Yes Virginia, there is a Grinch

The person that is sometimes called the Grinch, and his republican cohorts, have been telling you that he's not really a Grinch, not a" mean one ". Don't you believe it. Remember that the Grinch comes to put coal in your stockings. Now the Grinch is signing orders allowing coal to be put in free running streams. He also has ordered his evil elf Pruitt to allow more coal to be burned in order to pollute the air. You know your little friend, Freddie, the one with asthma. He has trouble often times breathing the air. The Grinch and his people are promoting dirty air and dirty water so that their friends and supporters can make more money. Freddie's problem is going to get worse.

You know how your mommy and daddy always tell you not to say mean things about people. The Grinch calls people stupid, liars, short, lazy and doesn't like people he thinks are not pretty enough. The Grinch also spends most of his time lying about everything. He thinks that people are gullible enough that he can get away with practically anything.

The Grinch says that he has himself has brought back Christmas which didn't exist. But we know that it did and that people were much happier and kinder to each other before him. The Grinch says he has brought everyone a big present for Christmas but he is going to come back and take them away from most people. Also, you know that your grandma and grandpa live on Social Security and need Medicare. The Grinch is going to take much of that away from them. He is also going to take away much of Medicare, food stamps and other things that people depend upon.

So, Virginia, don't you worry. As long as there are selfish lying people we will always have the Grinch.

Grover Norquist's wet dream

Paul Ryan's budget and economic scheme using the tax code it as an enabling mechanism is all but done.His proposed budget already demonstrated  his desire to cut back on Medicare, Medicaid, food stamp programs and any other federal program designed to help out the underprivileged. Now with the tax cuts he has justification. But that is only the start of it. Ryan has always had this naïve belief in magical growth solving all problems that would result from tax cuts to corporations and wealthy people. But he probably believes it . The person really licking his chops right now is Grover Norquist. You remember him and his organization called something like" The Club for Greed". He wanted to shrink the Federal government to a size where it could be drowned in a bathtub. This harebrained budget and tax bill is perfect for him. The first thing that is going to happen is a massive reduction of federal tax revenues in 2018. It will probably be worse than those  accompanying Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. That will require even more Federal spending cuts and you know upon whom those will be inflected. There will be further cuts in things like Government sponsored research which  has already shrunk dismally, much-needed infrastructure spending and diminish Federal programs generally including things like the CDC. The effect of that will be reduced aggregate demand , which will in turn lead to diminished Capital expenditures, research and development and wages and hiring. This will delight Grover Norquest who is sort of a latter day Andrew Mellon and who just wants a smaller federal government, whatever the consequences.

This is the worst time for tax cuts for the well-off. It is as thoughtless as the Bush administration tax cuts. One does not cut taxes when the economy is rolling along well. One should not be so foolish as to think that cutting the taxes of corporations and wealthy people who already have more money than they know what to do with is going to create stimulus. In fact, what is highly likely is that in the next two or three years we are going to have a recession because of these stupid policies. In the face of the recession one of the corrective measures is a tax cut which is now been squandered. Another wasteful byproduct of this tax bill is that the one off tax revenues from corporate affiliates of US companies held overseas will not be used for infrastructure building but for these ridiculous tax cuts. The Republicans also don't seem to realize that government sponsored research has led to innovations which have spurred private enterprise innovations that can drive the economy. Think of Google Amazon etc. and the earlier private development caused by innovations in the space program years ago. We are going to be collectively left with an aging infrastructure and a diminished capacity for innovation. The economic future of this company is going to be largely dependent upon innovation leading to greater productivity and economic growth. With this ignorant administration and Congress we are shooting ourselves in the kneecap.

ROLL TIDE

Tomorrow our fellow citizens in the state of Alabama will elect a new senator. There is no need to discuss the two candidates because anyone who doesn't know everything they need to know about each spend a lot of time hiding in basements, which more and more seems like a pretty good pastime. Old witch hunt, fake news, is endorsing Roy Moore. Well of course he is. They have a lot in common. Each has been accused by multiple women with credible stories of sexual assaults. Trump on TV has basically admitted it. Each appears to be anti-Muslim. Each professors conservative, Religious values. Having watched Trump, and seeing his changes of position over the years, I have no doubt that with him it is opportunistic bullshit. Similarly, my experience and my intuition tell me that Roy Moore is also a fraud in this respect. It was interesting to note that he and his wife have some foundation promoting what they call "moral law" and interestingly enough make money on this gig. Are you watching Elmer Gantry question ?



