I do promise that I will get to stuff that isn't in reply to the NY Post, but not quite yet.
Today's editorial claims the investment world will come to an end should Obama raise capital gains tax from its present 15%. my reply:
When I lived in Britain the top tax rate was 98% on investment income and 83% on earned. Now THAT’s a disincentive! It’s specious to argue that raising the capital gains tax from its present 15% is going to end investment.
First, the majority of investment in stocks isn’t done by individuals. Pension and mutual funds still have to invest.
Second, amazingly enough, with the old tax-rates the DJIA more than tripled and the NASDAQ quadrupled (even after the 2000 dotcom bust) in the Clinton years! Seven years of Bushonomics? Dow up LESS than 10% (allowing for inflation DOWN!). NASDAQ flat. The housing market? The ‘90s, way up, while the reduced rate didn’t stop the “subprime” bust! Really, the cuts haven’t achieved much, have they? Meanwhile our swollen deficit from the tax-cuts means trillions more borrowed from Arabs and Chinese.
Investors look first at the whole economy’s future of, well before whether there’s a slightly smaller after-tax profit!
Third, people are still willing to make Las Vegas “investments” even at the 35% tax-rate.
Confidence in the economy is at record lows and, in the end that determines investment. Sad that, unlike Sen. McCain, the Post can’t acknowledge its economic illiteracy!
Let me add that 3/4 of our National Debt has occured under Reagan and the Bushes and that we pay over 300 billion or over 1/4 of our income taxes just to service this debt! Think that money could be better employed?
Let me also add that it's really the day traders and other speculators who are really concerned with the quick profit, and that just maybe we could do well without that type of destabilizing "investment" !
forthcoming attractions: my views on the "ramshackle" electoral system (dammit i've just revealed my view!)
is the us an advanced nation? my ridixulously superstitious sports fandom. and other topics too numerous to mention...or that i haven't thought of!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
iraq
To mark the fifth anniversary of our invasion the NY Post gave an optimistic appraisal I replied
“Iraq may be in for some difficult times - but that's war.” Thus ends your editorial. One would assume that before the Sadr attacks everything was peaceful. One would be wrong. After five years of war and 150,000 US troops, deaths were still averaging over a thousand a month. Five million Iraqis (twenty percent) are refugees! Normal everyday living is still a mirage in much of that benighted nation. And “surprises happen in war”. Funny, we’ve got the same platitude every year. By now there would be no more surprises of this magnitude! But then again we were told that elections would lead speedily to our withdrawal. Surprise! We were told of the great strides the Iraqi army was making, that as “They stood up, we’d stand down”. Surprise! We were told that the surge would provide the Iraqi “government” the space to enact the necessary reconciliation legislation, so we could reduce our forces. Surprise! We’re told that the surge has been a great military success. If reducing Iraqi deaths from cataclysmic to merely disastrous is success then, yes, But for the Iraqis? Surprise! They’re still dying! Sadly the Post’s boosterism for this disastrous war is NO SURPRISE!
Let me put in context the continuing loss of life in Iraq. Even befor Sadr's insurrection the claim was that deaths were down to 30-40% of the pre-surge number. Now the estimates are that around 3,000 people were dying each month. Since Iraq's population was (in 2003) about 26 million or 8% i=of the US's, let us multiply the fatalities for comparison. So per capita the Iraqi deaths translate to 35,000/month in the US population, or 400,000 a year. The reduction is now down to an equivalent for the US population of 12-15,000 a month or 150-200,000 a year! I doubt Bush would be crowing if that numbger (remember the same percentage of our population) were being killed monthly! And what if twenty percent of our population were refugees? ^0 million! And this is after FIVE years! Remember where we were five years after Pearl Harbor? At peace in December 1946. US military casualties from enemy activity? ZERO! Some genius wrote to the Post saying that US casualties on an annual basis were much lower than WWII. DUH! In WWII we were fighting two of the world's biggest best equipped andbattle experienced military forces (OK and Italy!) two ruthless nations as well armed as we were (or more so)! And we were invaading well defended islands, with suicidal soldiers in the Pacific, and Fortress Europe.
The Iraqi army may have been large but it was ill-equipped, and poorly led and poorly trained. Our forces are equipped with the latest hardware, had complete air control, and well trained forces. Technologically it was rather like Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930's, with the added lack of warlike zeal of most of the Iraqi army! In Vietnam the casualties were also ten times higher, but again we were faced with a well equipprd enemy, a nation determined to fight through any hardship and jungle conditions ideal for the Vietcong type of war. Here the military is faced with a thousands of enemy rather than millions, with inferiopr weapons and little discipline. So our casualties are mercifully lower, but should never have occured at all.
