California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

We Need a Department of Peace to Balance and Offset our War Department

by John Lawrence

Let's face it. the Department of Defense is a euphemism. It was called the Department of War until 1949. So let's call it what it really is. Don't get me wrong. There are times when war is necessary as occurred in WW II. However, we spend about $1 trillion on our War Department while spending little or nothing on peace. Is there really a Peace Corps? Yes, and its budget is about $400 million. That's about 4 ten thousandths of the War Department budget. My point is that we should be making at least the same effort towards peace as we're making towards war, and we should be putting our money where our mouth is. This doesn't mean we totally disarm ourselves. It means that we are making an effort towards creating peace in the world if at all possible and are willing to devote an equal amount of resources towards it. In our present state it's all about threatening war in order to to create a state of peace. It's Pax Americana similar to the Pax Romana which meant that you didn't mess with Rome or else you were threatened with violence. Instead of creating peace by means of a threat of war, we should be actively pursuing a peaceful world instead.

What would a Department of Peace actually do? Well, diplomacy would be under this department instead of the State Department for starters. Second, the American equivalent of China's Belt and Road initiative. Building infrastructure around the world just as China is doing. But what's most important at the present time is converting the world to green infrastructure. The middle class in India is growing. They want to live just like Americans. As more Indians enter the middle class they are consuming more fossil fuels to provide the energy to do so. This is contributing to the looming climate disaster. Just what we don't need is more carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere as a result of more people gentrifying into the middle class. Therefore, a Department of Peace, which should include the Peace Corps, would step up the efforts not only to change the fossil fuel habit in the US, but to actively change it around the world. About a half a trillion dollar budget would be about right while decreasing the War (Defense) budget which is 10 times the combined budgets of the rest of the world to half a trillion.

President Biden wants a Civilian Climate Corps reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps which President Roosevelt established to build parks and plant trees during the Great Depression. An excellent idea in view of the fact that planting a trillion trees would suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Unless we do that there is already enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 410 ppm to melt both poles. Why not require participation in the Civilian Conservation Corps for people receiving welfare benefits who aren't otherwise employed or who are unemployable in the prevailing economy. I'm thinking about the homeless and others for whom this might be a first step to getting back on their feet in the so-called real world. I'm in favor of the government being the employer of last resort, and employment in a Civilian Climate Corps is the perfect solution both for them and for the environment.

Building the elements of peace around the world would entail looking out for the health care needs of people outside the US in our era of pandemics. This is also good sense in a selfish way since viruses can transmit world wide in a matter of days if not hours. They don't respect national boundaries. People to people cultural contacts with people of other nations brings about understanding and the realization that, no matter what the religious or ethnic differences seem to be, human beings are all essentially the same deep down and all have the same needs and aspirations. Helping others to realize their aspirations creates peace in the world. Cultural and educational exchanges are an important way to increase mutual understanding. There are many ways to create peace in the world. The US shouldn't be always taking the stance of trying to put down those peoples and countries who don't follow the US way of life. Others might have a different way of setting up their societies, but rather than taking this as a threat, we should engage diplomatically and peacefully if at all possible knowing that in the final analysis, if push came to shove, we also have the means to defend ourselves. A Department of Peace and a Department of War should go hand in hand. Today it is lopsided in favor of war.

Off the Top of My Head

Will Higher Interest Rates Bring Down Inflation?

by John Lawrence

As has been pointed out by others, they will not bring down the cost of things in limited supply like gas and items in short supply due to supply chain problems. What they will bring down is asset inflation in the real estate and the stock markets. Indirectly this will stabilize the rental market. Rent is one of the biggest costs to the family budget so stabilizing, if not decreasing, rents is a good thing. Similarly, the price of houses should actually decrease as the price of mortgages goes up. For those who can pay cash this is a good thing. Sellers will have to drop their asking prices or their real estate will sit on the market unsold as people will not be able to afford the current inflated house prices as well as a much more expensive mortgage. Increased interest rates will also make business loans more expensive and some businesses will go under. This will decrease stock prices as people lose confidence in the stock market. We are not in a real estate crisis as we were in 2008, the Great Recession, since rules about who can obtain a mortgage have been sufficiently tightened. The real estate industry leading up to the Great Recession was famous for "liar loans" in which anyone could just state their income without any verification.

Renters can take heart in the fact that their rents will probably not be going up at such a rapid rate since they are at least partly determined by the price of the underlying real estate. Credit card debtors should pay off their credit cards since credit card debt is definitely going to get more expensive. People living paycheck to paycheck should not be borrowing money. The price of basic goods should come down as supply chain problems are worked out although food prices might remain high as global warming takes its toll on crop production. The cost of gas definitely should come down as production is increased in the US and elsewhere if the supply of Russian gas stays off the market.

