Why is the "Fiscal Cliff" So Difficult?

Politicians and the media have gotten together to make us believe that we are about to fall off a financial mountain if the President and Congress can not come together on some terribly difficult decisions to save our economy from  certain ruin.

We are reminded that by year’s end, the Bush tax cuts put in as a temporary measure to lower rates to historic lows for a few years to grow the economy, will expire.  The plan didn’t work and led to high unemployment and enormous deficits and debt.

We are asked to believe that if we return tax rates to 2001 levels, mainly affecting the financial top 2% of families, our economy might collapse.  Letting these temporary cuts expire would raise about $230 billion in annual revenue.

We are also being made aware that the temporary one year cuts in FICA deductions  of 2% for up to $110,000 in earned income will also reach their end.

We are then asked to believe that if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire and we raise an additional $230 billion in revenue, sequestration would automatically kick in reducing defense and discretionary spending cuts by $110 billion.  This would be true only if the additional revenues had not been found.  But by letting the Bush tax cuts, they would have been found. So sequestration would not occur if the Bush tax cuts expired.

But what if the sequestration did occur?  Half the cuts would come from defense.  So almost $55 billion out of more than $1 trillion in annual defense spending would be cut and that by reducing the annual increase.  This “cut” or reduction in future spending would be a 5% reduction of the current spending level and would mean that future increases would be smaller.  Can defense afford to lose 5% of its budget?  I think so.

The other $55 would come out of discretionary spending.  This part of our budget costs about $750 billion a year.  Cutting its growth by $55 billion would mean a 7.5% reduction that should come from eliminating waste and fraud and perhaps eliminating, reducing or combining programs and functions to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.  Would that be so bad?

So what is the real fear?  As FDR said, it is of the fear itself.  If the mainstream media can continue to misinform the public of the possible effects of these budgetary changes, then the population will become frightened and change their behavior, especially their economic behavior.  They might shop less and cause employers to lay off workers who in turn will have less to spend and cause the economy to once again decline.

But if it were possible to analyze the entire situation with all the available information, the public might decide that this is not such a calamity and might actually be a good thing.

As I have said before, I believe that the ultimate solution to the revenue side of our nation’s budget equation, is to scrap the federal income tax code with all its deductions, credits and special circumstances all intended to motivate economic behavior.  It should be replaced by a simple standard deduction for individuals and couples and a few tax brackets counting all sources of income at their face value. The $200 plus billion additional revenue from this new system would reduce the deficit while also making funding available to address specific economic needs like housing, health care, education, nutrition and environmental protection when and where needed. 

I also believe that we would be best served economically and well as militarily if we dramatically reduced our global military footprint.  The money we spend on defense could be in this country so that the money is recirculated in our economy instead being lost in another.

And there is so much waste in government.  Surely tens of billions of wasteful, unnecessary spending could be eliminated.

But what should we do now that negotiations have broken down? Contrary to media and politicians’ accounts, we don’t have to settle this by the end of the year.

The spending cuts can and will be delayed and families will see approximately $5 to $8 a day less in net income.  The extension of unemployment benefits will expire affecting two million former workers who have already gotten a year of benefits.

I predict that what will happen is all Bush tax cuts will end and then the Congress will vote to cut taxes for the middle class minus some of the credits.  Long term unemployment will be extended for a period and the payroll tax cut of 2% will finally end meaning the average worker will pay about $2 a day more for their future Social Security and Medicare benefits which in their first year will equal more than all the payments the worker has ever made.

And the economy will rebound.

Then, in two years when the Republicans lose their majority in the House, the Congress can vote to close all the personal and corporate loopholes and develop a truly fair and simple federal income tax code.

The fiscal cliff is all hype as is the Republican party.

What's the Republican Party To Do Now?

The November elections are now finally over.  The Democrats won.  They won because they represent a larger share of this country and are for the issues the majority agrees with.  The Republicans have been on the wrong side of most important issues in recent years.

The Republican, long known as the party of big business but also of representing all those Americans who root for the top dog rather than the underdog, has become the white, Christian  older man’s party and there are fewer of these folk nowadays.

The Republican party has been against allowing abortion for any reason, against birth control to avoid abortions, against gay sex and unions, against labor unions and not in favor of giving amnesty to people here illegally.  They say they want to reduce deficits by cutting programs but they focus on Social Security and Medicare, two programs that have had nothing to do with our current budget deficit.  They want to end the Affordable Care Act which would give 30 million Americans health care that they had not been able to afford while actually reducing federal expenditures. And even though defense accounts for one trillion in costs each year increasing more than any part of our budget, the Republicans do not want it reduced, many want it increased. They do not want to end the temporary budget cuts put in by their party as a way of reducing annual deficits even though they didn’t work and raised our deficit.

The problem for the Republicans is that most Americans are not white, Christian men.  Most Americans are not rooting for the top dog to pull even further ahead of the pack, but are feeling sympathy for the growing number of American underdogs - the minorities, the disabled, the low wage workers, the unemployed, the poor and the people in need of medical attention that they can not afford.  Most Americans are in favor of the Affordable Care Act as they learn more about its many benefits.  The Republicans in the House have tried 33 times to eliminate it and have spent $50 million in the process.

While most Americans believe that  families in the top 2% should pay the rates they were paying before 2001, Republicans have resisted efforts with an almost self righteous certitude.

So now that it appears clear that the people are no longer on their side, what can the Republican party do in order to be viable in the future?

First they have to give up on making abortion illegal or making birth control more difficult to obtain.  While no one thinks that abortion is good, no one considers having one a life’s goal, some people are forced to rely on it for relief.  If the child will have a major birth defect or if the mother could be disabled or could actually die from childbirth or in the cases of rape and incest, it becomes necessary to have an abortion.  Whatever can be done to reduce the number or need for abortions should be done through education and counseling to teach our young to wait to have children until married; to teach our older adults to not have children past certain ages thus reducing the chances of birth defects and medical problems for the mother; and to find ways to reduce the incidence of rape and incest. Republicans could support all such initiatives.

They have to give up their fight against gay rights.  Homosexuality is not a sin and is a natural part of the human experience.  People do not choose to be gay and still have a right to enjoy a loving, romantic relationship.  Jesus stood up for a prostitute and would surely have come to the defense of a gay person who was mistreated by others.  Republicans could push for more discretion for all romantic Americans.  Sex should be a very private matter. And so should religion. 

They must stop being the anti-union party and become one that wants to make better contracts with unions, perhaps convincing management and labor that there always is a happy middle ground that should be found for everyone’s best interest. The influence of unions has decreased in recent years and their demands have been fairly reasonable.  Changes in the relationship can be made by mutual agreement for everyone’s sake.

Republicans must also realize that tax increases for the rich and decreases in military spending are necessary and would only strengthen our country.  It does not serve our country to have the rich get only richer while the rest stay the same or lose their financial footing.  We need a healthy middle class to fill needed positions and to consume the goods and services the wealthy are offering.

We spend more on defense than the next five largest economies combined do.  We have forces and bases all over the world keeping no one safe and sending more of our dollars overseas where they no longer can circulate in our own economy.  We no longer need to be the first responder to any of the world’s emergency calls for help. The countries we rescue end up either resenting us or becoming dependent upon our continued largesse.

So what can the Republican stand for in the future?

They could start a campaign to end waste and fraud in government programs including our foreign and military aid.  They could urge all agencies to submit zero based budgets that justify each program and its staffing as though for the first time.  Once their budget is established, each government department should be on an MBO system to identify program goals, objectives and measures to ensure that it is clear what is expected and what has been accomplished.  Agencies that can be should be eliminated, reduced or combined with other agencies to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.

They could develop inducements to get American businesses to bring their manufacturing back to America.  Apple, H&P, Ralph Lauren, AOL. United Airlines, General Electric and all the other large corporations could do better making their products that go to American families, here in America creating jobs and customers at the same time.

They could push for a new, simple and fair federal income tax code.  They could lower marginal tax rates by eliminating all itemized deductions for individuals and families while providing higher standard deductions.  The self employed and business deductions would be limited to actual costs with no special allowances or loopholes.  They would broaden the tax base so that we don’t have 47% of the families paying no taxes and by eliminating itemized deductions they would ensure that the high earners pay an appropriate amount of tax.  They could insist that all sources of income be counted at their full face value meaning that Social Security benefits, dividends, interest, unemployment insurance payments, capital gains and earned income can be combined and the total then can be taxed at the appropriate marginal tax rates.

They could agree to reducing our troop strength and closing many of our foreign bases, but insist that we increase significantly our special forces and our drone technology. They could push for ending programs like the Blue Angels.

They could push for immigration reform recommending temporary permits for those here without documentation as long as they avoid criminal activity, but no path to citizenship.  They could try to change our immigration criteria to be for skilled emigres rather than relatives of current citizens and legal residents.  They could try for a guest worker program to allow migrant farm workers to come and go freely.

