To Fox News: Quit Whining!

The debates are now over.

Both candidates are now out making the last push to get the last undecided voters and make sure their bases are energized and are going to turn out. Voter registration for Democrats is outpacing Republican registration in certain states and with the Obama/Biden team having won three out of four debates it's looking good for the Presidents reelection bid.

Unless you watch Fox news.

In their world Mitt Romney held his own against an aggressive, factually challenged bully who, in the words of Fox News talking head Charles Krauthammer "went very, very small – shockingly small". In their world snap polls are socialist plots meant to mislead "true Americans" (old white people) and in their world moderators and the media are all in the pocket of the evil democrat machine who's intent is to lead our great nation down the path of marxist communism by making you buy your own health insurance.

This rabbit hole goes deep.

Despite the fact that the president and vice president have repeatedly caught Romney/Ryan lying their collective pants off during those debates, and the fact checkers have repeatedly debunked almost everything that came out of Romneys' mouth, Fox news has the audacity to at the very least call these debates a draw.

A draw!

But clowns like Krauthammer repeatedly damn the facts  even though a Fox news poll of their audience has shown President Obama to be the winner of the last debate by a comfortable margin.
But if Romney won the debates, as Fox news claims, what with all the whining?

When Candy Crowley fact checked Romney on his Libya lie, conservatives went nuts, with Fox and Friends saying that Crowley was wrong to fact check Romney mid debate. Sure, Fox wants people to fact check after the debate when it doesn't matter. It's not just that, but Fox news has shown time and time again that facts don't matter, even things that have been debunked previously seem to be coming back. It's kinda like an episode of the walking dead.

The fact of the matter is, that Romney is a terrible candidate. He's a real life caricature of Thurston Howell the third, or the monopoly man. And during a time of massive inequality, families hurting, unemployment still high and massive debt (thank Dubya for those!) and huge Wall Street and corporate profits while wages stagnate. The public does not want a guy who not only represents Wall Street, but argues that corporations are people, who are taxed too much, and that the poor are the problem. So when our President calls him out on these things, Fox has no way to defend Romney but to lie, and cry about moderators.

I think it's time for Fox to move on, you've lost, quit whining.

Voter intimidation: GOP Style

As the election draws near some of the GOP backers have been sending out some not subtle messages to their employees in an effort to deny Barack Obama a second term.

The newest attempt at voter intimidation is coming from of course none other than billionaire right wingers; Charles and David Koch, of Koch industries.

Photo By AP Photo, Koch Industries Mon, Oct 15, 2012 10:00 AM EDT

Shocking!

The evidence for this comes from a packet sent to a retiree obtained by Alternet from a Koch industries plant in Virginia. This packet contains a list of Koch approved candidates who are, surprise surprise all Republicans. The list of candidates was printed on official Koch industries letterhead and was sent with a warning:

"If we elect candidates who want to spend hundreds of billions in borrowed money on costly new subsidies for a few favored cronies, put unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses, prevent or delay important new construction projects and excessively hinder free trade, then many of our 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation and other ills."

At the bottom of the letter it states: “This is a paid political advertisement by Koch Industries, Inc."

So while it's not spelled out directly, it's not a stretch of the imagination to see this letter as threatening employees with "consequences" and "other ills" like pay cuts or job losses should Obama gain a second term.

Not that they haven't kicked ass under Obama, in 2009 Koch industries reported $100 Billion in revenue (Profit numbers not published) and earned the #2 spot on Forbes "America's largest private companies" list.

But with Romney's promise of using an energy plan that was written by the oil and gas industry, the Koch's see a Romney administration as a veritable cash cow, just waiting for them to milk it for all it's worth. Which is why the Koch brothers have dumped millions into Mitt Romney's campaign super PAC.

Photo By Laruen Greenfield/Magnolia Pictures Wed, Oct 10, 2012 11:00 AM EDT

Not surprisingly, the Koch's aren't the only deranged billionaires that are threatening layoffs depending on the presidential election outcome in November.

David Siegel (pictured right on his...golden throne) is the CEO of Westgate Resort. He recently sent an email to his employees saying that:

"If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone."