The remnants of Biden's Build Back Better bill now repackaged as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will help not only fight inflation but have a major impact on fighting climate change. Incentives to buy electric vehicles and heat pumps are very forward thinking and progressive pieces of legislation long overdue. However, as Yogi Berra said, "It's not over till it's over." Is Krysten Sinema aboard? Some very important aspects of this bill constitute taxing the rich, also provisions which are long overdue especially the "carried interest" loophole. Bringing the costs of health care down also helps those near the bottom rung of the economic ladder, and reins in one of the biggest causes of inflation - health care and pharmaceutical costs. Taxing the rich and the Fed's selling of Treasury bonds extracts money from the economy which has a salutary effect on inflation. The chip bill, which has already passed Congress, will increase domestic production of this valuable commodity and make the US more self sufficient while creating more jobs. Jobs are in great supply already so this part is not really needed at the present time. There is a shortage of workers.

Although some writers see raising interest rates as unproductive and even harmful, if they bring down the cost of real estate and reduce asset prices in the stock market, that might actually be a good thing. Businesses which have to pay higher interest rates for loans may not be buying back as much of their own stock, and this in and of itself might bring down asset inflation in the stock market.

Interest Rate Hikes Will Not Save Us from Inflation

Posted on July 28, 2022 by Ellen Brown on Web of Debt blog

Rather than making money harder to get, the U.S. government needs to focus on the other side of the demand vs. supply equation.

In prescribing cures for inflation, economists rely on the diagnosis of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman: inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon—too much money chasing too few goods. But that equation has three variables: too much money (“demand”) chasing (the “velocity” of spending) too few goods (“supply”). And “orthodox” economists, from Lawrence Summers to the Federal Reserve, seem to be focusing only on the “demand” variable. 

The Fed’s prescription is to suppress demand (borrowing and spending) by raising interest rates. Summers, a  former U.S. Treasury Secretary who presided over the massive post-2008 bank bailouts, is proposing to reduce demand by raising taxes or raising unemployment rates, reducing disposable income and thus people’s ability to spend. But those rather brutal solutions miss the real problem, just as Summers missed the crisis leading up to the 2008-09 crash. As explained in a November 2021 editorial titled “Too Few Goods – The Simple Explanation for October’s Elevated Inflation Rates,” we don’t actually have too much consumer money chasing available goods: 

M2 money supply surged [in 2020] as the Fed pumped out liquidity to replace businesses’ lost sales and households’ lost paychecks. But bank reserves account for nearly half of the cumulative increase since 2020 began, and the vast majority seem to be excess reserves sitting on deposit at Federal Reserve banks and not backing loans. Excluding bank reserves, M2 money supply is now growing more slowly than it did for most of 2015 – 2019, when inflation was mostly below the Fed’s 2% y/y target, much to policymakers’ chagrin. Weak lending also suggests money isn’t doing much “chasing,” a notion underscored by the historically low velocity of money. US personal consumption expenditures—the broadest measure of household spending—have already slowed from a reopening resurgence to rates more akin to the pre-pandemic norm and surveys show many households used stimulus money to repay debt or build savings they may not spend at all. It doesn’t look like there is a mountain of household liquidity waiting to do more chasing from here. [Emphasis added.]

In March 2022, the Federal Reserve tackled inflation with its traditional tools – raising interest rates and tightening the money supply by selling bonds, pulling dollars out of the economy. But not only have prices not gone down since then, they are going up. As observed in a July 15 article on Seeking Alpha titled “Fed-Induced Recession Looms As Rate Fears Roil All Markets”:

On Wednesday, the Consumer Price Index came in at a 9.1% annual rate. The higher-than-expected reading puts the CPI at a new 41-year high.

The biggest contributors to rising consumer prices are the basic necessities of food, fuel, and shelter. As households struggle to make ends meet, they are trimming discretionary spending, burning through savings, and running up credit card balances.

Businesses are also getting squeezed. On Thursday, the Producer Price Index showed wholesale costs rising at a massive 11.3% year-over-year.

When their own costs go up, producers must raise the prices of their products to cover those costs, regardless of demand. Less money competing for their products won’t bring producer costs down. It will just drive the companies out of business, as happened in the Great Depression. The Seeking Alpha article concludes:

… As both businesses and consumers are forced to tighten their belts, a slowdown looms.

And if the Federal Reserve makes another major policy misstep, then a severe recession and financial crisis may also be coming. 