They could recommend reducing government costs by discontinuing the penny and nickel, cancelling Saturday mail delivery and eliminating all government travel reimbursements for training or conferences.

In education, they could push for a reconsideration of school curricula and college entrance requirements to ensure that our students are learning what they need to succeed in higher education and in their adult lives.  It may be that most high school students don’t need calculus or even much algebra or chemistry but could use more classes in the social sciences and in life skills.  They could be encouraging corporate participation in community college funding and training as well as contributing to local K-12 programs to develop a better-educated applicant pool in the future.

And finally, that can and must disassociate themselves from the likes of Fox “news” and disruptive personalities like Rush, Sean, Karl, Dick, and Sarah.   The brand does not need further tarnishing with deceit.  And John McCain must finally swallow his very bitter pill and retire to a life of luxury in his desert oasis.

Then maybe the Republican party can have a future other than that of the Repugnacan party that we have grown so sick of.

Whatever Happened to the American Family Car?

Most of us are either too young or too old to remember what American cars were like in the 1920s and 1930s. Unless we watch classic car auctions, we are unaware that America produced some of the greatest family cars, especially luxury ones.  In the 1920s and 1930s America produced luxury cars like the Duesenberg, Pierce Arrow, Packard, Auburn, Cadillac and Lincoln.  These cars could compete with Europe’s Rolls Royce, Bentley, Mercedes and Jaguar in beauty, power and luxury. 

Many of us are too young or old to remember American family cars of the 1950s and 1960s.  After going through the 1940s with a non-productive period caused by bad design and the war, American cars started a comeback in the early 1950s. 

For me it really began again in 1953 with the Buick Skylark convertible and the Cadillac 62, which also came in a convertible. The following years saw the birth of America’s sports cars - the Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford Thunderbird and then the boom of 1956, one of the best years ever for American cars.  The 1956 Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac were perhaps the best they have ever been. Chrysler had the Imperial and the 300 that began the year before.  Even the Mercury had its best year ever as far as design and popularity. And the Lincoln Continental was every bit as exquisite as the finest foreign make.  Cadillac had its super luxurious Eldorado Brougham which just got better in 1957 and 1958.

During these years, people would go to the dealers in August or September to see the new models.  Each year each model changed slightly, not always for the better.  By 1959 cars had become too big and unattractive.  The huge fins destroyed the graceful lines of 1956.

Around 1962 America decided to make smaller family cars. There was the Chevrolet Corvair, the Pontiac Tempest, the Buick Skylark, Olds Cutlass, the Plymouth Valiant, Dodge Dart, Mercury Comet and Ford Falcon.  They were smaller but well equipped.  They were challenged by foreign cars like the Volkswagen, Volvo and Saab, which were smaller and used less gas in their less powerful engines.  Each year these American small cars grew a little larger.   By the mid 1960s many of them became muscle cars.  The Olds Cutlass evolving into the mighty 442, the Pontiac Tempest grew up to become the Lemans and then the awesome GTO, even the Skylark got a big engine.

For the second half of the 1960s, America fell in love with the big, powerful American family car.  Chrysler Corporation came out with the Plymouth Barracuda and Roadrunner, the Dodge Challenger and an even bigger 300 series.  The two sport cars had grown considerably with the T-Bird becoming a large four passenger car even available in a four door model. The Corvair had been killed by Ralph Nader who claimed that it was unsafe at any speed. The Studebaker and the Packard went the way of the Duesenberg and Pierce Arrow, which disappeared in the 1940s. American Motors, which produced the Rambler and the Metropolitan was also on its last legs. By 1969, American cars were neither attractive nor reliable.

The 1970s saw the American family car fall further from grace.  The foreign invasion not only from Germany and Sweden but also from Japan began threatening our car production.  By 1979, the only American family car that we could be proud of was the Cadillac which produced the 1979 Seville and the end of the Fleetwood line. Americans were turning to Honda, Toyota, Datsun which became Nissan and to VW and Volvo.  These cars were more attractive, more reliable and much more fun to drive.

By the beginning of the 1980s American family car was on life support. It appears that at that point American car executives made some terrible decisions.  First they decided to reduce the amount of chrome on their cars in part because of its country of source, Rhodesia.  American government officials did not want to trade with what was considered a racist state. Also chrome was heavy and expensive and Americans were beginning to show concern for gas economy.  The second mistake that has continued to this date, was to follow the lead of the 1975 Triumph TR7 which billed itself as the shape of the future.  The new shape was almost triangular with the front of the car much lower than the back. The ad for it was the car driving into a triangular shaped garage.  While the TR7 probably was the worst and last Triumph ever made, the new shape seemed to be the way to go reducing drag and increasing fuel efficiency.  The third mistake and one that has also continued into the present was to start building trucks with closed cabs and calling them SUVs.  The idea was that the car companies could produce them cheaply but sell them for a lot figuring that we were dumb enough to fall for it.  They were right.  We were dumb enough to pay big bucks for the Escalade, Navigator, Durango, GMC,  Explorer, Tahoe, Equinox et al even though they were basically pick up trucks.  They were also attractive to some because they did not use the wedge shape so looked more like cars used to look.

For all these reasons, the American car companies stopped producing attractive sedans, coupes, hardtops, fastbacks, convertibles or station wagons.  The American luxury sedan or hardtop was nowhere to be found.  The Japanese and Europeans rushed in to fill the void. 

Honda, Toyota and Nissan came out with their own luxury lines: the Acura, Lexus and Infinity, respectively.  Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Audi and even VW came out with affordable luxury cars.

At this time, the end of 2012, America has no desirable luxury cars, does not produce practical station wagons, makes few if any convertibles,  has few if any good hatchbacks and can not compete in the small car arena.  America now produces mainly pick up trucks, SUVs and large family cars that few Americans want.

Have you seen the Cadillac or the Lincoln models lately?  What are they?  They are not luxurious or attractive.  Who would buy them other than drug dealers, pimps and second string professional athletes? This was Tony Soprano's choice and he could have had any car.

What can the American car industry do?

First, we must admit that we have only six actual car lines.  The Dodge line should be a truck line for Chrysler corporation as is GMC for General Motors. Then each line should come up with as many as three size models: one that is about 165 inches - plus or minus a few - and includes a hatchback; another that is 175 inches - plus or minus a few - and includes a station wagon and a convertible and a third that is about 185 inches in length.

General Motors should bring their 1956 Chevrolet and Cadillac to their designers and say make a modern version of these and use chrome and never mind the wedge look.  For the small model, they could also be shown a 2006 VW Golf hatchback for inspiration.  The G.M. car models should have names and not numbers.  There could be the Chevrolet Corsa, Bel Air and Impala.  The Cadillac would have the Fleetwood, the Seville and maybe the Eldorado.  Attention should be paid to the proportion of window size to body and that of tire size to body.  This was not a problem in the 1950s, but is one now as in the new Camaro with windows too small for the body.

At Chrysler while developing a new larger Fiat for their small model, they could produce a medium sized car also with a station wagon and convertible and a large, luxurious Imperial like those of the 1950‘s and early 1960s.

Ford should produce three models of the Ford and two of the luxury Lincoln with a midsize model and a most luxurious Continental to top its line.  Lincoln designers can be shown the 1956 Continental and one produced in 1964 that also came as a four-door convertible with suicide doors for direction. Lincoln has been such a mistreated neglected line, almost as bad as was Mercury.  The new model is doomed to failure.  I would tell Lincoln designers what I did GM, forget the wedge look.  Porsche did not go wedge.  Neither did Rolls or Bentley. Triumph no longer exists because it introduced the wedge.  Don't go the way of the Triumph that true to its name, produced great cars like the TR2, TR3, TR4a with irs even the TR250 only to end because the dread wedge.  Forget the wedge!!!

There is no reason why America can not produce beautiful, economical, well sized,  high quality, desirable American cars that Americans and foreigners will want to buy.  We’ve done it before, we can do it again.

Why He Lost

Presidential political pundits predictions of a razor thin election for president proved terribly wrong.  Speculation of what might happen if there were a tie was idle at best.  The election ended up with the President getting more than 62% of the electoral votes winning all but one  of the “battleground” states.  Perhaps compared with re-election wins by LBJ or Ronald Reagan, it seemed razor thin.

Now there are questions as to why the President’s opponent did so poorly.  The losing candidate blamed the President’s largesse, giving gifts to certain voting groups like men, women and children. The losing party’s propaganda channel blamed the loss on the fact that America has suddenly changed demographically making it a different country from the one we knew and loved just four years ago.  Another group blamed Hurricane Sandy for the challenger’s bitter defeat.

So why did the Republican candidate for President lose his bid amid such difficult economic times?

I think that I know why.

