Republicans Don't Believe in Tax Cuts.

As the world’s economic crisis continues to play out there are some crucial questions that the Republicans have not been asked for reasons unknown to me, as they are some of the most obvious and most important questions they need to answer. I believe that asking these questions will so utterly stump Republicans they will shut up and go away and give us a break from all their noise so the rest of us can get to work solving our problems.

If cutting the highest tax rate from thirty nine percent to thirty six percent in 2001helped create fifty-five straight months of economic growth, as the Bush people claim, why did they cut the tax rate to just thirty six percent? Why not cut it down to thirty percent? How much deeper, broader and more stable would our economic expansion have been? Why not go all the way to a one percent tax rate? At what point does lowering tax rates stop growing the economy and increasing revenue? Didn’t the GOP have a moral imperative to find out and cut taxes to the lowest point possible?

Republicans are fond of saying the tax based grew larger under Dubya. Great! I’m thrilled! Where is all the money that is supposed to be here after eight years of tax cuts and economic growth?

Ari Fleischer and other Bushmen offer an answer. They say the Prescription Drug Benefits Bill and the Iraq War ate up all the increase in revenue. Probably so, if there ever was an increase in revenue, which has yet to be proved since The Bush Administration was incapable of honest accounting practices. But that completely avoids the most important question: why did Dubya borrow money if deeper tax cuts would have generated even more revenue? Did the Republicans not think the Iraq War was worth a nice, deep tax cut?

Early in Dubya’s awful second term it became clear to even the GOP the Federal Budget deficit was getting out of hand, providing the GOP with yet another reason to cut taxes, which invariably increases revenue, right? At the time they had the House and the Senate. They could have done anything they pleased. If cutting taxes is the defining policy of the Grand Old Party, again, why didn’t they do so to keep the deficit from spiraling out of control? But wait- isn’t cutting taxes worth doing for any reason? Obviously they didn’t turn to their Super Duper Economic Tool to handle all these challenges because it doesn’t work. If it did they would not have had to borrow trillions of dollars and add well over five trillion dollars to the deficit. If it did we would have no deficit. Did they not go lower because the spineless Democratic Party might have tried to stop them?

Whatever the answer the Republicans give, and we can be sure at this point it will be incoherent and embarrassing to all involved, Republicans did not turn to their most powerful, personally and morally definitive economic tool when the chips were down, and the chips were seriously down like never before. That tells me Republicans don’t actually believe in tax cuts and are not conservative. In that case all their posturing about cutting taxes is completely disingenuous and purely political. What does their behavior say they really stand for? Mortgaging our future so they can have what they want right now, or “Teenagerism”. If I remember correctly conservatism says nothing about being short sighted, irresponsible and utterly selfish.

Now the GOP says Obama’s tax cut is not big enough to cover his stimulus package even though a smaller tax cut was supposedly powerful enough to cover the Great Bush Spending Spree over the last eight years which far and away dwarfs the spending Obama has proposed. But why argue Obama’s tax cut is too small when they didn’t cut taxes farther when they had the most compelling circumstances to do so in our nation’s history?

Republicans are so utterly convoluted and confused and conflicted and lost they sound like the drug-addled freak I recently saw on a reality cop show that had just been caught red handed with a pound of cocaine in the trunk of his car. The cop demands an explanation and the dope says “Those ain’t my drugs, man! I stole this car!” There is just no dignity. They are so desperate they are reduced to hoping Americans can’t remember all their colossal failings? Sorry. Americans will never forget Bush’s Presidency. We will remember everything. Not to be vindictive, all though that is tempting, but so that it never happens again.

Dubya and all he stands for will have to be completely purged from the party if they ever want to win another national election. The best way I can tell to do that is to first and foremost shut up, and I mean completely shut the hell up, until they get their fiscal policies worked out. Tax cuts for the rich coupled with deregulated financial markets plus massive federal spending equals total meltdown. So throw all that out and start at the beginning: tax cuts. Before any Republican dare open his or her mouth to discuss any fiscal policy he or she needs to answer the questions I have posed here, that is, as long as they want to begin what is for them a very long road back to dignity and earn some small measure of national respect. Until these questions are answered I must view any Republican’s attempt to lead this country as impertinence, or, in other words, like Jim Cramer asking to invest my money.