Recession is already evident. The stock market has lost a cumulative $7 trillion in value this year, while the crypto market has lost $2 trillion since last November. Emerging markets are in even worse straits. According to a July 14 article by Larry McDonald on ZeroHedge, “Emerging and frontier market countries currently owe the IMF over $100 billion. US central banking policy plus a strong USD is vaporizing this capital as we speak.… A quarter-trillion dollars of distressed debt is threatening to drag the developing world into a historic cascade of defaults.” 

Every time the Fed raises rates, borrowing becomes more expensive. That means higher interest costs not only for governments but for borrowers with mortgages, home equity lines of credit, credit cards, student debt and car loans. For both large and small businesses, loans also get pricier.

To be clear, this is not the same sort of inflation that Paul Volcker was taming in 1980 when he raised the Fed funds rate to 20%. McDonald observes, “In 2021, global debt reached a record $303T, according to the Institute of International Finance .… Volcker was jacking rates into a planet with about $200T LESS debt.” [Emphasis added]

Volcker was also not dealing with the supply shortages we have today, generated by lockdowns that put more than 100,000 U.S. companies out of business; sanctions and war that cut off global supplies of fuel, food and resources; and farming crises such as that in the Netherlands, generated by overly stringent regulations. 

Higher interest rates don’t alleviate cost/push inflation caused by supply crises; they make it worse. Rather than making money harder to get, the government needs to focus on the supply side of the equation, stimulating local production to bring supply levels up. Rather than Volcker’s solution, what we need is that pioneered by Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who pulled us out of similar crises with public banking institutions designed to stimulate infrastructure and development. 

For foreign models, we can look to the infrastructure-funding central banks of Australia, New Zealand and Canada in the first half of the 20th century; and to China, which salvaged the global economy following the 2008 banking crisis with massive infrastructure and development funded through its state-owned development banks.

Off the Top of My Head

Why the Fed's Raising Interest Rates Won't Work

by John Lawrence

Inflation is a supply and demand problem. The Fed only sees it as a demand problem: there is too much demand. Therefore, it seeks to reduce the public's ability to demand by reducing wages and creating more unemployment. Problem is that businesses are short staffed. They are trying to hire more workers, not laying them off. There is no "industrial reserve army" of people competing for jobs. Businesses are competing for workers. The reason why prices are going up (hence inflation) is not that there is too much demand, but that there is too little supply. This is caused by supply chain problems which comes down to the fact that most things Americans consume are produced overseas, mainly in China. Also the sanctions on Russian gas and oil combined with Russia cutting off supplies even beyond the sanctions means that everything that is transported including consumer goods is even more expensive. The problem is that the US does not produce much of what it consumes. Again it's a supply problem. Container ships coming from China raise their rates because gas is more expensive. This makes the goods they transport more expensive. When the major things Americans consume come from China (consumer goods) and Russia (energy costs), America is at the behest of countries that it considers enemies. And so is Europe.

The traditional way of fighting inflation is for the Fed to raise interest rates and drive up unemployment. When unemployment increases, demand decreases because unemployed people don't have as much money to spend. In other words money is withdrawn from the economy. This is of course to the detriment of the unemployed people which are usually those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. But as we've seen during the pandemic, those at the bottom of the economic ladder are usually those who are indispensable workers - grocery workers, agricultural workers, truck drivers, nurses, caregivers. The economy cannot function for anyone without their services. So the only way the Fed can achieve its goal is to drive businesses into bankruptcy. Then all those workers will be in the ranks of the unemployed and be forced to underconsume. Actually, the more that Americans consume, the more greenhouse gasses are created. Underconsumption could have a very salutary effect on the atmosphere and the environment.

Another way to withdraw money from the economy in order to reduce demand is to raise taxes. Again taxes are usually raised on the poor and middle class further immiserizing them. Congress refuses to raise taxes on the rich which Joe Biden has proposed doing. This would help inflation to some extent, but the rich don't consume basic items to the extent that the middle class and poor do. So in order to reduce demand to the point where it is more or less equal to supply, money must be taken out of the pockets of the poor and middle class. The other alternative is to increase supply. But since the US is dependent on supply from foreign suppliers, this is not that easy to do. Long range, the solution is for the US to make more stuff, but corporations have settled on a model of getting stuff produced where labor is cheapest and that means overseas.

