When Washington Assured Russia NATO Would Not Expand

To make that prospect palatable, the Bush administration assured the Soviets that they had nothing to fear from a Western alliance that included a united Germany. NATO no longer viewed the USSR as an adversary. Apart from incorporating the territory of the former East Germany, the alliance was going to stay put. Washington was sensitive to and would respect Russia’s own security interests. So at least U.S. officials claimed.

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NATO’s eastward march commenced, with the alliance eventually incorporating not only former Soviet satellites but even former Soviet republics. In effect, U.S. policymakers responded favorably to the aspirations of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians while disregarding Russian security interests, apparently assuming that Kremlin leaders had no recourse but to concede.

As long as Russia remained weak, that may well have been the case. As if to press home the point, Clinton’s successors even toyed with the idea of inviting Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO—more or less the equivalent of incorporating Cuba and Mexico into the Warsaw Pact back in the bad old days.

At that point, a Kremlin leader less trusting of the West than Gorbachev had been decided that enough was enough. Vladimir Putin, a very nasty piece of work but also arguably a Russian patriot, made it clear that NATO’s eastward expansion had ended. Putin’s 2008 armed intervention in Georgia, annexation of the Crimea in 2014, and multiple incursions into Ukraine beginning that same year elicited howls of protest from the Washington commentariat. Putin, they charged, was trampling on the “norms” of international conduct that were supposed to govern behavior in the post-Cold War world.

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In today’s Washington, where Russophobia runs rampant, it has become fashionable to speak of a New Cold War, provoked by Putin’s aggressive actions. Yet if we are indeed embarking upon a new age of brinksmanship, we can trace its origins to 1990 when Putin was merely a disgruntled KGB colonel and we were playing the Soviets for suckers.

Link here.

Also, here is link to archived diplomatic materials at GWU.

The ‘New Anti-Semitism’

The ‘new anti-Semitism’, we are told, takes the form of criticism of Zionism and of the actions and policies of Israel, and is often manifested in campaigns holding the Israeli government accountable to international law, a recent instance being the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In this it is different from ‘traditional’ anti-Semitism, understood as hatred of Jews per se, the idea that Jews are naturally inferior, belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy or in the Jewish control of capitalism etc. The ‘new anti-Semitism’ also differs from the traditional form in the political affinities of its alleged culprits: where we are used to thinking that anti-Semites come from the political right, the new anti-Semites are, in the eyes of the accusers, primarily on the political left.

The logic of the ‘new anti-Semitism’ can be formulated as a syllogism: i) anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews; ii) to be Jewish is to be Zionist; iii) therefore anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. The error has to do with the second proposition. The claims that Zionism is identical to Jewishness, or that a seamless equation can be made between the State of Israel and the Jewish people, are false. Many Jews are not Zionists. And Zionism has numerous traits that are in no way embedded in or characteristic of Jewishness, but rather emerged from nationalist and settler colonial ideologies over the last three hundred years. Criticism of Zionism or of Israel is not necessarily the product of an animus towards Jews; conversely, hatred of Jews does not necessarily entail anti-Zionism.

Link here.

George Kennan in 1998 on NATO expansion and Russia

His voice is a bit frail now, but the mind, even at age 94, is as sharp as ever. So when I reached George Kennan by phone to get his reaction to the Senate's ratification of NATO expansion it was no surprise to find that the man who was the architect of America's successful containment of the Soviet Union and one of the great American statesmen of the 20th century was ready with an answer.

''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''

''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ''X,'' defined America's cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

''And Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia,'' said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ''It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.''

Link here.

Russia as an Enemy of the United States

Indeed, a lot of people have forgotten that Russia also asked to join NATO (under both Gorbachev and Putin) and was rebuffed. Russia wanted IN the club. In fact, it was pathetic how much they wanted in the club and I thought so at the time. The West, steeped in Russophobia, was never going to let them in, and the Russians wasted somewhere between fifteen and twenty years before they got the message that the West, and the US in particular, was implacably hostile and intended to remain so.

Russia has about half the GDP of California. It is a superpower only in terms of nuclear weapons, though its army, technology, and geographic reach mean that it is still a great power.

It has been pushed into the arms of the Chinese, which from a geopolitical POV is ludicrous: Siberia is the most likely point of conflict between the Chinese and the Russians, driven by the realities of climate change, demographics, and aquifer depletion. Siberia has hardly any population, lots of land, and tons of water, and in twenty to thirty years, the Chinese are going to need that water, and in forty years or so they’re going to need the land.

It would have been easy to spin Russia in and make it the Eastern end of West. Instead, it has been made into a foe, and if the hysterics looking for someone to blame for their own electoral failures have their way, made into an actual enemy. (An enemy with enough nukes to destroy the entire world more than once. Sanity suggests picking better enemies.)

Whether or not the majority of Americans “want” this, emergent American behaviour shows this to be the path the US and the West are on.

Those of us who would prefer the world to survive might wish otherwise, but in-group thinking and the death wish are stronger than sanity or reason.

Putin is a result of shock doctrine, imposed by the West. Russian animosity is largely a result of Western actions that the Russians could not but interpret as hostile (including the color revolutions and the Western-backed Ukrainian coup.)

Link here.

What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking

The consequence is a spreading confusion that envelops everything. Epistemological nihilism looms, but some people and institutions have more power than others to define what constitutes an agreed-on reality. To say this is to risk dismissal as the ultimate wing-nut in the lexicon of contemporary Washington: the conspiracy theorist. Still, the fact remains: sometimes powerful people arrange to promote ideas that benefit their common interests. Whether we call this hegemony, conspiracy or merely special privilege hardly matters. What does matter is the power to create what Gramsci called the ‘common sense’ of an entire society. Even if much of that society is indifferent to or suspicious of the official common sense, it still becomes embedded among the tacit assumptions that set the boundaries of ‘responsible opinion’. So the Democratic establishment (along with a few Republicans) and the major media outlets have made ‘Russian meddling’ the common sense of the current moment. What kind of cultural work does this common sense do? What are the consequences of the spectacle the media call (with characteristic originality) ‘Russiagate’?

