West Virginia’s Always an Enigma

Brilliant quote from Senator Nelson Rockefeller at a Senate Communications Subcommittee meeting yesterday.

When it comes to developing content, our entertainment machine is too often in a race to the bottom. In fact, it is in a race to the bottom. Getting close. Even worse, our news media has all but surrendered to the forces of entertainment. And much of our news media is entertainment as opposed to news. Instead of a watchdog that is a check on the excesses of government and business, we have the endless barking of a 24-hour news cycle. We have journalism that is always ravenous for the next rumor, but insufficiently hungry for the facts that can nourish something called our democracy. As citizens, we are paying one heck of a price in the dumbing down of America.

Did Sam Seaborne write this?  The full video below.

What’s amazing is that it took only 10 seconds to discover Rockefeller’s words in practice.  Trying to find information about the Committee’s bill I had to go through 4 “News” feed items from Google mentioning the speech before I got to one that came close to mentioning what the Committee was actual doing.  And that “News” source?  An industry specific news blog: http://goo.gl/Zpn69 and Variety: http://goo.gl/v8nNP.  Not CNN.  Or another “News” source. 

To avoid the same error of these other aggregators, here’s a quick synopsis on the Committee hearing which is looking at the structure between content producers - like Fox and ABC - and content distributors – like Time Warner.  Content producers want the current solution where they can sell channels in bundles to distributors.  Distributors feel they’re being monopolized.  Both sides use the consumer to argue their position: distributors argue consumers don’t want high rates, producers argue that consumers want access to their content.  They both want government to fix the issue (for them of course).  Neither side really cares about the consumer.  And the Senate can’t really do anything for the consumer anyways because the House is now controlled by free market government-do-nothings in Congress.

None of the Above

If you haven’t seen Brewster’s Millions, you should.  If only because the Tea Party is the modern Monty. 

Monty is a run of the mill guy, worn out pitcher in a depressed New Jersey city, who loves his friend Spike.  He’s your average Joe.  In a race between two established candidates, our average Joe has to spend $30 million in 30 days.  He starts out running as a candidate only to realize that he doesn’t really want to be a politician, he just wants to throw the bums out.  And this is the modern Tea Party, $30 million in 30 days to throw the bums out.

Unfortunately, when the Tea Party wakes up from their party on November 3rd, they’re going to face the same hangover Monty felt.  And there’s no $300 million from George Burns (although come on, doesn’t Boehner look exactly like this guy).

My Dad sent out a well intentioned email summarizing the Tea Party angst.  Surprisingly, I kind of felt myself drawn to the early pieces.  It was like rooting for Monty.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then they [sic] campaign against them.  Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Of course then the forwarded email gets Fox Newsisized. There’s your standard Nancy Pelosi reference (we need a villian).  And a list of taxes in case you forgot that there was a hunting license fee.  But it’s the end that sheds light on the Party of Tea.

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

That’s when I’m like WTF? 

None of these taxes existed 100 years ago.  Well neither did airplanes.  But ok, you don’t like taxes. NOBODY DOES.  This is where most journalists end their amazingly probing inquiries (sarcasm) of the Tea Party.  But the debt?  How many times do Democrats have to say that it was the Bush tax cuts that created our current debt?  Or the Bush wars.  Or the let’s stop watching Wall Street policies.   And the largest middle class?  Take a look back at an earlier post on income inequality; it’s amazing that the Tea Party and the rich-supporting Republicans are even remotely on the same page.  If you really want a strong middle class, you really should be supporting unions and eliminating tax cuts for the rich, not exactly your conservative plank.  Conservative policies DO NOT HELP the middle class. And mom staying home with the kids.  Hi, welcome to the 2010s.  But if you really want mom staying home with the kids, Sweden (we know all Tea Partiers love Sweden) pays for it.

The point is that the Tea Party is a throw the bums out party who’ve aligned themselves with the devil (George Burns, Oh God you Devil, get it?).  In thrusting up the Republicans, they’ve demolished any hope of actually solving the problems they care about.    And in the meantime, we’ll be choking on cigar smoke.  And Hackensack will still have a train running through the outfield.

