THE MIRRORS OF NOW AND THEN

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of all? ~

The Wicked Queen in Snow White

   As 2010 draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on mirrors. As objects of reflective self-admiration (or loathing – see Wicked Queen), mirrors have existed since ancient times. Obsidian mirrors from 6000BC have been found in Anatolia (Turkey); metal-coated mirrors were invented in Sidon (Lebanon) during the 1^st century AD; China made silver-mercury mirrors as early as 500AD. And Venice became a center of mirror-making with tin-mercury by the 16^th century.

   In centuries past, national mirrors reflecting the "fairest nation of all" have shown Britain and France and at other times Germany and France vying for European predominance. Greece and Rome and later the Danes/Norse contended for domination farther long ago. For many reasons, in times gone by it was exceedingly uncommon for one nation to solely be the fairest of all for very long. Most often, several nations actively sought and competed for this position.

   The US has been this quite atypical fairest of all nations – certainly in terms of economic and military authority – for practically three generations. It is rare that one nation can rise to the heights of regional-continental-global supremacy and remain unchallenged for any long time. I think the US is collectively beginning to realize this historic run of lone fairest one may be concluding. And unsurprisingly it is most unsettling since we've had a reasonably good course of superpower supremacy since the end of WWII and more so since the USSR began its collapse in mid-1980's and dissolved in 1991. There is now at least one new kid on the global block for the US to deal with substantively; not yet as an equal, but as a new entrant in the realm of powerful nations.

   This entrant for international authority sweepstakes is the People's Republic of China. As more and more people know, over the past five years, China has grown significantly in both economic and political terms. Its economy overtook Japan's last year to become the second largest in the world, after the US. [China's GDP is now about 1/3 as large as ours.] In many strategic areas, the era of the US being the sole global superpower probably is drawing to an end. In other words, the world is moving back to the long-established norm of multiple nations vying for preeminence. Using the mirror analogy I've adopted here, during the past several decades when the US asked the mirror on the wall the Wicked Queen's famous question, it was invariably answered, "It is you, oh mighty United States." Over the past several years, the mirror's answer probably shows another now-visually smaller nation racing forward, China fast approaching the fairest one – the US.

   It's useful to be clear about just how "fair" China is at this point. Despite rising anxiety from certain groups in the US like the military (which is always fearful of some other nation having more of something, like missiles or whatever) or traditionalist conservatives (who want the clocks to somehow stop ticking say in 2006 to forever preserve our sole superpower status), I don't believe China is anywhere near to being the fairest one at this point. Although we're no longer the undisputed, solitary fairest one, we're not close to losing our fairest crown. [If you sort nations by a composite ranking of their GDP, their GDP/capita, and their Human Development Index – calculated by the United Nations Development Programme – the US remains the fairest of all by a considerable margin. China is way down the list, below Canada, South Korea, Mexico and Brazil, among other nations.]

   However, the US and China offer an interesting mirror image of each other, in terms of how the economy of each could adapt in the near future. In the US, to grow out of our "great recession" we should increase our domestic investment (about 15% of our GDP), tone down our fixation on consumption (about 70% of GDP), and increase exports. China, on the other hand could enhance its long-term growth by doing the following (this according to Western economic thinking): re-prioritize its fixation on domestic investment (about 50% of its GDP) towards consumption (about 35% of GDP); increase its imports (hopefully including from Western producers like the US) and reduce its obsession on exports. Although there are a multitude of genuine differences between China and the US, these prescriptive changes are almost mirror images of one another.

   The US's position as no longer the solitary fairest one is perhaps a bit like being a first-born child and then being confronted by the subsequent birth of a sister or brother – at a rather fundamental level your world has significantly changed since undivided parental attention is no longer in the cards. Some first-borns deal with this better than others. Going way beyond an individual family situation, to a "national family," I liken my Baby Boomer generation as now having to deal with a new, fast-growing and demanding sibling of sorts – China. Unsurprisingly, we don't like this recent international addition; just as we don't like our own Gen Xers and Gen Yers coming into their own as we Boomers start heading for the retirement sidelines. The clock keeps ticking...

   Throughout our lives we Boomers have enjoyed the historically unique advantage of growing up and living in a nation that's been always recognized as a world superpower, and since the latter 1980's as the world superpower. We almost take it as a birthright that the US is always to be numero uno – fairest of all – since that's the way it's been for quite a while.

