” . . . Other fields of activities for the group [Nazi government in exile–fuehringsring] were. . . . the initiation of conspiracies in foreign countries on behalf of German industrial cartels. . . .” ( “Nazi Circular Letter of 1950 [Madrid], quoted in The New Germany and the Old Nazis by T.H. Tetens.)
“Imagine for a moment that two decades ago, a newly unified Germany set out to take over the European Continent, as the previous unified Germany had tried and failed to do half a century earlier. This time it would use money, not guns, to accomplish the goal. . . ” (“As Europe’s Currency Union Frays, Conspiracy Theories Fly” by Floyd Norris; The New York Times; 06/15/2011.)
“ ‘Germany is our fatherland; Europe is our future,’ [German Chancellor Helmut] Mr. Kohl told the German Parliament. . . .” (“Kohl Says Monetary Line Aids Unity” by Craig R. Whitney; The New York Times; 9/26/1992.)
“. . . The Germans have a clear plan of what they intend to do in case of victory. . . . Germany’s plan is to make a customs union of Europe, with complete financial and economic control centered in Berlin. This will create at once the largest free trade area and the largest planned economy in the world. . . . . . . As far as the United States is concerned, the planners of the World Germanica laugh off the idea of any armed invasion. They say that it will be completely unnecessary to take military action against the United States to force it to play ball with this system. . . . Here, as in every other country, they have established relations with numerous industries and commercial organizations, to whom they will offer advantages in co-operation with Germany. . . .” (Dorothy Thompson, writing in The New York Herald Tribune, 5/31/1940; quoted in Germany Plots with the Kremlin by T.H. Tetens,; p. 92.)
“. . . The [FBI] file [on Martin Bormann] revealed that he had been banking under his own name from his office in Germany in Deutsche Bank of Buenos Aires since 1941; that he held one joint account with the Argentinian dictator Juan Peron, and on August 4, 5 and 14, 1967, had written checks on demand accounts in first National City Bank (Overseas Division) of New York, The Chase Manhattan Bank, and Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., all cleared through Deutsche Bank of Buenos Aires. . . . ” (Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile by Paul Manning, p. 205.)
COMMENT: In the first part of this analysis, we looked at the Nazified Reagan/Bush I administrations, whose “austere” policies increased the U.S. national debt five-fold in twelve years, creating the foundation of the fiscal straits that engendered the propaganda line of the current GOP. The budgetary profligacy of Reagan/Bush I created the problem the Republicans claim they can, and should, solve. Before examining what the effects of GOP “austerity” might be, we would do well to consider to what extent the Third Reich alumni staffing Reagan/Bush I may have been consciously involved in one of the “. . . conspiracies in foreign countries on behalf of German cartels” described by T.H. Tetens above. With the Bormann organization maintaining Nazi Party command continuity and the Gehlen org maintaining a degree of German military command and control in the postwar period, the actions of the Reagan/Bush administrations may well have been just such a conspiracy. Bush II engaged in budgetary suicide as well, targeting social programs of the New Deal as “unaffordable.” This fiscal profligacy was a deliberate targeting of those programs and the New Deal.
The budgetary proposals of GOP Representative Ryan, endorsed by “The VerMITTler,” (Romney) will pull the trigger on those targeted programs. (“Vermittler” is the German word for “agent.”) The VerMITTler’s prospects for election may well hinge on the fate of the Euro, to be determined in considerable measure by a Germany that has steadfastly adhered to “austerity” as the [final] solution to economic difficulty. With the economy being the central consideration in this election and with the possibility that a Eurozone collapse could cause sufficient economic difficulty in the U.S. to bring about a Romney victory, a number of things should be taken into account:
- In his oblique column on conspiracy theories about Germany and the Euro, Floyd Norris notes that German banks provided the loans that enabled the bubble which preceded and caused the fiscal crisis in the peripheral Eurozone countries. EXCERPT: . . . German banks helped to finance housing bubbles in the periphery — usually not directly, but through loans to other banks. . . .
- In that same column, Norris posits a possible German gambit, that may have been aided by the loans from German banks: EXCERPT: . . . Conceivably, Germany learned three things from the 1992 experience, and mapped out a course with those lessons in mind. First, absent fixed exchange rates, its export-oriented companies faced the risk of periodic competitive devaluations from the rest of Europe. . . . Second, a currency union could help German exports if the euro’s value were held down by less competitive economies. . . .