The most immediate consequence is that, by finding foreign demons who can be blamed for Trump’s ascendancy, the Democratic leadership have shifted the blame for their defeat away from their own policies without questioning any of their core assumptions. Amid the general recoil from Trump, they can even style themselves dissenters – ‘#the resistance’ was the label Clintonites appropriated within a few days of the election. Mainstream Democrats have begun to use the word ‘progressive’ to apply to a platform that amounts to little more than preserving Obamacare, gesturing towards greater income equality and protecting minorities. This agenda is timid. It has nothing to say about challenging the influence of concentrated capital on policy, reducing the inflated defence budget or withdrawing from overextended foreign commitments; yet without those initiatives, even the mildest egalitarian policies face insuperable obstacles. More genuine insurgencies are in the making, which confront corporate power and connect domestic with foreign policy, but they face an uphill battle against the entrenched money and power of the Democratic leadership – the likes of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons and the DNC. Russiagate offers Democratic elites a way to promote party unity against Trump-Putin, while the DNC purges Sanders’s supporters.

Link here.

The U.S. Political System Has Been 'Hijacked'

The authors of the piece note how the Founders of the United States would find the rules that govern the country unrecognizable today.

"The result: America’s political system today would be unrecognizable to our founders. In fact, certain of our founders warned against political parties. John Adams, our second President, said, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.” Our founders— and most Americans today—would be shocked by the extent to which our democracy has been hijacked by the private and largely unaccountable organizations that constitute today’s political industrial complex."

Link here.

The Plot Against America’s 99%

And yet Republican administrations have persisted in pursuing unsustainable and undesirable tax cuts benefiting primarily the rich, leading to ever-larger deficits and trillions of dollars of additional public debt. The Republicans’ eagerness to pass reckless tax cuts once in power gives the lie to their claims of fiscal rectitude.

Making matters worse, America’s pluto-populist president is peddling a tax plan that will further increase economic inequality at a time when income and wealth gaps are already widening, owing to the effects of globalization, trade, migration, new labor-saving technologies, and market consolidation in many sectors.1

Given that the rich tend to save more than middle- and working-class people, who must spend a larger proportion of their incomes on basic necessities, the Trump tax plan will do little for economic growth; it may even decrease it. And it will add far more to the US’s excessively high public-debt burden. It is fake reform, brought to us by an alt-fact administration and a party that has lost its economic bearings.

Link here.

Taxes, Balance of Payments and the USD Paradox

"Finally, as the last four charts below show, business fixed investment in tangible capital hasn’t been declining because of lack of cash flow, but rather because businesses have preferred to save profits in order to to distribute them to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks, or invest in R&D. Indeed, the operating cash flow margin for the largest 85% of companies in the United States is at a two-decade high (chart 1), but capex as a percent of operating cash flow is near a two-decade low (chart 2) while dividends and buybacks have been up every year since 2011. Meanwhile, R&D investment as a percent of operating cash flow (chart 4) has been up every year since 2011. This suggests to us that tangible capital investment is a much lower priority to companies than paying shareholders and investing in R&D. Increasing the marginal return on tangible capital investment may be unlikely to change this trend."

Link here.

The Duplicitous Superpower

It is painful for any American to admit that the United States has acquired a well-deserved reputation for duplicity in its foreign policy. But the evidence for that proposition is quite substantial. Indeed, disingenuous U.S. behavior regarding NATO expansion and the resolution of Kosovo’s political status may be the single most important factor for the poisoned bilateral relationship with Moscow. The U.S. track record of duplicity and betrayal is one reason why prospects for resolving the North Korean nuclear issue through diplomacy are so bleak.

Actions have consequences, and Washington’s reputation for disingenuous behavior has complicated America’s own foreign policy objectives. This is a textbook example of a great power shooting itself in the foot.

And from the "Comments" . . .

The problem though is not hostile intent, it’s lack of intent. As far as I can tell, US foreign policy is merely a side effect of it’s internal policy. It’s like US government only cares about foreign policy as a tool for their internal actions. Any political move is seen through only one lens: how it’s effects will look to their electorate base and corporate sponsors. Is this or that foreign policy move expected to raise our party’s political rating / redirect public’s attention away from current scandal / bring more money to party coffers / whatever? Fantastic, that must be a wise and great foreign policy, let’s totally do it!

Link here.

Some of the trends behind America’s earnings boom and stock market surge are about to change. Investors beware.

"So if earnings growth has been so anemic, why have stocks continued to soar over the past few years—with the S&P 500 rising 29% since September 2014? “It’s all multiple expansion,” says Silverblatt, noting that the price-to-earnings ratio for the 500 has jumped over those three-plus years from 18.9 to the current, super-rich 24.3. Let’s look at the S&P as one big company. Its current annualized earnings of $107 haven’t budged in three years, yet its “price” has risen from 2,018 to 2,602. Hence, investors who three years ago paid less than $19 for $1 of earnings now pay $24.30—an extra $5.30, or an almost 30% premium, for a dollar of earnings."

Link here.

Washington - Which Nation is Really Interfering in the Electoral Process?

Of the 23 reported lobbyists, 4 or 17.4 percent are classified as "revolvers", that is, former federal employees who are now employed as lobbyists. It's interesting to see that at least one of the "revolvers", Gordon Bradley, has been employed as a political analyst by the Central Intelligence Agency, and has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee twice prior to his employment by AIPAC in 1995. He obviously has an inside track to influencing decision-makers.

In closing, let's switch gears for a moment. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, since 1949, U.S. foreign aid to Israel has totalled $129.808 billion with $79.823 billion of that being military aid and $30.897 being economic aid. Military aid has steadily risen from around $300 million annually in the early 1970s to $3.1 billion annually in the period between 2013 and 2017. There is no about; Washington is a big investor in Israel.

Obviously, Israel has a great deal of interest in what happens in Washington, so much so that the pro-Israel "industry" is willing to spend tens of millions of dollars to "influence" elections and lobby Congress to stay on the good side of its long-term American benefactor. But, somehow and in some way, that's different than the allegations of Russian "influence" during the 2016 cycle.

Link here.

Great observations from Adam Smith

"The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, and absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."

~Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1991, pages 219-220)

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

~Smith, Wealth of Nations (page 220)

"But though the interest of the labourer is strictly connected with that of the society, he is incapable either of comprehending that interest [those of capitalistic businessmen], or of understanding its connexion with his own. His condition leaves him no time to receive the necessary information, and his education and habits are commonly such as to render him unfit to judge even though he was fully informed. In the public deliberations, therefore, his voice is little heard and less regarded, except upon some particular occasions, when his clamour is animated, set on, and supported by his employers, not for his, but for their own particular purposes."

~Smith, Wealth of Nations (page 218)

"This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of [manufacturers], that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature. The member of parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous abuse and destruction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists."