Time to Take Jon Stewart to Task!

I just finished watching Jon Stewart's almost completely satisfying conversation with Jim Cramer on Hulu. Stewart chastised Cramer for taking Wall Street CEOs and others who abuse the stock market at face value and in turn for not looking behind their misleading statements to report the real story of how Wall Street turns a profit. He said rightly that knowing more about the house of cards that is Wall Street would have helped investors make better decisions. To remind Cramer of who he is supposed to be serving with his CNBC show Mad Money, Stewart told the story of his seventy-five year old mother who took Cramer and CNBC and other would be financial experts at face value and bought into his advice and information and has subsequently lost everything, even though Cramer knew the system was unstable. Stewart told Cramer he had a responsibility as a self promoted authority figure to better serve those who would trust him with their wealth by revealing his knowledge of any and all structural problems in our financial system.

I might remind Jon Stewart that while he is asking CNBC to take a more serious, realistic approach to understanding the stock market and to provide its audience with a window into the ugly, volatile, criminal realities that are woven into the fabric of Wall Street, he might do well to not portray his grown ass mother as a victim. No one put a gun to her head and said invest in the stock market. And if she didn't know the stock market was full of crooks and liars then she sure does now. Naiveté is no excuse for losing one's retirement investments. Everyone who puts his or her future into the hands of another is taking a risk, no matter how credible and well spoken that other person is who would very much like to control other people's money.

People, in case Jon Stewart hasn't noticed, have been known, on occasion, to be unreliable. We do not have the right to expect human beings to be defect free just because we would prefer they didn't screw us over. We cannot assume people will do the right thing because they say they will do the right thing, especially when large amounts of money are involved.

Others have to earn the right to be in our lives. Since we are responsible for our lives, if we don't do the proper vetting ourselves we will be the ones we hurt. The definition of an adult is someone who no longer hurts him or herself. Jim Cramer and CNBC and Bernie Madoff are not responsible for the fact that Jon Stewart's mother no longer has money for her retirement. Jon, I hate to break the news to you, but your mother is soley responsible for her current situation. There is no "but..."

Jim Cramer pointed out that his show is designed to serve the market. Stewart responded by saying hookers serve a market and coke dealers serve a market, too, which doesn't mean the market should be served. Stewart then tells Cramer he ought to serve his mother's interests. But what is the market that is Jon Stewart's mother's interests? According to Jon Stewart she did not want to do her own vetting. She wants other people, like Jim Cramer, for example, to do it for her. She bought into him hook line and sinker and she then wants these people to whom she gave all her power to take responsibility for her retirement. That is a childish market, the kind that deserves Jim Cramer and his childish antics. CNBC can provide an adult service but it can't stay in business if an adult market does not exist. A cable network can serve hard cold reality spinach but it does not have the power to send Americans to bed without supper if they don't eat it. Americans want to believe in Wall Street at any cost because they want what they goddamn want and they want it right now. Americans did not want to know how Walls Street makes its money as long as it was making money. The "House of Cards" system that Stewart wanted Cramer to reveal had practically become financial orthodoxy. It worked for generations. I knew it was a damnable house of cards. I just couldn't believe it kept on standing up.

CNBC must serve the market that is or there is no CNBC. Stewart might as well tell CNBC to stop broadcasting. Jim Cramer served spoiled, opportunistic Americans stuck in a state of financial adolescence due to their own little Peter Pan tantrum gobs of shiny candy for dinner every night, and as a result spoiled candy fat Peter Pan Americans got financial diabetes. That's why I don't watch CNBC. The Daily Show is the only remotely adult show on television.

Am I saying Jon Stewart's mother is a spoiled, financial Peter Panma with fiduciary diabetes fat from candy-ass advice? Yyyyyyup. If she let someone else be responsible for her well being she is a spoiled, financial Peter Panma with fiduciary diabetes all fat and sick from taking candy-ass advice from the happy happy fun clowns on TV.