Off the Top of My Head

"A Yearlong Wild Goose Chase That Produced Nothing as the Earth Warms to Dangerous Levels"

by John Lawrence

That's how the New York Times characterized the Biden administration's courting of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. He and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema are the 2 Democrats standing in the way of the significant Biden plan to do something about global warming. Of course no Republican Senator will do anything to help even though it's their planet too. Now the Supreme Court has chimed in to the effect that the EPA is not able to do anything either. Meanwhile earth is burning up. I regretted in another post that all the climate disasters so far have been one offs, and nothing would be done about climate change until one event affects at least half the country. Not enough people care if a tornado wipes out a whole city or a whole town burns in a wild fire. But when a climate event affects half the country, people sit up and take notice. In other words enough people have to have their own personal ox gored before anything significant will get done. Now we have that event. This summer's heat has seen temperatures above 100 degrees F affect more than half the country simultaneously. Despite the misery this is causing, I am cheering because this is not a one off affecting a relative minority of people. People will sit up and take notice.

The NY Times reported:

Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who took more campaign cash from the oil and gas industry than any other senator, and who became a millionaire from his family coal business, independently blew up the Democratic Party’s legislative plans to fight climate change. The swing Democratic vote in an evenly divided Senate, Mr. Manchin led his party through months of tortured negotiations that collapsed on Thursday night, a yearlong wild goose chase that produced nothing as the Earth warms to dangerous levels.

“It seems odd that Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity,” said John Podesta, a former senior counselor to President Barack Obama and founder of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.

Privately, Senate Democratic staff members seethed and sobbed on Thursday night, after more than a year of working nights and weekends to scale back, water down, trim and tailor the climate legislation to Mr. Manchin’s exact specifications, only to have it rejected inches from the finish line.

But alas and alack, Mancin has seized on inflation as the perfect excuse to justify his torpedoing of Biden's climate plan. The war in Ukraine which resulted in raising gas prices hasn't helped either. Yet there are things that could be done which would not exacerbate inflation. To subdue inflation, money has to be extracted from the economy. One way to do this is to increase taxes on the rich, something that was part of Biden's plan. But rich man Manchin says No Sir to that aspect. He's not going to put the kibosh on the very industry that made him rich and that would be coal mining. So what would Biden's plan consist of? Giving tax incentives to get more electric vehicles on the road and transformations of key industries to rely more on renewable energy. Sounds pretty basic, doesn't it? The climate problem is like a ship taking on water. If you wait to start bailing long enough no amount of fast and furious bailing is going to save the ship from sinking.

The Washington Post reported that if we had stuck with Biden's plan and it had passed Congress, we might have just about reached our climate goal to slash U.S. emissions by 50 to 52 percent by the end of 2030 which would have maintained consistency with 2015’s Paris climate agreement, in which nations agreed to take significant measures to avoid the levels of global warming associated with severe climate impact. It would have kept total planetary warming to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This level of warming would still have produced unimaginable levels of global distress. Anything beyond that would create hell on earth.

In the documentary Polar Extremes, it is pointed out that at 410 ppm of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, there is already enough to melt ice completely at both poles. If this happens sea levels would rise over 200 feet wiping out about 80 miles of US shoreline on the east coast as well as the entire state of Florida. So it is not enough to stop putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which of course we're still doing. A huge amount would have to be taken out to bring the atmospheric concentration down to about 300 ppm, the level at which polar ice can be maintained. Even at 350 ppm scientific data shows that in previous geological eras polar ice had entirely disappeared. Technological solutions to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so far have entirely failed or been cost prohibitive. The only natural solution is to plant 1 to 3 trillion trees. This is entirely feasible if we would only collectively get off our asses and do it. But we dither and hesitate, and we're fiddling while earth burns.

One very intelligent observer of the climate scene is Fareed Zakaria. Fareed has some good ideas about what should be done to alleviate the worst consequences of climate disaster. He wrote in the Washington Post:

"“It was getting hotter.” So opens “The Ministry for the Future,” the disturbing novel by science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson. The opening chapter, set in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, depicts a heat wave that kills millions across the subcontinent and galvanizes people to radical action.

"Such dire warnings may seem far-fetched today. But the heat waves we are now experiencing are going to get worse. That, of course, will have dire consequences. More likely than mass death is mass migration. As Bill Gates points out, the area around the equator could become too hot for people to work outdoors; that could mean a decline in farming, the most common occupation in low-income countries. Stressed by heat, lack of water and no jobs, millions of people could start moving from these areas to more temperate climates mostly in the north: Europe and the United States.

"Many climate activists are often focused on pledges to get to net zero emissions by some distant date or insist that every new energy source must be entirely green.

"But the reality is that we need to cut emissions now, not promise to do so by 2030. And the only way to do it now, and at scale, is to make some tough choices and trade-offs. We do not have green technology, like clean nuclear fusion and long-duration battery storage, that can fully replace fossil fuels today. We may get them — in 10 or 15 years, perhaps, if we are very lucky. ...