   I think a fair amount of our anguish-anxiety-worry-fear about China's entrance into the "fairest" sweepstakes is simply that we've not experienced such competition for so long. From the US's parochial perspective, this rivalry is unnatural – why can't it just be the way it was before; say when China was inward-focused during its chaotic Cultural Revolution and the Berlin Wall had fallen? Because the world, China and we have changed significantly since the late 1970's. And on balance, this change has been for the better.

   The sooner we citizens of the US realize our historically unique era as sole superpower is changing – as is inevitable – the sooner we can be successful in competing with the new kids on the block – like China – in a meaningful and successful way that can further improve our lives. Defensively wishing for the past will not realize this success; building on our strengths will. These significant strengths include our long record of successful technological innovation, investing wisely in strengthening our physical and human capital, and harnessing our diverse talents, perspectives and effort towards achievement of the seemingly impossible.

   By employing and fortifying our strengths as we have time and time again, we will still be satisfied with the mirror's answer when we ask it in the future, who's the fairest of all?

It's All About Distribution – The Big D

Money is flat and meant to be piled up. ~ Scottish proverb

When money speaks the truth is silent. ~ Proverb

Money talks...but all mine ever says is good-bye. ~ Anon.

The fallout from the Nov. election is finally dying down, sort of – Keith Olbermann is back on the silver screen apparently without any bruises, which cannot be said about his employer MSNBC, President Obama is on a long-ish tour (escape?) to Asia, and we're breathlessly awaiting the beginning of the lame-duck session of our beloved Congress. How much more exciting can it get? We're fast returning back to a political reality distinctively defined by Washington's strange, discordant view of how stuff happens inside the beltway. Unfortunately, Washington continues to be its own fairly self-contained world.

In my mind the election results once again showed  the importance of a single, key characteristic – voter age. Sure, geographic location is important – witness the interesting distinction in results on the east and (especially) west coasts as compared with almost everywhere else – but unsurprisingly older voters again voted distinctively differently from younger voters. The most important distinction is that older voters actually voted this November, as they consistently do, whereas younger people (especially 18-24 year olds) don't vote nearly as often or consistently – much to the chagrin of more liberal, Democratic candidates. Unlike the 2008 presidential election, where a multitude of young people first voted (that the media dutifully then reported as an "important new trend"), this November was shown to return to the norm. This time, because the still-charismatic Obama wasn't on any ballot, "the kids" mostly stayed away from the voting booths as they mostly do; so much for the important new trend.

Speaking of Washington, I believe the newly-empowered Republicans will defy the President's stated hope that they seek some accommodations with Senate Democrats to "get stuff done." I hope the President will take a harder (and perhaps uncharacteristically aggressive), more focused position about talking with House and Senate Republicans. I for one don't want you Mr. President to be as cerebral, calm and detached as you've been to date. I want you to stand up for your and your administration's many substantive accomplishments so far. [For an interesting and a bit too-late-for-the-election listing of such accomplishments, see a website produced not by the administration (as it should have been) but by three individuals that had a few hours to kill.] And, please Mr. President don't give away the administration store before you get something worthwhile in return from the likes of soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner.

Now that I've officially entered the Medicare generation, and become aware how uninformed I am about the vast majority of "central topics" of interest to folks under 30 years old (should I really feel that bad that I'm not part of Team Coco?), I can increasingly feel the diffidence cast by media/advertising forces on my age bracket. [I've never really understood why the media weighs youth so heavily when older folks (including youths' parents like me) actually control the majority of economic resources – so it goes.] For Baby Boomers like moi it's a new and disturbing sensation. And as I've mentioned before, we Boomers will be accounting for a disproportionate share of longer-term deficit spending because of entitlement receipts – principally Medicare, Medicaid and, of course, Social Security.

Here's what I see as facts regarding the first piece of the Big D, Demographics...

Demographics.  As I mentioned in a previous Grey Paper, Generations of Progress, there are three (3) demographic groupings that soon will be struggling with one another about how to allocate stretched fiscal resources in the US. [If the elected tea partiers really can reduce the size of federal and state government expenditures – not at all a sure thing once they take their relatively small number seats of power – then this struggle will be that much more raucous.] Unsurprisingly, this struggle will focus on the fairly generous entitlements that are now starting to be provided to us Boomers, and that will be mostly paid by Gen X and Gen Y.