Finally, if Germany adopted a low-interest-rate policy, and superlow rates arrived in European nations accustomed to high rates, banks could open the credit spigot and create a debt-financed boom in much of Europe. That would invite a mushrooming of imbalances. Ultimately, deeply indebted countries would face a crisis, one that they could solve only if they acquiesced to German policies and surrendered a large part of national sovereignty. . . . - With the large German banks under control of the Bormann capital network, the exigency hypothesized by Norris may well have been realized.
- If Germany continues to insist on “austerity,” instead of rescuing the Euro countries, the resulting collapse could torpedo the U.S. economy and Obama. EXCERPT OF LINKED ARTICLE: . . . Look at it this way: When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008, sending the global financial system into a tailspin, its debts amounted to about $600 billion. Government debt alone in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland — the most vulnerable European countries — adds up to about $1.9 trillion. And the economies and government finances of most developed countries are in worse shape than they were four years ago. . . .
- Paul Krugman has highlighted the continuity between the GOP and the Germans, noting that one of VerMITTler’s top economic advisers penned a piece in a leading German paper encouraging Merkel to “stay the course,” ignoring Obama’s advice and heading for catastrophe. EXCERPT OF LINKED COLUMN: . . . Actually, it’s kind of ironic. While Republicans love to engage in Europe-bashing, they’re actually the ones who want us to emulate European-style austerity and experience a European-style depression.And that’s not just an inference. Last week R. Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University, a top Romney adviser, published an article in a German newspaper urging the Germans to ignore advice from Mr. Obama and continue pushing their hard-line policies. In so doing, Mr. Hubbard was deliberately undercutting a sitting president’s foreign policy. More important, however, he was throwing his support behind a policy that is collapsing as you read this.
In fact, almost everyone following the situation now realizes that Germany’s austerity obsession has brought Europe to the edge of catastrophe — almost everyone, that is, except the Germans themselves and, it turns out, the Romney economic team.
Needless to say, this bodes ill if Mr. Romney wins in November. For all indications are that his idea of smart policy is to double down on the very spending cuts that have hobbled recovery here and sent Europe into an economic and political tailspin. . . . - The Federal Reserve has publicly expressed reticence to take to steps to stimulate the economy so as to avoid appearing to be helping the Obama campaign. Aside from the overt political pollution of the Fed’s position (it has been under fire from the Congressional GOP attack machine), this indicates how far afield we’ve gotten. The idea is to help the economy, the country and its citizens.
- The GOP has been nakedly working to undermine Obama’s administration, rather like the CIA worked to undermine the Allende regime in Chile in the 1970’s. They do not hesitate to use deadly force, either.
- If, for the sake of argument, Romney gets elected with a GOP majority in both houses of Congress–a distinct possibility with 23 Democratic and 10 Republican seats up for grabs in the Senate–what can we expect?
- Paul Krugman informs us: EXCERPT: The really decisive evidence on government cuts, however, comes from Europe. Consider the case of Ireland, which has reduced public employment by 28,000 since 2008 — the equivalent, as a share of population, of laying off 1.9 million workers here. These cuts were hailed by conservatives, who predicted great results. “The Irish economy is showing encouraging signs of recovery,” declared Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute in June 2010. But recovery never came; Irish unemployment is currently more than 14 percent. Ireland’s experience shows that austerity in the face of a depressed economy is a terrible mistake to be avoided if possible. . . .
- With a passage of the GOP/Ryan budget proposals favored by The VerMITTler, an open assault on the New Deal, Social Security and Medicare is to be expected. If, for example the voucher system proposed by Ryan, et al is made law, many elderly and poor people will not be able to afford the medical care they need to survive. People will die. Poor folks, sick folks, old folks, weak folks. And that is just exactly the idea. People like that, when they vote at all, usually vote for the Democrats. GOP is brilliantly cynical in its approach to such matters.
- When he became President in 1989, the elder Bush promised a “kinder, gentler” approach to government. In that same vein, we might view the GOP program as a “kinder, gentler” euthanasia program, rather like the T‑4 program undertaken by the Third Reich. That “War Against the Weak” was itself an outgrowth of eugenics ideology and practices that occupied a very important place in the hierarchy of Western political and sociological thinking.
