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We need a cooling off period? NO ! Cooling off is the wrong thing to do. We need to call the NRA out for what it is. In my opoinion, the NRA is a murder facilitator, or at the very least a sociapath facilitator.
Maybe the Governer is just doing all this because the state is going broke. What else is he supposed to do.
This is reply to #1.
I think there are some basic truths to what you say here. As a Libertarian Socialist (which usually means Anarchist or Syndicallist but doesn't necessarilly in my case; I'll go with whatever works to produce the results of freedom, equality and justice) I believe that what is needed is not a redistribution of wealth but a redistribution of power. If the power is redistributed the wealth will redistribute itself. What the Soviets, the Leninists, did was try to redistribute the wealth keeping the power with a small, centralized elite. What resulted was that the wealth didn't get redistributed all that well either. The small minority of Communist Party members lived much better than everyone else and were much more privileged and rarely tried to defect to the West.
Much of the union movement in the U.S. initially had the goal of gaining ownership of the means of production for the workers. The mobbing up and other corruptions of the unions, the McCarthy Era purges and, more importantly, the intentional dedemocratization of unions by the government, forcing them to go through the NLRB has made unions often into bogus or, at best, weak institutions in which the union officials exploit the rank and file pimping them and selling them out.
Actually, it might produce a better result to simply redemocratize the unions as there then would be a collectivity and a collective ownership rather than making everyone an individual stockholder.
If every adult and children in that school had been armed with there own weapon, and had been wearing body armour there wouldn't have been as nearly many taken-out. And heda got his comeuppance, real quick. We need universal carry laws and universal weapons training starting in pre-school, kindergarden at the latest. Point-made?
Criminals will always get guns, they don't go to a gun shop, they get them illegally.
It was not discussed on TV because probably out of respect or reverence or silence for the families, or not knowing if they should talk about it, thinking about it first, but rest assured they are talking about it, just not on the news. It is not too soon to talk about it.
Control---- how? How do we control these crazy people obtaining these weapons? Almost impossible.
On the news, they talk about how the mentally unstable should not have guns. They should be screened or forbidden to have a gun. People calling the radio stations say the same. So how do you know who is mentally ill? They want to the government to test everyone psychologically when they purchase a gun? How do you know for sure? Then some people will complain about government control or that they don't want to pay taxes for this.
Again, these people don't go to a gun store to buy guns. I don't see a way to control this. Too many people.
They're passing every possible crazy measure in the lame duck session. The emergency manager law can't be constitutional and should be challenged on some separation of powers basis. After all, we are not some centralized monolith like the Soviet Union. People have an inalienable right to their own elected local officials.
Rick Snyder needs to be told he can't play czar. This reminds me of what my friend who was a defector from Eastern Europe in the '80s said, "Here in United States you have privat diktatur.", i.e., here in the U.S. we have private dictatorship.
President Obama and the union movement are missing the boat built from advances in technology and have failed to realize the crushing blow to labor workers that tectonic shifts in the technologies of production has and will continue to exercise.
The labor union movement should transform to a producers’ ownership union movement and embrace and fight for a new economic democracy. They should play the part that they have always aspired to––that is, a better and easier life through participation in the nation’s economic growth and progress. As a result, labor unions will be able to broaden their functions, revitalize their constituency, and reverse their decline.
Unfortunately, at the present time the movement is built on one-factor economics––the labor worker. The insufficiency of labor worker earnings to purchase increasingly capital-produced products and services gave rise to labor laws and labor unions designed to coerce higher and higher prices for the same or reduced labor input. With government assistance, unions have gradually converted productive enterprises in the private and public sectors into welfare institutions. Binary economist Louis Kelso stated: “The myth of the ‘rising productivity’ of labor is used to conceal the increasing productiveness of capital and the decreasing productiveness of labor, and to disguise income redistribution by making it seem morally acceptable.”
Kelso argued that unions “must adopt a sound strategy that conforms to the economic facts of life. If under free-market conditions, 90 percent of the goods and services are produced by capital input, then 90 percent of the earnings of working people must flow to them as wages of their capital and the remainder as wages of their labor work...If there are in reality two ways for people to participate in production and earn income, then tomorrow’s producers’ union must take cognizance of both...The question is only whether the labor union will help lead this movement or, refusing to learn, to change, and to innovate, become irrelevant.”
Unions are the only group of people in the whole world who can demand a real Kelso-designed ESOP, who can demand the right to participate in the expansion of their employer by asserting their constitutional preferential rights to become capital owners, be productive, and succeed. The ESOP can give employees access to credit so that they can purchase the employer’s stock, pay for it in pre-tax dollars out of the assets that underlie that stock, and after the stock is paid for earn and collect the capital worker income from it, and accumulate it in a tax haven until they retire, whereby they continue to be capital workers receiving income from their capital ownership stakes. This is a viable route to individual self-sufficiency needing significantly less or no government redistributive assistance.