~Smith, Wealth of Nations (page 368)

Link here.

More than 400 millionaires tell Congress: Don’t cut our taxes

“I think a tax cut is absurd,” said Bob Crandall, a former American Airlines chief executive who lives in Florida and added his name to the letter. Republicans are “saying we can’t afford to spend money, but we can afford to give rich people a huge tax break. This makes no sense,” Crandall said.

Cutting taxes on businesses and individuals is the centerpiece of “MAGA-nomics,” President Trump's plan to spur growth and jobs in the country. The House and Senate have unveiled tax plans this month that they hope to pass and get on the president's desk by Christmas.

While the House and Senate bills have substantial differences, both cut taxes, on average, for many millionaires and billionaires. The Senate bill even cuts the top tax rate for couples earning more than $1 million (and individuals earning over $500,000) from 39.6 percent to 38.5 percent.

The White House and congressional Republicans argue that everything in the bill is geared toward pumping more investment into the U.S. economy. They say the money that corporations and the rich save on their taxes would likely be used to start new companies or build new factories.

“I don't believe that we've set out to create a tax cut for the wealthy. If someone's getting a tax cut, I'm not upset that they're getting a tax cut,” Gary Cohn, the head of Trump's National Economic Council, said in an interview with CNBC last week. “Everything in our tax system is meant to encourage investment.”

But signers of the Responsible Wealth letter disagree, arguing that corporations are already at record profit levels and that wealthy people don't need more money. They would rather see the government use the funds to invest in education, research and roads that benefit everyone and to ensure that safety net programs such as Medicaid aren't cut.

“I have a big income. If my income gets bigger, I’m not going to invest more. I'll just save more,” said Crandall, who is retired.

Link here.

Watson Institute - "Costs of War"

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Some of the Costs of War Project’s main findings include:

370,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers.

It is likely that many times more than 370,000 people have died indirectly in these wars, due to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.

200,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts.

Over 6,800 US soldiers have died in the wars.

We do not know the full extent of how many US service members returning from these wars became injured or ill while deployed.

Many deaths and injuries among US contractors have not been reported as required by law, but it is likely that at least 6,900 have been killed.

10.1 million million Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani people are living as war refugees and internally displaced persons, in grossly inadequate conditions.*

The US has made an estimated 76 drone strikes in Yemen, making the US arguably at war in that country.

The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.

The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century.

US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has totaled over $170 billion. Most of those funds have gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.

The cost for the Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan wars totals about $4.8 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars, which will add an estimated $8 trillion through 2054.

The ripple effects on the US economy have also been significant, including job loss and interest rate increases.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to rank extremely low in global studies of political freedom.

Women in Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from political power and experience high rates of unemployment and war widowhood.

Compelling alternatives to war were scarcely considered in the aftermath of 9/11 or in the discussion about war against Iraq. Some of those alternatives are still available to the US.

Link here.

The only rationale for cutting corporate taxes is boosting the stock market

"This begs the question of what are these companies doing with all that debt? The next four charts show capex, R&D, share repurchases, and dividends as a percent of operating cash flow, respectively. The trends are unmistakable. Capex and R&D investments have nearly halved since 2000 and have been cut especially hard since 2008 while share repurchases are basically range bound at a high level and dividends have been on an unabated uptrend. Together, capex + R&D + share buybacks + dividends = 111% of operating cash flow. Debt must be issued to finance that which operating cash flow cannot fund, and this after slashing reinvestment in the capital stock. This is to say, North American Staples companies are issuing debt and eating themselves from the inside out to finance dividends and maintain stock buy backs."

So . . . in this sector at least, approximately 77% of operating cash flows are used for stock buybacks and paying dividends. LOL! There is no need for Congress to allow accelerated expensing of capital investments or lower corporate tax rates. Companies have plenty of money to invest. They simply choose not to because their large share owners and Wall Street want the money instead. I'm cool with that but Congress shouldn't be putting more money in their coffers because the money won't be used for investment.  It will be used to increase stock prices. 

Cutting corporate taxes will not benefit the economy or workers. Its simply payback for campaign contributions from corporations and the wealthy.

Link here.

Eye of the Storm

Regionally, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are now seeking ways to compensate for the loss of Syria as a place where they could defy and bleed Iran. A renewed desire to reverse their regional fortunes could lead them to try regaining a foothold in Lebanon. The Gulf states, Israel, and the United States do not want Iran to reap the benefits of a victory in Syria. If ever they seek to rebalance the regional relationship with Tehran in the Levant, the only place to do so would be Lebanon, despite the many risks that would accompany such an effort.

Link here.

That ‘Israel Lobby’ Controversy? History Has Proved Us Right

There is little question the lobby remains a potent political force today. The “special relationship” is firmly intact: An increasingly prosperous Israel continues to receive billions of dollars in U.S. assistance, and it is still largely immune from criticism by top U.S. officials, members of Congress or contenders for public office. Being perceived as insufficiently “pro-Israel” can disqualify nominees for important government positions; one need look no further than Chuck Hagel’s contentious confirmation hearings — and the 178 times Israel came up — to see how crucial a role being pro-Israel plays in achieving political success in this country. People who criticize Israel too pointedly can still lose their jobs. Wealthy defenders of Israel such as Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban play outsize roles in American politics, especially on Israel-related issues. A number of hard-line individuals and groups in the lobby remain staunch opponents of the sensible 2016 nuclear deal with Iran and may eventually help convince President Trump or the Congress to overturn it.

Link here.

Pandering to Israel Has Got to Stop

Anyone who thinks that the government in the United States at all levels does not consistently and almost obsessively defer to Israeli and Jewish interests has been asleep. The requirement to sign a document relating to one views of any foreign government to obtain a job or disaster relief is an abomination. Protecting Israel and going on a worldwide search for anti-Semitism or Holocaust deniers are not the responsibility of the American government and they are not what state legislators and congressmen are supposed to be doing to serve the public interest.

Israel is sometimes referred to as the “51st State,” but that is hardly true as it contributes nothing to the United States, collects billions of dollars a year from the U.S. Treasury and is totally unaccountable in terms of the actual damage it does to American interests. The American people are being hoodwinked by their own elected leaders and laws are being passed to make it impossible for them to even complain. Well, enough is enough. It is past time to shut the door on the Israeli influence machine and take back what remains of truly responsive and representational government.

Link here.