- Underlying “austerity” is a Social Darwinism that is part of a continuum of social thought that produced the horrors of the camps. “Death instead of Taxes” might be one way of thinking about the situation.
- Von Clausewitz would recognize the GOP/German-driven austerity as “war” by other means–in this case an annihilating “Postwar” that will accomplish what the T‑4 program was intended to do–week out “the unfit.”
- The effects of “austerity” on the United States will be similar to those in other places that embraced the “Irish doctrine” highlighted by Krugman above. We will experience the downward spiral stemming from job loss, cancelation of orders engendering further slowdown and other highly unpleasant symptoms of “austerity” disease.
- This will dramatically weaken the United States.
- One can but wonder to what extent The VerMITTler will be given the task of implementing and overseeing America’s final collapse.
- It is doubtful that the master cynics of the GOP will sit back and allow the howls of outrage from unemployed, newly-poor and politically-jilted workers and voters derail their agenda at the midterm elections of 2014. Rather, I suspect we may see some “event”–a monster terrorist incident or manufactured disaster of some kind that would conveniently take the blame for economic problems. That disastrous event will also eclipse the disastrous social policies of Romney/Ryan that will have thrown people off the payrolls and unto unemployment lines. In this regard, the “event” will serve to distract, much as 9/11 served to obscure much of what the Bush administration was actually doing, as well as justifying “emergency measures.”
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/19/mormons-have-irrational-beliefs-who-doesnt/
In an article for the outlet Front Page Magazine — Mormons Have Irrational Beliefs? Who Doesn’t? — writer Dennis Prager gives us a preview of the coming era of irrationalism by way of contextualizing Romney’s far-right insanity within a larger global rejection of reason. Nazi doctrine explicitly rejects reason and embraces the irrational, placing political or even scientific practice on the same level as religious belief and continually intermixing all. Prager advocates ‘faith’, political and religious, since reason proves so feeble and uninspiring.
Prager — “I read and hear these dismissals of Mormonism with some amusement — because everyone who makes these charges holds beliefs and/or practices that outsiders consider just as irrational.”
The thrust of the article is that a reasonable path is not to be found and perhaps doesn’t exist, so one man’s craziness is no worse than any other’s, the important test being who wins. This is the core of Nietzsche’s nihilism and Superman philosophy.
At bottom the extreme right-wing economists and pundits are as wearied by discussions of data or documentation as they are by arguments for morality. Power and reason do not mix well.
It’s not ALL bad out there on the economic front. At least there’s one group of workers out there that have managed to extract a bit more compensation for their efforts during the Great Recession even when their bosses opposed it. And according to experts, it’s this group’s ability to maintain competitive compensation packages that has probably played an important role in rebuilding the health of the US corporate sector. Sometimes, you see, the rule of “pay your employees as little as possible” that pervades the corporate sector doesn’t always apply:
I’m pretty sure there’s a lesson in this about the direction of the economy. In the future, if you want a job, you had better provide a vital service the public needs. No more mooching.
Hmmmm....I think the cause is clear: Undercompenation. Me thinks some of JC Penny’s overseas suppliers are getting a little greedy.
Seriously, for only $44 million a year who wouldn’t go Galt?
Hey all you US residents lucky enough to make too little to qualify for income taxes, the gravy train is approaching its final destination:
Don’t you just love how our economic system is set up: US worker productivity is up, leading to a decline in hiring:
After reading an article like this, I’m almost relieved that we don’t have Star Trek “replicators”(just think of the productivity gains all you newly unemployed people!). Great.
Technology and the associated productivity gains are great...assuming the masses are allowed to participate in the benefits. That’s not always the case.
What this guy said:
Ah, techno-fascism: Both an ends AND a means. Now THAT’s some serious productivity!
A comprehensive predictive mathematical model of capitalism is lacking ( no matter what the experts say ) because it is impossible to encode all that happens in a model. There are two major categories of profit and loss — private and public or private and social, if you prefer, in any economic process. Private profit usually shows up first and is much more easily measurable than public profit (or loss), which by its nature may be spread across time and the social spectrum in ways not so easy to measure. In contrast to counting private gain, dollarizing public loss or gain involves assigning finite value to things we non-sociopaths would wish to be of inestimable value ( human life and health, environment, etc. ) and so the task never really is done.