Early on it was clear that anyone wanting the Republican nomination would have to please the extreme right wing of the party.  Members of that wing are against abortion for any reason, gay rights, the Affordable Care Act (also known as Romneycare), higher income taxes, government oversight of private industries and illegal immigration.  The successful nominee would also have to appeal to Independents, who tend to be much more moderate in their views.  Many Independents favor gay rights, abortion, higher income taxes for the rich and corporations, and they want some solution to the illegal immigration problem that does not involve mass deportation.

The person finally selected to represent the Republican party after a brutal primary process against an almost laughable array of competitors, tried to walk the fine line to satisfy both the extreme members and Independents who tended to be much less radical.

The only issue the Republicans had against the incumbent was that he had not fixed the economy that was almost fatally crippled by the previous administration.  The challenge was to present an alternative to the President’s “failed” economic policies.  The challenge turned out to be too overwhelming.

One possible way of improving the economy would be through taxes while another would be by reducing the cost of government by cutting programs that add to our deficit and therefore retard our economy’s recovery. 

The Republican candidate’s solution was to lower taxes on the rich, totally eliminating the capital gains tax meaning that he himself would pay no taxes.  He also wanted to increase military spending to a higher percent of the GDP regardless of need.  These two ideas would have added $7 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, exactly the opposite of the stated goal.  The theory was that this would create jobs because the rich would not send all their money to Swiss banks and offshore island accounts.  The top two percent of income families have been named “the job creators” disregarding the fact that the other 98% create jobs by consuming products and services.  You can’t get rich without customers.

The challenger then promised to make up for the cuts by closing tax loopholes and deductions.  When accused of shifting the tax burden to the middle class, he promised not to raise their taxes and that the rich would continue to pay the same share as they do now and that his tax reform would be revenue neutral.  So he ended up saying that he would cut taxes but not to the rich or middle class and the changes would have no effect on the deficit.

(All along he refused to show his tax returns going back at least 10 years for fear that they would be used against him.  The two recent years he did reveal showed that he paid less than 14% of his annual income in taxes.  He had been betting against America by investing his vast wealth in Swiss bank accounts and offshore tax shelters.  He was the poster boy for tax inequity provided by tax loopholes large enough to fly a tax deductible Lear jet through.)

That left cutting the cost of government.  With one half of the general fund budget going to defense (keeping Social Security and medicare costs and revenues should separate from the general fund budget, as they should be) and only $750 billion in other government costs to work with, cutting defense spending would be on top of the list.  But, remember, he wanted to actually increase this spending.   If he had cut out the rest of the government, he would save just enough to pay for his original tax plan, leaving us with a continued $1 trillion annual deficit.   

The candidate promised to cut government programs but would not say which because he feared that if he did, the voters would reject him.  The exception was Public Broadcasting and therefore, Sesame Street.  That cut would save a few hundred million in a $2 trillion general fund budget.

He chose a running mate who has made a career out of attempting to rob from the poor to give to the rich.  His plan for Social Security was to privatize it just as people like him and his running mate already do.  Neither will be eligible for Social Security payments but neither needs them.

His running mate’s solution to future Medicare financing issues was to abandon Medicare and replace it with a voucher system which would help seniors and the disabled afford a part of their private health insurance payment.  He would save Medicare by destroying it.

When the Republican team realized that talking about the economy was not sufficient, they decided to show their challenger’s foreign policy credentials by taking a trip abroad.  He was to visit London before and during the Olympics, then push on to Poland and Israel.  In London he offended the British by saying that he feared that their security provisions might be insufficient to ensure the safety of athletes and spectators.  They almost booed him out of the country.

He went to Israel where he offended Arabs and their sympathizers by crediting Israel’s great success to its cultural superiority to the former residents, the Palestinians.

In Poland while visiting the tomb of their unknown soldier, his press secretary shouted four letter expletives at a reporter for asking the candidate a difficult question because, he said, “this G-- d---- f------ place is sacred for C----’s sake!!!”

The trip proved that the candidate had no foreign policy credentials.  In a vote of people in Europe and Asia, the Republican ticket did not even reach double digits in their percentage of vote.

Then there were the gaffs, slips of the tongue that threatened to reveal the real him. 

He told a crowd that corporations were people.  He told Michigan residents that one of their best features was that their trees were all the right height.  He bet an opponent $10,000 that he was wrong.  He told a story in one town how funny it was that his father presided over the their annual parade and then closed its American Motors plant and laid off all the workers.  He also told a crowd that he loved firing people which didn’t sit well with those who had lost their jobs.  He told another gathering that he too was unemployed with the only difference being that he still made $21 million a year more than most in the audience could earn working for several lifetimes.

But these gaffs were dwarfed by his biggest one. He told a small group at a fundraiser that 47% of the American people pay no income tax and were hopeless.  He could never change them and they would never stop seeing themselves as victims, unable to take of themselves and in constant need of government’s help.  He later said that he was wrong. He never made clear what he felt he was wrong about.  It seems that he felt that he was wrong for saying what he really believed, a rare occurrence for him.

While campaigning in Ohio and Michigan he attempted to rewrite recent history.  After having strongly advocated against bailing out G.M. and Chrysler in early 2009 and advising that they go into bankruptcy even though credit markets were frozen solid and more than one million jobs would be lost at the height of our recession, he tried to say that he saved those companies.  Then he tried to say that there was a secret deal to ship Jeep manufacturing abroad and eliminating jobs in Ohio.  The story was a total lie but did upset the affected workers who were reassured by company executives that the outsourcing story was totally false.

Ironically, when this candidate was in private equity for 25 years, he was an advocate of outsourcing as a means of increasing corporate profit.

To counter charges by seniors that his running mate’s budget plan would eliminate Medicare, the presidential contender tried to claim that it was the President who was cutting Medicare by eliminating $700 million in unnecessary hospital and insurance company fees.  It was revealed that this cut did not affect recipients and was also in his running mate’s rejected budget proposal, one that the presidential contender supported.

The Republican team then tried to convince voters that the President was undoing the job requirement for welfare recipients because he had allowed two states some leeway as long as the result was getting more recipients back to work.  The requests had been made by two conservative Republican governors.

Should we still wonder why the Republican ticket was soundly defeated in November?  Shouldn’t we be wondering how the Republican ticket even got 38% of the electoral votes.  The answer to that is certain states in the Midwest and South will almost always vote for the Republican ticket, no matter how bad it is. At least they are consistent.

But can’t we say that the Republican team ran a good campaign and that both men on that ticket were decent, honorable men?

No. 

Coming Home

Those who watch the evening news see reports of terrible violence in some part of the Muslim world - from the west coast of Africa north to Tunisia and east to Pakistan what seems like every night on the news.  The violence is directed at members of rival sects and tribes; it is against women and it is against the United States and Israel. There are huge angry mobs - yelling, screaming obscenities, burning flags, shaking fists and making horrible faces in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, the Palestine, Yemen, etc.  While we are constantly reminded that this is just an extremist minority not reflective of the population, we see so much of it.

Many of these angry mobs are in countries to whom the U.S. provides essential aid.  We give billions a year to the Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya.  When the Libyans were revolting against their longtime dictator, they begged for and received American military and humanitarian aid.  The Egyptians also requested and received our support against their longtime dictator.  Now the Syrians plead and insist that we come to their aid.

We have been in Afghanistan with bases throughout the country for more than a decade, longer than any other American conflict.  We entered to rid the country of Al Qaeda and to drive the Taliban from power.  We did that early on, Al Qaeda was defeated and their Taliban hosts surrendered.  Instead of imprisoning or executing these terrorists, we let them go with their weapons, to fight another day.  We then began nation building and training what we have always been told were brave, patriotic warriors willing to fight to their death for the good of their people. We have been nation building and training for many years but can not locate these brave warriors.  And while the people want us out they don’t want to run their own country without us.

In addition to the Middle East and Africa, we have hundreds of military bases all over the world.  We are in South Korea with 25,000 troops to hold the line against North Korea’s one million man force.  We have bases in England, France, Italy and Germany.  We have bases in Japan and Latin America.

The total requested for 2012-13 for defense was not just the $708 billion going to the Department of Defense budget, but also included the following purely defense- related costs: the V.A. - $70 billion, Veteran’s pensions - $55 billion, Homeland security - $47 billion,  Department of Energy - $22 billion, State Department - $6 billion, FBI - $3 billion, Miscellaneous related costs - $8 billion and interest of military loans that paid for Iraq and Afghanistan - at least $109 billion.  The total U.S. defense cost is at minimum $1.03 trillion. 

The entire general fund budget for the U.S. (without Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security costs of $1.5 trillion which are still totally paid for with FICA trust funds and should not be in the general fund budget) is, therefore, not $3.5 trillion but about $2 trillion.  Of that our defense costs are more than 50% of the actual general fund budget.  (Interestingly, the cost of military purchases and research was $215 billion in 2011while military personnel costs were only $154 billion.)

We are providing military and economic assistance to countries all over the world, spending tens of billions of dollars a year that could be spent right here in our country.  We have more than 700 foreign bases and give more than $50 billion in foreign aid.  What do they accomplish?  Do the recipients of our aid and protection appreciate us or do they feel that we are controlling them and their culture? Do they become independent of our largesse as quickly as possible or do they expect it to continue indefinitely? 