·  Baby Boomers - folks born in 1946-1964 inclusively; in 2010, aged 46-64, ~78M people, account for 29% of the US population; remain the majority of the work force; and since Boomers came on the scene, remain the largest age-related demographic the nation has ever seen. Although technically I missed Boomerdom by about 5 weeks, I've always considered myself a (leading edge) Boomer. Needless-to-say, we're very used to wielding influence and power and getting attention.

·  Generation X - (aka, Gen X, the Baby Bust Generation and the 13^th Generation (the 13^th generation since the US was created)) – folks born right after Boomers, 1965-1981 inclusively; in 2010, aged 29-45, ~46M people.

· Millennials - (aka, Gen Y and Echo Boomers) – folks born in 1982-2001 inclusively; in 2010, aged 9-28, ~60M people. Gen Y is composed mostly of kids of Boomers.

I hope for the nation's sake we Boomers take a broader, less self-serving view than we have before of what's realistic and needed for our collective national health (fiscal and otherwise). If we want progress, all of us – the Boomers, Gen X and Millennial generations – will need to provide some fiscal sacrifice. If we Boomers obstinately refuse to budge, everyone including us will suffer.

Income.  The distribution of income across the US population is not often a front-page topic of discussion, but it does occupy some thought space when macroeconomic trends are judged to be out of balance – as they've been for a while in the US. Income distribution is especially relevant when government expenditures and tax policy become more prominent issues in the next sessions of Congress with the soon-to-be expiring Bush income tax cuts and needed increase in the federal debt limit. Here are some of the relevant facts related to the current US income distribution.

· The richest 1% of income-earners (folks now earning over $368k/yr) receive 21% to 24% of total US income, depending on who you talk with. This proportion has steadily increased for some time; in 1976 the richest 1% received about 9% of total income. Timothy Noah has written an extensive assessment of changes in income distribution that he and Paul Krugman call the Great Divergence. He states this very select group's income share has more than doubled since the 1980's.

·  The share of national income going to the top 0.1% (the richest of the rich, who make over $1 million/yr) has increased nearly fourfold according to Noah and account for almost 8% of total income. Never in the past have the super-rich had such a large share of national income.

·  Most interestingly from my perspective, from 1980 through 2005, more than 80% of the total gains in US national income went to the richest 1% of earners. And who said the Republican-sponsored tax cuts haven't re-distributed income big time?

As an example of how different income groups have been affected by these changes in income distribution, the ratio of a typical CEO's income to an average worker's income has increased more than an order of magnitude – from a "mere" 42 times as large in 1980 to a beyond astounding 531 times as large as a worker's in 2001. The above facts lay bare the complete hypocrisy behind the alleged popular support for the Republicans' single-minded demand to extend after Dec 31^st the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% of earners. In my mind this demand wins a Gordon Gekko Gold Star award for excessive greed to the already-richest people. While crowds of tea-partiers (including  seemingly thick folks like Joe the Plumber) claim to want much smaller, less oppressive government, they apparently (once again) want "their" politicians to vote against the own economic self-interests and not venture to redistribute income (to them). I guess it's a good thing tea-partiers don't seem to understand economic irony of any sort.

Wealth.  Discussions about wealth distribution in the US (or almost any other nation) are less common than income. In part this is because most people are understandably confused about the difference economists make between income and wealth. Income and wealth are not interchangeable. Income is a "flow variable," it's measured over a particular period of time, say a year; thus Jane Doe's annual income of $81,000 in 2009 is a flow variable. On the other hand, wealth is a "stock variable" in that is measured at a specific moment in time, and represents the accumulated value of existing assets at that particular point in time (say, December 31, 2009), that have accumulated during the past. Jane's wealth of $171,000 is the accumulated value of what she owned on that Dec 31^st. Unlike income, wealth measures are more challenging to come by – taxpayers have to state what their annual income is on their 1040 form, but there is no uniform reporting of their wealth. Also, wealth can be measured as a person's net worth (their assets' value minus their liabilities (what they owe)), e.g., the market value of Jane's home minus the value of her mortgage). Nevertheless, here are a few facts regarding the distribution of wealth in America.

·  Given the disparity in income distribution shown above, it's no surprise that the distribution of wealth is even more top-heavy than income. According to Mr. Noah, the richest 1% of Americans account for 35% of the nation's net worth; if you subtract housing from net worth (which is the most-often owned large-value asset in the US), then the richest 1% share of wealth rises to 43%. In 1913, this number was 18%.

