80th Anniversary of the Great Depression!

Eighty years ago today the last Republican Great Depression started with “Black Tuesday” the stock market crash of October 29, 1929. Wall Street survived this calamity, but it showed in a very dramatic way how bad things could get without proper regulation. Luckily, we had a president at the time with the foresight and intelligence to understand what needed to be done. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a member of what we now call the “Investor Class.” During most of the 1930's he re-regulated the economy and raised taxes on the very rich up to 91 percent. This, along with setting up ways through government employment to get people back to work, he managed to mostly reverse the depression and get the economy back on track. However, it took a world war to get the economy back to pre-depression levels. Now, due to a systematic unraveling of all the good regulations that were setup to end the depression and to make sure it never happened again, we are back in the same place again. Beginning with the last couple of years of the Carter Administration, then to Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, and then “W”, congress, led mostly by the Republicans, managed to change all the regulations to let the Wall Street loonies do it again. Now we have an average of over half a million people losing their jobs every month with no signs of it slowing down. We have the top 1% of people in this country controlling 98% of the wealth and the rest of us are making less now than we did in 1974 in inflation adjusted dollars. In 1974 it was possible for one person in a household to have a full-time job and the other person could stay home. Now it takes two incomes to survive, unless of course you happen to be a CEO of a big corporation and make over $5000.00 an hour. The common denominator from both of the market collapses of 1929 and 2008 seems to be income concentrated to the richest people and low taxes for the same group. The middle class seems to be the stabilizing force for prosperity in the economy. When the distribution of wealth is more equal, the economy grows and all classes prosper. Why is it that we didn't learn this lesson the first time?

Sorry

Sorry there have been no blogs lately on my site. I will post something soon, I promise. Lots of things going on here, not the least of which my car getting into a fight with a tree and losing; can you say 4000 dollars damage? Geez! Thanks everyone for their patience and there will be more blogs very soon!

Senator Sherrod Brown: Rahm Emanuel is “wrong” on Senate votes for the Public Option

Tonight, via TPM, we learn that Senator Sherrod Brown said Rahm is "wrong":
Emanuel is "wrong, because of this: Not every Democrat right now would prefer the public option in the Senate ... but no Democrat in the end is going to vote against a procedural question to kill the health care bill," [Senator Brown] said.

"The 60 Democrats will stay together on procedural questions and then, on final passage, some may vote against it because it's got a public option. But I don't see that," he said. Brown added that at least 50 Democrats in the Senate support the public option.
It seems that Brown is listening to public opinion more than Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff is when he states, "I believe that when I see surveys like 70% of Americans doctors, a recent Robert Wood Johnson survey, support the public option, I think the President supports it, he continues to advocate for it. I think an overwhelming majority of Democrats in the House and Senate support it. I expect that come October or November, December at the latest, when we send a bill, a healthcare bill to President Obama's, to put it on his desk, I sincerely believe it will include a strong public option."

I hope Senator Brown is right, it is time for this country to stop letting the health insurance industry dictate our health care options and continue to kill thousands of people a year because of their greed!

Fire Glen Beck Now!

It is time for Glen Beck to leave the airways! This guy is truly insane. Fifty-seven advertisers have now said to Fox News, we don't want our ads on his show. He is a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, and the most undeniably hatemongering ideologue on television and is a danger to society. He is, in my opinion, just plain nuts. I read that one time he even poured gasoline on someone to illustrate that Obama is trying to burn the American people at the stake. I also read that it was not really gasoline, but who knows, this guy is truly certifiable.

The really sick thing about this guy is that despite the advertisers pulling their ads from his program, he gets even more popular. His ratings are actually going up! Like Hannity and Limbaugh, the more controversial he becomes the more people tune in. We as progressives can complain and boycott advertisers, but it really doesn't do any good. Meanwhile, he gets even crazier every day. And the more people watch, the more they start to believe the lies that he spews from his pie hole.

People are so gullible; they believe what they hear and read, no matter how crazy sounding it may be, if it is packaged with extreme antics, the more likely they are to believe. And since our news is packaged as entertainment by corporations that are only in the news business to make money, they rely on ratings. The more people watch, the more advertising dollars they get, and consequently, the more money they make. So, even though Glen Beck is arguably insane and possibly suicidal, he stays on the air because he makes Fox News more money. One would think that the many advertisers that have pulled their ads from his show would make Fox News fire him, but just the opposite happens. The controversy he causes by losing advertisers gives Fox News free advertising from the whole entertainment spectrum. People love to watch a train wreck.

Senator Ted Kennedy Dies

The staunchest liberal in the United States Senate, Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy died last night at the age of 77 of Brain Cancer. This was a man who although born into privilege cared most about people that were less fortunate than him. He worked tirelessly to help those who couldn't help themselves. He was the third longest serving Senator in United States history, serving from 1962 until his death. 1He became known as "The Lion of the Senate", due to his long history and influence in the legislature. More than 300 bills that Kennedy and his staff wrote have been enacted into law. Kennedy battled a malignant brain tumor first diagnosed in May 2008, which greatly limited his appearances in the Senate; though he survived longer than doctors first predicted, he died just before midnight on August 25, 2009, at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
1Taken from Article on Ted Kennedy on Wikipedia.org