Full employment with a living wage for the bottom wage rung

Its all about jobs where the BOTTOM rung pays a living wage for adult workers ... with FULL employment. This nation is wealthy enough with enough work to do. (Also -- just for those who are always yelling "communism" -- fair wages are NOT equal wages.)

We learned that the greatest society with great universities, great art, great thought, plus, plus plus ... is NOT dependent on slaves or vassals supporting an elite, but on a vibrant middle class built on an adult living wage as its foundation -- a wage that pays for food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, and recreation for a family of four -- and a market based on rules of fairness (standard weights and measures anyone? pay for the damage you cause? ... as examples.)

And you know who confirmed the worth of a vibrant middle class from the lessons he learned in the WWII economy? It was Ike. Born in Texas in 1890, brought up in Abilene, Kansas, President Eisenhower with his Federal Highway System put us to work on INVESTING in infrastructure that would pay off in multiples ... and selling it to the rearward-looking on the far right as necessary for the defense of the nation.

Yet the Evangelical Christian right has become followers of the anti-Christian elitism of ancient Athens and "God is dead" Nietzsche. Proving god is dead ... I surmise.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/first-public-option-amend_n_303228.html?page=3&show_comment_id=31906482#comment_31906482

Obama is wagging the dog!

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday (September 26) that "U.S. Knew About Site for Years".

Obviously the firestorm created by Obama wavering in his heretofore unwavering support for winning the Afghan War needed a firebreak, a controlled burn to stop it.

Obama is a Chicago politician, woefully out of his depth in the Presidency, fulfilling the Peter Principle in having risen to the level of his incompetency.

Fair labor practice - posted on Huffpo

The basic political question is how to FAIRLY divide (NOT equally divide) the wealth human labor — our mental and physical effort — creates. And ALL wealth is created by human effort.

Oligarchs want to drive the cost of labor down to that of keeping a mule: food, shelter, harness, sustaining rest, and medical care for the breeding stock.

We the people have learned that allowing workers to have a fair share (again, NOT an equal share) from their labor produced the world's most advanced civilization ... and proved once and for all that a vibrant community, rich in arts and thought, is not dependent on a elite class supported by vassals or slaves.

It's simple, full employment with the bottom adult labor rung paid a living wage for a family of 4: food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education and recreation. We are still a wealthy nation with plenty of work to be done, work that would lay the foundation for creating the wealth of tomorrow ... Much as Eisenhower did with the Federal Highway Program.

Watch Krugman on the American dream.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/michael-moore-calls-out-a_n_298605.html?page=15&show_comment_id=31585305#comment_31585305

Leaders of both major parties are adherents to corporationism: protecting corporations "right" to earn a profit no matter what it costs society. Externalities anyone? (What ever happened to the responsibility to pay for the damage we do?)

Inherent in the elitism of corporationists is the believe and active support of the doctrine that slaves produce the wealth that supports their elite status. This doctrine is carried out in the reduce the cost of labor to that of a mule: food, harness, shelter, training ... and medical care for breeding stock.

A labor/progressive consideration should be the working out of a fair distribution to workers of the wealth their labor -- mental and physical effort -- creates.

A fair distribution of this wealth rests on two principles: (1.) the bottom rung of wages for an adult worker is a living wage -- enough for food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, and recreation for a family of 4; and (2) full employment whereby every adult worker able and willing to work can get a job.

Our nation is more than wealthy enough to provide full employment with a living wage as the bottom rung. This should be the economic barometer for us, not the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/30/michael-moore-mocks-whiny_n_304033.html?page=5&show_comment_id=31928988#comment_31928988

What the hell is going on, Mr. Obama?!

Didn't you increase the troops in Afghanistan by 21,000 just last March? Didn't you just give a speech in which you said "that a stable Afghanistan is central to the security of the United States"? —http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/world/asia/23policy.html

Here's what Obama said as recently as August 17th. Please note the strong reference to the "comprehensive strategy" he announced in March of this year ... and now he wants to rethink it? He's going to turn himself into a right-wing whipping boy ... either way he comes out of this. This is so bad it is almost unbelievable. He gives a great speech ... but he is proving over and over again that his words are disconnected from his actions to come.