Meanwhile, back here in the States, we need to reduce our annual budget shortfall while we need to improve our physical and intellectual infrastructure.  We need better roads and bridges to facilitate both commerce and recreation.  We need a much better education system to give all of our children a complete, well rounded education.  We need to bring our own people out of poverty and into productive rewarding lives by providing them with opportunity and motivation.

All this costs money.  Money we could save by bringing our troops and aid payments home to rebuild our own country.

But what will the world do if we withdraw our military and reduce our foreign aid?  I am confident that they will find that they can manage quite well and feel much better for it.  The Muslim world has been insisting that we leave their soil.  We have left Saudi Arabia and Iraq, let us quickly leave Afghanistan and the region.  Let us leave Asia and Europe and come home.

If there is a struggle in the Middle East (unless it involves Israel), there is the Arab League to turn to.  In Africa, they too have an organization of their many states to accomplish mutual goals.  If there is a civil war somewhere else in the world, let the U.N. deal with it.  Now that Europe is somewhat unified, why not let them have their own defense league?  If our allies still feel a need for some of our bases, let them pay the entire cost.

And let American dollars circulate in America.  Let us be a country that is no longer dependent on oil from the Middle East and is much less dependent on foreign made goods and services, exporting much more than we import. We can be a nation that leads by example and not by money and military power.

Bringing our money and people home would help produce a better educated, less stratified, and more creative and productive people who experience less violence and more harmony.  We can do it.

If we just come home.   

Are We As Dumb As They Think We Are?

We are now at the tail end of a terrible political season.  The Republican party leaders want to win back the Senate and the White House in November. They had several potential presidential candidates running against the Republican who was already promised the chance.  The want-to-be’s couldn’t be.

The only woman running started off by saying that she raised 23 foster children.  It turned out that she got paid to take care of each of them for a week or two, not quite the same as raising them.  During a debate, she could not remember whether she had five kids or three - she went with three.  Then she went public about meeting a random woman who attributed her son’s mental retardation to a vaccination that he had received.  The candidate’s statement made us wonder whether she herself had been given the same medication.  She actually won in Iowa and wanted us to consider her a serious person and candidate.  How dumb did she think we were?

This failed candidate was followed by one who thought that the chair of the FED was a traitor for trying to help the economy, the job for which he was appointed.  This challenger was desperate to close three federal agencies but could only remember two of them.  How could he imagine that we were as dumb as he was?

The next one wanted to build an American community on the Moon.  We could have called them Lunatics but ended up calling him one.

The next one wanted an end to prenatal testing, birth control and abortion for any reason and he was against sex between married couples who do not plan to have more children.  At some point his wife must have realized that this applied to them. The candidate thought that we were dumb enough to go along with this scenario maybe because his wife was.

Then there was the one who could not keep up with current events or past affairs.  He wasn’t sure what was going on in Libya but was sure that the President was doing the wrong thing there. He also claimed that he could not recall some of his most expensive affairs. He hoped that we were as dumb as he was.

At the end with none of the other contenders appearing reasonable enough to fool the American voter, the candidate who was originally promised the run got the nod.

He attacked the President on the economy promising to fix our economic problems because he had 25 years experience at a private equity company.  Instead of letting us see all his good work, he kept the dealings secret fearing we wouldn’t understand and hoping that we were too dumb to ask questions.  When we did ask, he made sure that none of his work would be made public.  He thought that we would just assume that he did good work because he made a lot of money doing it.

He announced that he wanted to change the tax code to not only keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in place but to actually reduce their taxes further.  When asked how his projected $5 trillion tax cut for the rich over a ten year period would help the economy, he gave a Reagan answer that the money will trickle down from the “job creators” to the middle class.  He assumed that we would forget that the economy was booming when taxes on the rich were higher - like in the 50s, 60s and 70s and the 90s up until the tax breaks started in 2001.  After those breaks were put in place the economy tanked.  The stock market had lost half its value, we lost eight million jobs and the unemployment rate doubled.  The Bush tax cuts combined with our entrance into two unnecessary wars doubled our national debt.

The Republican nominee has now said that he will fix the economy by cutting tax rates for the rich but that it would not mean that the middle class would have to pay more taxes.  He went on to promise that it would be revenue neutral neither adding to nor subtracting from our economy and also said it would not reduce the amount of taxes the rich pay.  So in essence his tax plan would have no effect on anyone or anything.  Did he think we wouldn’t notice? Could we be that dumb?

And yet with such a terrible candidate running against such an excellent and popular President, you would think that it would be no contest. Surely the vast majority of the population would be smart enough to realize that the contender has no clothes, but now, weeks before the election, we are asked to believe that the race is close.  The President was well ahead before the debate after his opponent was heard telling a small private audience that he believed that 47% of Americans not only pay no income tax but also consider themselves victims and cannot ever be made responsible.  (He has since said that he was wrong - clearly an honest mistake.) Now, after the President seemed too polite in the debate, the public opinion allegedly has swung in favor of the opponent.  The people who changed their minds did so because they thought that the contender seemed more confident even as he consistently misrepresented his position and denied the President’s accomplishments.  It was form over content.  How dumb could voters be to change our mind based on a 90 minute appearance?

I think that the answer is in and it is not pretty. 

Many of us really are that dumb. 

But how did this happen?  Who’s to blame?  It could be our education system that fails to teach most students how to think.  It could be our parents who didn’t show us role models of intelligent adults making considered decisions.  It could be our media which have failed to ask the hard questions leaving many of us unaccustomed to thinking critically.  It could be our culture that distracts us with more information than we can juggle. 

Whatever the cause, the condition is clear. The solution will have to be a concerted effort to improve ourselves as a people.  It begins by admitting that we have a problem.  Many of us are dumb and the condition is both contagious and dangerous.

Let us be smart enough to realize it and persistent enough to improve it.

Solving the "Unsolvable"

We are being given to understand that our country is facing some problems that can not be solved, at least easily.  We have a housing foreclosure crisis with millions of homes affected.  We have a deficit of one trillion dollars a year with a cumulative total approaching $16 trillion.  We face bankruptcy in Social Security and Medicare within the next 30 years.  We have an unemployment rate of close to 8%, almost twice normal.  We have had troops in Afghanistan for more than a decade and can’t leave until the people are able to run their own country. We have a tax code that everyone agrees is too complex and unfair with half of the taxpayers paying nothing at all in federal or state income tax and the rich paying at very low rates.  Our government is too large trying to do too much for too many.  We have at least 12 million families of illegal immigrants needing jobs and government services.  We have one party whose members are at war with members of the other doing what they can to see the President fail.  We have elections that are being bought by unidentified influence peddlers.

What can be done?

We can dramatically reduce foreclosures by getting lending banks to allow families facing foreclosure to pay only the current interest rate (around 3.5%) on their current balance until ready to assume full payments again or sell their home without a great loss.

Our deficit can be significantly reduced by doing the following:

We could close many of our foreign military bases and aid.  The money, tens of billions of dollars,  we spend there stays there instead of circulating here.  We are also less likely to go to war and not as prone to offending our hosts, if our foreign military footprint were reduced significantly.We can begin to immediately withdraw from Afghanistan and curtail our foreign aid to them.  We could review all of the $51 billion we spend on foreign aid  giving only where it will be put to best use and for only a short term.

We could reduce fraud and waste in government agencies.  We could review each federal program to see if any can be eliminated, reduced or combined with similar ones, especially in national defense and regulatory agencies.  We should revise the tax code to generate at least $200 billion more a year with the top 2% paying for half the increase.  We could stop producing the penny and nickel both cost more to produce than they are worth.  We could end our unsuccessful war on drugs, especially marijuana which is less harmful and more beneficial than are alcohol, tobacco or even coffee, all of which are legal. This would save billions a year.

There is much we can do to save Social Security and Medicare.  First, we can raise the FICA payment from 7.65% of the first $110,000 of earned income paid by the employer and the employee, to 8% or as much as 10% from both for earnings up to $250,000.  This would add significantly to the trust funds for both and help make current payments.  The retirement age could also be raised slightly over time - we are living longer and healthier.  Medicare costs could be reduced by focusing on the small percent of people using the majority of medical services.  It is claimed that 5% use 50% of services while 10% use two thirds of it.  Who are they and how best could they be served?  Are some costing money while being kept alive artificially?  Are patients too old or sick being treated as though they would recover when it is clear that they won’t?  Can the cases of cancer and heart disease be identified and dealt with before they become expensive or life threatening? Can we reduce obesity, smoking, drug and alcohol abuse as well as stress in our culture?

