Proper Perspective

Joe, First Rich and now Herbert. I will follow Bob Herbert and Rich to their next ventures. Herbert, in particular, has consistently been a voice for those who are often forgotten by the traditional media and certainly by most politicians.
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Next time you appear on Matthews or CNN Joe, I challenge you to speak to your peers like Tom Friedman and those that talk the “free market” talk and explain how not only lives in this country but world wide are being destroyed by the GEs, Goldman Sachs, GAPs, WalMarts of this world. The middle class in this country has not only been diminished but the evils of forced labor, child labor, and barbarous conditions in other countries have contributed to the debasement of workers everywhere.
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Until the media stands up to the corporate greed that permeates our political process, there is no hope for change. Joe, I ask you to watch this video. I posted it earlier in rememberance of the Triange Shirtwaist fire.
History is repeating its abuses today.
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You and the rest of media need to speak out on the
Mariannas, the Bangledeshes, and the lobbyists in this country who buy the compliance of politicians.
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And Joe, the destruction of public unions is just the next step in the march to make us a feudal country. Destroying unions, privatizing schools, privatizing social security, continued deregulation, no tax legislation, are all part of the corporate agenda.
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Politics can no longer be a game that is indulged in by the pundits. No more horseraces. Take this seriously. Our futures depend on you and your peers doing the right thing.

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And you see Joe, because the traditional press, regulatory departments and our elected officials were not doing their jobs, bad things happened. We, the middle class, paid for the greed of the financial world.
Few in that world or the politicians who abetted them have ever been held accountable.
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Yet, we are being told that we have to sacrifice more. Cut Social Security, lower taxes for the rich while decimating programs for the poor and middle class, and undermine unions that speak for workers.
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Do you get why we might want to see the culprits pay rather than the victims?

According to the NYT G.E.’s profits have risen to 92 billion on which they pay only dividends to shareholders and almost no corporate income tax.. Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its work force in the United States while increasing overseas employment.
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The entire media including Joe have spent weeks bashing teachers, pubic workers and unions as the problem with out schools and local budgets. That’s proper perspective.

Agreed gunny.
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It’s a bit much that Joe, who spends so much time blaming the union workers (read:the middle class), associates himself with Herbert’s long held views about economic disparity.

From Herbert…
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“G.E. is the nation’s largest corporation. Its chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is the leader of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. You can understand how ordinary workers might look at this cozy corporate-government arrangement and conclude that it is not fully committed to the best interests of working people.”

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Can we say Crony Capitalism? Who in their right mind can sit back praising Obama in one breath, and those in Washington who have the power to tax and remain on their side?
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This is exactly what the Tea Party has been going after now for the past 2 years. Yes, we are promoting the “free market”, but on the same hand also calling for a leveling of the tax system to a fair tax or flat tax system. In it, EVERYONE pays.
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Once you eliminate the loopholes that allow for the Immelts of the world to get away with not paying their fair share into the system, you have imbalances. This is perhaps Huckebees strongest issue going into the Presidential elections of 2012.
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The only thing Obama has done is move the wealth from the big oil corporations to the “green” corporations like GE. He talks a big game, but when it comes down to his actions, it is still all the same game, just different players.
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I will also add, once you tax the heck out of the GE’s of the world, they will simply move their money off-shore, or out of the country. They will also pass those taxes through to the average Joe’s of America as well, and we still end up paying anyways.
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You have to go after the ones who are making all the money, the mega-rich and their profits through investments and salaries. They can’t pass the cost of taxes they pay through to us as easily that way, but affording them loop-holes in the tax code does. But, that is how they buy votes. That is why halls of the People’s House are filled daily with special interest groups and lobbyists. It is time to clean House, throw them all out. Force our Representatives to represent us for a change, not who will fill up their campaign war chests or their back pockets.