And let us be clear. This nonsense about fighting the terrorists in Iraq, so we don't have to fight them here, is sheer disinformation. If Al-Qaeda is our enemy, which it is, why have we not fought them for over six years where they live? That is Pakistan where bin Ladin and the rest fled when we let them escape from Afghanistan.
Instead of using our entire military power to wipe out this terrorist band in 2001-2002 Mr Bush turned his attention away, to manufactured claims of WMD and spurious Saddam-Al-Qaeda connections. We sat by rather than rooting them out in the Pakistani wilds with or without the help of our "good friend" Musharref and he did zero to oppose them.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Didn't even exist till 2005 and even now is a mere flea bite compared to the Sunni-Shia religious feuding, responsible a couple of percent no more of the deathtoll.
Of course I will be getting back to Iraq as the year goes on, but now it's time to borrow Ed Murrow's phrase, recently approriated by Keith Olbermann
"Good night and Good luck" and that's the way it is!
“Iraq may be in for some difficult times - but that's war.” Thus ends your editorial. One would assume that before the Sadr attacks everything was peaceful. One would be wrong. After five years of war and 150,000 US troops, deaths were still averaging over a thousand a month. Five million Iraqis (twenty percent) are refugees! Normal everyday living is still a mirage in much of that benighted nation. And “surprises happen in war”. Funny, we’ve got the same platitude every year. By now there would be no more surprises of this magnitude! But then again we were told that elections would lead speedily to our withdrawal. Surprise! We were told of the great strides the Iraqi army was making, that as “They stood up, we’d stand down”. Surprise! We were told that the surge would provide the Iraqi “government” the space to enact the necessary reconciliation legislation, so we could reduce our forces. Surprise! We’re told that the surge has been a great military success. If reducing Iraqi deaths from cataclysmic to merely disastrous is success then, yes, But for the Iraqis? Surprise! They’re still dying! Sadly the Post’s boosterism for this disastrous war is NO SURPRISE!
Let me put in context the continuing loss of life in Iraq. Even befor Sadr's insurrection the claim was that deaths were down to 30-40% of the pre-surge number. Now the estimates are that around 3,000 people were dying each month. Since Iraq's population was (in 2003) about 26 million or 8% i=of the US's, let us multiply the fatalities for comparison. So per capita the Iraqi deaths translate to 35,000/month in the US population, or 400,000 a year. The reduction is now down to an equivalent for the US population of 12-15,000 a month or 150-200,000 a year! I doubt Bush would be crowing if that numbger (remember the same percentage of our population) were being killed monthly! And what if twenty percent of our population were refugees? ^0 million! And this is after FIVE years! Remember where we were five years after Pearl Harbor? At peace in December 1946. US military casualties from enemy activity? ZERO! Some genius wrote to the Post saying that US casualties on an annual basis were much lower than WWII. DUH! In WWII we were fighting two of the world's biggest best equipped andbattle experienced military forces (OK and Italy!) two ruthless nations as well armed as we were (or more so)! And we were invaading well defended islands, with suicidal soldiers in the Pacific, and Fortress Europe.
The Iraqi army may have been large but it was ill-equipped, and poorly led and poorly trained. Our forces are equipped with the latest hardware, had complete air control, and well trained forces. Technologically it was rather like Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930's, with the added lack of warlike zeal of most of the Iraqi army! In Vietnam the casualties were also ten times higher, but again we were faced with a well equipprd enemy, a nation determined to fight through any hardship and jungle conditions ideal for the Vietcong type of war. Here the military is faced with a thousands of enemy rather than millions, with inferiopr weapons and little discipline. So our casualties are mercifully lower, but should never have occured at all.
And let us be clear. This nonsense about fighting the terrorists in Iraq, so we don't have to fight them here, is sheer disinformation. If Al-Qaeda is our enemy, which it is, why have we not fought them for over six years where they live? That is Pakistan where bin Ladin and the rest fled when we let them escape from Afghanistan.
Instead of using our entire military power to wipe out this terrorist band in 2001-2002 Mr Bush turned his attention away, to manufactured claims of WMD and spurious Saddam-Al-Qaeda connections. We sat by rather than rooting them out in the Pakistani wilds with or without the help of our "good friend" Musharref and he did zero to oppose them.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Didn't even exist till 2005 and even now is a mere flea bite compared to the Sunni-Shia religious feuding, responsible a couple of percent no more of the deathtoll.