'Let me suggest a few practical ways to make progress in the next five years with technologies we already have.

"We could start by converting the most polluting coal-fired power plants to natural gas, which emits half as much carbon dioxide as coal when combusted. A study surveyed 29,000 power plants around the world and found that 5 percent generate 73 percent of all emissions in the electricity-generation sector. In other words, replacing around 1,500 coal-burning plants would make a huge dent in emissions, a giant cut on par with the boldest plans being discussed today.If the West wants to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, why not put together a coalition that would finance this effort across the planet?

"Then there is the problem of methane leakage from natural gas extraction, agriculture and landfills. This can be solved technically and just needs smart, tough regulations.

"We should extend the life of nuclear power plants and start building smaller and safer ones. Nuclear energy evokes grim images, but the facts speak for themselves. In the 21st century, just a handful of people have died from nuclear accidents around the world, while more than 1,500 people died in oil and gas extraction in the United States alone from 2008 to 2017. Far more people die each year from lung diseases caused by coal pollution, with some estimates running into the millions — and that’s without even factoring in the climate impacts. We should also keep working on developing new modular reactors that have much safer designs and are far less likely to have the same kind of meltdown problems that others have had in the past. And let me remind you, nuclear power plants produce nearly zero emissions.

"Plant 1 trillion trees. The science is simple: Trees absorb carbon dioxide. We are all impressed by Greta Thunberg, but what about Felix Finkbeiner? He’s a young German environmentalist who, at the age of 9, proposed that every country commit to planting 1 million trees and then, at 13, upped the ante and suggested at the United Nations that we target 1 trillion by 2050. Let’s start by curbing deforestation and planting as many trees as we can, as fast as we can."

It is something so simple and natural that it will probably be entirely ignored by the powers that be and the global citizenry. Plant 1 trillion trees or 2 trillion or 3 trillion. It would be a sad outcome for the human race if we neglected to do such a simple thing that would have saved the planet for future generations but instead sat around prognosticating about how to provide a high tech solution. Maybe Ted Kaczynski was right. "In his Manifesto he wrote: "The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." "He writes that technology has had a destabilizing effect on society, has made life unfulfilling, and has caused widespread psychological suffering. Kaczynski argues that most people spend their time engaged in useless pursuits because of technological advances; he calls these "surrogate activities", wherein people strive toward artificial goals, including scientific work, consumption of entertainment, political activism and following sports teams." Yes, the Industrial Revolution has been a disaster for the human race, and Kaczynski did not even mention fossil fuels or global warming. Prescient!

The Pitchforks Aren't Coming

For the last two years, Joe Biden has been talking about raising taxes on large corporations and wealthy Americans. It's not happening.

Stephanie Kelton

 

Nearly a decade ago, tech entrepreneur Nick Hanauer warned his fellow billionaires that “the pitchforks are coming.” The economy was still reeling from the financial crisis, and for the vast majority of Americans the policy response had been a near total failure. There were too few jobs, too many foreclosures, and way too much inequality. Eventually, Hanauer wrote, the masses would rise up.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

Instead of fixing the glaring inequities, Republicans used their majorities to deliver huge tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited people like Hanauer.

It was on the heels of the Trump tax cuts that billionaire hedge fund investor, Ray Dalio, started to worry that the pitchforks were coming. Capitalism, he argued, “was not working for the majority of Americans.” Unless policies were put in place to generate better economic outcomes—including a better distribution of wealth and income—a “revolution” was coming.

Around the same time, fellow billionaire Jamie Dimon wrote in his annual letter to shareholders that “far too many people were living on the edge.” He described a system in crisis and urged “a call to action.” Like Dalio, Dimon stressed the urgent need to build a more “inclusive economy.” Keeping the pitchforks at bay meant improving life—if only modestly—for those who might otherwise take to the streets.

Instead of taking to the streets, COVID kept many of us home. And while the pandemic caused immeasurable harm, the policy response was so much better that life did improve—at least financially—for millions of ordinary people.

The financial lifeline that started with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March 2020 culminated with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act in March 2021. The ARP was intended to put a punctuation mark on the economic recovery, not to permanently tackle the sort of inequities Hanauer described in his “memo to fellow zillionaires.”

To deal with the more structural problems, President Biden offered his Build Back Better agenda, explaining that “for too long, the economy has worked great for those at the top, while working families get squeezed.” No more tax breaks for billionaires. Instead, Biden wanted to tax them. In addition to a slew of other taxes, Biden proposed a “billionaire’s tax” on the top 0.0001, those with annual incomes over $100,000,000. The pitchforks were coming, and the rich were in the crosshairs.

