Ayn Rand keeps rising from the muck to infect the thinking of what otherwise might be rational, intelligent people. National Public Radio most recently stirred the vat with a piece it labeled on its website as "On Capitol Hill, Rand's 'Atlas' Can't Be Shrugged Off" http://www.npr.org/2011/11/14/142245517/on-capitol-hill-rands-atlas-cant-be-shrugged-off?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20111120.
I've ranted in this and other spaces before about Rand, but the pieces of the chopped-up snake keep growing new heads. We've seen them affixed to politicians like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul, for whom I think she was actually the namesake.
Here's the NPR promo blurb that bubbled up in my email inbox today touting its story that aired last week as one of its most emailed stories:
"In the 1950s, Rand felt that her ideal of unfettered capitalism was missing in politics. But today, her ideas are alive and well-represented in the U.S. Capitol. Her philosophy has sunk so deeply into our political thought, many people don't even recognize it as hers anymore."
First, anyone old enough to remember the 1950s, which I am, can recall that the 1950s was one of the most, if not the most, prosperous decades--at least for a vast swath of Amercans, not just a minute sliver of the richest--in the country's history. It is also nostalgically romanticized as the "good old days" and that time the TPers of today seem to want to take our country back to.
So if unfettered capitalism was missing, meaning that capitalism functioned, but with some semblance of responsibility that included controls, regulations, restrictions or whatever that enabled the nation to flourish economically, then that must have been a GOOD policy.
Beyond that, though, my view of Rand and her adherents/admirers is that they are nothing short of delusional. I won't go into all the flaws in Randism philosophy, politics and thinking, but here is my reaction to just one line in NPR's blurb:
"(Rand's) philosophy has sunk so deeply into our political thought..." That explains the greed, me-ism, hypocrisy and shallow, vapid thinking that has this nation in its destructive grip. Rand's path is a greased slide into the same fate that's bankrupted today's Greece, where Greeks refuse to pay taxes, and has led to the anarchy of Somalia, which has no central government. Randites are in complete denial of the very definition of "society" and the vital elements of a healthy, vibrant society. Take all the government services and benefits that Rand and her acolytes use and enjoy--including Social Security and Medicare, which Rand applied for under her married name to keep from being found out--and they wouldn't make it out of their front door. Heck, they probably wouldn't even have a front door or a house for a front door.
I posted a comment on this NPR story when it aired on Nov. 14, focusing on Rand's assertion that socialists and people on public assistance or who take money from the government are "moochers." Here's my comment:
"Ayn Rand and her ilk, whether called libertarians, anarchists or something else, are the real moochers. They want all the benefits of living in a society--public roads, breathable air, drinkable water, safe food and drug supplies, an energy grid, etc.--but don't think they should have to pay for it. The very regulations they eschew are as necessary for Americans' safety and well being as a strong military is for national security. The most frightening aspect of Randism these days is that so many are falling under its fatal spell. We can view the U.S. of the future by looking at Greece of today,where Greeks blow off paying taxes, and Somalia, which has no central government. Although Rand's hypocrisy is stunning (read her novella 'Anthem'), she was at least honest about being an atheist. Her politician acolytes of today, however, claim to be Christians, yet there is nothing in the philosophy Rand espoused that in any way resembles what Jesus taught."
It's gratifying to note that my comment got 65 "Recommendations", more than any of the other thousand-plus comments.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
America, a Randian nation?
This blog post was prompted by a piece on today's National Public Radio's Morning Edition, which an NPR website headline writer dubbed "On Capitol Hill, Rand's 'Atlas' Can't Be Shrugged Off."
Ayn Rand, a mid-20th Century writer whose me-ism philosophy was informed by the political and social upheavel of her native Russia's Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent fallout, has become The Way for a plethora of today's Republican leadership. We should all have the right to keep all of our money and not to have to give any of it to that evil bottomless maw they call the government. (Nevermind, that the loudest of those Republican critics, such as John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, etc., ARE the government and, thanks to getting elected to Congress, will be very nicely taken care of for the rest of their lives by the very government they love so much to hate.)