By moving forward in Iraq, we’re able to refocus on the war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why I announced a new, comprehensive strategy in March. This strategy recognizes that al Qaeda and its allies had moved their base to the remote, tribal areas of Pakistan. This strategy acknowledges that military power alone will not win this war—that we also need diplomacy and development and good governance. And our new strategy has a clear mission and defined goals—to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies.

In the months since, we’ve begun to put this comprehensive strategy into action. And in recent weeks, we’ve seen our troops do their part. They’ve have gone into new areas—taking the fight to the Taliban in villages and towns where residents have been terrorized for years. They’re adopting new tactics, knowing that it’s not enough to kill extremists and terrorists; we also need to protect the Afghan people and improve their daily lives. And today, our troops are helping to secure polling places for this week’s election so Afghans can choose the future they want.

These new efforts have not been without a price. The fighting has been fierce. More Americans have given their lives. And as always, the thoughts and prayers of every American are with those who make the ultimate sacrifice in our defense.

As I said when I announced this strategy, there will be more difficult days ahead. The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight. And we won’t defeat it overnight. This will not be quick. This will not be easy.

But we must never forget. This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people.

Going forward, we will constantly adapt our tactics to stay ahead of the enemy and give our troops the tools and equipment they need to succeed. And at every step of the way, we will assess our efforts to defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and to help the Afghan and Pakistani people build the future they seek. (Note: Emphasis added)

—From the Full Remarks of President Barack Obama
Fulfilling America’s Responsibility to Those Who Serve
Veterans of Foreign Wars
Phoenix, Arizona
August 17, 2009

Love is ...

Love is the human emotion of feeling good about wanting a positive outcome for another human being and actively helping to make it happen. When we are willing to forgo our own positive outcomes for another's — and we still feel good about it — it is true love.

We also "love" something when it makes us feel good about what we consider is a positive outcome for ourselves. Music that puts us in a good mood — joyful, peaceful, exhilarating, exciting; chocolate that elicits a warming sense of sweetness; anything that awakens a our senses and emotions positively.

So ... when we say we love someone ... is it because that person makes us feel good? ... or because we want to make them feel good? ... or both?

If loving someone is solely because of the other person making us feel good with the only concern about our making the other person also feel good motivated by enticing them to make us feel good ... well, you can see how convoluted "love" can be.

Because we have a positive emotional response to helping those we love have a positive outcome, "love" is a positive evolutionary force. It pulls/pushes us to help those we truly love, and most assuredly when we love ourselves.

And to deepen the discussion, we are taught whom we can "love". We come into awareness out of our existence learning identity markers for family and tribe. School colors and mascots, anyone?

Then Jesus came along and taught us that all humans are our family ... oops! We are still trying to learn how to ingrain THAT — human being — as our identity marker for those we are allowed to love.

And now that the only remaining barrier to the sharing of sexual pleasure is age ... the providing of sexual pleasure as a "good thing" to another person will be confusing for many ... for awhile.

What else?

A sense of fairness is an universal ethic

I suggest that a sense of fairness is an universal ethic, not what is fair for everyone, but that I consider what is fair for me in the circumstances of my own existence.

And primary to "the circumstances of my own existence" is my being a member of a group, and then my status within that group.

I believe the basic political question is "What is fair?".

Because we have a positive emotional response to a sense of being treated fairly, and a negative emotional response to a sense of being treated unfairly, "fairness" is an evolutionary force. It pulls/pushes us to find fairness in how we are treated.

Fairness is not equality.

I believe a sense of fairness stems from the biological basis of human society as members of hunting tribes — or packs, if we were wolves — in which the kill was divided by the alpha leaders of the hunt.

Corporationism protects the absurd

Dumping the mine detritus from mountaintops into pristine river valleys below is absurd. Allowing it is insane.

It is like as if in our national game of baseball any hit ball would be fair, no matter where it landed.

Or the Yankees could move the home run fence in whenever they were up to bat.

It isn't fair and we all know it. It's absurd and those who allowed it would clearly be nuts.