It was time to rebuild the economy from “the bottom up and the middle out,” the president said in his State of Union address. To wring some of the inequality out of the system, he offered a plan that would have raised taxes on those at the top while investing trillions in child care, elder care, housing, education, climate, and more. For a while, Congress seemed poised to act on a $3.5 trillion package.

And then this happened.

Senator Manchin (D-WV) refused to vote for a package that wasn’t “fully paid for,” while Senator Sinema (D-AZ) refused to vote for the sweeping tax hikes that Biden insisted were necessary to “pay for” the spending. I wrote about the whole saga at length last year.

Anyway, the media teased us (again) last week, reporting that constructive negotiations with Senator Manchin were underway and democrats might yet pass portions of what was once part of the Build Back Better agenda. And then Lucy yanked the football once again.

As Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent reported on Friday:

This will surprise only people who haven’t paid even cursory attention to the last year of Democratic politics, but Sen. Joe Manchin III may have just killed any hopes for a resuscitated version of the Democratic agenda.

The West Virginia Democrat reportedly told party leaders late Thursday that he won’t support any new incentives to combat climate change or any new tax hikes on corporations or the wealthy.

So there you have it. The pitchforks aren’t coming. At least not the way some had expected. The top marginal tax rate isn’t going back up to 39.6 percent. We are not going to tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income. The corporate income tax rate isn’t going up. We’re not ending the step-up-in-basis or closing the carried-interest loophole. There will be no “billionaire’s tax.” None of it is happening.

President Obama once told a room full of bankers that his administration was “the only thing standing between [them] and the pitchforks.” Today, there’s a tendency to paint Senator Manchin as the lone obstacle. But for that single missing vote, action on climate, prescription drugs, and more would sail through Congress with higher taxes to “pay for” it all. I doubt it.

I think Jonathan Chait is probably right about this:

A key faction of Democrats in the House, along with Senator Kyrsten Sinema, blanched at the tax hikes. Moderates have been privately coordinating their opposition, and it seems very likely that Manchin’s sudden opposition to raising taxes on the rich comes not from him, but from them — he sometimes takes the heat for fellow Democratic moderates. In this case, he is likely channeling their concerns and passing them off as his own.

Whether it’s Manchin or Manchin & Co., it’s looking bad for millions of Americans, the future of the democratic party, our democracy, and life on earth.

There’s a lot we can’t predict in life. But one thing is for sure. Climate change is an accelerant on inequality. Within a few decades, billions of people will be forced to migrate due to extreme weather, rising sea levels, and damaged ecosystems. Fires will continue to ravage communities, rivers will swallow more homes, heat-related deaths will mount, and food shortages will lead to mass starvation. That is not a world in which the pitchforks can be kept at bay.

We need to act now!

Off the Top of My Head

The Problem With Climate and Gun Disasters: They're One Offs

by John Lawrence

Instead of attributing a climate disaster to global warming, victims will say, "I've never seen anything like this, and I've lived here all my life. Gun disaster victims will say, "I didn't think it could ever happen here." If they said instead, when interviewed, "I think guns should be gotten off the streets" or "Climate change destroyed my house and we're not doing enough to deal with it", then maybe there would be a general awareness growing among the population. There is not enough of a groundswell among the public to change anything because most of the public is not affected by any particular incident. If a particular climate or gun disaster raised the price of gas, then maybe something would be done of a preventative measure. The latest gun legislation is a total joke. It will do nothing to prevent mass shootings. One off climate disasters will do nothing to raise the national consciousness especially among conservatives who don't even believe in global warming. Instead they will call a flood a 500 year event, one that will only occur every 500 years. But then it occurs again tomorrow. Floods and fires are an almost daily occurrence somewhere in the world. If they happen outside the country, no attention at all is paid to the event although climate change is a problem for the whole world not just for any particular nation. It is not just restricted to national borders. Gun violence, on the other hand, is just restricted pretty much to the US. Every other country has sane gun laws.

Politicians, especially Republicans, are in it for the money and not necessarily to do any good for the general public which can't pay for lobbyists to bombard them with their point of view backed up with generous campaign contributions. The more a country is run by politicians profiting by virtue of their positions, the less democratic it is because they are representing their own interests which often means catering to the interests of lobbyists and not catering to the interests of the general public, not to mention the interests of nature or the environment. Many politicians, especially the Republican party as it's constituted today, are guided only by self interest in the same way as corporations are required by law to maximize profits for their shareholders singlemindedly without any other considerations like taking into account what is equitable ao far as society is concerned. The only way to defeat this pernicious aspect of democracy is to take the money out of politics and provide incentives in such a way that a politician finds it in his best interests to represent the interests of his or her constituents and not the interests of the entity which is lobbying him or her. Perhaps an advocate for the people should be paid for out of tax money.

