Hartmann Economics 101

Everybody should be educated by a teacher like Thom Hartmann, who spells out the issues so clearly. Hartmann declares "Raising taxes is in the overall scheme of things - good for the Economy". Back in the Eisenhower years we in America believed in something called Infrastructure. We believed in building things like water projects and roads and bridges and institutions of higher learning and space ships. Even Governor Swartzenegger back in 2006 right after he lost on his pet issues in that election deboccle the previous fall- - talked in his State of the State address of building infrastructure for the future. According to Hartmann, lower taxes for either the poor and the rich carry a double whammy. For the poor and middle class, employers, who believe in "market forces" will soon learn what they can "get away with" paying their workers and will pay them the lowest ammount possible, such as the markets will bear. If people get tax cuts there is the "take up the slack routine" the Pastor of Calvary Anaheim talks about. The employer will lower wages to "take up the slack" and lower the wage base to the pervailing market forces. For the rich, lower taxes have several consequences. Corporations see no restraining force in paying their CEO's astronomical salaries. Also these CEO's have no incentive but to squerrel away their money in Swiss Bank Accounts or some high paying investment program only the rich can participate in. This corporation with low taxes has no incentive to plow back money into the corporation with capital investment. Back in the Eisenhower days, corporations grew at a fantastic rate. From about 1948 to about 1973 we experianced unprecidented growth in American industry. Corporate bosses would think twice about actually taking all the corporate profits as salary but instead look for some investment shelter or write off. And these shelters were not all bad things. There was a carrot and the stick approach in opperation here where the CEO's would reason to themselves, "I can use this money for capital investment and take tax depreciation of new equipment as it's used". So Obama better "think twice - at least once more" as the Rutttles would say. The answer to increasing the engine of this economy is the power of the rank and file workers to spend money to propell this economy by others buying their goods. We need to bring back the Labor Unions. They gave the necessary counter ballance and insured the bargaining power of the workers. You've often heard that it was Allan Greenspan's avowed goal to create a fear in the average worker for his job, so that he won't be tempted to ask for more money. The results of anything spring from natural consequences of certain acts and planning. There is nothing mysterious or mystic about what is happening now. It isn't "God judging America". But Obama had better listen to the wise people among us who tell the truth and not be as Rehoboam, who listened to the wrong people and oppressed them, such that the people rebelled and he lost his Kingdom.

Obama seems to be breaking with precident in not waiting till January 20th. to move to Washington DC. He says it's because Shasha and Melique start school today. Back in my day they started the semester at the end of January but I guess everything is different now what with Christmas vacation morphing into "Winter Recess". But it would seem to be a bit gosh for Obama to ask to live at the Blair House when that place is no doubt booked up till January 20th. with friends of the current President. Obama's best bet now is just not to say anything and this way he won't be offending half of the people before he even takes office.

It is my oppinion that for too long we have winked at drunk driving. Now they want to file murder charges against people who kill others while driving drunk. On Sixty Minutes they had a case where a seven year old girl was killed by a guy in a truck with three times the legal limit of alcohol. People seem to want to be sympathetic because "we all take a drink now and then". People get down on smokers but nobody smokes a cigarette and then gets in his car and goes out and kills someone. Famous people, people in Congress, have had drunken driving incidents, and some of them have even involved traffic deaths. It seems to me that a 25 to 30 year sentense is more than fair. That way they cen get out of jail when they're in their fifties and go around to schools and tell young people not to go down the path they did but to stay away from drinking and driving. We advertize alcohol and glamorize it in our soap operas with people taking a swig any time the conversational vibes get a little tense. We're showing a terrible example to our children. Of course you know my position on Fraternities and haising. Some want to lower the alcohol drinking age to eighteen. I favored this myself once- - like when I was eighteen. But the adolecent brain is not yet fully developed in the judgement centers at that age.