More “perspective”
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Farrakhan defends his “brother”, Gadaffi. Disappointed with Obama.
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In the past few decades, the bulk of our economic growth has come from the finance sector. Which, hey, it’s a free country, whatever. Except there’s no evidence that depending on finance for growth there has led to more growth, or even more efficient allocation of resources. And that economic structure apparently leads to the top 2-5-10 percent getting wealthier while the bottom 80-90 percent get no gains. A recent study found that concentrated weealth in the financial sector is flat-out bad for entrepreneurship: “The Cannibalization of Entrepreneurship in America” http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/expanding-financial-sector-depleting-pool-of-potential-high-growth-company-founders.aspx Meanwhile, the government, too, has worked to shift more resources to the top few percent in the past 15 years.
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Whatever one thinks of the Libya intervention– it seems to me that it averted a humanitarian crisis in Benghazi, but the endgame remains unclear– the long-term consequences for use of our military are troubling as well. More of our servicemen & women come from poorer backgrounds, maybe because of the move to the AVF. Diffferent studies have found that (1) Congressional policy doesn’t respond *at all* to changes in opinion among the lower two or three income quintiles, and (2) when we have more veterans in Congress, we’re less likely to go to war. And, of course, you have to be a millionaire to run for Congress. None of these trends is going in the right direction.
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It does feel like the wheels are coming off.
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It wouldn’t be that hard to balance the budget, btw. Return tax rates to where they were when we last had a semi-functioning economy, in the 1990s, tax TBTF banks, stop occupying quite so many foreigners’ places, and we’re almost there. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=809205qv It’s not that hard… but right now, it appears politically impossible– no one in Congress or the executive is talking in these commonsense terms.

Would that it were so, Rusty.
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But here are the folks who spent the Tea/Republican Party into the majority in the House: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.verini.html

In the weeks leading up to health care’s passage in March, it was spending $800,000 a day trying to defeat the Democratic legislation. Livid that the law went through, the Chamber has now pledged to funnel $50 million—more than twice as much as the entire cash holdings of the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee put together (as of late May)—into an estimated forty House races and ten Senate races this fall. About eight of every ten dollars of Chamber political donations go to Republicans…. In 2008, a third of its revenues came from just nineteen companies.

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And here’s the guy who the Tea Party made Speaker: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=a64ZIkmVPv_w

The top donor to Boehner’s leadership PAC in 2003-2004 was SLM Corp., the Reston, Virginia-based student-loan company better known as Sallie Mae. SLM contributed $65,170 to Boehner’s Freedom Project, more than twice as much as the second-biggest donor, New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The money came as the House Education and Workforce Committee, which Boehner chairs, prepared to write new legislation governing student loans.In 1995, Boehner handed out campaign checks from the tobacco industry to members on the House floor at a time when lawmakers were considering eliminating a tobacco subsidy.

Perhaps Republican, but not Tea Party my friend. Care to point out all of those Chamber dollars that went in support of Tea Party candidates? Oh that’s right, you can’t as it was in $10, $20, even $100 dollar increments from Tea Party members, not the thousands and millions of dollars that the likes of the Chamber and the big Labor Unions spend.
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Again, until you rid the White House (which Obama promised to do) and the Capitol of special interest groups and lobbyist, you will never see the “middle class” as Joe so loves back in power or to shift the wealth of this nation.
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Money is power, the power to buy special favors, buy congressional votes, and corrupts our system of government on BOTH sides of the aisle. No one can tell me any differently.

“Care to point out all of those Chamber dollars that went in support of Tea Party candidates?”
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That’s a fair question.
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http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00082040&cycle=2010

A 2007 column from Washington Monthly on Bob Herbert was really interesting and shows his strengths and perhaps our weakness. He says that Herbert is insightful and right, but mostly unread.

And then there’s Bob Herbert’s main focus. He reports on the disadvantaged and disenfranchised of America, about whom he will tell you things you didn’t expect. I doubt you knew that “nearly half of full-time private sector workers in the U.S. get no paid sick days. None.” And have you ever been at a dinner where the tab came to more than $125 a person? According to Herbert, high school kids in Brooklyn can’t believe this happens. “How much can you eat?” asked one. I know I experienced a salutary wince when I read that.

