OMG - I just rushed up the stairs to the computer and can hardly contain my glee. Glee does not usually result in a rant, but there's a-move-a-foot, something positive and hopeful and meaningful and it's in politics, and this thing, this idea could, possibly, be the beginning of the end of our completely fucked up political system. No, I'm not talking about the recall of Russell Pearce, which is an obvious glimmer of light. What I am talking about is a ballot initiative being penned as I type by a former Phoenix mayor named Paul Johnson, a Democrat turned Independent, and his committee. This ballot measure, called The Open Government Initiative, would change the Arizona constitution to allow a single election primary open to ALL candidates and ALL registered voters with the top vote getter's moving on to the general election. It would effectively kill the god-awful 2-party system we have all had to endure for way too long. Like I said, OMG!! Parties could still run their primaries at their own expense (not taxpayers) and candidates are free to put their party affiliation on the ballot. But an Independent could now run in the primary as an Independent, not a "moderate Democrat" or "centrist Republican" or some other slightly right/left of Atilla The Hun label or whatever crap label the opposing party wants to stamp a candidate with. Think about it - this forces politicians to appeal to all voters in the primary, not just their own whacked out party loyalists.
I first read about this several months ago and checked out the website address. Not much of a site at the time but I sent in an e-mail asking for more information. Weeks went by and no reply, so I figured this was just another flash-in-the-pan idea that had already been stomped to death by the 2-party behemoth. But then, last week, an e-mail popped up from Mr. Johnson himself, apologizing for the slow reply as the response to the article had completely overwhelmed the website and staff. I almost cried. Could this be the beginning, the revolutionary idea that finally empowers the masses to actually change our dysfunctional, hypocritical, paralyzed form of government by giving people a THIRD CHOICE???? In Arizona, there are now more voters registered with no-party affiliation (read: Independents) than there are registered Democrats. And the numbers keep growing, and growing quickly. From April 1st of this year to July 1st, there were 13,149 people who registered to vote with no party preference, yet the total voter registration only increased by 1,986. So over 11,000 dumped one of the 2 parties to change to no party! That's huge, and a story no one is talking about. Registered Repubes still out-number Independents in Arizona, but just barely.
When this measure sees the light of day, Demos and Repubes will, at last, have something they can agree on. But how uncomfortably delicious it will be watching them squirm as they try and mealy-mouth their concerns about changing the way, you know, things have always been and how the electorate, you know, doesn't know what they're doing here and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah............ Oh sweet Jesus, let it happen!
This could be a game-changer. Paul Johnson was, in my humble opinion, the best damn mayor Phoenix has had since I've been living here. He's smart and he knows how to get shit done. Then it will be up to the nearly one million registered Arizona Independents to act and get this initiative on the ballot. It seems impossible to fathom that this measure would not be approved, but we are talking about Arizona. The level of bi-polar conscientiousness in this State is beyond belief - passing medical marijuana in the same election where Russel Pearce and Jan Brewer were elected is just one fine example. But I believe this time it's different. The Great Recession has accelerated the once slow, insidious decline of the middle class in this country, a decline perpetuated by government polarization from a 2-party system where the easiest thing to do is just kick the stinking turd down the road for the next group of suckers who will then do everything they can to keep from stepping on it. People have fucking had it!! With more choice will come more action from elected individuals not beholding to a party dogma and free to actually do what the people elected then to do.
I know, I know, this whole idea is fanciful, and idealistic, and perhaps not even the big thing that finally makes a difference. But how wonderful it is to contemplate the possibility of figuratively checking the ballot box in a future election: "none of the above"!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
In The Spring There Could Be Growth
Late last year a prominent economist, who's name I can't seem to recall, made a bold prediction - by this summer of 2011 the housing crisis would be history, employment would be growing robustly and all would be well. He based this rosy scenario on two basic ideas: 1) housing had bottomed out and the country's private companies would be growing and hiring. Whoops, missed 'er by just that much. Now I'm not going to sit here and disparage this highly educated and occasionally correct economist, as I'm sure his crystal ball was not working well that day. But I am going to offer up, as promised, the following observations along with two ideas for getting this country's economic train wreck cleared off the tracks so we can start rolling again.