Maybe it’s the medication or something but now I don’t remember. Do we usually do this rainbow sherbet pattern with the Raspberry in the middle and the Line on the edges, or do we do it the other way around. One big mistake philosophers make is extrapolation. We extrapolate from the small to the large and from the simple to the complex. This is not always a wise thing. Anthropologists tell us that all languages in the world are of equal complexity despite the technical state of advance of the society. If your response to our last Blog is to say “I can’t get inside the head of a Black man to see how a person could think so irrationally” then try and get inside the head of someone from Bangle Desh or New Guinea. It’s impossible for us “Westerners” to fully know what goes on in the heads of other undeveloped peoples. In fact, for a long time I didn’t know that Scientologists believed in reincarnation. I figured such a “wise” organization was too cagy to come out and state their opinion of the Afterlife, but rather come up with a giant “I don’t know”. Thus it could be said that he who thinks himself wise in metaphysics is an Ignoramus, which means “We don’t know”. Some people like Jesus of KFI try to get you to draw on previous experience to imagine what things would be like in the Afterlife. This is a risky thing. Perhaps you’ve heard the story about the hillbilly who received a jock strap as a gift and “Drawing on previous experience” put it on with the label in the back, and presumably went around looking like a jackass. In math one is tempted to “draw on previous experience” when talking about hyperbolic trigometric functions. We did our “Fish” analogy several postings back, but there were shall we say, certain intellectual liberties we took with that paragraph, even though in its way our “Fish” analogy was ingenious. First of all we must first think about “Regular” or circular Trig. In this case you always have the triangle with its point that determines the degree reading at the lower left. For some reason, math teachers like to always draw them backwards. If we were to try in “imagine” what sort of geometric figure would be involved in hyperbolic trig we can deduce certain things. The cosine or the number of the three that starts off Big - - - always remains positive. Thus we can deduce that two of the three triangle lines always remain positive while the third, the other right angle line, is positive sometimes and negative at others. We also know that the Right Angle lines, or the tangent angles- - -are roughly the same size, most of the time. Thus we can infer that it’s the “so called” long line or hypotenuse that is the shortest of the three lines. You may ask “how can you have two right angles connected by a diagonal that is the shortest of the three lines?” I don’t know but them’s the facts. Now let’s look at God and Creation and we come across some similar “problems” in trying to make sense of the incoherent babble of most theologians. We are to believe that there is God, who in his world temporality or “time” does not naturally exist. He as it were has to create islands of it, like ponds, and in these ponds of time, the fish can grow and flourish, but the fish cannot survive outside the ponds much as temporal matter would seem not to be able to survive outside of “temporality” or Time. Theologians will admit there is nothing about being “Outside of Time” in the Bible, so we aren’t even talking Bible now. We are beyond the pale into the exclusive domain of the theologians. These theologians would have you believe not only do temporal beings come to exist outside of temporality, like that Sherlock Holms Star Trek character- - but they will further state that there was a moment in temporality that determines their Eternal Destiny. The Westerner in his language declares “Cogito Ergo Sum”. The Buddhist declares “You think. Therefore you are experiencing Illusion”. That is, there is a Cause and Effect which still rules them- - as if bound by Time- - even though now they are clearly outside of Time. These theologians will further state that because of this temporality which God created on a whim (or whatever motive) that there is for all Eternity some “moment” when you “became” Alive. Even though “Became” is another of those temporal words. Sheer Logic would dictate that at least if you are going to have us live in this Timeless Realm called Eternity- - - that things like start and end points would be thrown out the window. Supposedly you will forever be conscious of one of two things. Either the moment you Accepted Christ, or the moment you rejected him. You would not judge yourself too harshly for decisions you made as a six year old. But the difference between you now and you as a six year old are infinetessible compared to you right NOW and you in Eternity where your perception of yourself will be as an insect frozen in amber. You cannot help being ruled by Time and Circumstance any more than a fish can consciously decide not to be Wet. Then we have the question I’ve never heard any theologian answer is “Just what is it we DO in eternity” after “We’ve been there ten thousand years”?