So when Glenn Beck says — as Frank Rich writes in his NY Times OpEd piece, Even Glenn Beck Is Right Twice a Day —

“Wall Street owns our government,” Beck declared in one rant this July. “Our government and these gigantic corporations have merged.” He drew a chart to dramatize the revolving door between Washington and Goldman Sachs in both the Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner Treasury departments.

... he (Beck) strikes a chord in we the people over the absurd unfairness of the current and still evolving economics of corporationism.

And America was founded on the fairness of opportunity for all ... even if that initially meant all non-Irish Northern Europeans in many minds.

Geithner, Summers, and Bernake running the financial rules sector of the Federal government is like having Pete Rose, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bond on baseball's rules committee.

Get real. Should I laugh or cry?

Obama does not know HOW to lead

Let's face it, President Obama does not know how to lead.

Leadership requires rewarding your supporters and punishing your detractors. He doesn't do that.

Leaders understand that there are a whole bunch of folks out circling, waiting to knock the leader off the pedestal and take his/her place ... even if in come-up-man-ship only, like a star on a sports team challenging the coach or manager, and getting away with it.

Obama, apparently, has always been mentored into his next higher position ... because he is a great campaigner. He fits the mold of the charismatic politician, and like every other media star does not have to be anything other than out of prison in real life. He is the person others put forward as their "man".

He's never DONE anything except fulfill assignments from others and win elections.

Health care reform is a prime example. First, he has not driven a stake in the heart of rising health care costs by doubling down on any plan that would. And doubling down means having the "chips" to make his opponents pay to stay in the game AND using them. He doesn't have the chips BECAUSE he doesn't think he needs them ... and if he had them, there is no indication that he knows how or when to use them!

Obama gives a good speech. He doesn't know how to knock heads. In fact he never will. It's too late in his career path to learn how, and his choice of financial gurus boxes him out from trying. Geithner, Summers, and Bernake are the foxes for the financial services industry in our hen house. I don't see how it could be worse ... because if the coming crash came faster (in response to those saying the slowing of the spiral downward is a good thing) we maybe then would have the political will to change. As it is, we are descending into Banana Republic status with the financial services elite sucking up the wealth by printing paper instruments of debt ... is there anything nuttier than that?!

Republicans hope - and Democrats fear - that a politically significant percentage of voters will come to see the federal government under Democratic control as redistributing tax dollars to "elites" and to the very poor, as the broad middle class is left on its own to face high unemployment, sharply reduced home values, and gutted retirement savings.

- Angry Populism Could Save The GOP
By Thomas B. Edsall

And — IMHO — whenever we haven't had a president with the interests of we the people and the nation at heart AND with the clout to knock heads in the US Senate, we the people have fallen prey to the elite with the economic power to have that kind of clout.

Corporationism: The corporation as the new tribe in human evolution

The corporation is the new tribe in human evolution.

What is the CEO's — played by Tom Wilkinson — line in the movie, Duplicity, about the struggle between corporations as the current arena for evolutionary progress? Note: When the script is published, I'll quote it.

The economists are the high priests, the witch doctors of the business arena where the hunt is conducted, the battle is fought, the competition is played out for guiding the tribe according to the Golden Rule of Corporationism: "Distribution of profit based on ownership is the foundation of the common good." Tribal members? The shareholders of the corporation ... not the workers. The managers are the tribal leaders. The workers are the wage slaves.

Think back to the dawn of civilization when humans roamed as hunting groups, and the leader of the hunt distributed the kill to the members. There are enough genetically inherited patterns from that period evident in today's business patterns to start me researching the subject. Note: As with Duplicity, I am certain this idea does not originate with me, although it looks like I get to coin "corporationism" in the sense and meaning that it is branch of Capitalism much like Calvinism is an offshoot of the Protestant faith. And I expressly use the religion comparison here for what should be obvious reasons ... to invite the examination of parallels.

This new tribal "structure" with its religion of greed fits the concepts of social Darwinism on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The "Left" tries to get the corporation/business to pay all the costs of producing its goods and services before declaring a profit. The "Right" says maximizing profit in itself is a legitimate — or sanctioned — act.

For example, looking at health care through the lens of Corporationism, President Obama reveals himself as a true believer in Corproationism as the economic structure to funnel wealth to the top tier of wealth gathers.