·  The richest 20% of Americans account for an astonishing 85% of our nation's net worth; if you subtract housing, this net worth share rises to 93%. Unlike the income distribution, the distribution of wealth has been relatively stable and hasn't changed much in several decades.

Why aren't the majority of (unwealthy) Americans more vociferous about this significant wealth (and income) disparity? Perhaps because most Americans remain (or choose to be) ignorant about the Big D. Surveys that asked respondents to estimate what how much wealth the top 20% of Americans owned guessed about 60% (the answer is 85%, from above). Does that mean Americans are more or less OK with a small number of folks owning virtually all of the nation's wealth? Who knows, but I expect the Big D should become a far more prominent facet of political discourse over the next year or so. Why?

Because as the lame-duck and subsequent Congressional sessions are forced to considers changing entitlement, tax, government expenditure policies to reduce the deficit (a stated major goal of Republicans), the Big D will need to be understood - assuming factual reality has a place in political dialog and policy. Every policy change will, as always, have consequences and likely affect different generations, groups of income-earners and wealth-holders quite distinctly. Knowing the facts about the Big D hopefully will allow more informed policy to be created.

The Nov 10^th announcement by the two chairmen of the Debt Commission is witness to the underlying importance of the Big D, and of the fact that after unemployment subsides some, it's unlikely local, state and Federal government in the US can continue to spend that so exceeds our revenues. The Chairmen's very draft proposal includes spending cuts, tax increases and changes/cuts in Social Security. In the abstract, most of their ideas make sense; but the politics of eventually enacting such changes will involve much effort and require perspective about the Big D. Even though this proposal is "a starting point" (duh), the stridency of instantaneous comments by politicians and interest groups is regrettable, but not surprising. Now as a beneficiary of Medicare and eventually Social Security, I could be directly affected. I expect to be. My July 2010 paper, Economic Eyeglasses for Our Fiscal Myopia (see my July post below), recommended a number of changes similar to those identified by the Chairmen.

We citizens and politicians (not just the 12 on the Debt Commission) need to discover the good sense and courage to serve the broad public interest (not just one generation or one income grouping), put our economy more into balance and allow the US to move forward in a positive and influential manner. Should I hold my breath? I hope so.

THE POLITICS OF TIME

Nothing is as far away as a minute ago. ~ Jim Bishop

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. ~ Douglas Adams

If only things were simpler, "like they used to be." Many of us share the preference that it's better to be straightforward and uncomplicated. Unfortunately such preferences often fly in the face of the complexities of our modern lives. This has not stopped politicians from claiming that they can solve our problems with simple remedies. If you believe the MSM's (mainstream media's) sound bites, things will get better simply by lowering taxes, or making government smaller, say by privatizing Social Security/Medicare (on the Republican side of politics), and/or by increasing job training and again lengthening the duration of unemployment benefits (by the Democrats). If only.

I think the current zealous debates seen and heard during this final stage of the election season are at their heart founded on a self-imposed, unrealistic sense of time. [As an aside, I seriously doubt there has ever been a non-zealous discussion between politicians a week before an election.] If only we could recapture the good times before 2007-08, it would be so much more straightforward. If only; and how soon we forget.

Nostalgia is reigning supreme instead of forcing folks running for office to state how they'd improve our lot by using contemporaneous, non sound-bite solutions to advance and move forward. It's far easier to remember imperfectly the good old days, and remedy today's modern issues with yesterday talk. This nostalgia is possible only when politicians think they can ignore large parts of the historical record and shout rhetoric without reality. They assume perhaps all too correctly that citizens can't (or won't) remember relevant facts about the not too distant past – for example, that the sustained macroeconomic growth the US enjoyed during the Clinton period was, until Bush II cut them, financed in large part by high income-tax rates (up to a 91% marginal rate at the top) and growth. Republicans became the biggest deficit spenders ever, and yet still label Democrats as such, and surprisingly seem to get away with it. How come?

Because as we continue to suffer from recessionary forces, we remember "way back when" things were better and quite naturally we want to be back then not now. We selectively remember the good times; if it was good then all we have to do is recreate it again. If only. It doesn't matter that many economic, social and cultural forces were working to create those "good times" that are no longer applicable or even relevant.