We have an unemployment rate that is twice as high as normal with about 13 million people unemployed.  At the same time we have millions of American jobs performed in other countries like India, China and Pakistan.  We have another eight million American jobs currently held by document-free workers here from other lands.  We are also importing thousands of foreign workers for technical jobs that Americans could be doing.  By making changes in these job drawing scenarios, we could recapture millions of jobs for Americans in need of them. To this end we could eliminate all incentives for outsourcing jobs and pressure companies like Apple, Polo, United Airlines and AOL to do all of their American business in America.  We could insist that all employers run EVerify on all of their employees to ensure that their jobs are taken by eligible workers and ensure that jobs that skilled Americans can do are not going to imported technicians.

We have a tax code that can be simplified, made more fair and produce much more revenue.  We can start by eliminating all itemized deductions for individuals, except for the self-employed.  There would be a standard deduction like $20,000/$40,000 for each head of household individual/couple. There would be no credits for education, dependents, childcare or earned income. Then we could have all sources of income considered equal and combined - Social Security payments, dividends, interest, capital gains, unemployment insurance, earned income, etc.  There would then be a few tax brackets that could range from 10%-35%, less than the current 39.6% rate. The tax code would exist for the sole purpose of collecting taxes and not to encourage or discourage social or economic behavior.  Helping students, the poor and the disabled can be done directly, as it currently is with food stamps, Medicare, Pell Grants, Stafford loans and Social Security.  These programs can be expanded to directly assist participants and recipients.  All income sources would be counted at 100% of actual except for earned income.  In this case the FICA withheld would be deducted from the gross earnings for the net taxable earned income. These changes would raise at least $200 billion a year, half of which would come from the top 2% of income families.   

Finally, we have a political system that has been co-opted by big business interests.   These interests use armies of lobbyists, salesmen, to persuade elected officials to pass laws favorable to them by offering them money for their re-elections.  Politicians become distracted from their original goal and mandate - to represent their people.  Corporations are now considered people with first amendment rights to free speech which includes spending unlimited amounts of money to sway politicians.  The solution to this problem is clear but not easy - end all campaign financing.  Primary and general election campaigns should be much shorter and could be limited to position papers, televised interviews and debates.  We should be able to learn what the candidate has done, what positions have been taken and what the person would do if elected to solve the problems that face the country at the time.  Then an informed electorate could decide for themselves who should represent them.  Elected officials would not owe allegiance to fundraisers and large contributors. There would be no advertising and no lies or false allegations because everything would be publicly fact checked by non-partisan organizations.

These "unsolvable" problems can and must be solved, soon.

Something From/For Nothing

When I was young, my father had one phrase that he kept using with me: “You don’t get nothing for nothing.” He had trouble with English and didn’t know about the problem with double negatives.  What he meant was that you can’t get something from nothing.  Apparently, many Americans never heard that same information.

Today, I see many Americans expecting something for nothing or at least for a discount. Today half of the American families pay no state or federal income tax.  They expect to receive all government services for nothing because it is coming to them. Seniors receiving Social Security and Medicare say they expect it to take care of them forever because they paid into it and deserve it.  The fact of the matter is that most received more benefits in one year than they paid in 30.  They didn’t work hard and even if they did it was to be paid at the time not so that the government will take care of them in their last 30 or 40 years.

The hard working also want something for nothing.  Corporate CEOs and Wall Street brokers expect to receive millions of dollars a year even if they fail, to get multi-million dollar golden parachutes if they are fired for accomplishing too little and then a low tax rate on the money they never really “earned” to begin with.

We also have people who come here illegally wanting all the benefits of American citizenship while still declaring their loyalty to their beloved homeland which they left because they couldn’t stand living there.  We have naturalized citizens who don’t learn English expecting all government services from passports to voters pamphlets to be also in their native language if that language is Chinese or Spanish.

We have fellow Americans who can trace their ancestors’ residence here back to the 1700’s expecting to live on government benefits without working because their distant ancestors worked too hard under terrible conditions.  We have people who contribute nothing to the country expecting to get as much medical treatment as possible for free because they don’t buy insurance and know that American hospitals must take of them regardless.

But now there is a new twist to the something-from-nothing theorists.  It comes from the worlds of theoretical, particle, cosmological and quantum mechanics physics.  Stephen Hawkins, who has the best reason in the world to be an atheist, has theorized that the world could exist without a creator because everything comes from nothing and there was never anything before nothing since nothing has no time or space. ( And yet he also says he does not believe in philosophy). Other notable physicists have come up with varieties of the big bang theory (also the name of the funniest comedy on T.V.) with many supposing that it all started when nothing exploded into something causing a chemical reaction which then created all the planets and every element found on earth today including hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen and even gold and silver. They say our bodies come from exploding stars.  All of it they say was born from nothingness.

One group of quantum mechanic physicists is coming close to what sounds like the right answer.  They believe that the universe is one big quantum mechanical computer system which creates the universe the way a quantum mechanical computer can create different realities.  This begs the question:  where did the universal quantum computer come from?  The answer is not China.  Another school of theoretical physics, a very small one, believes that it is all just in our minds and that we have created the universe.  If that is true, I want to make some big changes in the universe that I have created, starting with better weather, good health and fewer insects.

I believe that physicists should stop trying to justify their atheism and see creation as something close to the quantum computer analogy.  Here is my theory.

I believe that the universe is driven by three basic realities:  the infinite is finite (as above so below); everything has and is consciousness (making the infinite finite and the finite infinite, while every outside has an inside); and that everything that begins must end, also known as entropy.

To the theist this translates to: G-d is infinite and finite and His consciousness creates the universe.  There was nothing before consciousness because nothing can precede it.   Like the Zen koans - “what is the sound of a tree falling in the forest if no one hears it?”  and “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” What both are saying is that without consciousness, nothing can be said to exist.

Physicists are slowing coming to these conclusions.  They already have endorsed the notion of entropy being life’s way of changing energy (consciousness) without ever losing or gaining energy in the universe.  It has also found the existence of fractals which are infinite iterations of form within all objects.  So a leaf, which is finite, has an infinite number of fractals - the infinite is finite, the finite infinite. And now some theoretical physicists have realized that everything is conscious - from sub atomic particles to single cell organisms to the earth, outer space and the entire universe.  They are about to realize that everything is and has consciousness.  The Zen Buddhists call this big mind, small mind - the latter being part of the former.   In Vedanta, G-d is said to be Sat, Chit Ananda or Truth, Consciousness and Joy.

My theory makes all the theoretical physics theories also correct.  The world is in our minds because our minds are part of the universal mind.  Everything did come from nothing in the sense that consciousness in not a thing but the space that contains and creates all things.  The universe is like a quantum computer and is creating everything because this computer is consciousness.  The big bang was the originating cause of our universe because it was what happened when consciousness created the objects of its awareness, like a brain getting great ideas.

So something comes from a nothing that is the source of everything as well as its constant companion.

Why Is Romney Running and Who Should Vote for Him?

The first question we could be asking is why is Romney running to be President of the United States? It’s not the money.  Romney makes more than $20 million a year without lifting a finger. He surely doesn’t need the $400,000 a year salary that goes with the job.  He does not need to live in the White House because he has many fine homes and with his net worth at about a quarter of a billion dollars, he could live anywhere he wants.

He surely has no ideology or plan to help our country. He has suggested no plan for tax reform other than making the rich richer and the poor poorer.  His plans for the military is to increase it to equal a certain percent of the GNP, regardless of our defensive needs.  He has no plans for increasing hiring or for reducing the number of home foreclosures.

He has no national political experience and worked in government for only four years.  When he left the governor’s office he had all evidence of his time there removed from computers and file cabinets.  When he left office, his state was number 47 out of 50 states in job creation.  He introduced health care reform which was the model for the Affordable Care Act, but now is against it even though it has been one of his few successes.

He says that he is the man for the job because he has 25 years of business experience but he doesn’t want us to know what that experience really was.  It appears that his company got into buying struggling companies, borrowing large amounts to pay for them, shrinking their work force and benefits, taking large commissions and then letting them go bankrupt.  This does not create jobs.  Many of the jobs his firm did create were in China and India by outsourcing the work.

He wants to reduce taxes on the rich but won’t share his tax returns with the public. The one year’s return he did reveal showed that he had much of his wealth offshore and in Swiss bank accounts to avoid paying taxes himself while not using his wealth to create jobs in America.

He calls himself severely conservative which means that he is against gay marriage,  abortion and unions. But when he was in government he said that he was in favor of those social issues.

So why is he running?  Why was McCain running when he too had no need of the money having married well the second time.  I think it was for the same reason and might have even been George W.’s reason for running.

They were competing with their fathers. 

George W,’s father was a war hero, a member of Congress, head of the CIA, Vice President and President of the United States.  George W. joined the Air Force reserves to avoid battle and then was AWOL at that.  He was a failed businessman and sports team owner.  He had problems with substance abuse.  He then became a successful governor and ran for President like his father had done.  He had twice as many terms as his dad, but almost destroyed the country in the process.

