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Speaking of wealth inequality...sort of off-topic, but on topic re. todays shows;
Listening to the end of the Big Picture..Thom is ranting about Nixon and China being the end of American prosperity. I wonder if he read this?
Also, he’s expressing the sentiments of a listener who spoke out against mud slinging. I’m all for a mud slinging-free campaign. Smearing a person regarding petty gossip, or lying about one’s opposition in order to smear them is mud-slinging. As a democratic candidate, Bernie should avoid any derogatory discussion of other Dem. candidates…but discussion of legitimate unethical and possibly illegal behavior by those not running for office or holding office is not mud slinging, it's their civic duty. David Sirota, when he wrote here about Hillary’s use of the SOS office to expand arms sales in the middle east while increasing gov. contracts for defense contractors in exchange for huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation was living up to his responsibility as a member of the media. Don’t take just Sirota’s word for it, read this by Greg Palast if you want a glimpse into Hillary’s character.
If those with a microphone dare to speak honest truth to power where Hillary is concerned NOW, we just might get Bernie nominated, if not…sure, THEN keep silent about Hillary's record, if Hillary's the nominee and one feels that strongly about the Supreme Court well hold your nose and pull the lever. Or …is it legal to write in a candidate who was defeated in the primary? If Diebold and voter suppressors get their way, Hillary will win with a minority. I can’t remember…think it was in MO in ’12 or ’14, where polling places were closed in districts where McCaskill was behind and voters from those districts had to drive, in some cases, for hours to cast their votes.
It’s like Pap told Thom on TBP a week or so ago, eventually, one has to stand for something. If Hillary appoints justices who are progressive on social issues but regressive when it comes to rulings in favor of corporations and banks and the WTO can declare any law in the US illegal, then it won’t matter who sits on the bench. Who cares (& I’m gay) if LGBTs have the right to marry if they don’t have the bill of rights?..if they can’t afford food...to live? If the WTO can declare national laws illegal, the US Gov. will be nothing more than a parliament of elites who maneuver levers for the Global oligarchs.
Part of the solution to the problem of wealth and income inequality is the language we use to describe the problem. Inequality is a natural outcome of our differences in our ability to produce wealth or provide services others need and are willing to exchange for. The real problem is a problem of wealth distribution from producers to non-producer rentiers.
A rentier is a person or entity that is able because of privilege granted by law to claim what others produce. The historical context was that of the landlord versus the peasant in agrarian societies. In the age before coinage was commonplace, rents were taken as a share of foodcrops produced. A second stage began when surpluses became available for export, triggering the privatization of land ownership and the payment of rents by tenant farmers in cash rather than crops. Commercial agriculture soon followed, removing most subsistence farmers from the land, replaced by cattle and sheep. Then, when mineral resources were discovered and mined commercially, land values climbed and the rentier owners grew increasingly wealthy by leasing access to land to extractive industries. The movement of people off the land and into the towns and cities created a new class of urban rentiers as land rents became measured not by acres or hectares but by square feet or square meters.
If we seriously are committed to minimizing inequality we must change the way we raise funds to pay for public goods and services. Rents are societally-created and not created by any individual. Rents arise out of aggregate demand, pushed up higher and higher by land speculation and land hoarding. The only solution is to impose an annual tax on the potential annual rental value of land, which will remove the profit from acting as a rentier and require all to produce goods or provide services in order to EARN income and wealth.
Very simple solution TAX WAR <:::> FEED KIDS
We can Feed ALL children for ONE MILLION $$$ of each Billion spent harming others.
UN REPORT says FARMING SMALL PLOTS only way to save children/families.
Why is no one mentioning hemp? Whatever oil can do, hemp can do better.
The empirical data says raise the taxes on the rich and they provide less revenue. The empirical data also shows with the higher taxes (preferably a top tax rate of 83%) the GDP, DOW, number of jobs and the median wage (adjusted for inflation) all improve. The people that Thom has on that report this empirical data are Ravi Batra and Larry Beinhart.
The reason I point this out is I want everyone to think of the economy and not the tax revenue generated by any policy.
Another reason I point this out is that I am not an expert. I want the friendly people (not the trolls) on this blog to point out the weaknesses in my arguments.
CA is also leading in electric cars. At Google in San Jose all of the close in parking has electric chargers and is for electric only. Also electric cars can use the HOV lanes which is a huge benefit. Even super markets have charging stations. Hopefully it spreads. Electric cars are a benefit if charged with renewable energy but not so great if charged by coal fired electricity.
The only problem that I see is CA with its inititive and clot is buying up all available wind power space in WY. They are putting in about 10000 MW (about 10 nuclear plants worth in WY and transporting the energy by line to CA. You get line loss with that kind of distance. Farmers and ranchers like it because of the income and Cows like the shade.
In fact only nuclear energy is capable of replacing fossil fuels. These studies by Jacobson & Delucchi at Stanford have been consistently debunked as being nothing more than fantasies. What climatologist Jim Hansen calls "believing in the tooth fairy or the easter bunny". For instance:
Jacobson and Delucchi energy dreams are irresponsible fairy tales by Alice Friedemann
http://energyskeptic.com/2015/critiques-of-mark-jacobsons-ideas-to-run-t...