Even though admitting that under president Obama his company is: “the most profitable [it's] ever been.” he goes on to say: "The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration."

All this from a guy who's famous for building the largest house in America and then being in a documentary about it.

I do declare.

It gets worse. It's not just CEO's threatening layoffs, but it's also voter purges, like the ones done in Florida, voter ID laws that have popped up in the states, and finally intimidation by organizations like "True The Vote." Which by the way is being investigated by Rep. Elijah Cummings for challenging primarily democratic voters. Students, African Americans, Latinos, and poor people.

Gee who's left...?

The whole point of the True The Vote campaign is to watch for and prevent "voter fraud." but with the fact that the likelihood of being struck by lightning, or seeing a UFO is much higher than people committing voter fraud, maybe they should invest in tinfoil hats instead of training a million volunteers. This reeks of a solution that is searching for a problem.

I don't understand how in a country where even in the last election which was the highest turnout since 1960, 80 million eligible people didn't even bother to vote. With so much apathy one has to wonder, if so many people don't bother to vote once, what makes you think someone would bother to vote twice? Makes no sense.

Luckily I found something about this whole situation that does make sense.

Greed. 

Romney has vowed to cut taxes for everyone by 20% while closing undisclosed "loopholes" and getting rid of the tax on interest, dividends, and capital gains, which will benefit the very wealthy. 

The rich get richer.

Billionaires like the Koch brothers and David Siegel are almost salivating at the thought of the millions they will save from paying a lower tax rate. I wish someone would ask them why the fuck they need another tax cut. It's not as if they can't afford a golden throne.

Or a car elevator.

Why giving tax cuts to the rich hurts everyone. Even the rich.

Most of us think about money, but we usually think about it in the terms of how we don't have enough, or how much we'll get paid. We don't think about what it really is, what its purpose is, and why it even exists. The reality is, is that money is a fiction.

It's not real.

"Oooookay" you're thinking. But wait let me explain.

Money is a human construct, it has its value placed on it by humans, everything about it is man made. Even the principle. Money came as a way to replace a system of barter, so that you didn't necessarily have to have something the other person wanted in order to get something you want from them. 

Currency became a great boon, allowing people to trade notes for things they want from others, and so on and so forth. Money is made to be exchanged from one person to the next, on and on, ever circulating. It's the life blood of any economy. Spreading purchasing power to everyone like blood spreads oxygen to every organ to keep it healthy. 

And like a healthy body, a healthy economy is one where everyone has money to purchase things, and uses that money, keeping it in circulation as it is meant to be.

But when money is hoarded, and not spent, or given to those who have little need to spend it, there becomes less and less money in circulation. Less money in circulation reduces the ability to buy things for the majority of everyone else. But that doesn't mean that printing more money is the answer either, because even though you're adding more money into the economy, you still have those who are hoarding large amounts, and all that does is reduce the value of money.

So you really don't solve the problem. 

So why is it that Governor Romney, Paul Ryan, and the rest of the Republicans want to cut taxes for the rich?

Because people no longer understand the reason why money exists. It has simply become a status symbol. 

No one needs a net worth $250 Million. You can raise your family, buy everyone a car and a home, keep food on the table, and invest in your hobbies with much less. 

But because there are so many people with so much money that they don't really know what to spend on, some crafty entrepreneurs have found ways to separate some of these rich "fools" from their money. 

Even so, what they spend, does not make up for what everyone else is unable to spend.

You may remember Nick Hanauer, the billionaire investor who did the Ted talk on income inequality. He said in his presentation that:

 "there can never be enough super-rich people to power a great economy. Somebody like me makes hundreds or thousands as times much as the median American, but I don’t buy hundreds or thousands of times as much stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and shirts a year like most American men. Occasionally we go out to eat with friends.

I can’t buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and under-employed Americans can’t buy any new cars, any clothes, or enjoy any meals out. Nor can I make up for the falling consumption of the vast majority of middle-class families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages."