Public profit or loss is just as real-world and concrete as private gain but this relative difficulty of measuring it allows some to consign the concept to fantasy, going so far as to insist that ‘the public’ is a non-existent abstraction. This is why gestalt economics will never, ever be a science and must be looked at as an ongoing political action.
Fascism could be defined as the ideological drive to make private gain the only measure of public good, i.e. private gain is public gain or ...apples is oranges. Placed in these terms it sounds absurd because it IS absurd but this fuzzy Rand-like thinking persists.
@Dwight:
Yep, our system is predicated on putting a price on the priceless and then commoditizing it. If it isn’t monetized it doesn’t matter. And when the priceless is priced, the lower the better because that means more potential for ‘profit’ and ‘profit’ is ‘good’. Money paid to employees are a ‘cost’ that must be kept as low as possible whereas the money flowing into the coffers of the ‘job creators’ in the ‘ownership class’ is seen as a ‘profit’ and maximizing that ‘profit’ is a systemic imperative. Workers right, animal rights, a social safety net? Those are ‘luxuries’ only appropriate for ‘wealthy’ countries and really just an unfortunate economic nuisance that must be maintained to keep the proles placated. Whatever value is placed on the priceless is viewed as an economic black hole. Well, ok, not always.
Hey disabled kids, David Cameron has a modest proposal for you:
Are you sure austerity is so bad? Bertelsmann is highlighting the opinion of other experts.
http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-63C9B450-2EB6226D/bst_engl/hs.xsl/nachrichten_112839.htm
“Gütersloh / Kiel, 26/06/2012
Euro Zone: Debt Reduction Requires Cutting Spending.....The countries in the euro zone that are suffering from a debt crisis need to make it their top priority to cut public spending.”
And Bertelsmann has been promoting democracy with Angela Merkel in Brazil.
“News Item
Guetersloh, 17/06/2011
Reinhard Mohn Prize Awarded to Brazilian Citizen Participation Project
Chancellor Angela Merkel gives presentation speech...”
http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xchg/bst_engl/hs.xsl/nachrichten_107768.htm
Bedtimes in the future:
Kid: Mommy, how did Europe become a fascist nightmare?
Mom: No one went to bed on time and the von Clausewitz monster came and took over. Now go to sleep.
That’s quite an admission:
So the guy that was Greece’s representative at the IMF admits that they knew the austerity regime was impossible from the very beginning but also asserts the troika underestimated the negative effect it’s “medicine” would have on the Greek economy. Ok....
They’re baaaack:
At least Europe might be about half way through its lost decade. Well, half way through at best:
Yes, the “competitiveness gains” in the ailing eurozone economies seem to have come about mostly from “employment falling faster than output”. In other words, the key strategy employed by the ailing eurozone countries to make their economies more “competitive” and get their economies back on track has been mass layoffs. And this is all in order to rebalance the “imbalances” that caused the debt crisis, according to Moody’s. Huh, I didn’t realize that the solution to the imbalances caused by a housing bubble was mass public sector layoffs and divestments in health and education. That seems like an undoubleplusgood solution to the bursting housing bubbles that caused the debt crises but I’m sure our wise elders know better.
The latest grand new idea by Greece’s international lenders: 6‑day work weeks:
Ooo...a minimum daily rest of 11 hours! Sweet! That means work 13-hours a day, 6 days a week! That should fix everything in no time at all.
Of course, one more day of work and one less day of rest might end up putting an additional burden on Greece’s healthcare system, but there are ways to deal with issues like that.
“Of course, the idea at this stage isn’t to rescue Greece. It is to provide an abject lesson to any other country which in the future considers flouting the country’s perverse rules. ” Yep:
“Pick your fate”. Nice. The eurozone is now a choose-your-own-adventure book with no happy endings:
Heh, I’m pretty sure the answer is ‘Yes, he’s already done it’:
I’m also pretty sure an ambition to create a unified European economic union that is effectively run out of Berlin predates WWII.
