Monthly Archives: March 2018

Tariffs Are Taxes to Average Joe

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in U.S. Economy, U.S. Taxes

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Lowering the corporate taxes raises the interest rates that companies have to pay to borrow money thus offsetting the cut. Because of the cut we don’t know how the steel and aluminum companies’ finances will shake out. Will they use it to lower their prices to be competitive or use it as profit and increase management salaries and stock price? The companies have stated the cut will allow them to do capital investment. What capital investment do they need to do if their plants are running at 50-60% as they have been reporting?

We, you and I, will be paying more interest on cars, houses, credit cards and other loans because of the corporate tax cuts. The steel and aluminum tariffs will raise the price of most items we buy. (Plastic items require those metals in manufacturing processes.) Tariffs are a tax that goes to the government. Will the government use that money to pay down that increased debt or blow it on some new political grease tax loop hole or unnecessary project.

Since we are huge exporters of high value products and reactions to our tariff will be other countries will raise tariffs on our manufactured items. Europe, for political targeting, says if we put a tariff on their steel and aluminum and they slap a big one on Harley-Davidson motor cycles (Speaker Ryan’s District) and Kentucky Bourbon (Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s state). Trump put a tariff on Canadian soft wood products like 2 X 4s and plywood driving up costs of new houses. Canada could put a tariff on their massive export of electricity to the Northeast states.

Trump says we would easily win any trade war. Only a complete idiot would believe that. The Taft-Hawley tariffs caused isolationist trade wars and the Great Depression!

Made In America

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in U.S. Economy

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Everyone probably knows that flip-flops are made in China or Southeast Asia and up to January 20, 2017, there were few American made flip-flops. Thanks to President Trump we have enough flip-flops to make every American unsteady.

I have been told that I do not make any positive comments about President Donald Trump. It isn’t true and I will now make a clearly positive comment. The President has been following through on campaign promises he made no matter how inane, poorly thought-out, irresponsible, and downright stupid they are. Yes, he seems to be doing what he said he would do unfortunately for the country. We just have to figure out which flip or flops he will stand behind permanently!

Burning the Flag

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in American Flag, Patriotism

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I have been asked to comment about the burning of the American Flag. To me the Flag is a piece of colored cloth. Even as a little kid, when we stood up in school to pledge our allegiance to the flag, I didn’t feel any patriotism or respect. Maybe I associated the flag with my worst year in school. Mrs. Allen was my first grade teacher. She used to wear a thimble on her middle finger and would thump us on the back of the head if we looked up or didn’t make our Palmer circles perfectly round. I hated her and that class so maybe that’s why I don’t get a thrill over any Flag.

I was in Chicago once with an out-of-uniform Air Force sergeant. As we skirted a large group of firemen having some type of ceremony, one fireman quilted up into stopping while they raised the flag and played the National Anthem as we were running to meet our impatient wives to go home. Neither of us felt any remorse on wanting to hurry past the ceremony.

Many people seem to share my neutral feeling because they don’t rise at ball games, formal events, and parades. I have seen Flag cloth used for clothes, pillows, and quilts. The Supreme Court says it may be a symbol but burning it is a First Amendment right. When it is burned as a protest in other countries, the Court’s decision diminishes the meaning of the protest. Even when the Flag is burned here, people don’t seem to get upset anymore.

Perhaps the Flag means less to those of us who were born and raised here but more to expats who haven’t lived here in years and immigrants who feel they have reached the promised land of opportunity and safety. Many service people equate it with the home and family they miss. This jaded American remembers all the Cheney’s and McCarthy’s who have wrapped themselves in the flag in order to manipulate us into their ideology.

Many people remember pictures of the Flag flying over Fort Sumter, on caskets of FDR and Kennedy, and above Mt. Suribachi. Those many bring tears but to see pictures of the Flag at the many atrocities Americans have committed also bring tears but not of joy.

If the Flag is to be a symbol of the good we do then it must also be the symbol of the bad we do. George C. Scott standing in front of an outdoor theater screen sized American Flag thrills the heart. Seeing the Flag over Japanese internment camps after we stole their land and businesses during World War II bring shame to caring people. Does the movie of Neil Armstrong planting the Flag on the moon obliterate those of John Wayne leading a charge against the American Indians who only wanted to keep their land and way of life?

Our Flag, like the Flags of Japan, China, USSR, Germany and too many others are symbols of genocide, aggression, and greed. Maybe my feelings are from Mrs. Allen’s class and getting thumped on the back of the head when I looked up at the Flag.

State Finance Debacle

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Illinois Finances

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As someone who straddles the political fence, this is my thoughts on how Illinois’ financial mess could be fixed or at least eased somewhat. I think the pain should be spread among all of us. Political mismanagement by both parties has created this mess and both need to clean it up.

Among the state’s problems is an almost nine billion backlog in bills and a hundred billion pension debt. (It supposedly goes up with bad or good economics.) To solve the backlog, paying the bills should be first priority over all non-emergency infrastructure repairs and any new projects until bills are current.

The pension fix may require a quick decision from the Illinois Supreme Court or an amendment to Article XIII, section 5, so all state pensions over $40,000 would be subject to state taxes. The tax would be added to the mandated yearly payment. Additionally no new retiree shall be entitled to more than one state pension. Teachers, for instance, need to be allowed to get full Social Security as 43 other states allow as compensation for their pension being taxed. They pay into Social Security in their private sector jobs but can’t receive full, if any, Social Security if they stay in Illinois. Many teachers are burned out and retire at forty-two after 20 years and most by fifty-two after 30 years.