Rand and her ilk, whether called libertarians, anarchists or something else, are the real moochers. (Moochers is what Rand called Americans who benefit from living in--and paying taxes to have--a vibrant society, even though Rand herself applied for and collected Social Security and used Medicare for her healthcare.)
Randians want all the benefits that come with living in a society--public roads, breathable air, drinkable water, safe food and drug supplies, an energy grid, etc.--but don't think they should have to pay for them.
The very regulations they eschew (see Illinois deadbeat dad and GOP Rep. Joe Walsh's rant) are as necessary for Americans' safety and well being as a strong military is for national security.
The most frightening aspect of Randism these days is that so many are falling under its fatal spell. We can view the U.S. of the future by looking at today's Greece, where Greeks won't pay taxes, and Somalia, which has no central government.
Although Rand's hypocrisy is stunning (read her novella "Anthem"), she was at least honest about being an atheist. Her politician acolytes of today claim to be Christians, yet there is nothing in the philosophy Rand espoused that in any way resembles what Jesus taught.
NPR's headline writer is, in fact, dead wrong. Rand and her "Atlas" CAN and should be shrugged off--or at least be seen for what they are: Architects of the demise of democracy.
I'm way too conservative to think that that is a good idea.
Ayn Rand, a mid-20th Century writer whose me-ism philosophy was informed by the political and social upheavel of her native Russia's Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent fallout, has become The Way for a plethora of today's Republican leadership. We should all have the right to keep all of our money and not to have to give any of it to that evil bottomless maw they call the government. (Nevermind, that the loudest of those Republican critics, such as John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, etc., ARE the government and, thanks to getting elected to Congress, will be very nicely taken care of for the rest of their lives by the very government they love so much to hate.)
Rand and her ilk, whether called libertarians, anarchists or something else, are the real moochers. (Moochers is what Rand called Americans who benefit from living in--and paying taxes to have--a vibrant society, even though Rand herself applied for and collected Social Security and used Medicare for her healthcare.)
Randians want all the benefits that come with living in a society--public roads, breathable air, drinkable water, safe food and drug supplies, an energy grid, etc.--but don't think they should have to pay for them.
The very regulations they eschew (see Illinois deadbeat dad and GOP Rep. Joe Walsh's rant) are as necessary for Americans' safety and well being as a strong military is for national security.
The most frightening aspect of Randism these days is that so many are falling under its fatal spell. We can view the U.S. of the future by looking at today's Greece, where Greeks won't pay taxes, and Somalia, which has no central government.
Although Rand's hypocrisy is stunning (read her novella "Anthem"), she was at least honest about being an atheist. Her politician acolytes of today claim to be Christians, yet there is nothing in the philosophy Rand espoused that in any way resembles what Jesus taught.
NPR's headline writer is, in fact, dead wrong. Rand and her "Atlas" CAN and should be shrugged off--or at least be seen for what they are: Architects of the demise of democracy.
I'm way too conservative to think that that is a good idea.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
The Deminted One
South Carolina Senator Jim Demint cast the lone vote earlier this week against a tax credit bill for employers who hire U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, who are discharged from military duty, and other veterans. Demint’s excuse? The bill was “inherently unfair" and it would result in few people being hired.
Oh, yeah, and it was just a Democratic trick.
That raises a couple of questions in my mind.
That raises a couple of questions in my mind.
One is, what's unfair about lending someone who has spent three or four or more years defending her or his country a hand in integrating back into civilian life?
Is that any more unfair than less than 1 percent of the U.S. population serving in the military and an even smaller percentage of that serving in Iraq and/or Afghanistan? Is it any more unfair than the unemployment rate of military veterans topping more than 12 percent compared to the overall national rate of 9 percent.
Does Demint also think the G.I. Bill is unfair?
Another question is about giving employers a tax credit for hiring vets. Gifting businesses tax credits is the very backbone of Republican lawmakers’, particularly state governors and legislatures such as in Wisconsin, job-creation plans. So, why is a tax credit to help employ those who risked life and limb, who endured years of family separation and who were out of the U.S. job market for one, two, three or more tours of duty in combat and hazardous situations any worse than providing tax credits to help employ anyone else?
Perhaps Demint’s idea of supporting the troops applies only while they are on active duty and once out, the only thanks those troops deserve is a swift kick to the curb.