America is facing an epistemic crisis

But the right’s institutions are not of the same kind as the ones they seek to displace. Mainstream scientists and journalists see themselves as beholden to values and standards that transcend party or faction. They try to separate truth from tribal interests and have developed various guild rules and procedures to help do that. They see themselves as neutral arbiters, even if they do not always uphold that ideal in practice.

The pretense for the conservative revolution was that mainstream institutions had failed in their role as neutral arbiters — that they had been taken over by the left, become agents of the left in referee’s clothing, as it were.

But the right did not want better neutral arbiters. The institutions it built scarcely made any pretense of transcending faction; they are of and for the right. There is nominal separation of conservative media from conservative politicians, think tanks, and lobbyists, but in practice, they are all part of the conservative movement. They are prosecuting its interests; that is the ur-goal.

Indeed, the far right rejects the very idea of neutral, binding arbiters; there is only Us and Them, only a zero-sum contest for resources. That mindset leads to what I call “tribal epistemology” — the systematic conflation of what is true with what is good for the tribe.

There’s always been a conspiratorial and xenophobic fringe on the right, but it was (fitfully) held in place by gatekeepers through the early decades of America’s post-war prosperity. The explosion of right-wing media in the 1990s and 2000s swept those gatekeepers away, giving the loudest voice, the most exposure, and the most power to the most extreme elements on the right. The right-wing media ecosystem became a bubble from which fewer and fewer inhabitants ever ventured.

Link here.

George Kennan at the Fulbright Hearings

He's talking about U.S. involvement in Vietnam but the truth he speaks is equally applicable today.

2/10/1966

Sen. Fulbright: It's a great difference in the culture and race and language and so on. I take it by this you mean that this is simply not a practicable objective in this country that we can't achieve it even with the best of wills.

Mr. Kennan: This is correct and I have a fear that our thinking about this whole problem is still affected by some sort of illusions about invincibility on our part. That there is no problem, a feeling that there is no problem, in the world which we, if we wanted to devote our resources to it, could not solve. I disbelieve in this most profoundly. I do not think we can order the political realities of areas in a great many other parts of the world.

Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition

Very, very true.

"An important conclusion that follows from our analysis is that political attitudes and beliefs possess a strong motivational basis (e.g., Duckitt, 2001; Dunning, 1999; Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Kruglanski, 1996; Kunda, 1990). Conservative ideologies, like virtually all other belief systems, are adopted in part because they satisfy various psychological needs. To say that ideological belief systems have a strong motivational basis is not to say that they are unprincipled, unwarranted, or unresponsive to reason or evidence. Although the (partial) causes of ideological beliefs may be motivational, the reasons (and rationalizations) whereby individuals justify those beliefs to themselves and others are assessed according to informational criteria (Kruglanski, 1989, 1999).

Many different theoretical accounts of conservatism over the past 50 years have stressed motivational underpinnings, but they have identified different needs as critical. Our review brings these diverse accounts together for the first time. Variables significantly associated with conservatism, we now know, include fear and aggression (Adorno et al., 1950; Altemeyer, 1998; Lavine et al., 1999), dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity (Fibert & Ressler, 1998; Frenkel-Brunswik, 1948; Rokeach, 1960; Sidanius, 1978), uncertainty avoidance (McGregor et al., 2001; Sorrentino & Roney, 1986; Wilson, 1973b), need for cognitive closure (Golec, 2001; Jost et al., 1999; Kemmelmeier, 1997; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), personal need for structure (Altemeyer, 1998; Schaller et al., 1995; Smith & Gordon, 1998), terror management (Dechesne et al., 2000; Greenberg et al., 1990, 1992; Wilson, 1973d), group-based dominance (Pratto et al., 1994; Sidanius, 1993; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), and system justification (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost et al., 2001; Jost & Thompson, 2000). From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination.

The socially constructed nature of human belief systems (see Jost & Kruglanski, 2002) makes it unlikely that a complete explanation of conservative ideology could ever be provided in terms of a single motivational syndrome. Ideologies, like other social representations, may be thought of as possessing a core and a periphery (Abric, 2001), and each may be fueled by separate motivational concerns. The most that can be expected of a general psychological analysis is for it to partially explain the core of political conservatism because the peripheral aspects are by definition highly protean and driven by historically changing, local contexts.

We regard political conservatism as an ideological belief system that is significantly (but not completely) related to motivational concerns having to do with the psychological management of uncertainty and fear. Specifically, the avoidance of uncertainty (and the striving for certainty) may be particularly tied to one core dimension of conservative thought, resistance to change (Wilson, 1973c). Similarly, concerns with fear and threat may be linked to the second core dimension of conservatism, endorsement of inequality (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Although resistance to change and support for inequality are conceptually distinguishable, we have argued that they are psychologically interrelated, in part because motives pertaining to uncertainty and threat are interrelated (e.g., Dechesne et al., 2000; McGregor et al., 2001; van den Bos & Miedema, 2000)."

Link here.

Equity values to US business sales ratio

A Zillionaire’s Solution: Tax the Rich and Save the Economy

The Republican tax plan is a scam that won’t create jobs, contrary to what Trump says.
By NICK HANAUER
October 11, 2017

"The Republican tax plan is a scam—a massive and destructive financial giveaway masquerading as pro-growth tax reform. Which is why our first response must be to demand not one pennyof tax cuts for big corporations and rich guys like me. In fact, if I were Benevolent Dictator, I would substantially raise taxes on myself and my wealthy friends. Why? It is the only way to sustainably grow the economy, boost productivity, increase business opportunities, and create more and better jobs.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: That’s crazy talk! For decades, rich guys like me have been selling you tax cuts on the merits of pure economic stimulus. The rich are “job creators,” we’ve told you. The more money and incentives we wealthy few have to invest in creating jobs, the better the economy is for everybody—especially you.

That’s a lie.

There is is simply no empirical evidence nor plausible economic mechanism to support the claim that cutting top tax rates spurs economic growth. When President Bill Clinton hiked taxes, the economy boomed. When President George W. Bush slashed taxes, the economy ultimately collapsed. It wasn’t until after most of the Bush tax cuts expired during the Obama administration that the post-Great Recession recovery started to pick up steam—an ongoing recovery that, as uneven as it has been, has grown into one of the longest economic expansions in U.S. history."

Link here.

Russiagate Is More Fiction Than Fact

From accusations of Trump campaign collusion to Russian Facebook ad buys, the media has substituted hype for evidence.