Obviously, it's not in the interests of the victims of gum violence to have the proliferation of guns especially assault rifles on the streets. However, since those that have not been affected by gun violence don't see it as a problem, nothing major is being done. As far as they're concerned, it's a problem that only happens to other people. Unless they identify strongly with the victims of gun violence or start to think that it is something that very likely might happen to them, nothing will be done since it only affects a minority of people and democracies supposedly are run by the majority of the people. Since empathy is a relatively weak emotion compared to self-interest, especially in the US where people have been groomed to seek their self-interest regardless of the effect it has on others, seriously restricting the use and proliferation of guns goes out the window.

What is happening to the human race as a result of climate change is happening at such a slow pace that most people would rather maximize their profits now rather than setting aside some of them because they might benefit people in the future when they might not even be an inhabitant of the planet at that time. Again the manifestation of climate change so far has been one offs only affecting a small group in any one incidence of a natural disaster. When climate change gets to the point where sea level rise is affecting a large number of major cities in the world simultaneously, then something might be done only it will be too late. At that point the only thing will be to react defensively rather than having taken action in the past that would have forestalled the present event. People would rather eat their cake right now rather than saving it for the future when they might not even be around to eat it.

Is Biden too old?

by Robert Reich

At 79, Joe Biden is the oldest president in American history. Concerns about his age top the list for why Democratic voters want the party to find an alternative for 2024.

I don’t think this reflects an “ageist” prejudice against those who have reached such withering heights so much as an understanding that people in their late 70s and 80s wither.

I speak with some authority. I’m now a spritely 76 — lightyears younger than our president. I feel fit, I swing dance and salsa, and can do 20 pushups in a row. Yet I confess to a certain loss of, shall we say, fizz.

Joe Biden could easily make it until 86, when he’d conclude his second term. After all, it’s now thought a bit disappointing if a person dies before 85. My mother passed at 86, my father two weeks before his 102nd birthday (so I’m hoping for the best, genetically speaking). Three score and ten is the number of years of life set out in the Bible. Modern technology and Big Pharma should add at least a decade and a half. Beyond this is an extra helping. “After 80, it’s gravy,” my father used to say.

Joe will be on the cusp of the gravy train.

Where will it end? There’s only one possibility, and that reality occurs to me with increasing frequency. I find myself reading the obituary pages with ever greater interest, curious about how long they lasted and what brought them down. I remember a New Yorker cartoon in which an older reader of the obituaries sees headlines that read only “Older Than Me” or “Younger Than Me.”

Yet most of the time I forget my age. The other day, after lunch with some of my graduate students, I caught our reflection in a store window and for an instant wondered about the identity of the short old man in our midst.

It’s not death that’s the worrying thing about a second Biden term. It’s the dwindling capacities that go with aging. "Bodily decrepitude," said Yeats, "is wisdom." I have accumulated somewhat more of the former than the latter, but our president seems fairly spry (why do I feel I have to add “for someone his age?”). I still have my teeth, in contrast to my grandfather whom I vividly recall storing his choppers in a glass next to his bed, and have so far steered clear of heart attack or stroke (I pray I’m not tempting fate by my stating this fact). But I’ve lived through several kidney stones and a few unexplained fits of epilepsy in my late thirties. I’ve had both hips replaced. And my hearing is crap. Even with hearing aids, I have a hard time understanding someone talking to me in a noisy restaurant. You’d think that the sheer market power of 60 million boomers losing their hearing would be enough to generate at least one chain of quiet restaurants.

When I get together with old friends, our first ritual is an “organ recital” — how’s your back? knee? heart? hip? shoulder? eyesight? hearing? prostate? hemorrhoids? digestion? The recital can run (and ruin) an entire lunch.

The question my friends and I jokingly (and brutishly) asked one other in college—"getting much?"—now refers not to sex but to sleep. I don’t know anyone over 75 who sleeps through the night. When he was president, Bill Clinton prided himself on getting only about four hours. But he was in his forties then. (I also recall cabinet meetings where he dozed off.) How does Biden manage?

My memory for names is horrible. (I once asked Ted Kennedy how he recalled names and he advised that if a man is over 50, just ask “how’s the back?” and he'll think you know him.) I often can’t remember where I put my wallet and keys or why I’ve entered a room. And certain proper nouns have disappeared altogether. Even when rediscovered, they have a diabolical way of disappearing again. Biden’s secret service detail can worry about his wallet and he’s got a teleprompter for wayward nouns, but I’m sure he’s experiencing some diminution in the memory department.