But Its not so much the fact that the wealthy can buy more, it's the fact that there are people that cannot buy these things. That fact alone instills a mindset of superiority, while the lack of money can turn into a reverence for those who are wealthy. Hanauer did well to point out the correlation between the idea of "job creator" and "the creator".  

Another important thing to mention is that money is also power. The power to buy ideas, properties, governments and even people. 

Citizens United has given billionaires something to do with their money, buy politicians. Oddly enough what the politicians plan to do is give more money to those billionaires who already have no idea what to do with their vast fortunes. While the middle class gets squeezed, and turned into the poor, the already poor suffer worse, because of the inflation from the Fed. Those former middle class can no longer buy things from companies, those companies will lose money, so they start to fire people to make ends meet, those people can no longer afford new things, and it all just continues to snowball. 

This shows that our current path is simply unsustainable. It's not good for the poor, the middle class, and for the rich. 

Cutting taxes again for the wealthy, screws the wealthy in the long run, because they will no longer get business. Of course, for the impact to occur on the wealthy, a lot of time will need to pass for those with all the money to spend it all. My guess is several generations. But can you imagine how much suffering would occur until then? 

In order to avoid that, we need a little income redistribution. Raise taxes on the wealthy and use that money to invest to create a larger middle class. Bring people up from poverty into a middle class lifestyle, and you'll see everyone doing better.

Even the rich.

Why Mitt Romney wants to cut PBS to give tax cuts for the rich.

In the debates Wednesday night Mitt Romney clearly stated how much he loves big bird, and Jim Lehrer by channeling Donald Trump. 

"You're fired" would be the best way to describe Romney's plan to cut subsidies to PBS. 

Under his tax plan, Romney would cut subsidies to PBS as well other government programs. He says these programs will get cut if they don't meet the simple metric of "If it's so important that we borrow money from China to pay for it." 

Then I guess what Romney feels is so important to him that we'll to borrow money from China, is more tax cuts. 

For the rich.

His plan according to the Tax Policy Center would cut 20% of taxes across the board. But despite the claims that his cuts would be revenue neutral, the facts are, that it's just mathematically impossible. 

Mitts math teacher must be rolling in their grave. 

Also despite Romney's claims that he will not lower taxes on the wealthy, his plan would in fact to just that, reduce taxes by $251 Billion a year in households making over $200,000 a year.

Ironically that's who he thinks is the middle class.

Here's a quote from the tax policy centers study: 

"Our major conclusion is that any revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.” 

“Cutting individual income tax rates by 20 percent from today’s levels would reduce tax burdens by $251 billion per year (in 2015) among households with income above $200,000.”  “to achieve revenue neutrality, the resulting $86 billion annual shortfall must be made up by raising taxes on the rest of the population.”  

-Tax Policy Center

So he's gonna fire Big Bird, in order to give more money to the rich.

How disgusting is this guy?

Oscar already lives in a trash can, Sounds like PBS doesn't get that much as it is.

In fact, the annual subsidy is 1/100th of 1 percent of the Federal Budget, or about $1.35 a person.

Some notable stars from PBS have put out statements, such as Astronomer Neil Degrasse Tyson who tweeted: "Cutting PBS support (0.012% of budget) to help balance the Federal budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive"

and even former Reading Rainbow host and actor on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Levar Burton got in the fray. In an interview with Soledad O'Brien he said in relation to Romney's proposed cuts to PBS "I took it as an attack on children, Soledad,” “It is an attack on children who come from disenfranchised, you know, background.”

I grew up with PBS, Big Bird, and Reading Rainbow. Those shows were about learning, but it seems like Romney and the Republicans are not interested in kids learning anymore, if it means not being able to give a tax cut to the already very wealthy at least.

You can even relate the attack on PBS and NPR with the attacks on science, and learning, public schools and teachers. 

I think the Republicans do not want kids to learn, knowledge is dangerous to their agenda. Critical thinking is dangerous to their agenda, scientific facts are dangerous to their agenda because their plans simply don't work. They don't work for the middle class, they don't work for the poor, and in the end they won't work out for anyone, even corporations will suffer when there are no longer enough educated people in the workforce. 