So let’s recap: Bob Herbert is a sensible person who usually assesses things more accurately than his colleagues, regularly hits the streets to report on the world outside, shines a light on people and issues that deserve far more attention than they usually get, and tells you things you really ought to know but don’t. But here’s the catch: you don’t read Bob Herbert. Or, if you say you do, I don’t believe you.

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ABC’s The Note, one of the most insidery of Washington publications, has in the past few years referred to Paul Krugman 146 times, David Brooks 129 times, and Maureen Dowd 84 times. Bob Herbert? Twice.

There are a lot of statistics like that as well as more ideas from the author. I found the article thought provoking.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0710.frank.html

I hope that Herbert’s next endeavors give him a greater opportunity to focus our attention on the important aspects he brings to light.

“Money is power, the power to buy special favors, buy congressional votes, and corrupts our system of government on BOTH sides of the aisle. No one can tell me any differently.”
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That is unequivocally true.
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Thomas Ferguson:

What the [2010] election really shows is not that the parties can’t agree — Democrats and most of the GOP leadership finally agreed on the bank bailouts, for example — but that the American people will not accept the policies that leaders in both parties prefer. In 2006 and 2008, the population voted no-confidence in the Republicans on the war and the economy. They have just now presented the Democrats with another resounding a no-confidence vote. What makes the current situation intractable is the fundamental reason for these serial failures. It’s obvious: big money dominates both major parties. The Obama campaign’s dependence on money and personnel from the financial sector was clear to anyone who looked, even before he won the nomination, promoted Geithner, brought Summers back, and reappointed Bernanke. For years I’ve promised people that I’ll tell you who bought your candidate before you vote for him or her, by simply applying my “investment theory of political parties.” When I analyzed the early money in Obama’s campaign in March, 2008, it was impossible not to see that many of the people responsible for the financial crisis were major Obama supporters. As I wrote for TPM, serious financial reform would not be on President Obama’s agenda.

http://www.newdeal20.org/2010/11/12/money-and-the-midterms-are-the-parties-over-interview-with-thomas-ferguson-26869/?author=1

Thanks for the link Ivy.
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It’s a good read.

Joe, you are a big part of the problem here and you need to admit it.

Corporate media led us to this. Careerist baby boomer journalists led us to this.

But, hey, there must be a union you can trash today, right?

You make me sick.

Sounds like Joe and Bob are experienced a Jimmy Carterish malaise. Not all that surprising when you put a big govt liberal in office. What we got from the New Deal was 8 more years of depression and you clowns call for a new, new deal.

The fact is Obama’s New Deal is over. It’s going to take time to get spending back down but it will happen and it will be painful for a lot of liberal outlets like NPR, PBS, Planned Parenthood, the UN, etc. Spending is now capped and tax revenues are beginning to creep up especially at the state level. Many poorly managed states such as CA, IL, NY and MI still have much pain ahead but most others are either in recovery or very close. It’s very likely 35 stares will be in recovery in 2011 with real balanced budgets or even surpluses and these voters will be voting GOP in the elections to maintain fiscal conservatism and stay/start on a road of lower taxes and fees.

Time will prove Obama made a tragic mistake for liberalism in outsourcing his stimulus to clowns like Ried and Pelosi. There actually are ways a well managed stimulus program can work but Obama, with not a shred of economic / business experience, either didn’t know or didn’t care. But what a large majority does know the stimulus added a shocking amount of debt without creating any jobs. The good news is two generations of Americans under the age of 55 have now seem a booming Reagan recovery based on tax cuts and no recovery based on massive new debt from Obama.

What is especially cool here is these generations are stockowners and in many cases graduates of business programs or have at least taken a basic economics course. The MSM has no way of selling the stimulus as successful because the people who read Joe Klein and Bob Herbert know more about economics and business than they do. They have no seen for themselves how poorly govt spending works as stimulus. There is no amount of lipstick for that pig.