The Energy return on energy invested of the only scalable renewables, wind & solar, is well below the threshold needed to sustain an industrial civilization with any sort of social services like education, pensions & healthcare. Read it and weep:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/
So wind & solar are really parasites surviving off of the energy gains of nuclear, coal, gas & hydro energy.
The only scalable renewables California has, wind & solar, are too expensive to be viable on only supplied 12% of California's electricity generation in 2014, and that relies on big exports of peak wind & solar generation, with large imports of coal, nuclear & gas generation to allow the California grid to function. 28% of their electricity is imported. Not impressive. Exporting the highly peaking wind & solar only works when adjacent consumers don't produce much in wind & solar.
Ontario gets 86% of its electricity from clean, green nuclear and hydro, with 62% coming from their own indigenous CANDU NPPs. Makes California's dirty electricity supply, mostly gas with lots of imported coal look pathetic.
There's actually a 3rd option to what one of the last callers said: fight, flight, or freeze. Possums supposedly do this. Rabbits freeze to avoid being spotted, then they flee. And we know some people with stage fright freeze up.
I still like "mark", but "dupe" is also very good.
The oligarchs,
The shills, and
The dupes.
Not only will Donald Trump slash and burn at the republican debates, he will crash and burn as well.
Would even 50% of our energy from renewables solve our climate issues? I think we are working hard on a partial solution. The only solution I know are the Integral Fast Reactors such as from Argonne Labs and the PRISM project of GE and Hitachi.
Chuckle8, Jamie Dimon is an entitled spoiled brat. That's another phenomenon.
Most welfare supplements the working poor families, families of the working poor - usually full time, minimum wage workers.
The "bi-cultural" speech that Thom mentioned is called code switching. I've seen a comedian talk differently to a crowd of just black people than to a standard crowd (probably mostly white), even though both shows were going to be televised, so that people of all races could see it eventually.
It seems that what JFK had to do with his military advisors, BHO must do with his economic advisors--learn that their so-called expertise really lies in exploiting every situation for themselves, then defy them, put them in their place.
83% usually shows up as an approximation of 5/6. But why he picked that, I don't know.
Solar is taking off like a rocket in my area of upstate New York. I have a co-worker switching over in July....says the payment on everything is about equal to his current electric bill. So instead of paying the utility company, he makes equal payments towards his new solar set up, which will end up paying for itself.
Goodbye Carbon Barons!
bnappi -- I think you have provided sound reasoning for why our species will not survive.
I went solar (lease) a year ago and am VERY satisfied. I pay a little in the winter. The company that I worked with is Sungevity in California.
Mark J Saulys -- It seems that Jamie Dimon did not come up the hard way. I guess he was born a sociopath.
2950-10K -- I hope that you realize the New Deal and the Great Society created the legislation that the founders wanted. It, of course, scared the piggish Fascists s*&#less. It brought us Lewis Powell.
Picketty sets that top tax rate at 83%. I wish I had the energy to determine how he came up with that number.
p h t paine -- I have a difficult time understanding what you are saying will have anymore effect on the political needle than what Thom is saying.
How is it possible, that you are a "news reader", yet never seem to actually read anything, and have a staff, who should by now have recognized your complete incompetence in everything you attempt, yet failed to address any aspect of it?
By 2050?????? We don't have that kind of time but not to worry because it can be done in 20 years or less.......but I'm sure your loyal fans will appreciate the repetition of your tired mantra regarding oil companies and lobbyists in D.C. and everything you have said a hundred times before...... and nice of Stanford to conduct a study that says that "each state" could produce it's own plan and path.
Today for example in the spirit of breaking news, attention was drawn to resistance in Florida with the following headline....
Opposition Is Piling On A Proposal To Increase Access To Solar Power In Florida
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/16/3669561/floridians-solar-cho...
In addition to this, a few weeks back I made the attempt to inform you of similar difficulties in Nevada, courtesy of Warren Buffet....so I am afraid Stanford and you wasted your time because the "problem" exists" in every state, and it rests with the utilities......because they want control and the profit that is derived from control, REGARDLESS of the actual "source" of the "energy" that is used.
At the time I did this, I brought to your attention a book writeen by Keith Barham, who helped develope the 42% efficient "solar cell" and has written one of the clearest books available for anyone wishing to understand "photovoltaics".....as well as all the arguments regarding the shift to 100% renewables in "all climates". As you seem to have "no memory skills", you probably won't recall "reading" another story about Germany producing 100% of it's energy needs on a particular day.....and how the shift can be made quite quickly to 100% for various European countries whose climate is more northern than ours.....it is titled the Burning Answer.....and Stanford could have simply read "his" book.....
You have overhyped yourself Thom, you have "no clothes" and the sooner people catch on the better.......ironically, for someone that uses the amount of power and control to insulate yourself in your "it's all about me world.", you have yet to grasp that all the problems in the world are about "maintaining" power and control......being the lessor of 5 or 7 or 9 evils will only work for so long......while you employ your fans as "shills" to support your delusions when YOU are in fact part of the problem.
to be continued
Duh