Thank goodness Demint is the only senator who thought so, at least this time. That's a conservative "value" this country neither needs nor appreciates.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
BofA to Roll in Debit-Card Dough
Poor Bank of America. Profits are down this year. Only $2 billion the first quarter of this year compared to $3.7 billion for the same period last year. That's $2 billion in three months. Thus, only $8 billion this year unless corporate heads find a way to make more.
A major reason for that nose dive is Countrywide Financial. BofA bought that corrupt mortgage lending millstone in 2008, no doubt hoping to use it as a cash cow, since Countrywide was financing some 20% of all mortages in the U.S. News that BofA was buying Countrywide sent eyebrows across the country into the stratosphere, given that the mortgage behemoth was already facing a legion of legal questions, was already shedding employees and flailing around for other ways to keep its head above water.
Instead of raking in dough, though, BofA watched Countrywide hemorrhage assets thanks to mushrooming legal woes, such as a parade of lawsuits charging deceptive lending practices, false advertising and unfair business shenanigans. One settlement with several states' attorneys general involved modifying troubled 'predatory loans' of up to $8.4 billion dollars.
BofA has been on my radar as a money-grubber to avoid ever since its financial woes--primarily resulting from bad loans--in the late 1980s (do the names Sam Armacost and Tom Clausen ring a bell?) when it was a San Francisco-based company, and again in 1997 ($1.4 billion to a hedge fund that went south). That resulted in the real BofA being bought like a shark swallowing a fish by NationsBank in Charlotte NC, which apparently thought the name, Bank of America, had more cachet, as that became the absorbing NationsBank's new handle.
One thing that didn't change with that acquision was bad financial decision-making. For some reason in the emerging corporate-dominant age, it wasn't enough to just be a good bank, providing good banking services to its customers. It had to keep gorging itself and bloating itself with ever-higher profits.
So how to recoup the losses from its bone-headed Countrywide and other bad decisions? The only way capitalism, American-style, knows. Find new ways to soak its customers. In the banking world, that way is to come up with even more fees it can charge its customers to use their own money. This time it's in the form of a debit-card fee.
(Don't expect any help from Congress, BTW, despite the deeply flawed 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In addition to making highly valued and effective campaign contributions, BofA plies most-favored, most likely to be swayed lawmakers with mortgage financing at noncompetitive rates, i.e. lower rates than regular customers could possibly hope to get, of which Sen. Chris Dodd was a major recipient.
I've long been way too conservative to do business with the liberally bad-deal maker BofA, which is now giving me yet another reason to keep its money-grubbing hands off my money.
Despite its history or bad-decisions, though, BofA remains a leader in the banking world and news today indicates that other banks will be following the BofA's debit-card-fee charge, and that this is just the beginning of a new round of the high cost to Americans for "banking privileges."
My understanding is that this charge is going to be an automatic monthly $5 fee (for starters, no doube), not a per-use fee like an ATM fee.
All of this is making my mattress -- and the Occupy Wall Street movement -- look more and more attractive.
A major reason for that nose dive is Countrywide Financial. BofA bought that corrupt mortgage lending millstone in 2008, no doubt hoping to use it as a cash cow, since Countrywide was financing some 20% of all mortages in the U.S. News that BofA was buying Countrywide sent eyebrows across the country into the stratosphere, given that the mortgage behemoth was already facing a legion of legal questions, was already shedding employees and flailing around for other ways to keep its head above water.
Instead of raking in dough, though, BofA watched Countrywide hemorrhage assets thanks to mushrooming legal woes, such as a parade of lawsuits charging deceptive lending practices, false advertising and unfair business shenanigans. One settlement with several states' attorneys general involved modifying troubled 'predatory loans' of up to $8.4 billion dollars.
BofA has been on my radar as a money-grubber to avoid ever since its financial woes--primarily resulting from bad loans--in the late 1980s (do the names Sam Armacost and Tom Clausen ring a bell?) when it was a San Francisco-based company, and again in 1997 ($1.4 billion to a hedge fund that went south). That resulted in the real BofA being bought like a shark swallowing a fish by NationsBank in Charlotte NC, which apparently thought the name, Bank of America, had more cachet, as that became the absorbing NationsBank's new handle.
