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Even mainstream business leaders buy into overheated TEA Party rhetoric when it comes to President Barack Obama.
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John Eby: Malice in Wonderland and hope versus nope
Published 6:22pm Sunday, August 29, 2010Last month the chairman of Blackstone told Newsweek that raising taxes on private equity firms smacks of Nazi tactics. “It’s war, like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”
This month in an editorial for his magazine, Steve Forbes calls the Obama administration “hostile and ignorant.”
“The truth is, not even the Franklin Roosevelt administration was as hostile to and ignorant of free enterprise as this administration,” Forbes wrote.
Then Forbes felt compelled to take it a step further: “One hesitates to bring up the economics of Benito Mussolini and his ilk because fascism means ugly nationalism and racism, as well as mass murder and aggressive war.”
So much for the restraint of hesitation. It’s clear Wall Street is blinded by wanting this administration to fail at any cost.
Obama played by the American rules of studying hard in great schools and is by all accounts a good husband and father and has spoken eloquently about patriotism, only to have self-appointed Glenn Beck trash him as racist.
The Commerce Department issued a revised second-quarter report for gross domestic product that shows sharp drops in growth, stoking fears of another recession just in time for the midterm elections.
How convenient. The very people who brought about our economic collapse are criticizing the president.
Some commentators have been heard suggesting the government needs someone from Goldman Sachs who knows their way around business.
Never mind that they and their ilk plunged this country into the greatest recession since the Great Depression.
Talk about Malice in Wonderland.
Where is the White House anger? Not that the president is being criticized, but at the venomous tenor of the rhetoric.
Reasonable independent voters, looking at the TEA Party, the birthers, the folks who want to dump the 14th Amendment and the 25 percent who insist Obama is a Muslim.
Hey, amnesiacs, let’s turn the reins of government back to the Party of No.
Yet a Newsweek poll shows numbers dead even when voters are asked if they will vote Democrat or Republican.
Republicans are already salivating about flooding the place with subpoenas and making the animosity directed at Bill Clinton in 1998 look like tee ball.
Investigations will replace legislation.
Nobody can remember successful CEOs at this level resorting to such disgraceful rhetoric in a country founded on decency and fundamental fairness.
Conservatives built a $400 million war chest to seize back control of Congress.
Obama said Aug. 21, “You’d think that reducing corporate and even foreign influence over our elections wouldn’t be a partisan issue, but the Republican leaders in Congress said no. In fact, they used their power to block the issue from even coming up for a vote. This can only mean that the leaders from the other party want to keep the public in the dark. They don’t want you to know which interests are paying for the ads.”
We can’t say Republicans are bereft of ideas.
Wis. Rep. Paul Ryan, 40, crafted an 87-page, 75-year plan, Roadmap for America’s Future, spelling out what the U.S. must do to cut federal spending and chip at our $13 trillion debt, but most of his GOP colleagues remain content to smother hope with nope.
He proposes semi-privatizing Social Security by allowing younger workers to divert part of their payments to individual accounts they could access at retirement.
Ryan suggests abolishing Medicare and replacing it with vouchers for private insurers. He proposes capping total spending and freezing non-defense discretionary spending, though he leaves defense spending unscathed.
Only 13 GOP House members endorse Ryan’s plan.
House minority leader John “Tan Man” Boehner from Ohio, says parts are done well, but others “I’ve got some doubts about.”
Liberal economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times wrote Ryan, who has a degree in economics as well as political science, is “serving up leftovers from the 1990s drenched in flimflam sauce.”
Boehner’s opponent plays up the fact he voted against a tax cut to help Ohio businesses buy equipment, a tax cut for auto sales to help rescue Ohio’s car industry and a tax cut for Ohio’s unemployed workers, but supported tax relief for millionaires that added $700 billion to the deficit but won’t create jobs.
Billboards play up Boehner’s 119 golf outings and his foe dubs him, “The most coin-operated politician in Washington. He couldn’t be further out of teach with the working middle class. His top contributors are the health industry, the pharmaceuticals industry, big oil, big tobacco. About 60 percent of his money comes out of (District 8) from big corporations and the super rich.”
