The National Debt

Let us all panic over the national debt and what we owe to China!  If you click on www.factcheck.org/2013/11/who-holds-our-debt, you will see that the largest holders of the national debt are:

Social Security (16%)

Federal Reserve Banks (12%)

China (8%)

Japan (7%)

Mutual funds, including money market funds (6%)

So look out!  It is Granny and the Federal Reserve banks that are going to repossess your country.  The Republican Party’s unpopular solution is to renege on the debt owed to the old folks and promise to repay everyone else.  Social Security won’t be there when you are old enough to collect it, they say.  That ought to fix the debt problem, don’t you think?  Well, maybe it will – if you keep paying the payroll tax as well as income tax, and they do not give any more tax breaks and subsidies to the so called job producers or get us into any more wars!

The alternative to the Republican solution is to raise the earning cap which is subject to the payroll tax, then raise the minimum wage, improve our infrastructure, protect our industries, and do the other things we have traditionally done to create jobs, raise wages and stimulate the economy.  The problem is that the Democrats would have to take control of Congress and get rid of the filibuster in the Senate in order for us to do those things.

MF Blog by Mitchell Freedman

I rarely recommend bogs, but I am doing so now.  What makes MF blog so noteworthy is Mr. Freedman’s diligence.  Unless you report for a living, the chances are that your blog is merely an expression of your opinions.  This is particularly true if you are discussing politics.  Hence, we (and I have to include myself) inadvertently provide our critics with the evidence they use to advance the argument that the blogging community is merely a pooling of ignorance and is not to be taken seriously.  The links and documentation Mr. Freedman provides help to refute that contention.  You may not agree with Mr. Freedman’s conclusions, but he makes it easy for you to verify his sources.  I might add here that Mr. Freedman’s blog is not confined to political subjects.

I was at work when I discovered MF Blog and my time was very limited.  A post discussing Professor Drew Galpin Faust’s review of David Brion Davis’ book, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation drew my attention.  How historians have treated the subject of the Reconstruction of the South following the Civil War is a fascinating and very instructive subject because it tells us a lot about our racial attitudes, how they have changed, and how they are changing.  I noticed that in his discussion of Professor Faust’s review Mr. Freedman did not mention Kenneth Stampp as one of the historians who changed our view of that era.  I hastily left a comment saying that the only thing I would have added to the discussion would have been a reference to Professor Stampp’s work.  Mr. Freedman patiently explained that he would have included such a reference if Professor Faust had not mentioned Professor Stampp “as the ground breaker in modern scholarship” regarding this subject.  Now I was embarrassed about my negligence, and since I had some time on my hands I used the link Mr. Freedman provided to Professor Faust’s review.  I want to thank Mr. Freedman for his discussion and for that link; the review was well worth reading.

I have since read several of Mr. Freedman’s earlier posts.  He writes well about a variety of subjects.  That is why I have included a link to his blog.  It can be found under the heading of favorite blogs.  Hopefully, I will find some other blogs I like enough to include under that heading. 

When The Right Is Right

Even right wing fact deniers manage to get something right every now and then.

 

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME SUCKS!

LEAVE MY DAMN CLOCK ALONE!

It is almost enough to make me move to Arizona.  The problem is that I do not think Arizona ignores daylight saving because they have the good sense to do it.  Frankly, I think Arizona ignores it because the people there are too cantankerous to go along with the rest of the nation on almost everything.  Therein lies the rub.  I cannot abide the politics in that state.  So I yawn, I rub my tired eyes, and I resign myself to the fact that there is no escaping this absurd, sleep stealing, clock tampering!

A Trashy Joke

Darrell Issa is going out of his way to demonstrate that his so called investigations have all the credibility of the Salem Witch trials.  Refusing to let any Democrat speak or ask questions at the hearing in which Lois Lerner was called to testify about the IRS is just the latest and most graphic proof of Grand Inquisitor Issa’s deceit and partisan motives.  He knew in advance that Ms. Lerner would assert her right to remain silent, but he obviously considered this a great opportunity to grandstand by asking her questions that would linger as unchallenged accusations because she was asserting her Constitutional right to remain silent and because no Democrat was allowed to speak.  When Mr. Issa shut off the microphone Congressman Cummings was using, Mr. Cummings asked what Mr. Issa was afraid of?  The answer to that question is all too obvious.  Time after time Mr. Issa has found his deceit and misrepresentations of the evidence exposed by Congressman Cummings.  The bottom line is that Grand inquisitor Issa’s wild accusations about the IRS, Benghazi, and “Fast and Furious” are turning out to be falling leafs without any evidence to hold or support them.  This must be terribly frustrating for a man who is hell bent on a mission of destruction.  We have not had the misfortune of witnessing anything like this since Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. 

Meanwhile, the Republicans in the house have voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the fiftieth time.  What is that about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?  Are Mr. Issa and the House Republicans insane or are they simply unethical demagogues playing to the dangerous fears of nihilistic ignoramuses?  In either case, the Republican Party has become a trashy joke.  If and when the great uninformed finally figure out that the joke is on them, they will undoubtedly throw this trash out of office.