The basic political question is, "How is wealth to be distributed in a society?" Remember slavery or feudalism with its lords and vassals? We now have Corporationism as the new form of economic elitism in which the contribution of labor is undervalued for the benefit of whatever new elite has garnered economic and — the resulting — political power. Today we have the “priesthood” of academic economists constructing their “holy bible” to justify this new belief structure … even the god of “The Invisible Hand.”

I happen to believe that the fair distribution of wealth produced by a society to the people who create that wealth is the foundation of the common good for a progressive society. I am anti-slavery, anti-feudalism (with its lords and vassals), anti-monopoly, AND pro-fair labor practices with a living wage for the bottom rung available to anyone able and willing to work in jobs protected by humane health and safety regulations.

A fundamental role of our — the people's — government is to develop and regulate the economic environment that provides the fair distribution of the wealth created within that environment ... including efficient markets to facilitate the exchange of goods and services while paying the costs of producing those goods and services. Note: Money and other pieces of paper having "face value for the bearer" are NOT real goods or services. These financial instruments facilitate the efficient exchange of goods and services across the broad regions of our nation and the globe.

The right of corporations to earn profits is (should be?) bounded by — contained within — the requirement to fairly distribute the wealth they create. For example, costs of environmental pollution should be paid by the corporation creating the pollution. Likewise, costs of injury to workers due to unsafe work practices should be paid by the corporation using such practices. Note: And this is at the heart of the health care debate. Do we fairly distribute health care to all or just to the elite who are defined by having received enough wealth through adherence to Corporationism to be able to afford health care?

And the wealth of our society should be the basis of the guarantee that all participants who are willing and able to work have an opportunity to work at a job that pays a living wage, in other words, a job that provides enough for food, shelter, clothing, education (including child care), health care, and recreation for the worker and his or her family whenever that worker is ready to assume the role of an adult worker in our economy.

What is the point in having a society if its citizens are not provided for? It has been our general view in this nation that the needs of citizens and their families are provided for through the wages and benefits they earn on their work, their jobs. Then it follows that citizens should be given the opportunity to work at jobs that provide for their basic needs ... at a minimum.

And if corporations along with other businesses cannot meet the demand for jobs that pay a living wage for adult workers ... then we need some other market "mechanism" to fill the gap. Typically this has been the "government" (the legal organization of "we the people") contracting with corporations and other businesses to produce goods and services related to infrastructure that improves the business arena for all citizens in the long-term, past the corporate business model's profit cycle for justifying an investment ... such as President Eisenhower and the Federal Highway program.

And so ... President Obama reveals through proffered policy for reforming health care that he is limiting his political solutions to the boundary of the corporate business model's profit cycle — Corporationism — rather than what should be an outer boundary of mechanisms to fairly distribute a nation's wealth ... wealth that is created by that nation's economic environment in which we all have a stake.

We the people need economic principles to live by ...

We the people need economic principles to live by, principles we can understand ... principles that actually apply to the real world.

And we should know and understand the history of how these principles evolved out of our experience.

Like labor laws including those against children working in coal mines at the age of twelve. Did you know about that? Did I say twelve? How about seven and eight?

How about the 40-hour work week, lunch and rest breaks, weekends ... did you know that the concept of the "weekend" was given us by the labor movement?

And then there is the history of imperialism and other economic structures to funnel wealth upward to the top tier of wealth gatherers. Take salt. Take India. Take the British. Take Gandhi.

The Gandhi Salt March
1930

In 1930 in order to help free India from British control, Mahatma Gandhi proposed a non-violent march protesting the British Salt Tax, continuing Gandhi's pleas for civil disobedience. The Salt Tax essentially made it illegal to sell or produce salt, allowing a complete British monopoly. Since salt is necessary in everyone's daily diet, everyone in India was affected. The Salt Tax made it illegal for workers to freely collect their own salt from the coasts of India, making them buy salt they couldn't really afford.

http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/india/SaltMarch.html

There it is. All spelled out in black and white for us. If we have a necessary (without it our basic well-being, health, life itself is threatened directly by not having it) "commodity" that we actually could have in abundance, and some "market force" (in the case of the salt in India, "a complete British monopoly") creates what is quite clearly an artificial price (in this case, a tax) for the purchase of the "commodity" ... and the British do this on the basis of a law ... What do you think?