Ryan is refreshing when he says in Time, “The deficit — that’s the hardest problem we have, and that’s why I’m working on it” while his colleagues hear only pollsters.
Remember back in 1993 when Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush rallied around Bill Clinton to back the North American Free Trade Agreement when it looked like NAFTA was going off the rails?
The silence of former chief executives on the Ground Zero Islamic center is deafening. One of George W. Bush’s finest moments was when he stood with Muslims after 9/11.
In fair and balanced news, Fox ignores that Ken Mehlman, the Republican operative who in 2004 ran the GOP anti-gay playbook, comes out as gay.
Hypocritical or ironic. You decide.
Beck, who July 29, 2009, claimed Obama has a “deep-seated hatred for white people … This guy is, I believe, a racist,” stands on the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial and compares himself to Martin Luther King in a non-partisan way.
Quite a contrast between the latter’s eloquent, inspirational words and the former’s mean-spirited ranting and time-traveling hatred that remains angry about Woodrow Wilson, though he certainly reflects a mood about the vanished American dream.
We’re supposed to believe that a history buff didn’t have Aug. 28, 1963, on his chalkboard when this opportunist scheduled this rally.
He and those he shares his Foxhole with are always on the offense, scheming up new ways to stir the pot in favor of their narrative to frighten paranoid white people.
Does a right-wing talking head like Beck distort MLK’s dream for America?
Seventy-seven percent said yes in a survey on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show.”
Chris Matthews reports Beck compares himself to the moon landing, Dowagiac and Niles visitor Rosa Parks and the Wright brothers.
“We have to do our part to make sure it backfires,” a Democratic Maryland congressman said on “Hardball.”
Matthews pointed out to a Democratic Florida congresswoman that if President Bush “had gotten his way,” privatized Social Security and tied it to the stock market, “100 percent of your constituents would be Democrats because they’d be looking at their Social Security checks based on the Dow Jones shriveled to nothing. If Bush had won, the Democrats, ironically, would be better off politically because older voters would say, ‘I can’t trust Republicans with my money.’ ”
According to the AARP, 37 percent of people ages 60 to 65 depend on Social Security for 50 percent or more of their income.
By 80, savings nest eggs are depleted and citizens are even more dependent on those monthly checks, yet the Tan Man is still talking about privatizing Social Security.
John Eby is Daily News managing editor. E-mail him at john.eby@leaderpub.com.
Tags: John Eby, Niles Daily Star, Week in Revue
Lets, Wave the Flag, beat the drums, and Blow our Trumpets!
We Shall March backwards into the future, and back to the days
of Inequities, when We lost our manufacturing.
After all Blue Collar Workers were so Unworthy.
Let us grab on to the mantle of hopelessness, and back
to the days of greed.
we shall all flip everyone elses hamburgers,
and Shop at everyone elses Wal-Mart.
those whom refuse to flip Hamburgers and
Work at Wal-Mart shall starve.
Oh a few will try to teach them to Fish, but
refuse to loan them Fishin Gear.
Let us take our Country back, by the “Audacity of Nope”
from the Unworthy whom have stolen it from us, Why
what would happen if We didn’t, a politician whom is
not White and Delightsome, or even a Native American?
after all don’t the poor deserve it?
The American Consumer powered the Worlds economy
Since the 80′s
What it did not support was the American workers!
It still does not, but the truth is You cannot replace
those same consumers without creating a Mess we now
are feeling.
What the American economy should at least do is support
Americans first!
We need to get back to making Stuff We Consume
Right Here in America.
Sam Taylor
Mr. Eby once again has displayed his lack of connection with a world that seems to understand life better than he does. Question; Who would you rather receive financial advice from, Barack Obama or Steve Forbes? Simple economics tells me that Forbes would be a hands down winner. Mr Obama, on the other hand would be my last choice. The economy is where it is TODAY largely because the Obama administration has willed it to be here. Anyone who earns over $250,000 (unless a professional athlete) is villified as being rich and undeserving of the fruits of their labors. As are CEOs, most of whom make a reasonable salary, unlike the so called “fat cats” that we are supposed to hate so much, and anyone who has placed a dime in an investment vehicle.