John McCain's father and grandfather were both four star admirals in the Navy.  John had less than one year of combat experience flying planes in Viet Nam.  He was captured and held as a POW for five terrible years.  He realized soon that his military career would never equal his father’s.  He remarried well, marrying a rich heiress whose father helped John get into Arizona politics. But being rich and a senator was not equal to a four star admiral, but being President, Commander-in-Chief, would trump old dad. The admiral is still ahead on points.

Mitt Romney's father had been head of an American car company and governor of Michigan.  He was a contender for the Republican nomination for President even though he was a Mormon and was born in Mexico, coming to America at age five.  His son Mitt got into and through high school, college and graduate school because of his father and was then given a moneymaking business to run soon after school.  He made a lot of money at Bain capital outsourcing jobs, reducing payrolls and benefits and sometimes, bankrupting the affected companies.  He was governor of Massachusetts for one term.  But still had not equalled his father.  Becoming President would surpass his father.  The essence of Romney is competition and who better to beat than his own father?

I have come to realize, after talking about this to a friend, that the result of these three men trying to compete with their fathers, is that none ended up doing what they would have really wanted to be or for which they were best suited .

That explains why Romney seems so uncomfortable in the political arena.  His father wanted to be President but failed so if Mitt runs he wins.  But Mitt could have been great at something meaningful.  With his looks and little passion, he could have been a matinee idol. He could have been a successful male model.  He could have been the Marlboro man.

The same with the other two.

John McCain got into, attended and graduated from Annapolis, paid for completely by taxpayer dollars, only because of his father and his father's father.  He was the second worst student in his graduating class, perhaps just ahead of Oliver North.  He apparently didn't like it and had no talent for it.  With his charm and good looks, he could have been a business major at some state school and become a successful salesman, actor or male model.  He could have worked in his second wife's liquor business as sales manager.

George Bush also was accepted into, attended and graduated from his father's alma mater because of his father.  He became a pilot, like his father but did it in the reserves and after a while stopped going on required flights.  He went into business like his father and failed terribly.  He went into politics, like his father, and did pretty well, but it was in Texas. He ran for President as his father had and we know what happened.  He hated the job but he did beat his father, he had two terms to Dad's one.  He could have pursued a vocation that he actually enjoyed and had some talent for.  He too was an attractive and charming guy who like McCain was not very bright.  He would also have been great at sales.  He had great people skills.

Unfortunately, all three men wasted their talents and happiness trying to compete instead of being who they really were.  This is probably most painfully true about Mitt.


The next question is: who should vote for Mitt Romney?  First, they must be Republican - 24% of the electorate.  Being Republican also means being white and Christian.  A recent study found that 90% of Republicans are white and 90% are Christian.  The other 10% either didn’t understand the question or just don’t understand what their best interests are. Besides being a white Christian Republican ( a redundancy), they should also be rich, at least in the top two percent of family income, receiving more than $250,000 a year because if reelected, President Obama will raise their taxes while Romney might even lower them.  But they have to be aware that lowering taxes on the rich in 2001 and 2003 helped create the economic disaster from which we are currently recovering.  If taxes are lowered even more for the rich, regulations loosened and military spending increased our deficit will grow even more rapidly putting even the rich at risk of losing money, customers and stock value.

Other potential Romney voters might be white Christian Republicans who are not in the top 2% of income recipients but hold very strong cultural values.  Some, like the evangelicals, love their Savior and hate gays, blacks, Jews, Muslims and foreigners in His name.  They feel compelled to vote against the President even if it makes them suffer more economically affected by the service program cuts that have been promised by candidate Romney.  These evangelicals might even believe that Mormons are not Christians, but prefer them to what they perceive as a black, Muslim, socialist, pro-gay, pro-abortion and anti-gun foreigner (Kenyan or Hawaiian) President. 

And of course every Mormon and everyone who contributes to Fox “news” is duty bound to vote for challenger Romney.

I think that that covers all the likely Romney voters.

That means that if you are not white or Christian or very rich, you shouldn’t vote for the challenger unless you care nothing about your own or your country’s best interests. If you are a member of a union, work for the government, need health care coverage, are against the U.S. military build up, are in favor of women’s reproductive rights, approve of gay unions, care about the poor, want to avoid saber rattling that could lead us into war with Iran, Syria, North Korea or Yemen, care about the environment, believe in voter’s rights, want to be able to look forward to receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits in the future and/or think that gun violence has gone too far, should and must vote to reelect the President.  “Should” because it would be in your best interest as well as the nation’s and “must” because every vote counts.

Taming the Human Nature

It has been painful watching the T.V. news.  Disregarding the sensationalized or superficially reported stories, many well researched reports can be very depressing commentaries on the state of human nature.   

But now we hear daily of atrocities humans are subjecting others to.  The primary victims are girls and women who are mistreated by their families, husbands, government officials and brutal savages whose life’s goal is destruction for domination.  Recent articles about mistreatment of women in Muslim countries cite mutilation, humiliation, rape, murder and every possible kind of desecration.  But there is so much more.  There are terrorists blowing themselves up trying to take as many innocent lives with them.  There are business people who cheat their customers, husbands who lie to and cheat on their wives, criminals who violate our laws of decency, the abuse of animals in bullfights, in the jungle, at sea and in overcrowded chicken coops.  We wage wars that kill and maim and write laws that are cruel and inhumane.  Even our religions betray us with shallow theologies and divisiveness leading to intolerance and violence.

Our human nature must be tamed, but how?  Creating cultures and civilizations with laws and philosophies that foster good will have been our way of taming our nature, but even they have failed us leading to greater conflict.  What can we create that can bring out our good qualities and make the disruptive ones seem out of place?  What have we created for this purpose as well as for many others?

There is one that I can think of.  It took thousands of years, at least 15,000 by some counts, but Man has worked hand in hand with nature to produce a remedy to free our better selves.  We created the modern dog.

It turns out that it doesn’t take long to turn a fox, wolf or coyote into a dog.  By mating the most docile member of a litter with another, these species become doglike in three generations.  Remember, for them one generation can be just a few years.  By breeding just for temperament, the offspring change their fur color, their size, shape and their nature.  They become domesticated.

But how does taming their wild nature help humans tame theirs? 

From their beginning we have needed dogs to help us in our daily lives.  When humans were still hunters and gatherers, dogs helped us find our prey and sometimes helped us capture or retrieve them.  They helped us when we started raising our own food by herding our livestock and protecting our lives and property.  Today, dogs are used to find bombs, identify disease, help the blind walk and bring comfort to the elderly and disabled.  But most of all, dogs give us love, unconditional love.

Dogs are not judgmental.  They don’t respond to people based on physical appearance, financial status, political point of view or social status. Their unconditional love resonates deep within us to ignite the unconditional love that is at the heart of our very nature and temporarily suspends our fear, which is also at our core.

Scientists have now found a physiological expression for this apparent canine gift.  They have found that when humans pet their dogs it increases the level of oxytocin in both.  Oxytocin is the same chemical that is produced when a mother nurses her baby and feels a bonding.  The oxytocin is the bonding glue.  Oxytocin levels are also elevated during intimate human interaction leading to its orgasmic conclusion.  Oxytocin in our system makes us open and trusting while the testosterone in us is a counterbalance making us also somewhat leery and aggressive. People with high levels of the former and low ones of the latter tend to be very trusting, easy targets for conmen and charlatans.

But dogs are not intent on tricking us.  They want their basic necessities met - enough food, water and opportunities to eliminate waste products - and beyond them, the only goal is love and joy.

There are now more than 100 million dogs.  There are some 150,000 dogs in San Francisco, more than the number of the city’s children. Dogs come in more varieties than do any other species and range in size more than any other.  A mature dog can weigh anywhere from barely two pounds to over 200.  So in the same species a dog can be 100 times the size of  another.  Can you imagine if some adult humans were 100 times the size of other adults?

Dogs are the rare living creatures that were created by Man.  We started more than 15,000 years ago the process of making dogs to serve our individual needs.  There are hunting dogs that point to the prey and retrieve them when they are killed or who look for animals or people to capture.  There are herding dogs who take care of our livestock be they sheep or cattle.  There are dogs that hunt rodents like gophers, mice and rats.  There even is a dog, the Kings Charles Cavalier spaniel, created to sit on the king’s lap and attract the fleas away from the royal.  There are dogs that offer protection, those who are small enough to be carried everywhere, those who can help the blind find their way and even those who bark the whole time their master is gone.  There are dogs that can find bombs, drugs or even disease.

Some anthropologists believe that Man could not have survived without dogs.

But their gift goes much deeper than function.  Dogs make humans better.  They make us kinder, more compassionate, more considerate, more secure, less lonely, more loved and needed and more open to others dogs and their companions.  Dogs break up many of our artificial cultural barriers.  They make us better people by taming our nature with unconditional love and affection.