When times are tough perhaps every politician wants us to consider time very selectively. In this time of 140 character Tweets, politicians seem comfortable mouthing only unsubstantiated one-sentence remedies for all that ails us rather than realistic, well-thought out solutions. How come we (and the MSM) refuse to require politicians tell us exactly what government programs they want to cut severely to make it smaller; exactly how forcing China to revalue its Renminbi by some means will lead to more jobs in the US; how privatizing health care (as if it's not already) will reduce long-term increasing cost trends; or why extending jobless worker benefits (now at 99 weeks, substantially beyond the "traditional" 26 weeks) can remedy structural unemployment.

The more extreme candidates running for political office (and there have always been some of those in every election) want to impose simplistic notions that radically change the present and go way back in time – like removing the Internal Revenue Service. Does that mean the Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller wants to repeal the 16^th Amendment to our Constitution? Or merely pretend it's 1912 – the year before this amendment was ratified?) And eradicate the Dept. of Education from the roster of Federal agencies to make things better for us? Nonsense. Ultra-conservatives like Miller, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell are premodern candidates who want to turn the clocks way back and pretend everything will then be fine. It's baffling why folks seem to listen to these crazy people.

With less than a week left before this election, I hope the voters compel candidates to stay focused on the present time and near future, and leave the past for historians.

UNREALITY SQUARED

"The difference between reality and unreality is that reality

 has so little to recommend it." ~ Allen Sherman

Five weeks before the November elections, I am totally tired of hearing that it's impossible to enact effective economic policies to revive the economy before the election.  This week the Senate Democrats once again cowardly retreated and said they would not consider the expiring Bush tax cuts until after the election, as if that will give them a better chance to do the right thing. The media barrage of "The Republicans, powered by the tea partiers, are poised to take over the country – or at least the House of Representatives," and "The Democrats are cowering in their corner, wondering what to do," is unrelenting. Shadowy pollsters dutifully report their "latest insight" on a daily (or is it hourly?) basis to ratchet up anxiety for the tiny minority of people that purport to pay attention to such trivia. My bet is these poll/political minutiae super-consumers probably represent no more than a twentieth of the folks across the US that were reported last week to make more than $7,700,000 per year (themselves representing the top-earning 0.1% of taxpayers); at most maybe 15,000 souls in this nation of 310 million carrying iPhones with thousands of ever-active politico apps. But, boy, their shadowy influence seems to be growing over the "political cognoscenti." Extremes are strengthening at the expense of enacting well-recognized, effective policies to end the Great Recession for the millions of folks who remain unemployed. Why on earth is the political class arguing instead about the merits of giving the very wealthiest Americans a continued tax break? Talk about unreality from both ends of the political spectrum and tyranny of the minority. [In this paper I've given this current, unfortunate situation that we increasingly seem to be living in, when the extremes dominate the middle, the moniker "unreality squared."]

Why does it seem that when we're talking about political or economic forces the "normal (or bell) curve" – that we learned long ago best represents the real distribution of a wide variety of factors and characteristics, like people's heights and student test scores – no longer applies. See the traditional bell curve in this linked figure. Now, the bell curve may be old-school and has turned upside down, meaning the extremes of the distribution are far more prominent than the middle. This upside-down normal curve was termed "the Well Curve" by Daniel Pink, among the first to talk about it. More rigorously, the Well Curve is a type of bimodal distribution. Pink's Wired article, shows his Well Curve, representing the distribution of employees by firm size, illustrating the increase in tiny, "non-employer businesses" without any paid employees and the simultaneous increase in huge, corporate, multi-national enterprises. As he states, "while the big grow bigger and the small multiply, midsize enterprises are waning." Just like the income distribution in the US over the past decade or so – labeled as the hollowing out and drooping of the middle class; and just like the unwarranted excessive media frenzy about a " preacher " of a miniscule church who threatened to undertake some undisputed craziness guaranteed to upset lots of people. He knew what he was doing and won in a large sense. Will the media ever learn when to NOT promote a story covering an extremely crazy person that also creates huge negative consequences? Apparently not.

The 24/7 media cycle exacerbates this unreality for two reasons: (1) because the multitude of media sources are always desperately searching for material, no matter what its veracity or message – witness the "birthers" who refuse to accede to facts and reality, but still get media attention. What and who are we to believe in this age of instant, real-time expertdom and blog blasts from anyone who wants to spend a nanosecond or three analyzing the scene? And (2) because extremers – folks who purposefully use the media to broadcast their rhetoric-over-reality positions (see tea partiers among others) – know how to play the media game all too successfully. As I've mentioned before in other Papers, the fractionalization of modern American society also contributes to the increasing ease by which extremers of any sort disproportionately influence what used to be called "public opinion" through media exposure.