...just a reminder for the economically challenged — the free market logic that insists on incremental destruction of labor rights has no point of arrival wherein it is ‘satisfied’ that labor costs are low enough. This is true for both theory and in the person of the fascist employer. Both plantation slavers and death camp administrators were well known for their constant fretting at the pennies of energy or resources expended on their inmates.
The only limiting factor in this race to the bottom is a moral line drawn in the sand which we keep erasing and redrawing.
And here we go again:
OMFG:
Spain’s leadership has become disturbingly analogous to an autoimmune disorder.
When will the world finally learn that simple lesson that if you want a truly successful, happy, healthy, and — most importantly — competitive society you need to purge it of any and all extravagant luxuries (for the rabble) like like burying the dead:
And speaking of “the disintegration of Greece’s social fabric and the developments that will surely follow”... oh look, there’s some disintegrating social fabric right over there. Plus some torture. By the police:
You kind of have to wonder why there isn’t more open contempt for Merkel & Friends amongst the EU elites. After all, the eurozone didn’t have to take the Austrian-beatdown policy regime that threatens the entire “European Project” that the EU elites presumably endorse. But the EU did have to take that approach if the EU was going to have Berlin’s backing. So a continent of elites that could have simply gone down in history as the EU’s version of our standard awful 21st century elites are now poised to go down in history as the EU’s Vichy-crats. Yeah, sorry elites that might be a bit worried about their historic legacy. There were plenty of policy options that would have allowed the eurozone to address this and this without this or this. Children that follow the Pied Piper tend to get an awful lessons in harmony.
When will the world finally learn that simple lesson that if you want a truly successful, happy, healthy, and — most importantly — competitive society you need to purge it of any and all extravagant luxuries (for the rabble) like like burying the dead:
And speaking of “the disintegration of Greece’s social fabric and the developments that will surely follow”... oh look, there’s some disintegrating social fabric right over there. Plus some torture. By the police:
You kind of have to wonder why there isn’t more open contempt for Merkel & Friends amongst the EU elites. After all, the eurozone didn’t have to take the Austrian-beatdown policy regime that threatens the entire “European Project” that the EU elites presumably endorse. But the EU did have to take that approach if the EU was going to have Berlin’s backing. So a continent of elites that could have simply gone down in history as the EU’s version of our standard awful 21st century elites are now poised to go down in history as the EU’s Vichy-crats. Yeah, sorry elites that might be a bit worried about their historic legacy. There were plenty of policy options that would have allowed the eurozone to address this and this without this or this. Children that follow the Pied Piper tend to get an awful lesson in harmony.
The European Central Bank — the same ones currently demanding that Greece gut its health care for the unemployed — want you to know that they just couldn’t agree to “take a haircut” on Greece’s growing debt problem (which would force Greece’s international lenders to reduce Greece’s debt burden) because this would constitute “indirect state financing” and “indirect state financing”, as we all know, is a moral abomination. Fortunately, the alternative policy solutions to that moral abomination are totally ethically OK:
It’s worth noting that Greece’s social welfare costs would drop even faster with a little more this and a lot less of that. Trickle-down morality requires shared sacrifice at all levels.
And the benefits of expansionary austerity continue to trickle down to the populace:
OMG, this is too perfect. Check out Mitch McConnell’s big goal for this year now the GOP has taken over congress: don’t be scary:
Awww...the GOP is scary and knows it. This is almost as touching as The Elephant man, if the Elephant Man happened to be a pack of scary monsters.
But don’t worry GOP. Just stick to your plan of immediately loosening pollution regulations, pushing major trade deals that almost no one likes, demand lower taxes for multinational corporations and the super-rich, and be sure to come up with plenty of mystery “conservative policy riders” you can think of trying to “compel” Obama to sign while working out the annual spending bills. Maybe you could even use grassroots-inspired legislation to seem extra non-scary, like that recent Dodd-Frank tweak written by a friendly group of citizens working in the private financial sector.
Also, you might want to tell you brethren at the state-level to stop being so scary:
Oooo...so in addition to a breakout of state-level “culture wars”, there’s also probably going to be a wave of ALEC-inspired pension “reform” that turns public pensions into 401k plans. Well, of all the GOP’s plans that’s probably going to be the most popular since so much of the public seems to love the idea of having their laws written by corporations but then implemented by desperate people with no reasonable hope for the future. Nothing scary about that.