By Aaron Maté
OCTOBER 6, 2017

But the focus on Russia has utility far beyond the Clinton camp. It dovetails with elements of state power that oppose Trump’s call for improved relations with Moscow and who are willing to deploy a familiar playbook of Cold War fearmongering to block any developments on that front. The multiple investigations and anonymous leaks are also a tool to pacify an erratic president whose anti-interventionist rhetoric—by all indications, a ruse—alarmed foreign-policy elites during the campaign. Corporate media outlets driven by clicks and ratings are inexorably drawn to the scandal. The public is presented with a real-life spy thriller, which for some carries the added appeal of possibly undoing a reviled president and his improbable victory.

These imperatives have incentivized a compromised set of journalistic and evidentiary standards. In Russiagate, unverified claims are reported with little to no skepticism. Comporting developments are cherry-picked and overhyped, while countervailing ones are minimized or ignored. Front-page headlines advertise explosive and incriminating developments, only to often be undermined by the article’s content, or retracted entirely. Qualified language—likely, suspected, apparent—appears next to “Russians” to account for the absence of concrete links. As a result, Russiagate has enlarged into a storm of innuendo that engulfs issues far beyond its original scope.

Link here.

Congressional aides risk conflicts with stock trades

Nice work if you can get it . . .

"On Sept. 28, 2016, three members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Justice Department suggesting that the drug company Mylan was violating Medicaid laws.

Nine days later, the Justice Department reached a massive $465 million settlement with the firm.

In between, another action happened almost invisibly: A Judiciary Committee aide to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) dropped somewhere between $4,004 and $60,000 in Mylan stock from his and his child’s portfolios.

If an aide had done the same thing in the executive branch, he or she could be investigated for violating federal conflict-of-interest law. But the Durbin aide’s ownership of shares of Mylan, and their timely sale, are reflective of Congress’ persistent refusal to crack down on stock trading by staffers, even in firms overseen by their committees.

Durbin’s aide, Daniel Swanson, isn’t alone. A POLITICO review of federal disclosures for 2015 and 2016 found that some senior aides regularly buy and sell individual stocks that present potential conflicts of interest with their work. A smaller number of staffers trade in companies that lobby Congress and the committees that employ them. In all, approximately 450 aides have bought or sold a stock of more than $1,001 in value since May 2015."

Link here.

How I Got Fired, Exposing Jewish power in America has real consequences

"The end result of Israel centric policymaking in Washington is to produce negotiators like Dennis Ross, who consistently supported Israeli positions in peace talks, so much so that he was referred to as 'Israel’s lawyer.' It also can result in wars, which is of particular concern given the current level of hostility being generated by these same individuals and organizations relating to Iran. This group of Israel advocates is as responsible as any other body in the United States for the deaths of thousands of Americans and literally millions of mostly Muslim foreigners in unnecessary wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. It has also turned the U.S. into an active accomplice in the brutal suppression of the Palestinians. That they have never expressed any remorse or regret and the fact that the deaths and suffering don’t seem to matter to them are clear indictments of the sheer inhumanity of the positions they embrace.

The claims that America’s Middle Eastern wars have been fought for Israel are not an anti-Semitic delusion. Some observers, including former high government official Philip Zelikow, believe that Iraq was attacked by the U.S. in 2003 to protect Israel. On April 3rd, just as the war was starting, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz headlined 'The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history.' It then went on to describe how 'In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in [Washington]: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another.'”

Link here.

Corporate debt to after tax profits ratio

America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars

"So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American Jews. Indeed, I would opine that most of the fury from Congress re Iran comes from the same source, with AIPAC showering our Solons on the Potomac with “fact sheets” explaining how Iran is worthy of annihilation because it has pledged to “destroy Israel,” which is both a lie and an impossibility as Tehran does not have the resources to carry out such a task. The AIPAC lies are then picked up and replayed by an obliging media, where nearly every “expert” who speaks about the Middle East on television and radio or who is interviewed for newspaper stories is Jewish.

One might also add that neocons as a group were founded by Jews and are largely Jewish, hence their universal attachment to the state of Israel. They first rose into prominence when they obtained a number of national security positions during the Reagan Administration and their ascendancy was completed when they staffed senior positions in the Pentagon and White House under George W. Bush. Recall for a moment Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby. Yes, all Jewish and all conduits for the false information that led to a war that has spread and effectively destroyed much of the Middle East. Except for Israel, of course. Philip Zelikow, also Jewish, in a moment of candor, admitted that the Iraq War, in his opinion, was fought for Israel."

Link here.

Equity values to disposable personal income ratio

Equity values to dividends ratio

Equity values to profits ratio

Equity values to GDP

All subjective labels are assigned within the context of a narrative

A narrative is the story assembled by a human brain that provides the framework for understanding reality and interactions with it.  A person's beliefs and values form the basis for their narrative.  Beliefs and values are, in turn, derived from fundamental cravings, which can also be thought of as impulses or urges.  These cravings are a function of brain structure and chemistry. 

Creating and updating a narrative is an innate function of the human brain.  New information, something seen or read for example, is compared against these beliefs and values, judged, and placed within the narrative.

A belief or value can be changed only to the extent that the new one is compatible with the fundamental cravings.

Organizations (e.g., corporations and governments) develop, communicate and promote narratives to gain alignment of thought and action among its members, and to minimize dissent.

Individuals and governments assign labels to support their narrative.  A label is a characterization or description of a thing or action that does not describe a physical property.  The concept of "truth" does not apply to labels (e.g., one person's "freedom fighter" is another person's "terrorist").

The "truth" of a label is generally gauged by majority opinion concerning a particular belief or value.

What holds true for an individual also holds true for organizations with coercive power.

Donald Trump Should Embrace a Realist Foreign Policy

"Liberal hegemony is a bankrupt strategy. The United States has worked to topple regimes and promote democracy in six countries in the greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Each attempt has been an abject failure: wars are raging in every one of those countries except Egypt, which is once again a military dictatorship. This campaign has also made America’s terrorism problem worse: Al Qaeda has morphed and multiplied, and we are now at war with ISIS, which is largely a consequence of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

In Europe, the United States foolishly tried to integrate Georgia and Ukraine into the West, precipitating an unnecessary crisis with Russia that upset the peace in eastern Europe and made it harder for Moscow and Washington to cooperate on other matters, like ending the bloodletting in Syria.