So who will win and does it make any difference? As to whether it makes a difference, the answer is yes and no. No because if Jones wins the Republicans will still have the majority in the Senate and a republican will be elected to replace Jones the next time he runs. Yes, because after Trump's robust endorsement should Moore lose that might indicate a crack in Trump's base. Maybe more Republicans would feel safe in outright criticism of Trump. On the other hand, should Moore win, the meager criticism of Trump by his Republican colleagues will doubtless dry up.

So who will win? If this election had taken place in 2015 or before, my money would be on Jones. However, after the 2016 elections, my guess is Moore.

You probably have noticed that the Trump White House lead by old fake news is trying to create a narrative that will allow Trump to fire Bob Mueller and end the investigation. His propaganda machine at FOXNews has their guns blazing on this one. Will it happen? If Roy Moore wins I would say it is almost certain and that the Republicans will meekly accept it. Even if Jones wins, I wouldn't bet against Mueller being fired. And on that cheery note endeth  my sermon.

Dope Soup

Rufus T Firefly–AKA Donald Harumph-blew into Salt Lake City today. It appears his primary purpose was to get a can of tuna at the welfare kitchen and praise and endorse sen. Hatch who apparently will be seeking a seventh term in the United States Senate. While he was here, he also signed proclamations drastically reducing the size of the Bears National Monument and the Grand Escalante Staircase National Monument. Unfortunately, Trump is not nearly as humorous as Groucho Marx, At least not intentionally. He talked about his discussing  this proposal with all those he knew were in favor of reducing the size of the monuments and they all said yes indeed we are. He did not bother to talk with any of the majority of the people in this part of the country who oppose this action.

Trump explained that his actions would allow people in this part of the country to hunt and fish and graze cattle on the affected property. He apparently was unaware that those things can be done on a national monument as well. He talked about preserving the sacred beautiful lands for the people, apparently by allowing mining, drilling and fracking as well as the necessary infrastructure for those activities. He also said that control over these lands should be taken away from agencies in Washington, apparently not knowing that the BLM was a federal agency with headquarters in Washington DC .

It is good to be able to see this nitwit up close because sometimes at long-distance it's hard to believe he is really as ignorant, incompetent and arrogant as he really is. Well folks, we have seen him up close and he is as ridiculous as he seems. He also had his secretary of the interior looming in the background who didn't say anything. Maybe he was playing  the Harpo Marx character. Hail Fredonia.

our gullibility referendum

It now appears likely that Congress will pass an, you should excuse the expression," tax reform bill". The main components of that bill have become fairly clear. What is also more than clear is that this bill will have precious little to do about the tax code. It is almost entirely the implementation of congressman Ryan's trickle down economic fantasies. The tax changes, if looked at over the ten yearperiod of the bill rewards  those who have capital–corporations including sub - S corporations–and wealthy individuals. It has nothing to do with " reform" and change is very few provisions of the tax code. For instance, it doesn't even do away with the indefensible carried interest treatment given to such people as hedge fund managers. It simply changes a few tax rates, eliminates some deductions that the middle-class uses, allows businesses to expense capital expenditures rather than depreciate them over time which really only affects cash flows.

Ryan has been proposing schemes such as this since approximately 2008. At that time his proposals were created by economists at the heritage foundation. The analysis was published and deemed by impartial economists at Academic institutions, the IMF and the like as being" implausible". They deal with the deficits created by positing ridiculous multipliers of GDP from the tax cuts and claiming that this will increase tax revenues. That is what Pres. Reagan claimed and it didn't happen. He created deficits that had to be erased by the Clinton administration. Ryan's former proposals we're based on multipliers 5 to 7 times greater that had ever been observed. . The  deficit shrinking mechanism that will become mandatory will be  cuts in programs such as Medicare, Headstart, Food stamps and the like. These cuts were also part of Ryan's former proposals. People with incomes under $100,000 will over the period of 10 years actually pay more taxes, and also lose benefits. The series of articles by Dave Leonhardt in the New York Times lays all this out quite thoroughly.

The other quite nonsensical part of the claims of Ryan and his merry band of tax cutters is that giving tax cuts to corporate businesses will lead to capital expenditures and increased wages. Won't happen. The Democrats proposed an amendment that would take away tax cuts from businesses which do not increase wages. That went nowhere. There is no historical evidence to support the fact that corporations give wage increases when they do not have to. What corporate managers consistently say is that their job is to increase returns to shareholders. That is not done by increasing wages. On the capital expenditure side, White House economic adviser Gary Cohen asked a group of corporate CEOs if they would increase Capital expenditures if they received tax cuts. Practically none of them said they would much to Cohen's consternation.