Here’s a reminder that the worse the US economy does, the better the GOP does. At least in 2016. It’s that simple. So there’s really no reason to assume the GOP’s Taliban offensive and plans for endless austerity will come to an end. Quite the opposite:
Of course, there’s no need to engage in political game-theory to conclude that the GOP’s scorched earth policies are set to continue. You could just look at their platform.
One of the obvious questions facing a new GOP-led Congress is “which group of people are going to be held hostage to be used as leverage for tax cuts or social program gutting?” So who’s going to be held hostage? Almost everyone. And it’s one of the GOP’s very first moves:
The GOP has clearly found a new sponsor. In fairness, the old sponsors were starting to become problematic, so some sort of rebranding was in order. Still, wow.
Money can’t buy you happiness. Or a conscience:
Since the poor apparently aren’t working hard enough to earn their poverty, it begs the question of how brutal life should be for someone at the top of the income scale. For instance, since being poor is known to be bad for your health, shouldn’t being rich be absolutely horrendous for your health because of all the incredibly hard work you did to earn that money? Aren’t non-suffering billionaires inherently illegitimate according to this widely held moral paradigm?
So how many torches and pitchforks one should have to dodge on their way to work in the morning in order to legitimately earn, say, over 10 million dollars a year...assuming they’re working at all for that income? Is one torch and one pitchfork a day brutal and harmful enough? Or would that just be coddling for people that obviously should live horrible lives in order to justify making so much a year? And no, flaming pitchforks don’t count as both a torch and a pitchfork. That’s being lazy. It’s just a pitchfork that happens to be on fire. Life isn’t fair.
In other news, the banks apparently have it too hard...
It’s time for the next round of one of the longest games in town. It’s a horrible life and death game that almost everyone loses, so it’s really not clear why America plays it:
This part right here symbolizes so much of what is wrong with US politics:
Yep, in America a major political party can successfully hold the nation hostage using disabled people, make demands impacting almost everyone, get those demands met, and the people you’re holding hostage still might not even know it happened or who did the hostage-taking.
It’s like taking candy from a baby that happens to be younger than a 4 month old (the babies are far more adept at identifying their hostage-takers by that age) and then taking the baby’s healthcare. It may not be the best analogy, but it sort of fits.
Running for president has got to be exhausting, and maybe even traumatizing, so you have to wonder if any of the GOP’s perennial presidential candidates currently preparing for their next runs have begun experimenting with any of the newer forms of PTSD treatments out there that all the raver kiddies are excited about . It’s starting to seems like it:
That was certainly some fabulous advice for Mittens, especially the Cyborg Mitt option. America just might be ready for Cyborg Mitt. But this new anti-poverty crusader Mitt?! Wow, now THAT is the future of American politics.
So let’s hope Mitt stays on the meds or whatever it is that’s triggering this profound rethinking of his life and priorities. This is clearly a new and improved Mitt. He’s still awful, but a better form of awful.
And it’s not just Mitt that’s suddenly all new and improved. Rick Santorum has clearly been dealing with his own case of post-campaigning PTSD. It’s the only explanation:
Wait, what?! Did Rick Santorum just refer to his 2012 campaign themes as “crazy stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with anything” during an interview about his 2016 ambitions? Woah. That is some strong stuff you must have slipped him, Mitt, because that doesn’t sound like Rick Santorum at all. At the same time, it certainly seems to be helping both Rick and Mitt, and clearly doesn’t impact motivation or drive at all so it doesn’t seem to be too strong.
Hopefully one day they’ll share their secret, because the whole GOP could use a good strong dose of it. It’s bound to be better than what the GOP is normally ingesting. That stuff will destroy your mind. It ain’t pretty
With GOP 2016 hopefuls Rand Paul and Chris Christie raising eyebrows after deciding to share their views on the safety and efficacy of vaccines (following a US measles outbreak), it’s worth pointing out that at least one of the GOP’s Senators is actually trying to do something about the explosion of autoimmune disorders of the last few decades. Yes, North Carolina’s new Senator, Thom Tillis, has a brilliant plan:
See that? Now THAT is creative legislation. Thom Tillis is obviously following the “hygiene hypothesis”, the theory that the rapid rise in diseases like asthma and possible even autism is related a reduction in the amount of germs and other filth children get exposed to in the modern world. And he just wants to save some kids from a fate of too much cleanliness. And what better way to do that than ensuring steady diet of fecal matter with your restaurant food.