Here’s how it plays out: Congress will continue to spar over spending cuts and get somewhere near a number of $50B this year and $!00B next but will be on their way to a permanent target of spending as a percent of GDP with govt deficit spending done as an option for stimulating the economy. There will also be another 1986 type rewrite of the tax code removing 95% of deductions and exceptions with marginal rates LOWER than Reagan’s 28%. It won’t be a flat tax regime but it will be closer to one than liberals ever really feared.

Reagan has won a decisive and important ideological war. In this phase his biggest aid was Obama’s incompetence. Keynes will remain the most famous recent economist but Hayek is already the most important. It is his theories we will manage ourselves by.

If Obama is able to hold on to his office in 2012 it will only be because Americans want divided govt. The nature of politics is that might be the best prescription for a new 1986 flat tax like regime. 40 democrats senators could block a GOP President. It would be far harder as they learned under Clinton to block things like NAFTA and welfare reform. Either way liberalism has lost badly.

By 2014 states like Maryland will be competing with states like Virginia, Delaware and North Caroline all of whom have cut taxes while they raise them and losing the battle. Illinois will be losing to it’s neighbors and California to it’s neighbors but especially Texas. Christie in NJ understands he’s not just competing against NY and CT but also PA. NYs population slide isn’t going to stop. It’s likely to accelerate. If you’ve been reading anything about the Marcellas formation you know PA is far ahead of NY in the development phase and PA has been a net job creator. PA residents are embracing the development and Gov Corbett is removing red tape helping it along. A lot of people are getting jobs and collecting checks from drillers. This is a group Obama’s anti-drilling stance does not sit well with. Wait until 2015 or so when PA, NY, WV, ND (already there), TX, LA and OH are growing tax revenues and jobs at a healthy rate. That drill baby drill motto will rule.

You can’t blame Joe for the unions problems. They did it to themselves. Mot people respect them on jobs and benefits but when it comes to work rules they consistently go too far. Want to set up a stall at the Phila convention center. You better bring $20,000. Want to plug your PC into an outlet. Find an electrician. After 5:00PM, That’s double time!.

will be painful for a lot of liberal outlets like NPR, PBS, Planned Parenthood, the UN, etc

Because everybody knows that’s that’s where all the money is going. Think of the savings!!!!

http://www.philly.com/philly/health_and_science/20110104_Is__fracking__poisoning_Pa__s_water_supply_.html

This link from the same Chamber site is even more revealing than the one you posted, PNNTO.
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See anything listed as “Tea Party”? I didn’t think so.

Link
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http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2010&cmte=C00082040

This is one of those things where it really is the principle rather than the money. All 3 could be totally financially independent via the largess of wealthy liberal donors. There’s simply no justification for the welfare. I am among a large army of conservatives who can’t understand why they don’t have larger foundations.

Look at the money George Soros pisses away on incompetent organizations such as Moveon.org and J-Street. NPR and PBS promote the same values far more effectively and if you cut the annoying fundraised out might double the audience.

It w/b Chickenfeed for George and 100 other wealthy donors to create a permanent endowment for both PBS and NPR. They already have large audiences. How much would they need?

My understanding is Soros is worth near $8B. Hell, 5% of that is $400M. He can donate that much each year for the rest of his life and still have $8B. He and Warren and Bill could get together and the 3 of them made a series of for them small contributions and by 2020 all 3 are funded forever and they can do whatever they want.

This is certainly something the industry will have to deal with and Gov Corbett has taken steps to ensure we are protected and insured. This is what always happens when you get environmentalist versus developers but it’s generally easy to find common ground. One of the differences here is the residents aren’t just supportive of but anxious for development and the environmentalists have a long history of massive exaggerations and outright fraud.

I’ve pointed out many dozens of times that appointing Gore the god of GW was a horrendous mistake. For the pro-development side he will be a gift that keeps on giving. He’s going to be famous as long as he breathes. He’s too useful for my side. It’s not just he’s such an exaggerator but that his lifestyle is a direct and obvious contradiction to his statements. Add to that Hollywood has zero credibility so they can’t help the environmental side either. Don’t you just love these Hollywood dicks lecturing the great unwashed on energy conservative as they jet between their mansions?