The semi privatization that Eby speaks about is of course a silly notion, simply because the stock market is such a bad place to put ANY money. How many retirement funds utilize stocks and bonds to grow money? No less than all of them. Over a long term, the stock market is going to increase the value of your investment-unless of course you were a GM bondholder, in which case THE GOVERNMENT HAS YOUR MONEY. The Social Security Trust, however will show a deficit this year and is owed TRILLIONS by the federal general operating funds. Had THAT money been invested since its inception in the 1930′s, it could pay off the national debt.
The T.E.A. movement has not affected, or is it infected? most Americans nearly as much as it has the liberal population who see grass roots movements as belonging only to them, and the neoprogresives who follow the likes of Chris Matthews who sees T.E.A. and Sarah Palin as a two headed monster that hides under his bed at night attempting to thwart that tingling feeling in his leg as he dreams of Obama.
That I can recall, or discover, Beck has never compared himself to Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks, Martin King, or even Howdy Doodie. Perhaps Beck DID recongize the historical significance of August 28, but did a rally that purported to want to “restore honor” somehow detract from King’s “dream?” A dream where we were to judge men not by the color of their skin, but the color of their character? I don’t think so. Unlike the belief of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and John Eby, Martin Luther King was an AMERICAN hero, not just a black civil rights advocate. If his memory has been co-opted, it has been done so by the purveyors or poverty like Sharpton and Jackson whose desire it is to keep blacks dependent on government-and them for hope and empty promises.
I’m not sure where John Boehner came from in Eby’s rant, but at least he has not instructed his side of the aisle that if they wanted to read a bill they must first vote for it.
Mr. Eby needs to read more and watch less MSNBC. Particularly rabid haters like Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann, and the sycophants like Chris Matthews and his tingly legs. Tingly legs by the say are a sign of a serious neurologic disorder often seen in diabetics. I fear for Matthews’ health.
I also fear that two more years of Democratic “rule” will place this nation in further economic jeopardy and less secure. Mr. Taylor, despite the fact he cannot create a coherent sentence, is right about one thing. We need to make stuff in America. Under Obama, stuff will continue to migrate to third world countries in his never ending quest to “share the wealth.”
Since the 1980′s the wages of 90% of Americans have stagnated,
while 10% have increased their returns and or wages increased
2000 times.
The 90% have in fact increased productivity in those Years without any
Justifiable return.
In this bottom line Economy We have devastated our Local Economies,
other than such places as Bentonville Arkansas, china, and the Third
world.
What works to Maintain Your local Economic Health, goes to Maintain Regional
Economic health and National economic Health.
You MUST SUPPORT YOURSELVES FIRST, then others.
we are in this economy together, draining resources to support other Economies
is foolish.
so is Mikes blind “Free market theory”
which only provides free Markets to thieves and other scalawags.
it is this Voodo economics that has ignored the reality of the Working
Americans ignored by their foolishness.
Abandon American Workers and You dismiss American customers.
WE CANNOT SUPPORT THE REST OF THE WORLD!
while abandoning the Customers the American worker.
which His libertarian philosophy espouses
common sense should tell Mr Moore that we MUST,
hang together, or be Hung out to dry separately
First they came for the Blue collar workers
then they came for lower Management
soon they came for middle Management,
and local businesses.
then they came for upper Management, Grocers, Lumber Yards,
and Hardware Stores.
then they came for me.
Sam Taylor
btw Mike MLK was a freind of mine, Glen beck ain’t no MLK
his teachings was of Economic Justice.
For that and civil Rights He gave his Life.
When He died He was standing up for American Workers
Black, White and all Americans.
He was standing up against the very teaching You espouce.
Mr. Taylor finally got something right, but for entirely the wrong reason. He is correct that workers wages have stagnated. It is the why that is important. In a free market, wages would be dependent upon the demand for labor, or the demand for a particular skill. In a market where there is 4% unemployment, the average wage will rise, but in times where there is double digit unemployment, the average wage SHOULD decrease, as there is no demand for workers. Two factors in our (and others as well) system do not allow for the natural fluctuation of (starting) wages. First is the union. Seldom will a negotiated agreement ever allow for a decrease in wages. Only a few unionized industries even during the current economic “crisis” allowed their constituents to dake a wage decrease in order to preserve jobs. (a noticable exception is the teamsters union) The other is the inflated minimum wage. Employers even at the lower end of the wage scale have no room to reduce their costs, forcing them too to reduce a workforce rather than wages.
