similarly ignored.

Similarly, Israel ignores our pleas that it quit building illegal settlements in Palestine. As before, we fear allow Israel to continue instead of sanctioning it. Similarly in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is able to continue many of his corrupt ways.

I suspect that in each of these situations, we could be much firmer and would find that our dependent allies would give way before our pressure. We have little to lose and they have much to lose if they don’t give way. But like bluffing in a poker game, they seem willing to bet that we won’t call their bluff. And we don’t.

Here’s the Beef

Dean Baker notes that at the present rate of job growth, it will take 7 years to return to full employment. Demand for jobs is needed, then credit will offered to those companies that create them.

Another reason that people resent law enforcement officers.

Our Liberal Spirit

Americans Are Addicted to Consumption

Americans are greedy. To the extent that we will lie, cheat and steal to obtain more money. Our communications technology has enabled many con artists to offer ‘too good to be true’ deals which many of us greedily fall for. Other con artists steal our identities and money. Many individuals and businesses underpay their taxes, encouraged by advertisements by lawyers who offer to help them succeed.

We are addicted to consuming goods and services. This desire to consume is fueled by commercial advertising which besieges us continuously and everywhere: our landscape, printed and traditional electronic media and now our internet. Without evidence and often untrue, this advertising is placed by businesses whose bottom line is profits resulting from selling goods and services.

Businesses often decide to act illegally if the penalties are less than the rewards. Many employees act illegally if the alternative is to lose their jobs. Realtors, appraisers, bank loan officers and others involved in making and approving household mortgages frequently acted fraudulently in order to profit in competition with others. Large financial firms deceptively packaged these fraudulent mortgages and pressured rating agencies to fraudulently give the resulting securities high ratings. They then sold these securities to greedy mutual and pension funds, charities and others, while often betting against their success.

In order to escape regulation and taxation and to receive government benefits, businesses have also introduced greed into our political system through their lobbying supported by campaign contributions. Many politicians are elected because they please campaign contributors instead of because they please their constituents. Our U.S. has become the most corrupt country on earth, in which the corruption is not primarily for immediate personal monetary gain, but is oriented to obtaining political power to maintain a system which advantages large companies at the expense of Main Street people. An example is the recent rejection of breaking up large ‘to big to fail’ companies and of other regulatory measures, resulting from corporate lobbying supported by campaign contributions.

Our greed leads us to deny reality. We deny that we need to reduce our consumption of coal, oil and natural gas in order to reduce global warming, which we may also deny. We ignore decline of oil supplies relative to demand. We deny that we need to reduce consumption, need to reduce borrowing and need to stop speculating. These attitudes were strongly held by President Bush, his Republican allies and Conservatives generally. Liberals were less likely to share these attitudes, but changed their convenient behaviors very little. Since the collapse of our housing-credit bubble, many people are at least temporarily reducing their borrowing and consumption, but are still speculating in an attempt to maximize their gains. The Obama administration and Liberals still maintain many attitudes not unlike those of the Bush administration. They do not recognize that we must permanently reduce our consumption, must create well paying jobs such that borrowing is less tempting and must invest instead of speculating.

In keeping with our greed, we increasingly act like hippies, doing what feels good regardless of its impact on others and the public. Using the internet, we create virtual no touchy, but feely communities, but are unwilling to make the compromises necessary to maintain close relations with our relatives and neighbors. I have done community development work in the Philippines where people typically do whatever feels good, without regard for public consequences. In this respect, America is becoming more like the Philippines. The result is great individual freedom in a society that doesn’t develop.

Our addition to consumption is not shared by people in many other places in the world. Europeans do not treat corporations as people, restricting their right to promote consumption and influence government. Europeans often choose to have more security and leisure instead of more income to be used for consumption. Chinese are increasing their consumption, but most appear less likely to lie, cheat and steal or borrow to do so. Being less greedy, Europeans and Chinese suffer less from the many scams that occur in America.

We Americans will continue to suffer individually and collectively until we quit our denial by facing some truths. We can create and enjoy a possible alternative Earn, Conserve and Invest society, which is compatible with our resources and avoids devastating impacts on our environment. We can replace our greedy attempts to benefit through exploiting others with attempts to live as a cooperative community. We can learn from Europeans and others who are escaping much of the suffering that we are creating among ourselves. We can increase our freedoms and opportunities through realistically taking responsibility for our actions.

Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals

Michael Lewis, 2010, The Big Short. Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis presents a superficial description of our various bubbles and their collapse. He fails to present recommendations for preventing future bubbles. I don’t recommend this book.