The biggest problem with the attacks on NPR IS that its the principle rather than the money. That way while everyone’s focused on the easy distraction, the folks who actually making off with the BIG money (ADM and Raytheon come to mind right away) can continue to feed off the public teat unmolested by actual budget cutters.

The public’s attention is a very precious but fickle thing. At this point in time they are being scammed in a big way.

11.1 is modern US conservatism in action. “My policy response to environmental problems & catastrophe is as follows: I hate Al Gore and Hollywood (except Schwarzenegger) and smartypants academics and strapping young bucks buying t-bone steaks and this list of Communists in the Army and how teenagers today don’t respect their elders and how we used to wear an onion around my belt and… sorry, what was the question?”
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The interesting thing is, right-wing hatred of facts and fact advocates on the climate change issue is mostly confined to the United States. The rest of the world isn’t afflicted with that brand of lunacy. See: http://www.themonkeycage.org/2011/03/you_want_more_epistemic_closur.html

The liberal tactic of claiming corporations live on govt welfare won’t ever be successful. This marxist nonsense required an uneducated workforce. AMD and Rayethon are very successful corporations many of us now own in our 401ks’ or Pension funds. We don’t automatically see them as evil. Your connection of them to PBS is just weird. How do you go from them advertising on PBS to welfare?

Elvis, I am well informed of the facts. In in wattsupwiththat.com every day. I keep pace with Al gore. Unlike you I pay attention to what people do not just what they say. Al Gore says a lot of stuff and then does the opposite. Ditto 99% of Hollywood. Michael Moore pockets $200M from one movie and his next attacks Capitalism. Why do liberals really believe?

There is a smart way to protect the environment and then there are liberals. America has become very clean and is getting cleaner. Mostly in spite of liberals. Dick Nixons EPA and smart regulation has led to dramatically cleaner air and rivers. We’re getting cleaner every day. We’re not perfect but we’ll figure out fracking and we will increase production of fossil fuels dramatically. You can’t fight job creation.

Because upgrading a Nuclear arsenal that can already destroy the planet several times over is a perfecty example a value added activity. And screaming about NPR has nothing to do with leaving the assumptions that drive our military budget unexamined…….

rdw. You might be correct that pointing this out might not change much, but that doesn’t make it right.

Apparently GE paid ZERO tax dollars this past year. Zero.

<i?Mostly in spite of liberals. Dick Nixons EPA and smart regulation has led to dramatically cleaner air and rivers.

Which is precisely why the GOP is fighting as hard as they can to defund it. Because today’s Conservatives know that Nixon and Reagan were Socialists (At least based on the policies they implemented)

Yes we know how Liberal CATO is…..
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http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html

Raytheon OTOH is a very successfdul corporation whose number one customer happens to be the US government and who specialize in incredibly expensive single use products.

9.2 redux….
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Yes we know how Liberal CATO is…..
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http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html

Raytheon OTOH is a very successful corporation whose number one customer happens to be the US government and who specialize in incredibly expensive single use products.

Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/03/26/proper-perspective/#ixzz1HjIkIrg7

Really, Klein? This is what you’ve been pondering?

The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.

Did this pondering occur before or after you wrote your union-bashing pieces?
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Was this in your mind:

As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

when you told us that Social Security benefits were going to have to be cut?

I’m not quite sure why single use products are a problem. Would you refer missiles had multiple uses? Liberals have become so inept they can’t even demonize the defense industry. Remember the salad days when the lament was the dreaded military-industrial complex. Not so much fear and loathing anymore. If you hear about Rayethon it’s someone looking/asking about a stock tip. We’ve come a long ways.

“Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline.”

You have a problem with capitalism, Mr. Herbert?