Let's face it, the housing market still sucks and will likely continue this way for at least another 12-18 months. Interest rates remain low and the FHA is backing practically any mortgage thrown its way, so why the continuing doldrums? Mainly it's a lack of jobs of course, as well as the always tenuous deflation scenario where everyone keeps waiting to buy "at the bottom". However, without buyers, there is no bottom. Like many economic cycles, we just keep circling the drain. So how do we break this cycle? I believe the first step is to get the myriad of companies in this country that are reporting OK balance sheets and net income gains every quarter, including our beloved banks, to start spending and hiring again. Without question, one of the main reasons the stock market has been gangbusters for several years and is currently not far from historic highs is that companies are profitable and they have a ton of dough laying around. In fact, according to Reuters, US companies are holding a combined 1 trillion in cash. Or should I say hoarding the cash. This amount is much more than Obama's stimulus package, which finished up somewhere around 700 billion. WTF?
I'll tell you WTF. The economic world remains way too uncertain, and uncertainty is the killer of private investment, and private investment creates jobs. Sorry you dumb-ass Republicans, but rich CEO's don't create jobs, they just siphon off obscene amounts of money that could go towards hiring workers. Don't need a PHD in Economics to figure that out. CEO's do make decisions about how company profits are divided up, but large companies haven't been the main source of job creation for some time. It's medium and small businesses, start-ups and the like, capitalized by hedge funds and individual investors who are more sensitive to the potential for loss than some CEO who knows he'll collect millions even if he's a complete buffoon and drives his company over a cliff. It's in his contract bro.
So we need stability and certainty, and this starts at the top. Mr. Obama, no more financial rules-changing bills for now. Give in to the House morons, raise the debt ceiling and put off the big decisions about reducing the deficit until later. I can't believe I'm saying that but certainty must be restored to the economy now so all that stored money can start flowing. Also, allow interest rates to creep up a bit. Yeah the stock market will get runny shit for a spell, but a sense of doing something today, before it gets more expensive, is desperately needed. We need some goddamn inflation Bernanke, and it's time to end the free ride for the banks. If they're still needing to be propped up, fuck 'em as they're too far gone. This morass of waiting for zombie banks to get healthy is what killed the Japanese economy for 2 decades. Every dollar entering the economy is borrowed in from the Fed, so if the bank is a credit risk, let them fail. End it now!! We must move on!
In addition of certainty, we need to crack the endless cycle of unemployment, and to do this we need a jobs idea that actually fucking works. So, as I have done before, I turn to Germany, the leader of the Eurozone and the land of many smart motherfuckers. Germany's economy is growing at 3.5% and unemployment is below 6%. Not stupendous but a whole better than the U.S. So how did the Deutschlanders pull this off? An idea called Hartz IV Labor Reforms has helped a bunch. When introduced, rioting broke out as the main reform was cutting unemployment benefits. But there was a method to this madness - a work sharing arrangement between the federal government and private industry where companies were encouraged to cut hours rather than workers. Then lost wages from working less were made up by a type of unemployment benefit from government, up to 67% of lost income. People kept their jobs while companies enjoyed a more flexible and trained workforce. Laying people off and then hiring new ones is inefficient and expensive. This reform also prodded the chronically unemployed to take a job, any job, in order to continue receiving benefits. This reform helped fix many problems with unemployment. Workers kept their skills honed and union contracts remained intact, helping to eliminate the open warfare on unions that is occurring in this country. Germany has enjoyed a continuing decrease in unemployment despite the fact that they experienced a deeper recession (according to the numbers) that the U.S. Brilliant!!
It's like the residential solar panel requirement the German government has in place that I've reported on before. It's smart, efficient and one other thing - oh yeah, it works!! When-o-when will the leaders of this country grow a brain? Why doesn't Obama call a fire-side chat and explain to this ignorant population ideas like this, ideas that are proven to work? Use some Ross Perot graphs and shit, act enthusiastic about it, build a consensus and then DO IT. Communicate intelligence. It might catch on by spring so we can start growing our way out of this fucking mess!
Let's face it, the housing market still sucks and will likely continue this way for at least another 12-18 months. Interest rates remain low and the FHA is backing practically any mortgage thrown its way, so why the continuing doldrums? Mainly it's a lack of jobs of course, as well as the always tenuous deflation scenario where everyone keeps waiting to buy "at the bottom". However, without buyers, there is no bottom. Like many economic cycles, we just keep circling the drain. So how do we break this cycle? I believe the first step is to get the myriad of companies in this country that are reporting OK balance sheets and net income gains every quarter, including our beloved banks, to start spending and hiring again. Without question, one of the main reasons the stock market has been gangbusters for several years and is currently not far from historic highs is that companies are profitable and they have a ton of dough laying around. In fact, according to Reuters, US companies are holding a combined 1 trillion in cash. Or should I say hoarding the cash. This amount is much more than Obama's stimulus package, which finished up somewhere around 700 billion. WTF?