Spreading democracy, especially by force, almost always fails. It inevitably involves large-scale social engineering in societies that most Americans poorly understand. Dismantling and then replacing existing political institutions inevitably creates winners and losers, and the latter usually take up arms in opposition, which forces the U.S. military to wage costly counterinsurgency campaigns that are extremely difficult to win. The end result is precisely the sort of quagmire we faced in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Trump administration should abandon liberal hegemony and adopt a realist foreign policy. Realism is chiefly concerned with America’s position in the global balance of power, and it shuns doing social engineering inside other countries. Instead, Washington would respect the sovereignty of other states even when it disagrees with their internal policies. Americans prize their own sovereignty, which is why they recoiled at the idea that Russia might be interfering in the recent presidential election. The United States should treat other countries according to the same standard and respect their sovereignty as well."

Link here.

Expat Insider 2017: Looking at the World through Expat Eyes

"Now in its fourth year, Expat Insider is one of the largest surveys worldwide offering an in-depth analysis of expat life across the globe. More than 12,500 respondents representing 166 nationalities and living in 188 countries or territories answered our questions, providing unique insights into what it means to be an expat in 2017."

Link here.

When Russia does this it is condemned ...

"What we do know is that Iran and Hezbollah’s permanent presence in Syria is dangerous for Israel, America and the West."

No. Dangerous for Israel and their new BFFs in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So, who cares? I'd love to see that whole crowd blown to hell.

Fuck the Likud and neocon vermin.  Go fight your own goddamned war.

Link here.

Afghanistan surge is about regime change in Iran

By sending more troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. is actually worsening the national-security interests of the Western world, just as it did with attempts at regime change in Syria and Libya, where both conflicts caused jihadist blowback in Europe. As the noose tightens in the Middle East, terror attacks have ramped up. And such attacks have become easier to pull off as European borders have opened in the interests of humanitarianism, exposing a lethal loophole in Western benevolence.

Make no mistake: This is still all about regime change for the military-industrial complex, particularly as hopes of overthrowing the Syrian government dissipate. What do Syria and Afghanistan have in common? Proximity to Iran. This is hardly a coincidence.

Mr. Trump's secretary of defense, General James Mattis, has done little to hide his animosity toward the Iranian regime, telling a high school journalist in a June interview that "[Iran] is the only reason Assad has been able to stay in power." Mattis added: "Iran is certainly the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East, and when I would travel to Cairo or Tel Aviv or Riyadh ... from Arabs from Jews, all the people in the region, that is their view of Iran."

What Mr. Mattis failed to mention is that nearly all those entities are on the same side, along with the U.S. military-industrial complex. Russia and Iran are on the other side — the one that's constantly treated like an enemy for having competing economic interests.

Link here.

Stop Poking the Russian Bear

But Western intrusion into traditional Russian spheres of influence, areas under the sway of Moscow for three centuries or more, represents a highly provocative and destabilizing policy. Ukraine was one such Russian sphere of influence. Georgia was another. So was Belarus. So was Serbia. All have been subject to Western designs to one degree or another, including serious U.S. initiatives to dismember Serbia and get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.

Further, the West has offered no expressions indicating what might be the limitations of its encirclement plans. Prominent Americans talk freely of “regime change” in the country, and the U.S. government has sponsored NGO activities designed to foment antigovernment activities there of the kind that stirred a pro-Russian leader of Ukraine—the corrupt but duly elected Viktor Yanukovych—to flee his own country upon threat of death. America’s promiscuous post–Cold War activities in support of regime change—in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen—lend weight to suspicions that it harbors similar views toward Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Indeed, the demonization of Putin by America’s intelligentsia has been nearly unprecedented in peacetime. Hillary Clinton invokes Hitler as a comparative figure and, while others have stopped short of that kind of rhetorical excess, the attitude remains the same. He is evil and presides over a menacing, conquest-hungry nation; he and his country must be stopped, curtailed, declawed. There is no recognition in any of this that Russians may view themselves, with at least some validity, as a beleaguered nation vis-à-vis America and its allies.

Link here.

How Saudi Arabia captured Washington

Rather, they described Gulf donations as playing a much subtler role in influencing Washington — one that is less explicit and thus less dramatic. But that role is also, by design, systemic and thus pervasive, making it less egregious-seeming but perhaps more distorting than the incidents described by the Times.

"It doesn't mean that he's bought and paid for," one of the experts said, referring to a hypothetical think tanker or academic whose work would be funded by Gulf donations. "But at one level there is a kind of silencing effect. It's more about what doesn't get written about."

The expert, like others, described an unspoken effect whereby scholars, who are naturally aware of their funders' sensitivities, might think twice before writing critically on those issues.

"'I could write about Saudi sectarianism, but then I might lose some money,'" the expert said, explaining the thoughts a Gulf-funded scholar might have. "'I could write about UAE human rights abuses, but, you know, there are abuses everywhere, and there are a million other things I can write about.'"

"It's probably not going to affect how the analysis is done, but there may be some self-censoring on certain topics you don't raise unnecessarily, topics that are sensitive to the Saudis or others in the Gulf," another expert said.

Though American and Gulf interests have drifted further apart since 2011, Washington's pro-Gulf consensus has proven strangely resilient

This contributes, they said, to a practice in Washington whereby the bad behavior of other Middle East states — particularly US adversaries such as Iran — receive heavy attention and debate. But bad behavior by Gulf allies — human rights abuses, opposition to democracy movements, foreign policy actions that often undercut US interests — while far from ignored are discussed with less frequency and vigor.

Link here.

The Return of Karl Polanyi

Right from the start of the book, Polanyi attacks market liberalism for what he calls its “stark Utopia.” Conservatives had long deployed the “utopianism” epithet to discredit movements of the left, but Polanyi was determined to turn the tables by showing that the vision of a global self-regulating market system was the real utopian fantasy. Polanyi’s central argument is that a self-regulating economic system is a completely imaginary construction; as such, it is completely impossible to achieve or maintain. Just as Marx and Engels had talked of the “withering away of the state,” so market liberals and libertarians imagine a world in which the realm of politics would diminish dramatically. At the same time, Polanyi recognizes why this vision of stateless autonomous market governance is so seductive. Because politics is tainted by a history of coercion, the idea that most of the important questions would be resolved through the allegedly impartial and objective mechanism of choice-driven, free-market competition has great appeal.