So, the information is out there if the voters, particularly in the Midwest, care to think about it. It requires some effort. Will those voters be gullible enough to actually believe this bill is about tax relief for the middle-class? That is the referendum we face. Regrettably, I am not optimistic.

Ka-B00M

Everybody's favorite draft dodger is in the far east or maybe it's the Far West if you come from the other direction. In Japan, and by the way he has learned that the presidents last name is actually Abe, not Shinzou, is back on his bellicose soap box, threatening war with North Korea. He also explained that the massacre in Texas had really nothing to do would guns. No doubt he is an Aristotelian and considers guns only an efficient cause and certainly not the final cause. He puts the massacre down to mental illness. Oddly enough he said nothing about the need for better health care for the mentally ill, the availability of which he diminished by his recent cutting back on federal assistance under the affordable care act. We can assume that if he begins a war with North Korea it will be about his mental health, not conventional or nuclear weapons. Who can argue against the notion that he is mentally disturbed.

Then he went to Korea where he said it was time to play " let's make a deal". He does, you may recall consider himself the ultimate dealmaker. Actually you can see that by looking at his tax returns which would describe great deals he is made in the footnotes. Oh, son of a gun, I forgot that he refuses to show his tax returns, doubtless because of his excess modesty. Of course he doesn't describe or even hint at what kind of a deal he has in mind. Here's one. Make a deal it that if North Korea will halt it's program of development of nuclear weapons and missiles the United States we'll not only ease sanctions but also send lots of food, particularly wheat and corn. We have a lot of that you know and it would be helpful to the agricultural Industry.

. It would cost a lot less than some of our military expenditures which appear of a doubtful utility.

The most discouraging development in the administration lately has been the diminishing stature of Gen. Kelly, formerly thought to be one of the adults in the white House. He has become another apologist for you know who and is in a close contest with kellyanne and Sarah in the dumbest explanation of the week Contest. At this point, they basically merge into one–Kellyanne Kelly Huckleberry. There is no further need to distinguish among or between them.

On the bright side, the Democrats actually won elections. Just don't let it go to your heads.

Who is the greatest evil?

I am reading the book" the Devils bargain" about Steve Bannan and Donald Trump. I also just read an extensive article in the New Yorker by Jane Mayer about Mike Spence. So I have been pondering between the two of them, who is the more dangerous and evil.

Starting with Steve Bannon, He has stood for and advanced despicable agendas. In common with many prior "Populists" he uses race baiting and preaches hey divisive agenda. Prior populists, for instance father Coughlin during the depression, focused on being anti-semetic. In those days, blacks and Hispanics we're not seen as taking things from the white majority, which is not to say that they were not despised. Bannon has also advance the theme of Wall Street and corporate America as villains, not to mention globalism, the modern equivalent of Smoot – Hawly. His nativism is reminiscent of Lindbergh and the America first party.

Spence, or as I call him" spot", because of the fawning way he follows trump around, gazing adoringly at him, appears much more duplicitous. He is a combination of sanctimonious claptrap and relentless self-aggrandizement and opportunism.(To many in Utah, a familiar profile.) Jane Mayer is a pretty good investigative journalist and if she it is right pants would be and eager tool of those such as the Koch brothers who seek to control the electoral process through the uses of dark money. So with Spence, you would get the combination of sanctimonious social, particularly religious, pseudo conservatism and dark money. Now for my money, which isn't dark or extensive, that makes him worse than Bannon. Notwithstanding Spence's feigned adoration of Donald Trump, there is no question in my mind that he sees Trump as an impediment and the sooner he's gone the better.

Which brings me I guess to Donald Trump. Is a truly despicable person. He is arrogant,incompetent and also lies a lot although it is sometimes hard to tell if he is merrily lying or totally delusional. But of the three, he is the least dangerous and evil. As far as domestic policy is concerned, he has none.All he wants to do's sign bills without reading them and claim victory, rather like George W. Bush on the deck of the aircraft carrier. His danger is in foreign-policy given the extensive powers of the presidency. But remember, he considers himself the ultimate" dealmaker". And as he explained in his book" the art of the lie", or something like that , robust bullshitting is the way to go. Granted, he makes us nervous but he probably thinks he's just being clever and will make some great deals. If he did order an attack against North Korea, millions would die probably and he would likely consider it a negative externality. We would of course prevail. But, should China intervene in an armed conflict, all bets are off. That is the danger. I have to believe he would not order an attack if he sought to do so he would be restrained and probably impeached. But he is a clear and present danger.

So the question is, are we better off with Trump or either Bannon or Spence in control. The fact that we even have to consider such a question is a disgrace to all of us collectively.