Of course I will be getting back to Iraq as the year goes on, but now it's time to borrow Ed Murrow's phrase, recently approriated by Keith Olbermann
"Good night and Good luck" and that's the way it is!
mccain and the economics of ignorance
The N Y Post had an Editorial praising Sen McCain 's restraint in the subprime mortgage mess:
this is my reply
Because of the sub-prime mess, the housing market goes into steep decline. Sen. McCain has no solution apart from asking for voluntary assistance. And the Post applauds! Sadly many borrowers are relatively unsophisticated and don’t understand the small print. They believe that “respected” lenders wouldn’t offer something the borrower couldn’t afford.
Silly irresponsible them! Yet the Post has no problem with billions of tax dollars bailing out irresponsible bankers.
McCain’s financial solution? Less government regulation, less oversight of the financial markets! Sounds like Hoover to me! The savings and loans deregulation led to a massive storm of frauds eventually paid for by government bailouts. McCain, as one of the Keating Five, enablers to that crook’s banking swindles, should have learned from that fiasco, unless he’s having convenient memory lapses! Sadly, his belief that businesses behave as well without the Feds watching is naively misplaced. But then McCain has repeatedly acknowledges his ignorance of economics. If you’re going to be leader of the world’s largest economy, doesn’t it behoove you to learn sufficient economics? Not preparing yourself seems….. IRRESPONSIBLE! After seven years of Bush’s “Voodoo Economics” mismanagement, we’re asked to accept McCain’s “Economics of Ignorance”. This nation cannot afford THIS irresponsibility!
I would add that Mr McCain's economic ignorance reminds me of the plaintive remarks of Warren Harding on a related matter "I don't know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don't know where the book is, and maybe I couldn't read it if I found it.”
this is my reply
Because of the sub-prime mess, the housing market goes into steep decline. Sen. McCain has no solution apart from asking for voluntary assistance. And the Post applauds! Sadly many borrowers are relatively unsophisticated and don’t understand the small print. They believe that “respected” lenders wouldn’t offer something the borrower couldn’t afford.
Silly irresponsible them! Yet the Post has no problem with billions of tax dollars bailing out irresponsible bankers.
McCain’s financial solution? Less government regulation, less oversight of the financial markets! Sounds like Hoover to me! The savings and loans deregulation led to a massive storm of frauds eventually paid for by government bailouts. McCain, as one of the Keating Five, enablers to that crook’s banking swindles, should have learned from that fiasco, unless he’s having convenient memory lapses! Sadly, his belief that businesses behave as well without the Feds watching is naively misplaced. But then McCain has repeatedly acknowledges his ignorance of economics. If you’re going to be leader of the world’s largest economy, doesn’t it behoove you to learn sufficient economics? Not preparing yourself seems….. IRRESPONSIBLE! After seven years of Bush’s “Voodoo Economics” mismanagement, we’re asked to accept McCain’s “Economics of Ignorance”. This nation cannot afford THIS irresponsibility!
I would add that Mr McCain's economic ignorance reminds me of the plaintive remarks of Warren Harding on a related matter "I don't know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don't know where the book is, and maybe I couldn't read it if I found it.”
Friday, March 28, 2008
introduction
First a few words about what you will see here. It will be very random. Politics, sports personal stuff-but not too personal! And anyhting else that comes to mind.Let's get something clear to start. It's very unlikely I'll change your mind, in all probability, and you won't change mine!
Let me start with a few observations. I moved to the US nearly thirty years ago from Britain, and, yes Virginia, I am “legal”Indeed I’m a naturalized American citizen.
I have lived in three very atypical cities in the US, LA, Washington DC and New York (where I am now). And am a lawyer.
Since I will be writing on things political, I guess iI should classify myself.
Like Will Rogers (those of you under thirty five may need to look him up on Wikipedia!) I don’t belong to any organized political party, I’m a Democrat.
I find that the vituperation that emanates, primarily from the right, is astonishing.
It’s sad that the level of political discourse in this country is in large part at the second grade level. Rather than discussing the merits of any political initiative we get, for example, a President vetoing a bill providing healthcare insurance for less well off kids by dismissing it as “socialized medicine”. And making the non-sequitor that he’s doing this for “poor kids” Clearlky there is an argument as to whether citizens of the richest nation on earth should have healthcare as a basic right, and how it should be provided. But this argument is subsumed beneath empty rhetoric and irrelevence. An example of the latter Sen Lott proclaiming that because increased taxes on tobacco would pay for the program, people would stop smoking and there’d be no tax.
This is merely one example, but the level is no better elsewhere.
FDR, in his first inaugeral used the line “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”We now have a n administration and one of our two “great” political parties which have adapted that to “there is nothing to use but fear itself” and a population that is too easily manipulated in to that fear.