And don’t forget Tillis’s calls for eliminating the minimum wage entirely which would undoubtedly impact a number of restaurant employees. Just think of how much more beneficial and diverse their germs will be when restaurant employees are chronically stressed out an unable to afford even basic necessities.
Thom Tillis may have gained notoriety for talking about the need to “divide and conquering the poor” by turning the disabled against the poor. But as we can see, what he was actually fighting for was a system where poor, sick employees will become vectors for healthier children and a better tomorrow! Thom Tillis doesn’t want you to eat sh#t and die. He wants you to eat sh#t and thrive. Unless you’re poor, of course. In that case feel free to eat sh#t and die.
Chris Christie appears to be trying to shake up his beleaguered Presidential ambitions with a public pledge guaranteed to please a key GOP demographic: big money donors. The pledge? Overhauling (gutting) entitlements. He knows his audience:
It sounds like Chris Christie has a master plan! A plan designed to distinguish him from the rest of the pack by recapturing his images as arch-nemesis of public employees (and therefore quality government) with bold, drastic cuts to Medicare and social security.
And while this probably won’t hurt his chances with the GOP’s mega-donors or the Tea Party base, as we also saw with comments from Tea Party activists like “It’s a little late now...His state is broke. If he’s going to tell the truth about something, he should file for Chapter 11,” it’s not as if suddenly coming out as a entitlement-slashing “truth teller” is going to distinguish you from the rest of the GOP pack. After all, simply curtailing the New Deal is one thing, but if you want to really impress the GOP these days you need to be the kind of guy that seems like they’re going to roll the New Deal back entirely. This is 2015. You need to think pre-New Deal which means you need to exude ‘Coolidge’-league coolness, which is what the GOP’s current union-busing heartthrob already exudes:
Union busting and tax cuts for the rich: now that’s what the GOP mega donors and Tea Party radicals want. And Scott Walker has already shown that he’s more than prepared to deliver exactly that. Uh oh!
So just how crazy is Chris Christie going to need to get to out-Coolidge Scott Walker? That’s unclear, since it’s not just Scott Walker that’s been embracing the Coolidge model. Embracing Coolidge has been the entire GOP’s model for years:
Yep! “Ludicrous and cruel” Coolidge-style budgets are already the GOP standard. So you have to wonder if there’s anything Chris Christie can do to out-Coolidge Scott Walker or, really, any of the rest of his GOP competitors.
Mimicking Coolidge clearly isn’t going to be enough. That niche is filled. He’s going to need to trying harder, but harder in a different way. A New “Hard Way” Deal that transcends Coolidge’s coolness and combines ludicrous cruelty for the masses with the kind of overt, public sycophantic deferrals to the oligarchs that they can’t possibly resists. A “New ‘Harding’-er Way Deal”, perhaps.
So there are options for Chris Christie. They may not be the obvious options but they’re there. Don’t give up, Chris. You’re so close to finding that winning combination you can smell it.
You see, unlike many other rodents, Guinea pigs don’t actually eat their young very often. That’s why “right-wing hamsters” is probably or better analogy. “Right-wing sand gobies” would also work. It just has to be something that eats its young:
Sorry Wisconsin, Illinois, and Louisiana, that wasn’t a dingo that ate your baby’s future. A giant hamster did it and that giant hamster was you! It wasn’t even due to something understandable like ambien ‘oopsy’. You ate your children’s futures for property tax cuts!
And while their educations were no doubt delicious, keep in mind that this wasn’t the normal feasting on the poor and underprivileged. Wisconsin is dining on its kids from the well-to-do suburbs too. It’s an all you can eat buffet with an unusually wide selection:
“Milwaukee Public Schools is facing a loss of at least $12 million next year as a result of that move, but plenty of well-to-do suburban districts — in areas that are overwhelmingly supportive of the governor politically — are acknowledging gaping budget holes, as well.”