But there is one thing wrong with dogs: they get old, suffer and die.  Dogs, like all finite things, have a beginning and an end.  The beginning is the cause for great joy.  The end is cause for unbearable sorrow.  It is the death of the innocent.  The constant reminder of the cruelty of nature’s entropy.

Whom Do You Trust?

                           
When I was going to school on the west side of Manhattan I used to get free tickets to see a new show broadcast just down the block.  The name of the show was “Who Do You Trust?” and was hosted by a young man from the midwest named Johnny Carson.  He later replaced a future Westchester neighbor of mine named Jack Paar on another show called “ The Tonight Show.”

I don’t remember what the quiz show was like anymore but do remember the incorrect grammar of it, “Who” instead of “Whom.”

But now the question arises in my mind on a more frequent basis.  Whom or who do I trust?  Whom should I trust?

We always trusted our priests.  They were holy and only did good.  Now we know that there have been many abuses of young parishioners and realize that though the mass media has never mentioned this, that this has probably been going on for centuries. And what made matters worse was that those on top of the church hierarchy covered up the crimes making more people subject to abuse.  Our evangelical leaders faired no better, not able to resist the sexual relations they preached against. And let us not forget the mullahs who preach hatred and violence to foster their campaign of the subjugation of women, their apparent raison d’etre. Should or can we trust our religious leaders?

What about teachers?  Can we trust them with our children?  Again we hear of cases of abuse of children by teachers, religious and lay (excuse the expression).  It also turns out that some are not competent but are kept on because they have tenure just like the abusive priests.  In some more primitive states, teachers want to teach Genesis instead of evolution to their students who yearn to know how we got here.  When our first black President made a presentation to students, early in his term, some teachers would not let their students watch the black, Muslim, communist, socialist president, as they saw him. Can we trust such people with our kids and with the nation’s education?

What about our bankers and financiers?  Can we trust them?  If you had money in Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo or now Barclay’s, you have probably realized that you cannot trust them to put your welfare above or on a par with their own interests.  They actually admitted it to a congressional committee trying to find out what caused the financial crash of ’08. Companies like Goldman Sachs knowingly bundled bad loans and sold them to their own clients while actually betting against them at the same time.  Why would anyone continue to do business with such companies, companies they can no longer trust?

But surely we can trust our doctors.  They go to school for eight years taking only math and science courses then intern for a year or two, then residence for another few years and then become fellows for a few more.  They are usually well into their 30s before they see us as regular patients.  Surely we can trust them. Now we learn that their are at least 100,000 deaths a year due to hospital error. Every night on the national news we learn that the doctors were wrong about something else and that we should stop doing what they told us to do.  The drugs they offered women to prevent problems with their bones, only work for five years after which they actually cause bones to break.  Aspirin was recommended for everyone to avoid stroke, heart attacks and even cancer, now has been found to present too many other health risks and should be used only by people with known heart problems. Then there are mammograms, MRIs, x-rays all thought mainly beneficial now found to cause to potentially life threatening problems if overdone. And for men using a drug to make their hair grow back so that they are more attractive to the opposite sex we learn that they can lose their willingness or ability to have sex with their newfound intimates. We spend more on medicine than any other developed country and yet have some of the worst results.  Can we trust our physicians?

But what about our free press, blessed by our very first amendment to the Constitution, surely we can trust them to give the information we need, or can we? Not only has our mass media been characterized as sensationalist and shallow or just inaccurate, it can also be biased.  The most glaring example, besides all of Fox “news,” recently was the media’s presentation of a shooting in Florida.  A neighborhood watch volunteer overstepped his responsibility and took on a 17 year-old football player late at night.  The media wanting a conviction deleted part of the 911 tape to make the shooter sound racist and then showed the wrong picture of the volunteer making him look like a large Mexican drug dealer in what appeared to be prison garb.  After finding out that the defendant looked nothing like that now, if he ever did, they continued to show the old picture.  The correct picture showed a slight man who looked more like an intellectual than a drug lord.  They showed a picture of the 17 year-old victim as he looked when he was 12.  Anyone looking at it should have known that this was not what the victim looked like.  He was at least 6 feet tall, tattooed and with an attitude reflected in a current picture of himself giving the finger with both hands, showing he was ambidextrous, a double threat.  It now appears that the victim attacked and beat the volunteer who was afraid for his life and shot the boy at close range to protect himself.  It took months for the media to show us pictures taken at the night of the event showing that the shooter had a broken nose and the back of his head was all bloody.  This is not to say that the shooter is innocent. It is only to say that the media conspired to convict him with inaccurate reporting.

After the long awaited Supreme Court decision that took over three months to write and was released on the last possible day, two stations got the decision wrong because they didn’t read past page one.  The media has become more of the stenographer of canned answers than the source of probing, challenging questions, a la Edward R. Morrow and Mike Wallace.

But we can surely trust the Supreme Court.  These nine justices are the best our society can produce.  They each have long careers practicing the law.  But we now have one who has never asked a question, has rarely written the majority or minority opinion, and has always sided with his partisans.  We have at least two others that are so far to the right that you know exactly how they will rule in each case - if it involves big business, big business wins -corporations are people aren’t they? The Supreme Court decided to hear the 2000 election issue involving Florida’s accuracy problems during the vote count.  The Democrats wanted a recount.  The Republicans wanted the inaccurate results to stand after their candidate’s brother, the state’s governor,  had worked so hard to falsify them. The court ruled along party lines giving America one of the worst presidencies in our history, one that left the country on the verge of bankruptcy and involved in two unnecessary wars costing more than 100,000 lives and trillions of tax dollars.  This same court then went on to allow unlimited campaign financing by super PACS arguing that corporations are people and have first amendment rights to free speech through financial contributions.  The justices felt that if any private campaign financing was destroying our democracy, increasing it would help expedite the deterioration.  Can we trust these esteemed jurors?

But at least we have our elected officials.  The core of our great nation’s democracy is representative government through free and open elections.  American citizens can vote for and elect the person whom they feel best represents their interests. We have 535 congress people representing our best interests.  Or are they?  Currently only nine percent of our people trust the Congress.  You can only wonder who these nine per cent are.  It has become painfully clear that the Republicans have done everything they could think of to thwart the President’s attempts at improving our conditions after the previous administration’s train wreck declaring that their primary objective is to deny the President a second term not to fix our economy. It has also come to light that many of these legislators were also on the take.  Some bought or sold stocks based on inside legislative information.  Others accepted favors from corporations like free golf trips to Scotland on private corporate jets in exchange for favorable legislation.  Still others allowed lobbyists to actually write legislation favorable to their efforts.  The only word that comes to mind to describe such people is a five letter unmentionable name which begins with the letter “W” and is usually attributed to pliers of the second oldest profession.  Using this term for legislators is an insult to their namesakes.  Not even congress people trust congress people and they should know.

So who or whom does that leave?  We can hopefully trust our family and friends, much of the time except when too much money is at stake.  We can trust our instincts if they are counterbalanced with clear thinking and honest observation.

We can trust the exceptions to all these groups.

There are some wonderful religious leaders in every religion with great faith and wisdom.

There are also a number of important educators who do their best to help their students see the truths about the world around them.

There are even some honest bankers and financiers who put their clients first, give generously to charity and want to make this a better country.

Our doctors have saved countless lives with skilled and innovative surgery and/or the prescription of appropriate medication.  They are on the front lines fighting cancer, heart disease and the other medical causes of our suffering.  This very column would not exist if not for excellent surgeons who have performed numerous life-saving operations on behalf of its writer.

There have also been courageous reporters like Morrow and Wallace but also Russert, Chronkite, Brinkley, Lehr, McNeil, Fareed Zakaria and even Anderson Cooper.  There are also excellent and beautiful ones like Nora O’Donnell, Mika Brzezinski, Savannah Guthrie, Kelley O’Donnell, Ann Notarangelo, Sharyn Alfonsi and Laura Logan, to name a few.  I find that PBS can usually be relied upon for accurate and in depth reporting and can always find at least five very dry jokes in every evening broadcast of Brian William’s NBC news show.

When it comes to the Supreme Court and our Congress, it seems hard to trust those on the right who are clearly in the wrong.  The right wing partisanship has soured these institutions which used to be deserving of the highest respect. But even some on the other side of the aisle have been guilty of accepting favors in return for some of their own at the public’s expense.  But even with these groups there are a few great souls doing the good work.  Our current president might be the best example of that.  Surely, there are congress people who truly love their country and try to work cooperatively to improve the lives of our people. However, no name comes to mind.

And when all else fails, you can trust this column to bring you ideas whose author truly believes will be of benefit to the you.  Trust me. Whom else can you trust?

What Could Be Goals for the Second Term -

Our President will be given four more years to reshape our country, what will or, rather, should he do?  He has already saved the U.S. economy, passed a sweeping financial reform, saved the American auto industry from ruin, ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” crafted the Affordable Care Act, almost as sweeping as well Medicare when introduced, gotten us out of Iraq and has begun an effort to improve our public education system.