In the show "Chicago" the heroine's lawyer (Richard Gere in the movie) sings a song "Razzle Dazzle" which should be W's theme. For example: Give 'em the old hocus pocus, bead and feather 'em, how can they see with sequins in their eyes?", "give 'em the old flim flummery, how can they hear the truth above the roar?" and finally " long as you keep 'em way off balance, they'll never know you got know you got no talent, razzle dazzle 'em anfd they'll make you a star!"
Living as I do in NY, I have the privilege to have Murdoch's NY Post as a hometown paper. Now I never buy it but, free on the web, I will read its editorials and columnists. I mention that since these remarkable writings will produce ample fodder for me over the next months and years.
Lest it be said I am a monomaniac on the Republicans, you will also read my comments on sports, which, as a couch-potato, ex-non-jock, with no sense of balance, and poor eye-hand co-ordination, makes me an expert, of course! You will hear about the woes of my Dodgers, Lakers, Jets and Raiders, and my glorious Trojan football team (I'm a graduate of the USC Law School) as well as my first love Arsenal Football Club of London. It may be that the mention of the word "sports" will bring a glaze to your eyes, so you may then turn off, tune out and... (you don't actually have to go all the way with Timothy Leary, (If you don't know of him Wikipedia him!)
Heck, you will no doubt read my ramblings on everything else on my mind, from family doings (divorced, three kids, [kids? oldest is 37, the youngest 23]), my dogs, living and departed, movies, tv, books, and rants about such scourges as the CELL PHONE, which is causing the death of any manners at all! If you are really bad, I will tell you long and incredibly tiresome anecdotes from my past, so beware !
There will be more gripes-trust me there will, but this is my start, since I now have things that need doing in my real life!”
Let me start with a few observations. I moved to the US nearly thirty years ago from Britain, and, yes Virginia, I am “legal”Indeed I’m a naturalized American citizen.
I have lived in three very atypical cities in the US, LA, Washington DC and New York (where I am now). And am a lawyer.
Since I will be writing on things political, I guess iI should classify myself.
Like Will Rogers (those of you under thirty five may need to look him up on Wikipedia!) I don’t belong to any organized political party, I’m a Democrat.
I find that the vituperation that emanates, primarily from the right, is astonishing.
It’s sad that the level of political discourse in this country is in large part at the second grade level. Rather than discussing the merits of any political initiative we get, for example, a President vetoing a bill providing healthcare insurance for less well off kids by dismissing it as “socialized medicine”. And making the non-sequitor that he’s doing this for “poor kids” Clearlky there is an argument as to whether citizens of the richest nation on earth should have healthcare as a basic right, and how it should be provided. But this argument is subsumed beneath empty rhetoric and irrelevence. An example of the latter Sen Lott proclaiming that because increased taxes on tobacco would pay for the program, people would stop smoking and there’d be no tax.
This is merely one example, but the level is no better elsewhere.
FDR, in his first inaugeral used the line “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”We now have a n administration and one of our two “great” political parties which have adapted that to “there is nothing to use but fear itself” and a population that is too easily manipulated in to that fear.
In the show "Chicago" the heroine's lawyer (Richard Gere in the movie) sings a song "Razzle Dazzle" which should be W's theme. For example: Give 'em the old hocus pocus, bead and feather 'em, how can they see with sequins in their eyes?", "give 'em the old flim flummery, how can they hear the truth above the roar?" and finally " long as you keep 'em way off balance, they'll never know you got know you got no talent, razzle dazzle 'em anfd they'll make you a star!"
Living as I do in NY, I have the privilege to have Murdoch's NY Post as a hometown paper. Now I never buy it but, free on the web, I will read its editorials and columnists. I mention that since these remarkable writings will produce ample fodder for me over the next months and years.
Lest it be said I am a monomaniac on the Republicans, you will also read my comments on sports, which, as a couch-potato, ex-non-jock, with no sense of balance, and poor eye-hand co-ordination, makes me an expert, of course! You will hear about the woes of my Dodgers, Lakers, Jets and Raiders, and my glorious Trojan football team (I'm a graduate of the USC Law School) as well as my first love Arsenal Football Club of London. It may be that the mention of the word "sports" will bring a glaze to your eyes, so you may then turn off, tune out and... (you don't actually have to go all the way with Timothy Leary, (If you don't know of him Wikipedia him!)
Heck, you will no doubt read my ramblings on everything else on my mind, from family doings (divorced, three kids, [kids? oldest is 37, the youngest 23]), my dogs, living and departed, movies, tv, books, and rants about such scourges as the CELL PHONE, which is causing the death of any manners at all! If you are really bad, I will tell you long and incredibly tiresome anecdotes from my past, so beware !
There will be more gripes-trust me there will, but this is my start, since I now have things that need doing in my real life!”
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