But by then it will be too late if we allow the Republicans to succeed. The war on science has to stop, the war on facts has to stop. 

Cenk Uygur tells Romney to attack from the left

Occasionally on Current TV's The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur, the swarthy Turk host will give some advice to Mitt Romney in a segment known as "If I was Mitt Romney."

Last night Cenk gave Romney a little bit of that advice for the upcoming debates. Instead of trying to land some terrible zingers (Obamaloney anyone?)  He should hit Obama on policy, from the left.

Huh?

Actually it's sage advice, much to the chagrin of Cenk's friend and Epic Politics Man, Micheal Shure. Here's the thing, if Romney was a savvy debater, he could actually pull it off, the numbers are strangely on his side if he uses this line of attack.

But the problem with Republicans is that they still think America is a center right country. Here's a clip from Paul Ryan:

Unfortunately (for him) the facts do not back Ryan up.

These polls show that Americans are actually quite progressive in their values. Also the BS that Ryan spews about 30% of Americans not wanting the American dream is crap. We all want the American dream, but it's been taken from us by people like Paul Ryan, who have used the system themselves but seek to close the door of opportunity behind them.

But back to Cenk.

His advice was to hit Obama on the massive income inequality since the recovery. Stating facts that 93% of the gains from the "recovery" went to the top 1% under President Obamas watch. As well as how the median income for middle class households fell 8% since before the recession in 2007.

All of those facts would leave Obama between a rock and a hard place, as well the question of, if trickle down doesn't work, then why did President Obama continue the Bush Tax cuts? Some people will cite the fact that Obama did so because the Republicans were holding Unemployment benefits hostage, which was true. But I've spoken to many progressives who would rather have had investment in jobs, and not jobless benefits that eventually run out.

Cenk finally concluded that Romney will not take his advice anyway, but if he did, he could pull off a debate win.

I agree.

Romney is already known to be a serial flip-flopper on the campaign trail, so if he were to adopt progressive stances during the debates I personally wouldn't be surprised. Candidates on the right have a history of using populist rhetoric to gain votes in the general election. Remember George W. Bush calling for compassionate conservatism? Even calling for a direct stimulus to each taxpayer in the form of a check.

Paul Ryan even cast himself as the savior of Medicare while attacking President Obama for "cutting $716 Billion from the extremely popular program." The exact same amount Ryan would cut in his plan.

So while it's great advice, it's not something that Romney is actually going to do, he will keep on tacking the right until he falls off a cliff.

Oh right, he already did.

If I could quote Mr Uygur, I think he would probably say: "Of Coooouuuuuuurse!"

Washington food stamp challenge

If you didn't know, September is hunger awareness month. Where the effects of poverty on children, the elderly and the unemployed are once again largely ignored by the news cycle, and therefore largely ignored by a majority of the population. While it's not widely discussed, odds are that you may know someone who is suffering from hunger.

Studies have shown that 1 in 6, nearly 50 million Americans struggle to afford food. Even with help there are still families that have a very high food insecurity rate. 

SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
(Data as of August 30, 2012)
Fiscal	PARTICIPATION		BENEFIT	AVERAGE MONTHLY BENEFIT
Year	Persons	Households	COSTS	Per Person	Per Household
ANNUAL SUMMARY
FY 2011	44,708,726	21,072,113	71,810,991,227	133.85	283.99
FY 2010	40,301,878	18,618,436	64,702,164,628	133.79	289.60
FY 2009	33,489,975	15,232,115	50,359,918,853	125.31	275.51

"*" Includes disaster assistance which is notated for current fiscal year only.  Prior fiscal years may also include disaster assistance
Link to:	SNAP Disaster Response
FY 2012 data are preliminary; all data are subject to revision.

This graph from the USDA website shows just how many people have enrolled in SNAP.Since 2009, 11 million Americans have been added to the roles. According to the census bureau in 2011 the poverty rate held on at around 15%, which is roughly 46 Million Americans who were living in poverty last year.

It's no coincidence that these two numbers are nearly identical. 