Everyone knows that our State needs massive infrastructure repairs and new facilities so I think the state gas tax should be raised fifteen cents before Congress raises it twenty-five cents. Until we go to Oregon’s mileage based tax, revenues will decrease due to high fuel efficiencies and electrics. As I close in on a million miles driven, I think it is a fair tax.

These ideas should be a basis for righting the ship of state.

Seven Billion and Growing

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Population

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The Chinese Government project their population will peak at 1.45 billion and will fall to 1 billion by the end of the century. They too have underfunded their Social Security system and are worried about less people working to support their parents and grandparents.

We have the same problem because no Congress or President in the last 22 years have had the courage to do anything major. President Clinton and Speaker of the House Gingrich had a fix worked out for at least 75 years. It fell apart with the Monica Lewinski scandal. Our current Speaker Paul Ryan wants people to do more work in bed as he has said. These words were close to those he spoke during a news conference.

As we eliminate diseases, we will live longer and more of us will swell the senior citizen population. This will continue to skew the ratios. Ideally the population ages are like a pyramid. The bigger the base to top ratios the better for the classical economy. That said, imagine the world with 1 billion people or 2 billion people. There was room to grow, resources barely touched, and lots of land to food people and something huge happens or commonsense on family planning occurs. We will have 12 billion by 2100. Americans will number over 525 million.

I remember an episode of Star Trek where the people of a planet were shoulder to shoulder because all diseases had been eliminated; or the movie Soylent Green, a science-fiction movie, where people were recycled for food at 35.

What will life be like with global warming, rising seas, and 12 billion people? We can’t keep kicking this can down the road.

Words, Not Actions

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Assault Weapons, Gun Control

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To my former National Rifle Association supporter friends (they are still my friends but not still supporting the NRA), we need to speak and out donate to the campaigns of those wanting to enact sensible gun control laws. As long as the NRA is able to sit in their huge office building (Bankruptcy sale is my dream.) and decide who will be president, senator, congressman, governor or state legislator, we will not have meaningful gun laws.

The Second Amendment of the Constitution states “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The far right leaning judges in US Supreme Court used an obscure letter from a dissident founding father to allow for wholesale purchase of guns. How can anyone misconstrue a precisely worded sentence stating a city dweller, farmer, or a frontiersman must have an arm, preferably a rifle, to use in a militia call-up. The written intent is every man with a gun is in the militia. That would be the State National Guard today. The amendment was added because the founders did not want to trade one domineering government with a big army for another. The ones for adding the amendment called George Washington “King George” because they thought he would use his army to become a dictator. They thought militias could stand up to professional troops so they kept the army small and put their faith in the militia.

Apparently the rights can be restricted when the far right and the NRA deems it agreeable. The NRA often deceives us by saying one thing in public after an event and then quietly pushing for no change or easing existing laws. Unless and until the Supreme Court comes to its senses and the NRA quits running Congress, nothing significant will be changed to the people’s good.

Messy Economics

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Politics, U.S. Economy

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A recession is looming because recessions are always going to happen. Economies go up and the economies come down. When it will happen is the question. Just as in the Bible, a government needs to store up money during the good times to use during the bad times. That makes good fiscal policy, doesn’t it?

Why have the Republicans decided the Bible is wrong? When Ronald Reagan cut taxes and run up deficits, we were in a recession with very high inflation, high interest and high employment. The tax cut and the subsequent lowering of interest rates was sufficient to jump-start the economy. Later the taxes were raised to cut the deficit and the economy boomed.

When Bush II took office, the government was paying off the National Debt so future administrations would have some ammunition for future recessions. Bush came to office after the dot.com stock collapse but with a good economy. He immediately put us back into deficits by cutting taxes and then 9-11 shocked the economy. In 2007, the Great Recession hit so taxes couldn’t be raised and some more were cut increasing the deficits and debt while trying to jump-start a terrible economy.

Now it is 2018, the economy is overheating, companies are awash with money, the Fed is selling bonds they bought to float the government rescue, and the Fed is raising rates from near zero. Instead of reducing the deficit and debt, Congress has emptied the ammunition storage so we have nothing to cut when the recession hits. They could have raised taxes to pay down debt and store up some shots for the upcoming recessions. Companies now have more money and the government has less. Our quiver is empty so hold on when the next one hits!

A New Children’s Crusade

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Assault Weapons, Gun Control

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Fifty-three years ago I took a European History course. One of the things I remember is a crusade some crazy monk came up with involving kids. If failed of course, because they either starved or were killed before leaving Europe. They had religion as their reason.

Today kids are leading a crusade against assault weapons that have killed more than a hundred school kids from Colorado to Florida. I think this crusade might have a far better ending than the last. Although unarmed, these kids are the spearhead of a movement with legs. The publicity is causing companies to break away from the NRA and applying pressure to politicians in Florida and around the country.

The Fourth Federal District Court of Appeals just agreed in 11 to 4 vote that Connecticut can ban 45 assault guns and magazines capable of holding over ten bullets. Perhaps the donated money from four billionaires totaling two million dollars will allow for transporting, feeding, and lodging students from across America. The students may now be able to re-institute the ten year ban on assault guns on a permanent basis. We may be the only country allowing private ownership of guns. (In Israel they are owned by the army.)

Would it be feasible for these kids to arouse the people enough to turn our gun oriented society around? Is the crusade strong enough to topple the NRA with its hundreds of millions of dollars scaring common people into worrying about race war, home invaders looking for guns, rapists, and other crimes? The NRA and the gun lobby must stop controlling members of Congress and brainwashing Americans to make second amendment commonsense. We have updated other Amendments, so why not the second?