The third world countries to which we have exported our industries have no such laws as the Wagner act or minimum wage laws.
I am aware of what King was fighting for, and it was NOT for the unions. He rightly wanted equal pay for equal work, regardless of one’s color. That, my friend is economic justice, not the so called “right” to a job. The ability to be considered for, hired, and to keep a job must never be based on discriminatory acts, but it should NEVER guarantee someone a job for the very same reasons. King, unlike Sharpton, wanted justice, not advantage.
Even a Hog Farmer knows You must regulate the Trough, or only the
Biggest Hogs will be fed.
You CANNOT build a well rounded Marketplace on only selling,
Polo Ponies and togs
, and Luxury Yacht to stockbrokers.
actually He did encourage the Garbage Men of Memphis
to Organize 3 days before He was killed, and Union
Labor helped subsidize the strike, or their families would have starved.
those Workers You insult are the very Customer base you need
in the marketplace to keep it going, and thriving!
Mike,
Your silly Philosophy has Blinded you,
from seeing the big picture.
Glasses and or laser surgery might help,
but I doubt it.
Big words of selfishness have
Decieved You into not seeing
What an economy must Do.
Is your hearing also troubled?
Yours ever
Sam Taylor
btw Mike
Justice is an advantage!
an Advantage not selfishness.
Advantage IS
the American dream!
As a proud member of the Master, Mates, & Pilots
I know that is what Labor strives for,
not Wage Slavery You espouce.
Then Sam, I would like you to explain to the readership exactly HOW using your economic model, jobs will return to the United States.
I am not espousing slave wages, and I fully understand the need for well regulated commerce. Remember, regulate means to “make regular,” so as not to give any state, region, or industry an advantage over another. There is your justice. Under a free market people will indeed get rich, but even the poor will gain.
Being a member of the Master, Mates, and Pilots, you have to understand that yours is a very difficult and specialized skill. Not many have your abilities, which should dictate a much higher wage than an able bodied seaman. Even without the assistance of a bargaining group, you could dictate a very good living. That is your advantage. You have a much needed skill. Your success should create an aspiration in others to reach your level of expertise, but does it? Probably not, as the able seaman also makes a very good wage without your skill and experience.
My economic thoughts are no more silly than are yours. You have proven the point that I made about basic economics. Scarcity creates great demand. What is plentiful should not, but under the “system” used today, even a worker with no skills can, and does make a wage that dampens his willingness to work harder.
Unfortunately Mike,
The harder a Man Works, the less
he gets paid.
why?
because people don’t Value labor, nor understand
Hard work, and what it cost.
The Hardest Workers actually Contribute ,
Wear and Tear of their Clothes, Transportation.
Without just Compensation.
Because to people like You Labor
is a Commodity, not an Individual.
We compensate Education over Labor, in
this Paper chase World.
but the guy who unloads those 180 pound sacks
of Coffee Work harder in an Hour, than a Merchant
does in a week.
where You get it wrong Mike, Is You think,
the Dollar is and should be a fixed stagnate Value.
it is not it is a relative value, and is 100 Units of 1.
Inflation is NOT and Illness, but a sign of a growing
economy, If You try to control Inflation, You need to be
Darn sure why and just How You do it.
Most inflationary pressures are Natural, and an
economy must grow to Compensate inflationary pressures.
Population growth means Your economy must grow to
distribute wealth among Your population fairly and equitably.
What the Markets have done since Reagan’s Voodo Economics
is bias the Economy to only help Wall street, not Main street.
thus depriving Main street of their fair share.
The Big Hogs at the Trough ate it all.
now You want to return to those ways, and have convinced
the Middle Class You are their savior, leading them off the cliff.