I'll tell you WTF. The economic world remains way too uncertain, and uncertainty is the killer of private investment, and private investment creates jobs. Sorry you dumb-ass Republicans, but rich CEO's don't create jobs, they just siphon off obscene amounts of money that could go towards hiring workers. Don't need a PHD in Economics to figure that out. CEO's do make decisions about how company profits are divided up, but large companies haven't been the main source of job creation for some time. It's medium and small businesses, start-ups and the like, capitalized by hedge funds and individual investors who are more sensitive to the potential for loss than some CEO who knows he'll collect millions even if he's a complete buffoon and drives his company over a cliff. It's in his contract bro.
So we need stability and certainty, and this starts at the top. Mr. Obama, no more financial rules-changing bills for now. Give in to the House morons, raise the debt ceiling and put off the big decisions about reducing the deficit until later. I can't believe I'm saying that but certainty must be restored to the economy now so all that stored money can start flowing. Also, allow interest rates to creep up a bit. Yeah the stock market will get runny shit for a spell, but a sense of doing something today, before it gets more expensive, is desperately needed. We need some goddamn inflation Bernanke, and it's time to end the free ride for the banks. If they're still needing to be propped up, fuck 'em as they're too far gone. This morass of waiting for zombie banks to get healthy is what killed the Japanese economy for 2 decades. Every dollar entering the economy is borrowed in from the Fed, so if the bank is a credit risk, let them fail. End it now!! We must move on!
In addition of certainty, we need to crack the endless cycle of unemployment, and to do this we need a jobs idea that actually fucking works. So, as I have done before, I turn to Germany, the leader of the Eurozone and the land of many smart motherfuckers. Germany's economy is growing at 3.5% and unemployment is below 6%. Not stupendous but a whole better than the U.S. So how did the Deutschlanders pull this off? An idea called Hartz IV Labor Reforms has helped a bunch. When introduced, rioting broke out as the main reform was cutting unemployment benefits. But there was a method to this madness - a work sharing arrangement between the federal government and private industry where companies were encouraged to cut hours rather than workers. Then lost wages from working less were made up by a type of unemployment benefit from government, up to 67% of lost income. People kept their jobs while companies enjoyed a more flexible and trained workforce. Laying people off and then hiring new ones is inefficient and expensive. This reform also prodded the chronically unemployed to take a job, any job, in order to continue receiving benefits. This reform helped fix many problems with unemployment. Workers kept their skills honed and union contracts remained intact, helping to eliminate the open warfare on unions that is occurring in this country. Germany has enjoyed a continuing decrease in unemployment despite the fact that they experienced a deeper recession (according to the numbers) that the U.S. Brilliant!!
It's like the residential solar panel requirement the German government has in place that I've reported on before. It's smart, efficient and one other thing - oh yeah, it works!! When-o-when will the leaders of this country grow a brain? Why doesn't Obama call a fire-side chat and explain to this ignorant population ideas like this, ideas that are proven to work? Use some Ross Perot graphs and shit, act enthusiastic about it, build a consensus and then DO IT. Communicate intelligence. It might catch on by spring so we can start growing our way out of this fucking mess!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Mind Meanderings
Sunday afternoon, listening to I.H., drinking a beer and Jesus H. Christ (pronounced "Hay-zeus" "H" "Krist") it's HOT outside. Everybody sing: "I'm living in Purgatory, I know what Purgatory is, this ain't no sanctuary, this ain't no way to live. You gotta have a sense of humor, you gotta know how to laugh to live. I'm living in Purgatory, and anything's better than this!" Frickin' furnace that Phoenix is in July; my brain's too hot to think too deeply, not that I'm some kind of deep thinker, but ranting just doesn't seem to be on today's to-do list. Please note that I have not forgotten last weeks promise to offer the necessary fixes for our economic woes, and this will be revealed soon, but today I offer some milder observations and, perhaps, a little something more.
Divorces are down. Only in the '70's did 1 out of every 2 marriages end in divorce even though that dreadful statistic keeps getting repeated even today. In fact, the divorce rate peaked in 1980 and has been dropping ever since. Many reasons are intuitive - the freeing of souls in the 1960's, the "me" decade of the 1970's and the waiting until later pattern of the 1980's and beyond. Still, an excellent trend.
In Arizona, it turns out that the majority of political donations are not from corporations, lobbyist or their like. It's from individuals, with retirees leading the pack. Surprising. Democracy lives!