Life-saving medicines that are beyond their patent-life are what? And what if the law actually says that the market forces of negotiation cannot be applied ... as in the case of Medicare?

This is becoming so convoluted behind the smoke screen of a "free market" that without some common agreement on principle, we are doomed to failure ... or until we the people start our own march to the sea.

The Salt March started a series of protests, closing many British shops and British mills. A march to Dharshana resulted in horrible violence. The non-violent satyagrahis did not defend themselves against the clubs of policemen, and many were killed instantly. The world embraced the satyagrahis and their non-violence, and eventually enabled India to gain their freedom from Britain.

-Ibid.

It's really simple ...

The core political issue is developing the economic structure for a fair distribution — NOT equal distribution — of the wealth produced by the efforts — physical and mental — of working men and women. It has become obvious that current market "forces" do not distribute wealth fairly.

Let's face it, a fair distribution would provide jobs for all able-bodied adult workers and a living wage for the bottom rung of the labor ladder.

AND a living wage would provide for the basic needs of the family: food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare.

This should be the primary plank the platform of a political party looking out for workers' interests.

AND — IMHO — neither the Democratic Party nor the labor unions in these Unted States of America adequately represent the interests of the workers on this core political issue.

Cameron Todd Willingham: Texas executed an innocent man ... IMHO

The arson didn't happen. The execution did.

Texas executed an innocent man ... IMHO ... for a crime that wasn't committed.

Read David Grann's TRIAL BY FIRE in September 7's THE NEW YORKER magazine

Dr. Gerald Hurst, an acclaimed scientist and fire investigator, concluded:

"... based on the evidence, he had little doubt that it was an accidental fire—one caused most likely by the space heater or faulty electrical wiring. It explained why there had never been a motive for the crime. Hurst concluded that there was no evidence of arson, and that a man who had already lost his three children and spent twelve years in jail was about to be executed based on 'junk science.'"

That man, Cameron Todd Willingham, was in fact executed for the crime that didn't happen, and for sure he didn't commit.

What is outragious, Mr. Cheney, is ...

What is outrageous, Mr. Cheney, is your thinking you were above the law on something as morally obscene as torture.

It seems you have the false bravado of despicable cowards. That is my impression after listening to Senator John McCain, a true hero, and then you ... IMHO

On anonymous liberty

I am so very glad that for at least my lifetime, freedom for the ordinary person such as myself has been prevalent enough to let me have the satisfaction and joy of anonymous liberty.

- From previous post

One of the first things that should be said about liberty is the worn cliché that the freedom to swing my arms ends at another person's nose.

And — from what I have observed in my 70+ years — too many "freedom" advocates fail to compensate or even note the impact their actions have on others. Most often we simply seek avoidance of these costs through the accepted anonymity of so much of our public freedom. No one pays attention to most of what we do, as long as it is within the limits of acceptable behavior. A mild "tsk, tsk" is it, if anything, as a negative response within these boundaries.

But when the molehill of the detritus of our individual lives becomes a collective mountain of putrid garbage, fouling the ground on which we nest ...

When the lack of there being a law against it becomes the right to ruin rivers ... and even the oceans become threatened ...

Or, for that matter, mothers and children go without adequate medical care ... or education ... in a wealthy nation?

When do we begin to examine the real cost of what is hidden behind the cloak of "anonymous liberty"?

We should have figured it out a long time ago ...

We should have figured it out a long time ago to have a plan for the disposal of anything and everything we create. It's too late now. We are way past the tipping point in stuff like plastics. The biosphere is compromised with no end in sight. In fact we haven't even started to turn around. We are still going deeper into the swamp.

With all these so-called geniuses running things, you would think at least one of them would have been awake enough to ask, "What the hell are we going to do with it after we've made it and we can't use it anymore?" It's pretty damn obvious with nuclear waste ... somebody should have connected the dots on the other toxic stuff.

And that is not the only simple concept that seems to escape these great minds. But why bother? It's all about greed and the power it brings. And if you believe there is an Invisible Hand, a God in charge ... then it's not our responsibility, is it?