The unions should reassess their role of bargaining for more and more income for the same work or less and less work, and embrace a cooperative approach to survival, whereby they redefine “more” income for their workers in terms of the combined wages of labor and capital on the part of the workforce. They should continue to represent the workers as labor workers in all the aspects that are represented today––wages, hours, and working conditions––and, in addition, represent workers as full voting stockowners as capital ownership is built into the workforce. What is needed is leadership to define “more” as two ways to earn income.
If we continue with the past’s unworkable trickle-down economic policies, governments will have to continue to use the coercive power of taxation to redistribute income that is made by people who earn it and give it to those who need it. This results in ever deepening massive debt on local, state, and national government levels, which leads to the citizenry becoming parasites instead of enabling people to become productive in the way that products and services are actually produced.
When labor unions transform to producers’ ownership unions, opportunity will be created for the unions to reach out to all shareholders (stock owners) who are not adequately represented on corporate boards, and eventually all labor workers will want to join an ownership union in order to be effectively represented as an aspiring capital owner. The overall strategy should assure that the labor compensation of the union’s members does not exceed the labor costs of the employer’s competitors, and that capital earnings of its members are built up to a level that optimizes their combined labor-capital worker earnings. A producers’ ownership union would work collaboratively with management to secure financing of advanced technologies and other new capital investments and broaden ownership. This will enable American companies to become more cost-competitive in global markets and to reduce the outsourcing of jobs to workers willing or forced to take lower wages.
Kelso stated, “Working conditions for the labor force have, of course, improved over the years. But the economic quality of life for the majority of Americans has trailed far behind the technical capabilities of the economy to produce creature comforts, and even further behind the desires of consumers to live economically better lives. The missing link is that most of those unproduced goods and services can be produced only through capital, and the people who need them have no opportunity to earn income from capital ownership.”
Walter Reuther, President of the United Auto Workers, expressed his open-mindedness to the goal of democratic worker ownership in his 1967 testimony to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress as a strategy for saving manufacturing jobs in America from being outcompeted by Japan and eventual outsourcing to other Asian countries with far lower wage costs: “Profit sharing in the form of stock distributions to workers would help to democratize the ownership of America’s vast corporate wealth, which is today appallingly undemocratic and unhealthy.
“If workers had definite assurance of equitable shares in the profits of the corporations that employ them, they would see less need to seek an equitable balance between their gains and soaring profits through augmented increases in basic wage rates. This would be a desirable result from the standpoint of stabilization policy because profit sharing does not increase costs. Since profits are a residual, after all costs have been met, and since their size is not determinable until after customers have paid the prices charged for the firm’s products, profit sharing [through wider share ownership] cannot be said to have any inflationary impact on costs and prices.”
Unfortunately for democratic unionism, the United Auto Workers, American manufacturing workers, and American citizens generally, Reuther was killed in an airplane crash in 1970 before his idea was implemented. Leonard Woodcock, his successor, never followed through.
Now is critical that the President lead the way and that new labor movement leaders emerge to create an OWNERSHIP CULTURE.
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm
Also please see my article published by The Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-reber/who-should-own-america_b_2040592.html
Sign the Petition at http://signon.org/sign/reform-the-federal-reserve.fb23?source=c.fb&r_by=3904687
Sign the WhiteHouse.gov petition at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-federal-reserve/PhY3Jswk
Also follow the Center for Economic and Social Justice at www.cesj.org and http://capitalhomestead.org/
If not now... when?
If not now... when?
This will blow your hair back.
My friends wife has worked for Comcast Cable here in Fl. for 31 years, is at the top of her pay scale (18.00/hr), and 4 years away from retirement.
Three weeks ago she received notice that her postiton will be given to an entry level employee at less than half her hourly wage and no benefits. She has until the end of the year to decide if she wants to transfer over to the east coast office (237 miles away) - without gurantee that the samething won't happen - or walk with a severance package that is less than what her full retirement would be.
That's life working in a Right-to-Work-State. Spend your life slaving for peanuts to make a few people uber rich and in the end get the shaft.
tom, i keep hearing that when the bush tax cuts expire, top marginal rates will go to 36.9% on incomes over $250,000. why is this # constantly being thrown around? the IRS tax tables show the top marginal rate to be for incomes over approx $388,000. can you shed some light on this topic? thanks.
Banking has had 400+ years to establish and refine their brand of economic superstition and the propaganda that promotes it. They are no different than the money changers in the temple. For that matter, they are no different than those who, in ancient times, preyed upon the hardest working peasants, toiling for meager harvest, by telling them that they needed someone to intervene on their behalf to gain the blessings of the appropriate gods. All it took was a modest offering, whether the poor schlub could afford it or not. If the next year's harvest was good, the priests took the credit; if it was worse, you must have done something to bring on the wrath of the gods. Of course, you really had to step up and pay, since it was going to take hard work to undo your error.