Since the recession formally ended, we've still had meager job growth, posting just over 100,000 jobs a month, as opposed to the last six months of the Bush administration when we lost 3.5 Million jobs. The job losses continued under President Obama until October 2010, when the economy began to add jobs again. 

But there are just not enough jobs yet, and many companies are even discriminating against the long term unemployed.

The link between  unemployment, poverty, and hunger is absolutely unmistakable. One thing leads to another.

So with all of this evidence, why don't we see more being done to stamp out poverty and hunger? Surely the wealthiest country in the world has the means to solve the basic problem of food insecurity, right?

Sadly no; but it's not for lack of resources as we hear, but it's a lack of will.

It's also because it's easier to blame the victim instead of admit that our system is flawed and not doing enough to help people not only feed themselves, but to create jobs that pay a living wage.

In fact the median household income has declined since the recession, while corporate profits have risen.

We can do better.

It seems however that we are on a path to do worse. The latest spat in congress is over the Farm bill, which aims to cut food stamps by $16 Billion over the next ten years. Kicking 280,000 low income children off the free lunch program, reducing benefits to families by $90/month and throwing an estimated 3 Million people off the program entirely.

All of this is because of the conservative belief that people on food stamps are there because they want to be. As someone who is personally benefiting from the SNAP program, I can tell you it is not glorious, and not something I personally want to be on. 

My wife and I receive a total of $93 a month in SNAP benefits, though we are both unemployed full time students who are trying to get our associates degrees. 

Many conservatives will probably tell me to "get a job, bum." It's not easy, as I mentioned above there is a stigma about someone who is unemployed, even through no fault of their own. So getting a job is not an easy thing, believe me, not even the local Wal-Mart has ever given me a call back. 

There's also a stigma about being poor in general. Reagan's welfare queen attacks have turned falling on hard times as a sign of personal weakness, a flaw in character, a failure as a human being. There's an even bigger stigma to relying on assistance to survive. 

There is also a belief among many that people like me are living high on the hog. I just had a birthday yesterday. No presents, no cards, no cake. Just mac and cheese with a side of ramen, another normal day. And it's like that and worse for so many others. 

We need to do something more to get our elected leaders to do something, either by increasing benefits, or better yet creating good paying jobs and ending unemployment discrimination for the long term unemployed. A good job, with a living wage is something that should be in reach for everyone who wants one. 

We also need to stop with demonization of the poor. We need to stop the blame, and the hate, what good will it do to kick someone when they're down. 

Here's my idea. 

Everyone in Washington needs to do a food stamp challenge. I have created a petition at SignOn.Org to encourage the people in Washington to take part in the Food Stamp challenge to raise awareness and get the politicians to actually do something about this issue. 

Because there's no excuse for the richest country on Earth to have those who are going hungry.

The Cost of Higher Learning

As a student I am painfully aware of the personal costs of paying for college. As someone who is low income, and hasn't had the benefit of being able to borrow money from my parents for college, I know what it's like to be staring at a mountain of future debt. unlike some people. I know many who are in my position, and have even graduated to end up not using the degree they worked so hard for, and paid so much for.

The Atlantic had an excellent article that spelled out the situation that many prospective college grads fear. It boils down to one question.

Will I be able to find a job when I graduate?

Now there a couple of points in that article I don't agree with, in that I don't think the degrees are worthless. Higher learning should never be considered worthless. Educational pursuits are what help create the thinkers, artists, and academics that are necessary for cultural advancement. But in this corporate consumer society those educational pursuits have been swept to the wayside in favor of careers in high finance.

 Credit:Mark Kantrowitz

There's obviously a great financial incentive to work for places like Goldman Sachs. This graph from the Huffington post shows the number of students that graduated with six figure debt.

But for those who are not good with numbers, or are not thrilled with the idea of working for high finance, or those whose careers have been impacted by the recession, these numbers are scary.

My wife's biggest fear, is graduating with her medical secretary degree, and not being able to find work, and not being able to afford the 20+ grand of student loans she alone has had to borrow. She's also afraid of being in default.