America continues to fatten up as the percentage of obese people keeps getting, ummm, bigger. Two fixes I've mentioned before - charge people higher health care premiums for increased BMI and outlaw high fructose corn syrup - seem to be in order. The corn farmers will then have a bunch more to sell the Chinese who have shown a willingness to pay big bucks for it. This, in turn, will reduce our trade deficit and eventually turn all the billions of skinny, hard-working Chinese into fatter, lazier and sicker workers so we can get all of those jobs back that have been shipped over there. Win-lose!
Bill Maher must be an unidentified follower of this blog, as his last New Rule the other night was exactly the same theme of as the parting paragraph of my last blog - out of work, downtrodden, middle-class Republicans voting for the people who are screwing them over. Come on Bill, identify yourself!
Another sad documentary of our times: the price of a grave at a municipal cemetery is quadrupling in some cities. Yikes, best to keep living for a while. On the up-side, funeral costs for pets are dropping due to good old American capitalistic competition.
And now a little something more. Please indulge this old web-footed, bug-eyed amphibian for a minute whilst I get a bit philosophical. You see, sometimes I just can't help but wonder why so many good things have happened to me and what I did to deserve them. I know there are many, many people hurting these days - good, honest people who are just trying to hang on and likely wondering what the hell they did to deserve their situation. This only amplifies my wonderment and appreciation, and I can tell you that this goes way beyond economic circumstance and even good health. It's family and love (see profile!). And at the heart of this good fortune are the ladies in my life. And so I would like to say, to my wife of 30 years, thank you and I love you. To my daughter of 26 years, thank you and I love you. To my mother of 58 years, thank you and I love you. To my daughter-in-law of 3 years, thank you and I love you (love you too son, you lucky bloke). Each of these women are the best - loving, caring, intelligent, beautiful, witty and just absolutely delightful in every way. Oh, and to one more lady I almost forgot. To lady luck, my sincere thanks for making me the luckiest frog in the pond!
Divorces are down. Only in the '70's did 1 out of every 2 marriages end in divorce even though that dreadful statistic keeps getting repeated even today. In fact, the divorce rate peaked in 1980 and has been dropping ever since. Many reasons are intuitive - the freeing of souls in the 1960's, the "me" decade of the 1970's and the waiting until later pattern of the 1980's and beyond. Still, an excellent trend.
In Arizona, it turns out that the majority of political donations are not from corporations, lobbyist or their like. It's from individuals, with retirees leading the pack. Surprising. Democracy lives!
America continues to fatten up as the percentage of obese people keeps getting, ummm, bigger. Two fixes I've mentioned before - charge people higher health care premiums for increased BMI and outlaw high fructose corn syrup - seem to be in order. The corn farmers will then have a bunch more to sell the Chinese who have shown a willingness to pay big bucks for it. This, in turn, will reduce our trade deficit and eventually turn all the billions of skinny, hard-working Chinese into fatter, lazier and sicker workers so we can get all of those jobs back that have been shipped over there. Win-lose!
Bill Maher must be an unidentified follower of this blog, as his last New Rule the other night was exactly the same theme of as the parting paragraph of my last blog - out of work, downtrodden, middle-class Republicans voting for the people who are screwing them over. Come on Bill, identify yourself!
Another sad documentary of our times: the price of a grave at a municipal cemetery is quadrupling in some cities. Yikes, best to keep living for a while. On the up-side, funeral costs for pets are dropping due to good old American capitalistic competition.
And now a little something more. Please indulge this old web-footed, bug-eyed amphibian for a minute whilst I get a bit philosophical. You see, sometimes I just can't help but wonder why so many good things have happened to me and what I did to deserve them. I know there are many, many people hurting these days - good, honest people who are just trying to hang on and likely wondering what the hell they did to deserve their situation. This only amplifies my wonderment and appreciation, and I can tell you that this goes way beyond economic circumstance and even good health. It's family and love (see profile!). And at the heart of this good fortune are the ladies in my life. And so I would like to say, to my wife of 30 years, thank you and I love you. To my daughter of 26 years, thank you and I love you. To my mother of 58 years, thank you and I love you. To my daughter-in-law of 3 years, thank you and I love you (love you too son, you lucky bloke). Each of these women are the best - loving, caring, intelligent, beautiful, witty and just absolutely delightful in every way. Oh, and to one more lady I almost forgot. To lady luck, my sincere thanks for making me the luckiest frog in the pond!
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