Polanyi’s critique is that the appeal has no basis in reality. Government action is not some kind of “interference” in the autonomous sphere of economic activity; there simply is no economy without government. It is not just that society depends on roads, schools, a justice system, and other public goods that only government can provide. It is that all of the key inputs into the economy—land, labor, and money—are only created and sustained through continuous government action. The employment system, the arrangements for buying and selling real estate, and the supplies of money and credit are socially constructed and sustained through the exercise of government’s coercive power.

In this sense, free-market rhetoric is a giant smokescreen designed to hide the dependence of business profits on conditions secured by government. So, for example, our giant financial institutions insist that they should be free of meddlesome regulations while they depend on continuing access to cheap credit—in good times and bad—from the Federal Reserve. Our pharmaceutical firms have successfully resisted any government limits on their price-setting ability at the same time that they rely on government grants of monopolies through the patent system. And, of course, the compliance of employees with the demands of their managers is maintained by police, judges, and an elaborate structure of legal rules.

Link here.

The free market is an impossible utopia

Polanyi’s core thesis is that there is no such thing as a free market; there never has been, nor can there ever be. Indeed he calls the very idea of an economy independent of government and political institutions a “stark utopia”—utopian because it is unrealizable, and the effort to bring it into being is doomed to fail and will inevitably produce dystopian consequences. While markets are necessary for any functioning economy, Polanyi argues that the attempt to create a market society is fundamentally threatening to human society and the common good. In the first instance the market is simply one of many different social institutions; the second represents the effort to subject not just real commodities (computers and widgets) to market principles but virtually all of what makes social life possible, including clean air and water, education, health care, personal, legal, and social security, and the right to earn a livelihood. When these public goods and social necessities (what Polanyi calls “fictitious commodities”) are treated as if they are commodities produced for sale on the market, rather than protected rights, our social world is endangered and major crises will ensue.

Free market doctrine aims to liberate the economy from government “interference”, but Polanyi challenges the very idea that markets and governments are separate and autonomous entities. Government action is not some kind of “interference” in the autonomous sphere of economic activity; there simply is no economy without government rules and institutions. It is not just that society depends on roads, schools, a justice system, and other public goods that only government can provide. It is that all of the key inputs into the economy—land, labor, and money—are only created and sustained through continuous government action. The employment system, the arrangements for buying and selling real estate, and the supplies of money and credit are organized and maintained through the exercise of government’s rules, regulations, and powers.

Link here.

America’s Drinking Problem Is Much Worse This Century

"There’s no single explanation for the increase. Researchers point to economic stress in the aftermath of the Great Recession; more easily available alcohol at restaurants and retailers; and the diminished impact of alcohol taxes. As a percentage of average income, alcohol is cheaper today than at any point since at least 1950.

Pervasive marketing by the alcohol industry and new products such as flavored vodkas or hard lemonade and iced tea may also be driving some of the increases among women and other demographics, said Jernigan.

The consequences for health care, well-being and mortality are severe. Excess drinking caused on average more than 88,000 deaths in the U.S. each year from 2006 to 2010, the Centers for Disease Control estimates—more than twice the number of deaths from prescription opioids and heroin last year. The total includes drunk-driving deaths and alcohol-linked violence, as well as liver disease, strokes and other medical conditions. The CDC says drinking too much is responsible for one in 10 deaths among working-age Americans.

The estimated cost of excess alcohol consumption is almost $250 billion a year in the U.S."

Link here.

A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack

"By any balanced reckoning, the official case purporting to assign a systematic hacking effort to Russia, the events of mid-June and July 5 last year being the foundation of this case, is shabby to the point taxpayers should ask for their money back. The Intelligence Community Assessment, the supposedly definitive report featuring the “high confidence” dodge, was greeted as farcically flimsy when issued January 6. Ray McGovern calls it a disgrace to the intelligence profession. It is spotlessly free of evidence, front to back, pertaining to any events in which Russia is implicated. James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, admitted in May that “hand-picked” analysts from three agencies (not the 17 previously reported) drafted the ICA. There is a way to understand “hand-picked” that is less obvious than meets the eye: The report was sequestered from rigorous agency-wide reviews. This is the way these people have spoken to us for the past year.

Behind the ICA lie other indefensible realities. The FBI has never examined the DNC’s computer servers—an omission that is beyond preposterous. It has instead relied on the reports produced by Crowdstrike, a firm that drips with conflicting interests well beyond the fact that it is in the DNC’s employ. Dmitri Alperovitch, its co-founder and chief technology officer, is on the record as vigorously anti-Russian. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which suffers the same prejudice. Problems such as this are many."

Link.

America's Ukraine Hypocrisy

"A February 24, 2014, Washington Post editorial celebrated the Maidan demonstrators and their successful campaign to overthrow Yanukovych. The “moves were democratic,” the Washington Post concluded, and “Kiev is now controlled by pro-Western parties.”

It was a grotesque distortion to portray the events in Ukraine as a purely indigenous, popular uprising. The Nuland-Pyatt telephone conversation and other actions confirm that the United States was considerably more than a passive observer to the turbulence. Instead, U.S. officials were blatantly meddling in Ukraine. Such conduct was utterly improper. The United States had no right to try to orchestrate political outcomes in another country—especially one on the border of another great power. It is no wonder that Russia reacted badly to the unconstitutional ouster of an elected, pro-Russian government—an ouster that occurred not only with Washington’s blessing, but apparently with its assistance.

That episode, as well as earlier ones involving Italy, France and other democratic countries, should be kept in mind the next time U.S. political leaders or the media publicly fume about Russia’s apparent interference in America’s 2016 elections. One can legitimately condemn some aspects of Moscow’s behavior, but the force of America’s moral outrage is vitiated by the stench of U.S. hypocrisy."

Link here.

"Blood and Soil," my ass

Bunch of redneck losers that desperately need to get a life . . .

Link here.

The emerging unholy alliance between hawkish Democrats and neoconservatives

"In the first six months of this year, as Nick Turse reports in the Nation, U.S. Special Operations forces operated in a staggering 137 countries, 70 percent of the nations in the world. This isn’t a policy for defending the country; it is an expression of institutional and imperial hubris. Both the Republican neocons and the Democratic indispensable-nation crowd scorned Obama for being weak, for not sufficiently bombing Syria, for not being tougher on Russia. Yet Obama left office with U.S. service members engaged in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, dropping bombs from drones on seven nations, and moving toward a confrontation with China in the South China Sea and toward a new Cold War with Russia. His last budget called for large increases in Pentagon spending that is already, in real dollars, equal to what it was at the end of the Cold War. For the foreign policy establishment, this somehow verges on isolationism."