Credit: Yewon Kang/Medill

According to a study by the Department of Education, the national student loan default rate continues to rise. Along with the unemployment rate. In 2008 the default rate for students was up to 7.2%. That's up from 6.7% the year before, and 5.2% in 2006. This trend doesn't show any signs of changing.  As unemployment continues to stay more or less at the current rate for those with a Bachelors degree or higher, at least until the 2012 election is over, we will continue to see the default rate climb as more and more students, hoping to climb the income ladder, face tougher times.




One of the bigger drivers of debt, and default are the prevalence of for profit colleges. Places like Full Sail University that have given contributions to the Romney campaign, ITT Technical Institute, and University of Phoenix.These schools charge very high tuition amounts that force students, like myself to borrow from private banks who also lobby the government to keep Federal student loan money, flowing into their pockets. University of Phoenix, which is owned by the Apollo group, gave $75,000 to Mitt Romney's Super-PAC: Restore our future. While James Heavener, CEO of Full Sail, gave $85,000 to Restore our future. It's fair to note that Full Sails' co-chair Ed Haddock had also contributed $60,000 to Barack Obama's campaign in 2008, and John Sperling, founder of the Apollo group itself, has so far donated $47,800 to Democratic congressional races. Though the for profit schools are mainly backing Mitt Romney this time, it appears their influence will be felt no matter who is in charge.

Now onto my story:

It was 2004 when I decided to go to ITT Tech hoping to get my shiny new degree. I borrowed about $3,000 from a private bank to afford tuition, a *big* mistake on my part. Nearly a year into my education I lost my job, and couldn't find another. In the end I went into default. Working crappy job to crappy job for the next few years I paid when I could, but that wasn't often, so the interest rate nearly tripled my loan.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo/NPR

So here I am, $9,000 in private loan debt, that can't be refinanced, cannot be discharged, and due to my financial situation, cannot be settled. Because the banks own it.

But I'm not alone. NPR has some amazing statistics on just how much debt students have amassed nationally. It's huge. It even surpasses the much maligned auto bailouts, and even credit card debt.

So with all of this debt, and all of these defaults, one has to wonder if getting an education is really worth it? To that I say, Yes. Here's why: As the world gets more technologically advanced, the hard labor jobs will continue to disappear, in fact many have, either from technology or outsourcing. Even though manufacturing in America is making a comeback, many of those jobs are demanding skilled workers to fill them. Now I need to make an important distinction. Education doesn't mean going to a college specifically. Trade schools are also considered places of higher learning.

So even with all the problems, debts, and fears, I still believe education is the best path towards the middle class lifestyle. I am sure that with time and pressure, we can force our political establishment to look at the problems of rising tuition, debt, and default, as well as unemployment for grads, and unscrupulous debt collectors and challenge them to fix these glaring problems that face every prospective student, and graduate that has put in the time, money, and effort to try and better their lives.

And this isn't to say we can't find solutions. In many European countries education is cheap, In Norway it's even free. In 2010 Norway was named the top nation in the world for highest quality of life for an eighth year in a row. It's not surprising to see that countries that have publicly funded colleges are often ones with higher wages, and standards of living. These countries are great examples of the importance of education as well as how much more they value education. If America were to take a more European approach to education to reduce the debt and costs for students the return on investment would be an increase in economic activity. Students that graduate without a mountain of debt are able to start their lives sooner and do things such as buy house, start a family, and make more discretionary purchases of high value items.

Students who graduate with mountains of debt hold off on doing those things in an effort to pay those debts. Worse yet, are the students that graduate with triple digit debts and cannot obtain a career in their field, those people are left with few options other than being stuck in lower wage jobs, unable to participate in economic activities that spur job creation. They often become immobile, unable to start businesses and are ultimately only able to pay interest on those gigantic loan balances.

We have solutions available to us, and we have examples of what works and what does not work. All we need is the political will and pressure to be able to effect change on the establishment. It's a hard sell because  there are moneyed interests in Washington that are perfectly happy with the status quo, and they have the ability to buy our politicians.

But people power can win over corporate power. It just takes time.