When Jon Stewart and his mother take responsibility for the fact that they alone are responsible for their well-being Jim Cramer will cut out the bells and whistles and clean off the white face and start providing real information. He doesn't provide viewers all the inside shenanigans that created the house of cards we are watching collapse around us not because he is lame and unethical but because Americans like Jon Stewart's mother ignored clear, visible red flags, which means they did not want to know the truth about how Wall Street works, which means Wall Street has their permission to do anything it can get away with, just like an adolescent. It is not Jim Cramer or CNBC's fault that Jon Stewart's grandma is a Peter Panma.

Stewart can't tell me his mother saw no red flags along her road to retirement ruin. She either ignored them or felt overwhelmed by what she saw, which is a pretty big, bright, red flag, or didn't have the time in her busy day to protect her retirement cuz everything else was more important -- which is a Super Bowl type cover-the-playing field sized red flag. Or she's straight lazy, another massive red flag, or she incorrectly judged herself incapable of understanding Wall Street, and if that is the case John Stewart's mother was living in Red Flag Cop Out Doormat City. She put her future in the hands of something beyond her ability to grasp??? I don't think so. If she sat there and listened to Jim Cramer and just crossed her fingers and hoped everything would be all right then she had to learn a very hard lesson in a very hard way, and that's too bad, but that is her doing. Jon Stewart is upset because CNBC promotes Jim Cramer as an expert in whom we can trust. I don't pay any attention to freakin' promos! Who pays attention to promos? Peter Frickin Pan, that's who. Do Jon Stewart and his mother have every God given right to be Peter Pan? Hell yes. And they get to not enjoy the consequences as well.

My mother has a wonderful friend name Jean Sullivan. She embodies the now required value of self-responsibility in the face of authority. Jean and her late husband Joe worked their asses off creating real value, not paper value, for those invested in the company Joe ran and for its employees and customers. They did things the way they were supposed to be done. Any hardworking, adult American would have to be proud of and satisfied with what they accomplished.

Jean took responsibility for protecting and growing her family's wealth, in that order, which to this day remains considerable. While Jon Stewart's mother sat back and trusted CNBC, apparently, as well as others marketed as experts who must be cuz they play one on TV, Jean Sullivan was out there doing everything Jon Stewart is asking Jim Cramer to do and wished Jim Cramer had done for his Peter Panma. Jean Sullivan made every company and fund she invested in earn her trust and earn the privilege of handling her hard earned money. She took no one at face value. She learned how the system worked. She didn't let the promise of past results lull her into a rose-colored expectation of security. She didn't let overwhelm or a Peter Panma lack of belief in her abilities stop her from learning what she needed to learn. She went out there and found who was on solid ground and who wasn't.

She discovered on her own all the signs that Wall Street was not on solid ground and pulled her money out. She realized it was better to have cash than a worthless stock portfolio. She literally put her money under her mattress, and as a result she still has what she and her husband worked so hard to earn over their long, productive lifetimes. She did the search. She DID NOT rely on CNBC or the funny bald man with the bells and whistles with the rolled up sleeves selling candy with fart noises whom we cannot trust despite those shiny promos. Ahem. As a result she has retained the bulk of her wealth while so many others who refused to take responsibility for themselves are left shaking their fists at Bernie Madoff and Jim Cramer and all the other experts who SHOCKINGLY let them down. Jon Stewart made a point of showing how all over the map Cramer was with is predictions. Why then did his mother trust the advice of the world's Mad Money Men??? Every stock market analyst is all over the map.

Many Madoff victims like to say they had no reason to suspect any trouble. All that tells me is that giving away responsibility worked for these 'victims' up until Madoff collapsed. All it tells me is they got away with turning a blind eye and are pissed off they can't still get away with not caring how Wall Street manages to turn a profit. It does not tell me they are victims, not as long as Jean Sullivan is around.

I'd like to see Jon Stewart run his mother and those Madoff victims through an archived video gauntlet of their past statements and decisions just like the one he put Jim Cramer through. Let's see how their supposedly noble, pitiable victim hood survives the light of day.

If Jon Stewart can convince his mother and every other victim to take responsibility for him or herself the way Jean Sullivan did, CNBC will have a huge new market to serve that won't be entertained by Mad Money, and Jon Stewart would have the financial network he would then deserve.