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/profits-and-losses/

Since you won’t have to worry about the NYT censors anymore, maybe you can tell us who seized these “marbles”, Mr. Herbert:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/the-ghost-in-the-machines-the-mystery-of-the-wtc-hard-drive-recoveries/

Seems to me letting them get away with it was a bad idea.

now im depressed. but here is some more. the ceo’ of “american electric power” compensation rose 22% to $8.7 million after his performance based cash bonus was re-instated. he earned? bonus of 1.6 mil. his base salary 1.3 plus 5.3 mil stock awards other compensation totaled $512,969. his bonus was re-instated when during difficult times because of reduced demand for electricity due to favorable weather conditions, he CUT the size of his work force. so my comment to this comment is I thought we were trying to conserve electricity and also promote jobs. I guess that is human nature, right? the supreme court should have their heads examined for making corporations people. Is there nothing we the people can do about anything???

RDW:
Not so much fear and loathing anymore. If you hear about Rayethon it’s someone looking/asking about a stock tip
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That way while everyone’s focused on the easy distraction, [...] The public’s attention is a very precious but fickle thing.
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This is what talking past each other looks like. I lament the fact that no one cares about waste in the military budget anymore, then rdw turns around and brags that no one cares about waste in the military budget anymore.

But apparently NPR is a huge problem.

Thanks Ivy_B: I hope Herbert finds a forum that gives him a wider audience. I wrote him yesterday and told him we expected to hear from him. I might start watching the Sunday talk shows if he appeared, rather than the usual suspects (JK).

That was a wonderful essay about Bob Herbert. Thank you for linking to it. I have bookmarked it as a reference as a biography of his amazing history and consistency.
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How often have we seen Joe Klein reference Bob Herbert in his posts here. I can’t remember a time.

I agree with Herbert and I agree with Klein’s sort of, reserved, agreement with him.

Great commentary. Particularly apr2563 and dougjballoon (if you’re not willing to tell the important truth to your audience, you don’t deserve perch) and those who can’t square the belief that Bob Herbert has the “proper perspective” – that rapacious elite greed and corporate money is what is undermining our democracy (i.e. the will of the public) – mere weeks after blaming public school teachers. There are only two sides in the class war, it’s way past time to pick one and way too obvious which one represents any future for anything resembling a democratic form of government.

Agree. Joe is maybe in the process of a slow evolution in thinking. On top of that, apr is really hitting ‘em out today.
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Why do my thoughts keep wandering back to Citizens United?

Bob Herbert leaving the NY Times is like “Baghdad “Bob” fleeing Baghdad. It is similar to rats leaving a sinking ship.
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You can’t say that Bob Herbert and Frank Rich can’t see which way the wind is blowing.

except you didn’t say anything about waste. We’re not talking past each other. You understand my point that libs have lost the battle. No one frets the military-industrial complex and we’re going to make major cuts to PBS and NPR on the way to ending funding entirely.

According to the NYT G.E.’s profits have risen to 92 billion on which they pay only dividends to shareholders and almost no corporate income tax.. Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its work force in the United States while increasing overseas employment.

the ceo’ of “american electric power” compensation rose 22% to $8.7 million after his performance based cash bonus was re-instated. he earned? bonus of 1.6 mil. his base salary 1.3 plus 5.3 mil stock awards other compensation totaled $512,969. his bonus was re-instated when during difficult times because of reduced demand for electricity due to favorable weather conditions, he CUT the size of his work force.

von Mises proposition that the managers of industry have the sole duty of making as much profit as possible is amoral. It is time to redistribute the wealth.

wagedronenumber9@19.1,
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Would that include the wealth at the NY Times and “Pinch” Sulzberger’s pay?

I keep thinking of Herbert’s article and Mr. Klein posting it during one of his world galavants. One thought, derived from travel blogs, is how Mr. Klein must be secluded in first class on the trip over to a first class hotel. Lag time is spent in the airlines elite lounge. And he posts this with free wi-fi from his luxurious digs.
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Then I realized how presumptuous it is of me to resent that, being on a tier down and riding in the goat pen of economy, because what Herbert addresses is people who can’t even buy a goat pen ticket. I am more fortunate than I realize sometimes.

2nd thought…of course, Mr. Herbert travels in just the same style as Mr. Klein. I need to get my mind out of this loop and stop thinking about it all.