It was always kind of inevitable that the phrase “eat the rich” was going to make a comeback given the way things are going, but Scott Walker isn’t exactly the politician one would have expected to lead the “eat the rich kid’s futures” charge. And yet, if you think about it, the more the super-rich eat up everything for the poor, the more tempted they’re going to be to start going after the merely kinda rich. So here were are, with one state after another consuming its own young. Even the oh so precious non-poor youths.
Strange times. What’s next?
Aww, isn’t that convenient: After effectively cutting the wages of Wisconsin workers by gutting the state’s unions, Wisconsin Republicans are now trying to add Wisconsin to the list of states that don’t mandate a day of rest of workers in jobs where fatigue could lead to increased accidents or deaths. Yep, Wisconsin is open for business and deadly, accident-prone businesses are strongly encouraged to apply:
Oh well, at least all those endangered, exhausted workers will no doubt be racking up
some “time and a half” overtime payeven more time off that they’ll never actually get to use once the GOP guts the overtime rules. Churn and burn forever! It’s the march of progress.Oh look, another right-wing socioeconomic mass catastrophe in the making:
Don’t you love how the 401ks that made Wall Street billions and allowed companies to substantially reduce their long-term pension costs just sort of “accidentally” became the norm while pensions were phased out. LOL!
Still, it’s going to be incredibly interesting to see how the looming non-retirement catastrophe impacts the US society because if there’s one thing that spells doom for an entire society is it’s seeing your parents and grandparents lose all their saving and end up working in poverty until the day they drop dead on the job.
And don’t forget that this also means a lot of parents are going to be moving back in with their kids just to survive. How’s that going to work out?
You know how we’re always told that we should just rely on charity to help the needy. Well, if true, we’re going to need a lot more boy bands:
Well it’s certainly good to hear that not only is this poor guy getting some help from a celebrity performance but that everyone involved with this effort recognizes that celebrity fund raisers aren’t going to be enough to bring about any meaningful help for the millions of people in Mr. Gladden’s position. Whether or not the Senate can be shamed into giving this guy and other poorly paid workers a reasonable raise remains to be seen, but as far as exposure for the endemic planned poverty in the US economy (which is exactly what poor wages are...systemically planned poverty) it would be hard to do better than a homeless employee working for the US Senate.
But part of what makes his story so relevant for the larger US economy is the fact that his homelessness is caused, in part, by his decision to support his daughters and grandchildren who are also suffering economically. This is inevitably going prompt the cluelessly heartless to respond, “See, he didn’t have to be homeless. He chose it by helping his daughters and grandchildren.” Seriously, just read the comments to the original Washington Post article and that’s one of the dominant sentiments. And since mass poverty for the elderly is one of the mega-catastrophes the US has basically guaranteed for itself in the coming decades, it’s going to be more and more important for the stories about how intergenerational assistance within families is poised to collapsed as the planned mass poverty of the US economy takes hold.
The transition away from pensions in favor of 401ks along with the cumulative impact of decades long right-wing assault on anything that assists the poor and middle class basically ensures much higher rates of poverty amongst the elderly going forward, but we have yet to see the full impact of that trend because so many of the existing retirees entered the workforce before benefits like pensions were phased out and the general structure of the workforce wasn’t so punishing to those without a college degree. But that post-pension doomsday is coming. You can only have so many decades of stories about “America’s retirement crisis” before it becomes “America’s elderly poverty crisis” which, in turn, becomes “America’s families struggle to care for elderly out of work relatives with no where to go crisis”.
Now combine all that with decades of stagnant wages and a generation of Millenials that with limited job prospect and massive student loans and you have the stage set where parents can’t afford to help their kids and the kids can’t afford to help their parents. And at that point, the unofficial safety net of families helping each other breakdowns too. That’s just what happens when a society goes through the kind of systematic dismantling of so many of the policies and norms that helped create the middle class in the first place. That’s basically guaranteed at this point.
Ok, maybe mass transgenerational poverty isn’t actually guaranteed for the US since there are plenty of relatively easy and pain free policy fixes that could eradicate poverty AND stimulate the economy, if only Congress would consider them. And who knows, maybe some of those easy and effective solutions will become part of the national conversation someday. It’s possible.
But that would also require a rather dramatic cultural change in America away from the current widely held assumptions that poverty is just something that’s too big to eradicate and if you’re poor it’s somehow your fault. Good luck with that!