What should he do in his next term?  Here’s what I would like to see:

Reduce the annual and accumulated national budget deficit by changing the tax code; reducing our foreign military presence; eliminating waste and fraud in government programs; eliminating, combining and reducing government agencies; changing our immigration criteria; and discouraging the outsourcing of American jobs while encouraging the creation of millions of new American employment opportunities and creating a broader tax base.

 Changing our federal income tax code for individuals by eliminating all itemized deductions (not including the self employed) and credits with only a standard deduction; considering all sources of income equally including capital gains, dividends, Social Security benefit payments, net earned income (subtracting only the FICA), food stamps, unemployment insurance payments etc.; and with only five tax brackets ranging from 10% to 35%.

 Reducing our foreign military presence by closing many of our more than 700 foreign military bases especially in Europe and the Middle East. Remove all troops from Afghanistan as quickly as possible and give up on trying to create a new country there.  We should also reevaluate our foreign aid and give it only to the most deserving on a very short term basis.

 Eliminating, combining and /or reducing government agencies after determining what functions are now being done and which are either duplications of other efforts or have no impact on goals and objectives.  Could the Dept. of Education by recombined with Health and Human Services, formerly know as Health, Education and Welfare?  Could the Dept. of Energy be part of Interior?  Could the many Homeland Security agencies be combined and eliminated?  How many federally-funded think tanks do we really need? And we can eliminate most travel for training or conferences by government officials and workers.  Should we still produce pennies and nickels when they are not even worth the cost of making them? Should any law enforcement resources be wasted on marijuana when it is more beneficial and less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes, which are considered legal?

 Changing our immigration criteria by accepting applicants who have something to offer in terms of talent or skills and not inviting the poorest and neediest to our shores or people who are related to someone already here. We have tens of millions of Americans who are poor and needy, let us help them before adding to the problem.  Those here illegally should be encouraged to return to their beloved homeland.  All employers should check all their employees‘ status by running an EVerify on them. 

 Discouraging outsourcing by eliminating all incentives for it and by creating disincentives making hiring Americans more cost effective.
  
Secure the future of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits for the aged and disabled by raising the salary ceiling for payroll tax deductions and making Americans healthier through improved education, nutrition and exercise, thus preventing the onset of serious and costly illnesses like heart failure, cancer, diabetes and kidney failure. Currently, ten percent of our people account for 67% of all medical costs (five percent account for half of all medical costs).  Let us focus on that 10% while keeping the other 90% from joining them. Reduce or eliminate waste and fraud which costs hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

Dramatically improve public education to ensure that every child can have an excellent elementary and high school experience which will produce an adult who can read, write and speak our language correctly; who can do math at least up to algebra - able to easily add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers; who understands how our government works as well as the world’s geography; who can relate to science and its methodology; and who can think critically by analyzing available information and coming to rational conclusions. Make junior colleges free reducing the cost of education and letting those who want a bachelor's degree only need two more yesrs at a four year college.

Reform politics by ending campaign contributions making all local, state and federal elections shorter, issue oriented and consisting mainly of public debates and interviews for the candidates. This will end the influence peddling that currently goes on and will keep the rich from buying elections.  It will also end bribery disguised as lobbying.  Lobbying would consist only of presenting the special interests’ positions on pending legislation - positions based on actual facts and figures organized in a logical argument.

If President Obama can accomplish these changes in his second term,  I think he will be known as one of our country’s greatest presidents and we will begin a neutopia.

A Simple and Fair Federal Income Tax

America is in the midst of an economic crisis. We have a federal debt in excess of $20 trillion dollars, we are running annual deficits of more than a half trillion dollars, we have 13 million people out of work, 50 million people on food stamps and one in five of our children lives in poverty.  While job creation is essential, so is reducing the annual deficit by cutting unnecessary federal spending and by raising revenue.

Studies have found that the richest Americans are paying at an average rate of only 17%  for their annual federal income tax and that half of American households pay no federal or state income tax at all.

There has been much discussion about changing the tax code to make it simpler and more fair.  Conservatives want a flat tax with everyone paying the same rate.  They want to reduce the highest rate while expanding the base, meaning that more people would be paying taxes while the richest pay less than they already are.  The last time tax rates were lowered in favor of the wealthiest Americans, under the Bush/Cheney administration, the result was no new jobs,  record deficits, a Wall Street crash and the tattered economy we are now suffering.

I have a recommendation that would simplify the federal and therefore the state income tax code for individuals and couples, not including the self-employed.  My plan would be very simple, fair, and would raise at much as $100 billion a year in new revenues.  This figure could be adjusted as can be the recommended tax brackets and standard deductions.

Under this plan taxes would have one purpose - collecting revenue with which to fund needed government services.  The tax code would not try to encourage or discourage behavior with deductions or credits.  It would treat all income equally be it from work (minus FICA deduction), dividends, pensions, insurance benefits, bonuses, interest, lawsuits, lotteries etc.

As of 2008, people’s income from stock dividends has been taxed at 15% while income from savings interest can be as high as 35%.  Actual capital gains are also now at the 15% level, down from 35%, while only a maximum of 85% of Social Security benefits are taxable and legal settlements are not taxed at all.  Under this new system all these income sources would be treated as equal.

Under this plan there would be no itemized deductions, only a standard one.  For discussion purposes it could be $20,000 for an individual or $40,000 for a couple.  There would be no deductions for children, medical care costs, charitable contributions, education costs, mortgage payments, state income tax etc.  Currently there is no itemized deduction for buying food for the family or for eating at restaurants with the kids, but people do it.  There is no itemized deduction for buying the family clothes, but people do it.  There was a deduction for interest paid on credit cards and car loans but that was dropped 30 years ago. People still pay interest on them even though they can’t write it off.  The three martini lunch was dropped as a business deduction, but people still have them every day.

There would be only five tax brackets that would range from (after the standard deduction) 10% for net incomes up to $50,000, 15% up to $100,000, 20% up to $250,000, 25% up to one million, and 35% for income over $1 million These brackets could be adjusted to raise or lower the tax burden.

Here are some examples:

Imagine that there is a couple that earned $50,000 in net salary (after deducting FICA), $20,000 in Social Security benefit payments, $10,000 in interest and $5,000 in capital gains.  The total is $85,000.  The couple would deduct $40,000 in a standard deduction, leaving them a net income of $60,000.  The first $50,000 could be at a 10% tax rate or, in this case, $5,000.  The remaining $5,000 of net income would be taxed at 15% or, in this case, $750.  The total tax would be $5,750 or 6.7% of their gross income.

Let’s say there is a couple who earned $200,000 in net salary and $310,000 in capital gains.  Their total would be $510,000.  Using the standard deduction, they would net $470,000.  The first $50,000 would be at 10%. The second $50,000 would be taxed at 15%.  The next $150,000 would be taxed at 20% and the remaining $230,000 (net income over $250,000) would be taxed 25%.  So in this case, the couple would owe $5,000+$7,500+$30,000+$57,500 = $100,000 in taxes. That equals a 20.8% tax on their gross income.

As a third example has a couple making $5 million in capital gains, (including dividends also currently taxed at only 15%).  They would have a standard deduction of $40,000 and then owe $230,000 for the first $1 million and $1.2 million for the remaining $4 million for a total of $1.43 million or 28.6% in federal income tax.  

This tax code would not give an Earned Income Credit or a Making Work Pay Credit to low earners who currently not only don’t pay taxes but actually get paid taxes costing $115 billion a year.  The lowered rates for the wealthiest, under Bush/Cheney reduced tax revenues by almost $100 billion a year.  There would be no credit for student loan interest or for taking care of one’s young children.

That does not mean that those in need of relief for college loans, income supplements, special medical needs or anything else currently credited in the tax code would be ignored.  With the money saved, hundreds of billions a year, there would be money for these purposes.  More college grants and very low interest federal loans could be awarded to deserving students; low income workers could receive a reduced cost for health care benefits, help with rent payments, access to food discounts - benefits targeted at those in need of help.

But what about the loss of deductions for home mortgages and for charitable contributions? Will people still buy homes or give to charities?  Good question.

While home mortgages have other problems now, if people see buying a home as a lifetime investment in their own well being, they will continue to buy homes.  With some of the revenue raised by eliminating this deduction, more affordable mortgages can be funded to qualifying families.

With charities, it is an open question.  I have found in my own case, now that I have subjected my family taxes to the standard deduction, I still pay as much for charities and feel better about it because I am not also having to keep track of every receipt and tally them to see how much I can save for my kindness.  This way it is just out of the desire to help others without any expectation of reward.

I believe that this recommended tax code change would raise needed revenue by both expanding the base, meaning more than just half of all families will be paying some tax and by getting the rich to pay more but at a lower marginal tax rate. 

Then, if this plan is adapted and revenue is raised, it must be put to good use.  Government waste including fraud, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, duplication of effort and international overreaching must be reduced as much as possible.  Our tax dollars should go to good use.