Is this a new phenomenon? Perhaps it is in its perceived intensity and frequency (due to modern telecommunications technology), but probably not as occurrences. Columnist Gail Collins wrote recently that "5 percent of our population is and always will be totally crazy." I personally believe it's a lot greater than 5%, but 5% still represents on average more than 300,000 crazies per state. It is just that this 5% now has a more visible, increasing and wholly undeserved prominence than ever before. It's this technology that challenges the drooping "middle" (perhaps a modern-day "silent majority") to remain relevant. That crazy Florida minister extremer allegedly received a phone call from the US Secretary of Defense who pleaded with him to renounce his plans. Amazing. What further incentives could "the establishment" provide make to extremers threaten more stupid, self-serving actions?

The Republicans apparently want to ride this wild elephant of extremers into the future; the Democrats once again, don't really know what to do and thus remain tentative, faltering and hesitant. This lack of conviction about calling a spade a spade (that the extremers are mostly idiots, unqualified for public office and don't have a cogent idea in their heads that is founded on common sense) will likely make their political demise a tragic reality on Nov 3^rd. In contrast, the Republicans have no qualms about offending people with their hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

The extreme tails of our society have figured out how to work the system and create unreality squared. Politically, we will see in about five weeks if the extremers who actually got on a ballot (including folks like Sharon Angle in NV, Carly Fiorina in CA, Carl Paladino in NY, Joe Miller in AK and Christine O’Donnell in MD) can win a general election. My view is that the outcomes will depend (as always) on who can get more of their supporters away from their TVs and DVRs to vote. So far, the Democrats have provided few motivating reasons for going to the polls and casting a vote for reason, rationality and common sense. Not admitting there's a wild elephant in the room that needs to be contained, countered and crushed will not provide victory for Democratic candidates in close elections. The Democrats should be ashamed of their feeble campaign performances so far.

For their own reasons, most media have relentlessly played up the possibilities of the extremers winning. I don't think this outcome is such a sure thing, assuming their opponents start actively countering the extremers. And I sincerely hope that does not come to pass and that the "muddled middle" can finally see that despite their justifiable upset at what they (and we) are facing economically, voting in extremers won't do anything positive beyond feeling good on Nov 2^nd. How could it when, among other things, extremers want to prioritize legislation to outlaw masturbation and eliminate Social Security rather than getting the country moving again (economically speaking)? How many "typical" voters really think it's in their best interest to give very rich folks continued tax relief? Probably more than I'd want to admit, but hopefully not a plurality. [An interesting article in Slate about perceptions of income/wealth distribution in the US makes the case that many non wealthy people are quite ignorant about the very large (and growing) proportion of the economic pie that is held by the wealthy. From this article, the richest 20% account for 93% of the nation's net worth (when you subtract housing; if you don't subtract housing it's 85%)] Time will tell.

My recommendation to counter unreality squared, above all, is GO VOTE on Nov 2^nd.

The 2% "solution"? I think not.

An article in Slate puts some needed perspective on the huge hype now being presented by both political parties regarding the Bush tax cuts' termination. the author dutifully presents in a summary, understandable manner the huge holes in arguments mostly made by conservatives that raising taxes for the very rich will be the death of the US as we know it. the wonder is from my perspective why any Democrat (other than Ben Nelson who's a DINO) could fall for this BS and waffle about "gee, maybe I should vote to continue the tax cuts" since trickle-down has been such a powerful, broad-based force helping regular folks in my district. Not. If liberals/progressives could ever get their legislative act together (not too likely, given what they've already squandered) and re-discover their backbones, this should be one of the easier fiscal decisions for Democrats to make - ever. Simply follow Nancy Reagan's surprisingly apt advice, "Just say No" to even thinking let alone acting to extend the tax cuts for those "unfortunate" folks, in Republican eyes only, making more than $250k/yr, representing roughly 2% of US households. The Democrats' miasma over such a well-defined, straightforward issue makes me really wonder what world these folks really live in - other than always looking for $$ rather than sense. Here's hoping common sense prevails - and the Bush Tax Cuts aren't extended for the wealthy... Bruce.

Enjoying Eugene with Liam - Aug 2010

Just a test

Started my blog Sep 12, 2010. Happy trails... Bruce.