Link here.

Median Price-to-Revenue Ratio Higher in All Deciles vs 2007, 90% vs Dot-Com Bubble: THE Choice

Link here.

Breakdown: How Americans Get Healthcare Coverage

Link here.

U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminally Outlaw Support for Boycott Campaign Against Israel

"This pernicious bill highlights many vital yet typically ignored dynamics in Washington. First, journalists love to lament the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, yet the very mention of the word “Israel” causes most members of both parties to quickly snap into line in a show of unanimity that would make the regime of North Korea blush with envy. Even when virtually the entire world condemns Israeli aggression, or declares settlements illegal, the U.S. Congress — across party and ideological lines — finds virtually complete harmony in uniting against the world consensus and in defense of the Israeli government.

Second, the free speech debate in the U.S. is incredibly selective and warped. Pundits and political officials love to crusade as free speech champions — when doing so involves defending mainstream ideas or attacking marginalized, powerless groups such as minority college students. But when it comes to one of the most systemic, powerful, and dangerous assaults on free speech in the U.S. and the West generally — the growing attempt to literally criminalize speech and activism aimed at the Israeli government’s occupation — these free speech warriors typically fall silent.

Third, AIPAC continues to be one of the most powerful, and pernicious, lobbying forces in the country. In what conceivable sense is it of benefit to Americans to turn them into felons for the crime of engaging in political activism in protest of a foreign nation’s government? And this is hardly the first time they have attempted to do this through their most devoted congressional loyalists; Cardin, for instance, had previously succeeded in inserting into trade bills provisions that would disfavor anyone who supports a boycott of Israel."

Link here.

HRW: Saudi terrorism is killing people in Yemen

Doha, Qatar - The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) has questioned Saudi Arabia's accusation of Qatar funding terrorism while the Kingdom itself continues to carry out "terrorism that is killing people in Yemen".

The conflict in Yemen has escalated dramatically since March 2015, when the Saudi-led forces launched a military operation against the rebels.

Since the conflict began, more than 10,000 people have been killed and millions have been driven from their homes.

"We don't talk about government terrorism such as the Saudi-led coalition that is killing people in Yemen," HRW's Kenneth Roth said at the Freedom of Expression, Facing up to the Threat conference in Qatar's capital Doha on Monday.

"I am not aware of Qatar financing terrorist groups, but I am aware of the long-term Saudi promotion of an extreme version of Islam that is often adopted by terrorist groups."

Link here.

Do Older Americans Have More Income Than We Think?

The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) is the source of the nation’s official household income and poverty statistics. In 2012, the CPS ASEC showed that median household income was $33,800 for householders aged 65 and over and the poverty rate was 9.1 percent for persons aged 65 and over. When we instead use an extensive array of administrative income records linked to the same CPS ASEC sample, we find that median household income was $44,400 (30 percent higher) and the poverty rate was just 6.9 percent. We demonstrate that large differences between survey and administrative record estimates are present within most demographic subgroups and are not easily explained by survey design features or processes such as imputation. Further, we show that the discrepancy is mainly attributable to underreporting of retirement income from defined benefit pensions and retirement account withdrawals. Using archived survey and administrative record data, we extend our analysis back to 1990 and provide evidence of underreporting from an earlier period. We also document a growing divergence over time between the two measures of median income which is in turn driven by the growth in retirement income underreporting. Turning to synthetic cohort analysis, we show that in recent years, most households do not experience substantial declines in total incomes upon retirement or any increases in poverty rates. Our results have important implications for assessing the relative value of different sources of income available to older Americans, including income from the nation’s largest retirement program, Social Security. We caution, however, that our findings apply to the population aged 65 and over in 2012 and cannot easily be extrapolated to future retirees.

Link here.

The Lowest Common Denominator

"To provide a slightly different perspective, consider the three tables below, which highlight the magnitude of government and personal debt burdens on an absolute basis as well as per household and as a percentage of median household income."

Link here.

To My Fellow Plutocrats: You Can Cure Trumpism

Yet, I find myself in deep disagreement with almost everyone I talk to about Trump and Trumpism. I firmly believe that Trump, by himself, is not the problem. Indeed, the left’s maniacal focus on Trump confuses cause with effect. Yes, Trump is a manifestation of a serious civic sickness. But treating the symptom by removing Trump won’t cure the disease, even if it temporarily makes us feel better. No, to heal the body politic we must confront the disease itself.

The real threat to our republic is an alarming breakdown in social cohesion, and the cause of this breakdown is obvious: radical, rising economic inequality, and the anger and anxiety it engenders. The truth is that over the span of decades, American lawmakers (at the behest of economic elites like us!) have enacted policies that have depressed wages, stoked economic insecurity and exacerbated cultural angst and social dislocation. At the same time, a tiny minority of mostly urban elite (again, us!) have benefitted obscenely from our growing economic, political and legal power.

==============================

I believe that we in the American political and economic elite face an extraordinarily inconvenient but undeniable truth: Our country will not get better until our fellow citizens feel better; and they will not feel better until they actually do better. And this is the hard part for many of you: The American people will not do better until they are actually paid more.

And they won’t be paid more until we change the way we manage our economy. This is the stark, simple fact at the heart of our ailing political system. Nothing is going to get better until we enact laws and standards that persuade or oblige every business to pay every worker a fair, dignified and livable wage. Everything else, from Trump on down, is a distraction or a lie.

Link here.

When Israel Attacked USS Liberty

Israeli pilot to IDF war room: This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?

IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Yes, follow orders.

Israeli pilot to IDF war room: But sir, it’s an American ship - I can see the flag!

IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Never mind; hit it.

Link here.

Humorous Charts and Graphs Show What Being an Introvert Is All About

Boy, did this resonate!

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For those of us that are extroverted, the world of introverts feels pretty foreign.  This is partially because we don’t feel the same way that they do, and partially because it is often hard to understand the difference.  Well, it just got a little easier with this great charts and graphs that – while hilarious – are very honest to help the world understand the complex but important world that introverts live in.

For those who are introverted, this is like a gift from heaven.  We can share this with friends who have never understand the “big deal” about the term introvert, so that maybe they’ll understand when you have those days that Humorous Charts and Graphs Show What Being an Introvert Is All Aboutyou don’t always want to talk or hang out.  They’ll see it as a “oh, okay, you’re introverted today” instead of a “you’re rude” thing.  It can make the difference sometimes.  Educate yourself and have a laugh at the same time.

Link here.