Labor IS a commodity. We exchange our labor for the money and benefits we receive. Labor is, by and large the only commodity that people can use to obtain wealth. Inflation, or the devaluation of the dollar IS an illness, as it in a direct way, devalues the commodity called labor and increases the prices of the items that the results of that labor can purchase. You believe that government has a responsibility to redistribute wealth. Where does government GET that wealth? Only one place, the confiscation of OUR wealth. Governments NEVER produce anything, but require that those who DO produce contribute heavily to the “greater good” that you so love. Inflation and the devaluation of the dollar reduce the ability of both the producer and the government to do their jobs. Government though, has the power to TAKE what it wants in order to promote its policies. The producer cannot do that. It must rely on the buyer’s ability to purchase, and higher taxes and inflation prevent that. Why SHOULDN’T people, through their labors be allowed to gather wealth? Your class warfare economy as is currently being used, is destroying what wealth there is in this country, making us all equally poor, and a nation in poverty cannot support the government that you want. End of Story. I am right and YOU are wrong.
the ECONOMY REDISTRIBUTES WEALTH!
in every purchase You make, so you DON”T believe in a free Market after all.
an economy Inflates and deflates Naturaly contol that,
and You no longer have a “Free Market”
When you gain 10,000 New people your Economy must
inflate to redistribute wealth to those 10,000
lose 10,000 it must deflate again to
compensate Economic forces
Prices must rise and fall on natural pressures
REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IS WHAT AN ECONOMY DOES!
Just as the Dollar is not a fixed value,
value of Anything in a free market is not fixed.
You fear DEFLATION more than Inflation,
just as property values are not fixed ONLY to rise
NO VALUE IS FIXED ONLY TO RISE.
You believe in Manipulation of the Markets while
screaming forth “Let the Market be free”
It was the Greenspan inflation fighting that
brought forth the Downfall of those same Markets,
by trying to bias the economy for wall street against
Main street……Voodo Economics.
p.s. shhhh don’t tell anyone all Values are so
overvalued in the bias of the sellers that only
screws the buyers.
Merchants purchase a product for a quarter, and sell it
for a Buck, fifteen.
that my friend is Fraud.
the only free Market belongs to the thieves and hogs.
Next time you buy a Cup of coffee, understand a restraunteer
gets 128 cups of coffee out of a pound of Coffee
that is a 8 ounce Cup not the usual 6 ounce cup
they serve you
and restraunts have the lowest profit margin of
most buisnesses
Mike, the world You seek, for most is the
Conditions your Great grandparents suffered through.
They demanded the Advantages, you so loudly Protest.
You were the product of those advantages as most of the
“Baby Boomers” Yet you who’s customers now
Pay for Your underwear, socks, your childrens Braces,
Your Utility Bills, See not what you have, nor were given,
and see only what you have not.
Jesus talked about Leaders Who entered not into the
kingdom, and kept others from entering.
What would be worse is Entering the kingdom, then
prevented others from doing so.
crys of socialism, nazism, facisizm, are historically
inaccurate, for most of the programs you protest were
started here first.
the social safety nets were first implemented here, because
the “PEOPLE” demanded them, as Your Grandparents, and parents
did so
Change that, and you change the world.
The reason Greenspan biased the Market towards Wall Street,
instead of Main Street was because , that was the World he lived in.
not the World most of us work in.
In our past when Wall Street had so much importance to
our Survival, the People were screwed by it.
So laws were enacted to protect Main Street,
then the Supply Siders took over again
to
cheat Main street.
We were blessed by those who looked out for the Working people,
and enacted those laws.
to prevent the Playground of the Rich from becoming a casino again.
Foolishly it seems like those whom were hurt the most want to return power
to those hurt them the Most, spurred on by false stereotypes, misinformation,
and outright lies.
It would be my hope, that the american Voters are not that stupid, or
easily led over the Cliff, by the Flim flam shouters.
rebuilding a devestated economy takes time, and
vision the G.O.P.
has always lacked.
Mike, In mathematics, IF You fix some prices
ONLY to Rise,(like Stock, & property Value)
You must Fix all other Prices only to LOWER.
That what Reagan Nixon,& the bush’s did to our Economy.
and Only Clinton , and Obama has tried to use
Sound Economic Practices!
Mike it’s just math.