So now, it's not wheat or cotton or sheep or cattle that is being conveyed for value. It's electronic impulse, translated into ciphers, considered as tangibles, but which will neither directly feed nor clothe the "owner". We the People are not regarded as living, but as a cruel academic exercise, a means to the ends which build even grander financial temples.
It seems to me, Republican leaning people have no interest in what helps ordinary people. Why should a disaster like Sandy keep them awake at night - unless they fell sorry for their "friend" in NJ - Gov, Christie!
There is a very simple and very good reason why the Obama administration refuses to prosecute banks and other corporations that commit crimes: the Obama administration looks forward, not backward. And I am sure that Barak and Michelle have raised their children in the same way: when the kids do something wrong, their parents say, "Well, we look forward, not backward, so while we would prefer that you stop doing wrong things, you need to know that there are no consequences for doing wrong things. But when you become adults you will need to remember that if you are poor there are consequences for doing wrong things but if you are rich there are no consequences. If you remember these things, my children, you will do well in corporate-controlled America."
Yes, I'm sure that's the way Barak and Michelle have raised their children. And it goes without saying that when you refuse to set any boundaries for banks and other corporations and hyper-rich people, they all behave themselves perfectly.
But I do agree with republicans that America spends more money than it should. We really do need spending cuts. In fact, America needs a drastic austerity program regardless of whether the American public likes it or not. It's going to be tough, but we HAVE to do it. Here are the non-negotiable spending cuts that we have to make:
1. Quit spending money on illegal and inhumane wars against countries that never did anything to us.
2. Quit allowing republican-controlled corporations to defraud medicair.
3. Quit paying senators and representatives who represent the interests of other countries.
4. Get out of treaties like NAFTA and CAFTA and Obama's recent "Free-Trade" agreement, all of which benefit other countries at America's expense.
5. Quit allowing banks to charge interest on student loans. In fact, force the banks to return all of the money they have made on student loan interest. If banks don't want to loan money to students with no interest, it's not a problem: the federal government and every state should start their own banks to fund student loans.
6. Quit giving trillions of dollars in tax breaks to wealthy corporations and wealthy people, because if they can't stand up on the two feet that God gave them and pay their fare share, they are free to leave America and not do business in America,
When we make these courageous but drastic and extremely painful spending cuts, we will have enough money to give everyone free medical care, free education through post-graduate levels, and protect unemployment insurance and social security. I know, austerity will be very hard on republicans. But they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, depend on their own resources, and kneel on their prayer rugs four times a day and pray for Ayn Rand to give them the intelligence and will power to stop depending on big government to help them out at our expense.
But while I think that republicans should not get any money from big government, I am a compassionate person. I mean, if I get off the freeway and there's a republican in filthy clothing standing by the side of the road with a sign that says, "I am a fraud, a liar, and a thief, and can't do an honest day's work for an honest dollar," I will feel pity for him. I will give him a few dollars to help tide him over while he gets psychotherapy for his problems. I just don't think it is government's job to help republicans, because they can get all the help they need from their churches, and from compassionate people like me.
Many people - including old school republicans - shared your delima and cast a "fear" vote against Romney...It's too bad that We the People don't demand better...We shouldn't allow fear and propaganda to persuade us. Conscience based voting rather than fear based voting is the only way for We the People to steer this country in the direction we want.
There weren't any noble differences between Obama and Romney...Just a shuffle of the same policy deck...Again! No matter how you look at it; Evil is Evil is Evil...
During the primaries I supported Ron Paul; based on his ideas for a more Diplomatic Foreign Policy, Audit the Federal Reserve and States Rights for drug laws...Then A friend introduced me to Rocky Anderson - former demacrat, and two time mayer of uber conservative Salt Lake City, Utah - of the newly founded Justice Party. After I studied his history, values, public accomplishments, and policy reform ideas I begain to campaign for him and his newly founded Justice Party. Of course I heard all kinds of comments from brainwashed Demacrats and Republicans, but I know what I want, and what I wanted wasn't thwarted by fear. I accepted the fact that be it Obama or Romney not much would change. I felt strongly though that my vote successful or not - sent a messege for actual change.
I also know people who voted for Jill Stein of the Green Party for the same reasons.
Should be renamed The right to work for less amd it allows the non-paying worker to be a freeloader. It allows corporations to fire at will and lower wages and safety for the worker is thrown out the window. Its a win, win situation if you want slave labour. We the people are being paid less, taxed more, less rights, so a few greedy people can have car elevators in their kingdoms.
Just another prime example of our two tiered Justice System.
Fair???ABSOLUTLY NOT!!!But that's how it is after more than 100yrs of Rothchild corrupt self-rewarding value system.