What absurd fools these geniuses are. I am so very glad that for at least my lifetime, freedom for the ordinary person such as myself has been prevalent enough to let me have the satisfaction and joy of anonymous liberty.

Learning to use market forces to distribute a fair share to workers - Part I

"Market forces"?

"Distribute a fair share to workers"?

How do we start talking about the issues that affect us, the workers of the world?

And even that brings to mind the negative "issue associations" with a label like "workers of the world".

We have to both clear the decks of false assumptions AND prepare the ground for discussion of the issues of the day.

Let's start with some basics. Just because a discredited historical figure (discredited in our humble opinion, either yours or mine) supported a concept does not make the concept wrong. Like the saying goes, even a broken mechanical clock is right twice a day. So when we attribute the concept "religion is the opiate of the masses" to Karl Marx, we should still examine the concept if for no other reason then current religious beliefs have been used to justify such obvious evils as slavery and the taking of aboriginal peoples' lands. We should at least question the relationship of religion to the fair distribution of the wealth our — the workers — efforts — mental and physical — create. If we can't get past the idea that an all-powerful God has established the lines of authority for this life here on earth and our true reward will be given by "Him" in the "after-this-life" place called "Heaven" ... well ... what can I say? You are already pissed off at me.

In any case, what we are witnessing today is the defining of wages as a cost of doing business in which separating the individual worker from any form of collective bargaining based on the real contribution of his or her labor allows the cost of labor to be reduced below the cost of keeping a slave alive. A living wage is no longer required. Is that an argument for the return of slavery? No, it is an argument against the immoral absurdity of the current trend in wages.

To be continued ...

Distribution of wealth is the basic political question

The trouble is -- IMHO -- we still have the plantation owner mentality holding sway among powerful elements ... that of driving the cost of labor down to keeping a mule ... food, water, harness, stall, and medical care for breeding stock.

The basic political question in a system of democratically elected representative government is the fair distribution of the wealth created by labor -- human physical and mental effort. And fair distribution is NOT equal distribution, certainly not the absurd "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." There is no progress without a reward for labor, however when the reward accumulates to the slave-owner ... and the nation becomes a banana republic with gated communities ...

The distribution of wealth created by labor is a political issue because markets do not always distribute earnings and costs fairly at the time of the transaction due to at least one simple fact: while the transaction "price" is known, the "cost" is not. The externalities of
smoking, of mountain top mining, of ghettoizing a city (the "cost" of the loss of labor) ... the list goes on and on.

Also, a huge factor in monopolistic capitalism augmented by financial instruments of debt -- further clouding the current transaction – is that markets stumble in determining the cost of a stable environment for the acquisition of wealth. Do we really want to lose our middle class and devolve into the current madness of Mexico? And if this is caused by the transfer of future wealth (through these financial instruments of debt) to the current market ... further distorting current prices because the future costs of servicing that much debt are beyond the ability of the current market to determine ... and it keeps getting out of whack ... bubbles anyone?

And the absurdity of mathematical models to "impose" constraints on chaos, the zillions of individual transactions – without understanding the limits of the models -- is like pouring sand through a funnel on the beach below the tide line ... then saying it is an
Invisible Hand that shapes the cone of falling sand ... and the tide is no longer a factor in building sand castles.

But even more basic, we do not have a political party that represents the interests of labor in our nation ... and the unions don't either. The results are obvious ... and so is our future course until we get a labor party to represent us in determining the fair distribution of the wealth we create.

Note: First written as a comment in response to a Paul Krugman column on the New York Times OpEd page.

Let's get real about the economic recovery

As Paul Krugman writes in his OpEd column in The New York Times today, Monday,July 13, Boiling the Frog, that we are boiling two frogs simultaneously, economic recovery and climate change. And because of current policy we are killing the frogs. Things are not looking good.

The irony is that by harnessing what is required to "stop boiling the frogs" in a dynamic synergy we could reverse our disastrous course for both.

Let us remember that WWII got us out of Depression of the 1930's by putting people to work at jobs that paid wages that supported a middle class. And we can think of the products they produced for the overseas wars as being taken to the water's edge and dumped in the ocean. What if we had a WWII mobilization that produced green infrastructure right here?