One thing that didn't change with that acquision was bad financial decision-making. For some reason in the emerging corporate-dominant age, it wasn't enough to just be a good bank, providing good banking services to its customers. It had to keep gorging itself and bloating itself with ever-higher profits.
So how to recoup the losses from its bone-headed Countrywide and other bad decisions? The only way capitalism, American-style, knows. Find new ways to soak its customers. In the banking world, that way is to come up with even more fees it can charge its customers to use their own money. This time it's in the form of a debit-card fee.
(Don't expect any help from Congress, BTW, despite the deeply flawed 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In addition to making highly valued and effective campaign contributions, BofA plies most-favored, most likely to be swayed lawmakers with mortgage financing at noncompetitive rates, i.e. lower rates than regular customers could possibly hope to get, of which Sen. Chris Dodd was a major recipient.
I've long been way too conservative to do business with the liberally bad-deal maker BofA, which is now giving me yet another reason to keep its money-grubbing hands off my money.
Despite its history or bad-decisions, though, BofA remains a leader in the banking world and news today indicates that other banks will be following the BofA's debit-card-fee charge, and that this is just the beginning of a new round of the high cost to Americans for "banking privileges."
My understanding is that this charge is going to be an automatic monthly $5 fee (for starters, no doube), not a per-use fee like an ATM fee.
All of this is making my mattress -- and the Occupy Wall Street movement -- look more and more attractive.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
GOP's Protected "Untouchables" Class
President Obama's opponents are trying to shoot down his debt-reduction plan, which includes fair treatment of rich people and for-profit corporations (=>), by charging him with waging class warfare.
Plus, they say, equalizing the tax structure to bring rates for the rich up as high as the rate middle Americans pay would reduce the debt by only 10 percent.
Ten percent? In my truly conservative opinion, I'd say that's quite a dent.
Or as my husband said, "That's a good start."
He then came up with what I think would make a great debt-reduction mantra:
"Start with fair,
Work from there."
Work from there."
As for declaring class warfare, that's exactly what Republican have done, proving once again that going on the offensive by accusing their enemies (yes, they do indeed consider Obama the enemy and, as they have repeatedly said that limiting him to one term is their number one priority. Not reducting the unemployment rate. Not getting Americans back to work. Not returning the middle class, which has been shipped overseas, back to the U.S. Not ending wars this country is waging in other countries. But vanquishing Obama.), of doing what they are, in fact, doing themselves.
Republicans are the ones who declared class warfare. They did that by turning millionares into a special class. By making them a class of 'untouchables'. By putting them off limits in the "shared sacrifice" that other Americans are being told they must participate in.
BTW, notice how those who oppose leveling the rate-rate paying field are rich?
Poor Louisana GOP Rep. John Fleming is crying crocodile tears because Obama's proposal might take a bite out of the $200,000 he spends, according to his math, on feeding his family.
Fox darling Bill O'Reilly says being subjected to the same tax rate as middle Americans, which is what Obama is proposing, will prompt him to quit his $10 million-a-year TV-talk job.
Sob stories abound.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Perry's Ponzi Scheme
So, U.S. president wanna-be Rick Perry has come out with guns a'blazing at Social Security. It's a "Ponzi scheme," he claims. It won't be there for young people when they need it. It's even unconsititutional!
First, don't you think that all of the rabid Social Security critics and fascists--particularly those with legal training--who have tried to dismantle the program in the seven decades since FDR signed it into law would have mounted legal battles and, if it really were unconstitutional, would have been able to get it struck down as such?
Second, who does Perry think he's fooling by saying Social Security won't be around for Americans who haven't yet reached 65? Even if nothing's done to change anything, it will be fully funded for the next 25 years. And by making one simple change--raising the $106,000 cap on which income is subject to Social Security tax, or better yet removing the cap altogether--it can be solvent for a great deal longer. (Yes, that's right, folks, all those mega millionaires who already skate on paying their "fair share" of taxes on the lucre that overflows their coffers, pay nothing into Social Security over the first $106,000 of their income. That cap is just one more way the rich guys have bought off lawmakers.)