Barack Obama and the World's Highest Hopes

Wow. How good did voting feel this year? Its always been a thrill, but never so much as this. When I submitted my ballot a chill went up my spine and joy filled my heart. I felt real. I felt in the world. I respected my country and my fellow citizens. We had a Presidential candidate in Obama, who represented a majority of the nation's hopes and dreams, and my countrymen did not turn away from him because of his race. November 4th was one of the happiest days of my life and one of the greatest days in our nation's history.

I don't feel people voted for him because he is black. Blacks voted for Obama in record numbers because Obama said what they wanted to hear. There are many black politicians who don't draw black voters at all. I don't feel people voted for McCain because he is not black or because he's white. If Obama had lost I don't think it would have been because he is black. There will always be some who care more about race than their country, but on the whole I feel Americans looked at who would best help move us forward. That's how it should be, and that's how it was. I feel as if America just took a shower. This country has never felt so clean and fresh and reinvigorated. We still need another good scrubbing or two but for the first time I believe we'll clean up our act.

I've been alive fourty-four years, and I've studied as much history as I can, certainly not as much as professional historians, but I have never felt any leader has been a world leader. Many have claimed dominion over the world, but now billions of people all over the world are claiming ownership of Obama. He is the first international President. He is the first World President. He is the first true world leader.

Obama mirrors the world's best and brightest hopes. He does not embody all our best qualities -- no one does. But it is enough that he can tell a good idea from a bad one. It's enough that he can see a problem and not make it worse. That is quality enough for a leader of humankind. And for that strength, which is not uncommon or superhuman, and precisely because it is not uncommon, and because he will be President, he is a focal point -- one of many -- for everything we hope for.

He can't fail because no one is asking him to be extraordinary. Expectations are not too high for this man. I strongly disagree that Obama carries an enormous burden as President elect during these troubled times. We ask only that he deal with reality, and that is what Obama does best, which was strongly reflected in his humble, sober address to a Grant Park crowd willing to be whipped into a frenzy. He did not rouse the crowd he settled the crowd.

People around the world do not project "Saint" onto Obama, or "Savior" or any other pie-in-the-sky childish fantasy. People see only a man who understands what needs to be done. We obviously need to take aggressive steps toward new energy development. Obviously Wall Street cannot be trusted to police itself. Obviously something has to be done about health care. Obviously we can't kick out thirteen million illegal immigrants even if it was the right thing to do on paper. Obama does not hold common sense hostage to insecurity or ideology. That is reason to celebrate and be happy and feel like we live in a different, better world than the world that existed on November 3rd.

I have no fear Obama will fail. He's not about a particular policy, he's about a spirit of dignity, and not just for Democrats. He wants Republicans to feel safe and honored and heard and respected, and he wants them to feel the world has room for them as well, despite the fact that so many Republicans don't want to make room for others. That is a leader. There's no way he'll get us into a stupid war. There's no way he'll allow Iraq to fall apart. There's no way he'll appoint unqualified judges and politicize the Justice Department. There's no way we'll suffer through another Katrina. There's no way he'll gut the environment. There's no way he'll let Halliburton dictate this country's energy and foreign policy. It's amazing how far basic competence and common sense will take a President and a nation and the world. If Obama simply shows up for work everyday we'll be better off than we are now -- we won't have W butchering every good thing about this country.

All Obama has to do is attempt to rebuild what W destroyed and he will be re-elected in a landslide. Unfortunately it will take him one full term to stop the ongoing damage Bush will do from beyond the grave and begin to turn things around. Most of his agenda will have to wait until 2012, sadly. The most important thing he can do in his first term he has already done. He has stopped the backsliding.

One good thing Bush did, and he did unwittingly, is expose the hidden dark forces in this country and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they are useless. Armed with that clarity, America has learned reality does not bend to ideology and is ready to support common sense once again. Will fixing the world be like falling out of bed? Pretty much. Yeah. We were doing fine before W and we'll be back on our feet soon enough. I mean, how many billions of people around the world knew invading Iraq was a horrible idea? How many billions knew deregulating Wall Street was financial suicide? The world has all the answers. Now we have a leader who knows what the people know. And that's why he's the first world leader in history.