The pot is bubbleing...Are we too cooked to make a difference?
Can we collectively change our way of think to change this story? Or will we just moan and groan while staying the coarse.
If you voted for Obama or Romney you voted to stay the coarse...Just another part of the machinery.
The death sentence for HSBC and the whole financial system would be the best thing that could happen. Then we can reinvent the banking system from a standpoint of local accountability, and take back the power that has been shoplifted from the American public.
Overgreed is the concept that must be demonized. It seems to be infectous and easily contracted by the thought of "I can do it too". Leaving a sea of victims in it's wake.
How about the concept of cooperation? This would take the edge off the profit at all cost theory.
Taking greed out of the recipe would fix most of our problems. Start with the banksters, and keep going through the food business. Bring it back local, and champion the notion of greater good.
Christmas!?!? the GOP stole it!
MmmK...Your Idea isn't bad...Just gotta convince Mr. Jon "Grinch" Bohner and Ebenezer "Job Creater" Scrooge to grow a heart for those in the bottom 3 brackets, AND cut Deffence spending in half, rather than cutting wellfare, medicare, and programs that aid those in need of help.
...Christ where's lil' Cindy Lou Who when ya need here?
I can't say that I was fooled. Back in '08, I voted for Obama with a guarded sense of hope. I say "guarded" because I'd picked up on a few red flags before he was even elected. From the beginning when Obama first ran for the oval office, he made clear his intentions to escalate the war in Afghanistan, a big turn-off for me. I also recall, early on, catching wind of him favoring nuclear power; another red flag. As always, the Republican candidate was unacceptable (not to mention McCain's choice of a running mate!), which compelled me to pick the guy with the best shot at defeating them. I remember hoping that once in office, Obama would kick butt on those plutocrats and restore some measure of sanity to life here... but not for a moment did I count on this. I voted for him again this year, but for the same reason; it was more a vote against Romney than for Obama. - Aliceinwonderland
It was evident only after the first year in office that Obama was as close to these Banksters as the politicians on the right side of the isle are. Now there is no doubt he is in bed with the Bansksters on Wall St. and the Banksters across the pond in England. I made the mistake of voting for him the first election in 08', but wised up in a hurry after watching how he protected the criminals on Wall St, that his administration deemed to "big to fail". It is obvious to everyone including Obama that these crooks at HSBC are as guilty as the guy who holds up a liquor store on the corner, but unlike the holdup man the executives at HSBC now know, or perhaps they have known all along, that they will not be held accountable for their crimes of money laundering and supporting the finances of Drug Cartels and only God knows what other crimes they have been involved in! What group of criminals would stop their illegal behavior if they knew they only had to pay a fine for their crime that was less than the profits they made in their illegal activities? The answer to that question is an obvious NONE! The Obama Administration is like a judge who finds the criminals not guilty of their crimes because he was paid off to set them free to commit more crimes against society. I knew Obama was tied into the Banksters because of the cash they paid him and the Democrats in the form of political donations, just like they have done to the Republicans to keep their taxes low. But I never considered him and his administration (Justice Dept.) to be this corrupt, as to consider any person or group of people innocent of crime they have committed because they controlled so much wealth. So far it appears Obama and his Dept. of Justice has not disappointed the fat cats on Wall St. Does Obama think the American Public is so naive to believe this garbage they are handing out, that no one or group of Banksters could take over the operations of HSBC? Anyone with half a brain realizes that all major corporations have contingency plans for replacing top personnel in the event something would incapacitate them from performing their duties and therefore HSBC would have the same stand by plans for their executives! If a person is caught smoking marijuana they are guilty of committing a felony under Federal law, but if a bank helps a drug cartel launder their illegal profits from marijuana they are only fined for committing a felony. Is it any wonder why America is seen to be so massively corrupt for committing War Crimes to laundering hundreds of millions (perhaps even billions of dollars) of dollars in illegal profits for Drug Cartels and Terrorist factions that are out to destroy western society. Corruption does not start at the top of these Banks and trickles down to its employee's for pushing illegal derivatives, it actually begins at the top of the White House and trickles down to Banksters and Wall St crooks by allowing these crimes to go unpunished. And we that voted for Obama the first time actually believed he and his administration was different from the corrupt Bush administration and the crimes they committed! Boy were we fooled...
Interesting question! Until that happens, we can't know for sure; but it wouldn't surprise me if Thom's hunch proved accurate. - Aliceinwonderland
I'm with you, Thom. "Too big to fail" should translate to "too big to exist". -Alice I.W.
You can hear Rocky and Jill Stein join the "debate" on Amy Goodman's program. Both candidates are solidly in favor of policies which will benefit citizens, and not corporations. bathroom furniture
Funny how on the report I heard driving home from work, ABC radio news didn't bother to mention which party is doing the blocking....... who needs all that extra detail anyway!