It's almost a no-brainer.

Bubbles are criminal conspiracies as cancerous for labor in a society as slavery

Bubbles are criminal conspiracies as cancerous for labor in a society as slavery, sucking up ""the useful, deployed wealth of society."" (Note: Read read Matt Taibbi's article on the financial history Goldman-Sachs since 1920's in Rolling Stones Magazine. Is this fraud writ large? http://bit.ly/P6uvP) Another quote from Taibbi's article:

"The bank's unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pump-and-dump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere - high gas prices, rising consumer-credit rates, half-eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth - pure profit for rich individuals."

The dynamic motivation of United States-style liberty is that individuals will be fairly rewarded for their efforts. And it is when the opportunity to do so is available widely that we thrive. There are a whole bunch of caveats to that, but we know it is productive work — labor that produces goods and services that have value in the marketplace — that builds a strong people.

If we give the highest rewards to individuals who devise ways and means to literally steal for themselves the wealth our labor creates, rather than those who devise ways and means to fairly distribute that wealth ... then we have what we have.

That being said, the evil inherent in the financial services elite gurus' design and use of instruments of debt to suck up the wealth labor creates, should be outlawed as a criminal conspiracy as cancerous in a society as slavery.

This whole charade of the new highly leveraged instruments of debt is philosophically supported by the age-old concept that the best society is one where an elite is able to pursue the "good life" by living off the labor of others ... the masters and slaves, lords and vassals, imperialists and their colonies, financial services sector gurus and their instruments of debt. They figure out a way to suck up the wealth produced by labor.

This is the concept of an elite and is the antithesis of our revolution and the birth of our nation. It is traitorous to our ideals — these self-evident truths; "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" — while it ultimately saps our strength, dragging us down to banana republic status.

Is anything going to change until enough people who matter start going hungry? Was it Karl Marx who surmised that the people don't revolt until the belly hits the backbone? But because I mention a communist guru, does not mean I sympathize with communism. I believe firmly in fair market capitalism.

And, how can we believe this crap that calling for fairness in wages is calling for equal wages? Of course, that's one of the "values" of religion, to get the people to accept the status quo of whatever elite is in charge ... even to the point of accepting slavery, or sheiks and mullahs in the Middle East, or ... financial services sector gurus on Wall Street ... as greed becomes our god.

Doesn't anyone get it? It's really the same old story.

Michael Jackson replaces Iran for the attention of we the people? And we wonder why the new elite — the financial services sector gurus — can steal the wealth labor creates right out from under our attention span ... instruments of debt, exchanging our future earnings for immediate consumption of more than we need ... so we can deaden the pain of our dead-end lives as consumers rather than explore the cosmos as doers, creators of the future ... rewarding ourselves fairly.

And when the debt became too big to sustain, it came crashing down around us ... and we gave away any hope of real recovery ... which would have required us to become the doers, the creators of the future ... we gave that away in exchange for rescuing the financial services sector gurus, allowing them to go back to being the current elite, sucking up the wealth our labor creates.

Doesn't anyone get it? It's really the same old story. It just has a different caste of characters. Instead of the citizens of Athens with their slaves, instead of the feudal lord with his estate with vassals and fiefs, instead of the plantation owner and his slaves ... we now have financial services sector gurus and we the people.

The basic political question is "How is the wealth created by human labor to be distributed?"

It is fundamental because all wealth is created by human labor. Even commodities from the ground have to be harvested, mined, pumped, or otherwise processed for consumption. And human labor is all human effort, both mental and physical.

The basic political division is between allowing the greed of the elite to suck up whatever wealth it can regardless of their actual contribution in effort on one hand, and a distribution based on the principles of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" with rights encoded into law governing everyone equally on the other.

Let's be perfectly clear, greed is never satisfied. If greed is left unchecked, the elite will continue to gorge themselves until they have destroyed their society and themselves in it.

Today that society is our own. And the greedy elite are going to get off virtually unchecked ... and this will virtually ruin any chance we have of real economic recovery — with jobs that produce goods and services that have value — as we sink to a new low level of economic recession or depression.