Why is Life so Hard

So there you are.  Debt.  First you got the clothes that the fashionable people have.  Then you splurged on the catered birthday party because the boss had one.  Next thing you know you’re divorced and bankrupt.  And everyone around you in middle class land is suffering the same fate.  You wonder, this can’t just be me. Well, it isn’t.

Cornell economics professor Robert Frank says it’s inequality baby.

What’s income inequality?  Why should I care?  Income inequality is the income difference between the highest earners and the lowest earners in a society.  Frank argues that it’s the bedrock of a lot of our modern day issues.

In the US, the rich are getting richer faster than the middle classes ability to keep up.  That doesn’t stop the middle class from trying to keep up though.  Instead, they use debt and second jobs to maintain a standard of living of the person just above them.  Frank calls this expenditure cascades.

The rich have been spending more simply because they have so much extra money. Their spending shifts the frame of reference that shapes the demands of those just below them, who travel in overlapping social circles. So this second group, too, spends more, which shifts the frame of reference for the group just below it, and so on, all the way down the income ladder. These cascades have made it substantially more expensive for middle-class families to achieve basic financial goals.

But what makes this article great is that Frank has looked at 100 countries and he finds concrete evidence that in countries where inequality is getting worse, there are higher rates of all forms of stress: marriage stress (more divorce), financial stress (bankruptcies), and driving stress (longer commuting times because of affordable housing).  

And yet, even though income inequality is such a driving force to many of today’s social woes, it hardly gets talked about as an economic issue. 

When Fox News screams against taxing the top 1% of the rich, remember that it’s not because Democrats don’t like rich people.  It’s because lower income inequality is a major economic force.  And when Sarah Palin yells freedom, we should take into mind that policies that favor income equality may actually lead to more freedom (freedom from stress) than policies which say that the government shouldn’t do anything. 

As we head into the polls next month, people are angry.  But I can guarantee the policies of hands off, let the rich get richer will do nothing for us.  Except make life harder.

Panis ad multitudinem Circus

Oh Caesar, you’d love the US these days.  The masses are as entertained by the lions as they were back then.  And money shifts from the Forum to the Magistrates and vice versa as freely as bets before the big Gladiator match.

Ezra Klein describes:

It's hard to wave away the news that special interest groups have increased their spending fivefold since the 2006 election, particularly given that fewer than half of them are disclosing their donors. And yes, that money is going pretty much where you'd expect: Democrats have been outspent 7:1 in recent weeks.

That's a lot of cash. Gamechanger cash, in fact. And it highlights one of the Democrats' odder difficulties going into the election. They've passed a lot of high-profile laws that were about restraining corporate behavior -- but those laws required long negotiations and compromises with the very interests they were attacking. The health-care reform bill, for instance, and financial reform. TARP, of course, was passed by George W. Bush, but most voters blame the Obama administration for it. The GOP has effectively attacked them for this, arguing that the Democrats have sold out to various corporations. At the same time, those same corporations hate those laws, small concessions to them notwithstanding, and are now pumping millions of dollars into the GOP's 2010 campaign.

So the Republicans are simultaneously able to stand against corporate interests and get funded by them, and in the post-Citizens United world, there are few limits, or even disclosure requirements, able to shine light on their play.

In case you’re wondering what this means at the local level, New Hampshire is soaked in cash.  The US Chamber of Commerce alone has pumped in $1.3 million to buy its Magistrate.  This chart shows the other hordes who have come knocking at New Hampshire’s door.

Even the policies of the Republicans play into our Romanas.  Shall we cut the deficit and give tax breaks to everyone while increasing (miraculously through the Roman Gods) silver to fight the Gauls.  Hail Caesar! Shall we deny a hard working Carthaginian whose lived in Rome all of his life and whose your parents came here to find work the right to be a Roman.  Hail Caesar! Shall we fund the aqueducts and the Apian Way.  Let it crumble!  The Senate votes No, no, no!

With so much corporate money at play and with the masses feeding at the trough of Fox News, its not surprising Democrats are fleeing Rome.  Aqueducts be damned, let bread and circus reign.  Pulsat vulgus.