Third--and most important--by saying Social Security has got to go and that people need to rely on private pensions, Perry is providing irrefutable proof that he's been living either under a rock or in deep space for the past decade. It was during his fellow Texan's turn at the presidential till that private pensions began to disappear--just ask United Airline employees whose wonderful pensions were simply confiscated--as company execs and boards of directors began to raid employee pension funds to cover their faltering operations budgets.
And that's for the folks who are 'fortunate' enough to have jobs that even provide any benefits at all. So, what are the "private pensions" is Perry talking about? 401Ks? IRAs? CDs? The stock market? Storing gold bricks in the closet?
Oh my god, no, Mr. Perry! Ain't no way anybody is ever going to have any kind of retirement fund if it's going to be up to you and the greedy, grasping, heartless, soulless corporate world.
Social Security is exactly what its name says it is. It provides at least a modicum of security for aging people in our society and for their children and grandchildren so they won't be burdened with having to support granny and great-grandma in addition to their own children and hope for any kind of a decent lifestyle. Social Security keeps everyone--except the mega rich like Mr. Perry and his well-heeled cronies who don't need it--from becoming impoverished and being put in the poorhouse.
Oh wait! Poorhouses don't exist anymore, do they. And when they did, they were government institutions, weren't they? So I'm sure Perry will make sure they don't resurface. 'Cause no gubment is good gubment, is it Mr. Rick "I want to be prezdent of what I think is evil" Perry?
Nope, I'm way too conservative to want to trust my future and that of my children, children and great-grandchildren, or the well-being of The People of this country to a Perry parisite of what he wants to destroy (keeping in mind that he will keep intact any way he and his ilk can benefit from a government program as he has done so well as governor of Texas).
First, don't you think that all of the rabid Social Security critics and fascists--particularly those with legal training--who have tried to dismantle the program in the seven decades since FDR signed it into law would have mounted legal battles and, if it really were unconstitutional, would have been able to get it struck down as such?
Second, who does Perry think he's fooling by saying Social Security won't be around for Americans who haven't yet reached 65? Even if nothing's done to change anything, it will be fully funded for the next 25 years. And by making one simple change--raising the $106,000 cap on which income is subject to Social Security tax, or better yet removing the cap altogether--it can be solvent for a great deal longer. (Yes, that's right, folks, all those mega millionaires who already skate on paying their "fair share" of taxes on the lucre that overflows their coffers, pay nothing into Social Security over the first $106,000 of their income. That cap is just one more way the rich guys have bought off lawmakers.)
Third--and most important--by saying Social Security has got to go and that people need to rely on private pensions, Perry is providing irrefutable proof that he's been living either under a rock or in deep space for the past decade. It was during his fellow Texan's turn at the presidential till that private pensions began to disappear--just ask United Airline employees whose wonderful pensions were simply confiscated--as company execs and boards of directors began to raid employee pension funds to cover their faltering operations budgets.
And that's for the folks who are 'fortunate' enough to have jobs that even provide any benefits at all. So, what are the "private pensions" is Perry talking about? 401Ks? IRAs? CDs? The stock market? Storing gold bricks in the closet?
Oh my god, no, Mr. Perry! Ain't no way anybody is ever going to have any kind of retirement fund if it's going to be up to you and the greedy, grasping, heartless, soulless corporate world.
Social Security is exactly what its name says it is. It provides at least a modicum of security for aging people in our society and for their children and grandchildren so they won't be burdened with having to support granny and great-grandma in addition to their own children and hope for any kind of a decent lifestyle. Social Security keeps everyone--except the mega rich like Mr. Perry and his well-heeled cronies who don't need it--from becoming impoverished and being put in the poorhouse.
Oh wait! Poorhouses don't exist anymore, do they. And when they did, they were government institutions, weren't they? So I'm sure Perry will make sure they don't resurface. 'Cause no gubment is good gubment, is it Mr. Rick "I want to be prezdent of what I think is evil" Perry?
Nope, I'm way too conservative to want to trust my future and that of my children, children and great-grandchildren, or the well-being of The People of this country to a Perry parisite of what he wants to destroy (keeping in mind that he will keep intact any way he and his ilk can benefit from a government program as he has done so well as governor of Texas).
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