I have lost much of my enthusiasm for travel and feel, as did Philip Larkin, that I would like to visit China, but only on the condition that I could return home that night. Air Force One makes this possible under most circumstances. If not, it has a first-class bedroom and personal bathroom, so I don’t expect Biden’s trips are overly taxing.

I’m told that after the age of 60, one loses half an inch of height every five years. This doesn’t appear to be a problem for Biden but it presents a challenge for me, considering that at my zenith I didn’t quite make it to five feet. If I live as long as my father did, I may vanish.

Another diminution I’ve noticed is tact. A few days ago, I gave the finger to a driver who passed me recklessly. These days, giving the finger to a stranger is itself a reckless act. I’m also noticing I have less patience, perhaps because of an unconscious “use by” timer that’s now clicking away. Increasingly I wonder why I’m wasting time with this or that buffoon. I’m less tolerant of long waiting lines, automated phone menus, and Republicans. Cicero claimed "older people who are reasonable, good-tempered, and gracious bear aging well. Those who are mean-spirited and irritable will be unhappy at every stage of their lives." Easy for Cicero to say. He was forced into exile and murdered at the age of 63, his decapitated head and right hand hung up in the Forum by order of the notoriously mean-spirited and irritable Marcus Antonius.

How the hell does Biden maintain tact or patience when he has to deal with Mitch McConnell? Or Joe Manchin, for crying out loud?

The style sections of the papers tell us that the 70s are the new 50s. Septuagenarians are supposed to be fit and alert, exercise like mad, have rip-roaring sex, and party until dawn. Rubbish. Inevitably, things begin falling apart. My aunt, who lived far into her nineties, told me “getting old isn’t for sissies.” Toward the end she repeated that phrase every two to three minutes.

Philosopher George Santayana claimed to prefer old age to all others. "Old age is, or may be as in my case, far happier than youth," he wrote. "I was never more entertained or less troubled than I am now." True for me too, in a way. Despite Trump, notwithstanding the seditiousness of the Republican Party, the ravages of climate change, near record inequality, a potential nuclear war, and a stubborn pandemic, I remain upbeat -- largely because I still spend most days with people in their twenties, whose fizz buoys my spirits. Maybe Biden does, too.

But I’m feeling more and more out of it. I’m doing videos on TikTok and Snapchat, but when my students talk about Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez or Jared Leto, I don’t have clue who they’re talking about (and frankly don’t care). And I find myself using words –- “hence,” “utmost,” “therefore,” “tony,” “brilliant” — that my younger colleagues find charmingly old-fashioned. If I refer to “Rose Marie Woods” or “Jackie Robinson” or “Ed Sullivan” or “Mary Jo Kopechne,” they’re bewildered. The culture has flipped in so many ways. When I was seventeen, I could go into a drugstore and confidently ask for a package of Luckies and nervously whisper a request for condoms. Now it’s precisely the reverse. (I stopped smoking long ago.)

Santayana said the reason that old people have nothing but foreboding about the future is that they cannot imagine a world that’s good without themselves in it. I don’t share that view. To the contrary, I think my generation — including Bill and Hillary, George W., Trump, Newt Gingrich, Clarence Thomas, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Biden – have fucked it up royally. The world will probably be better without us.

Joe, please don’t run.

The Food Shortage Solution in Your Own Backyard

Posted on June 9, 2022 by Ellen Brown from Web of Debt

While the global food systems we depend on come under increasing strain, there’s a solution to the growing crisis that most Americans can find in their own backyards–or front lawns.

A confluence of crises—lockdowns and business closures, mandates and worker shortages, supply chain disruptions and inflation, sanctions and war—have compounded to trigger food shortages; and we have been warned that they may last longer than the food stored in our pantries. What to do? 

Jim Gale, founder of Food Forest Abundance, pointed out in a recent interview with Del Bigtree that in the United States there are 40 million acres of lawn. Lawns are the most destructive monoculture on the planet, absorbing more resources and pesticides than any other crop, without providing any yield. If we were to turn 30% of that lawn into permaculture-based food gardens, says Gale, we could be food self-sufficient without relying on imports or chemicals. 

Permaculture is a gardening technique that “uses the inherent qualities of plants and animals combined with the natural characteristics of landscapes and structures to produce a life-supporting system for city and country, using the smallest practical area.”

Russian families have shown the possibilities, using permaculture methods on simple cottage gardens or allotments called dachas. As Dr. Leon Sharashkin, a Russian translator and editor with a PhD in forestry from the University of Missouri, explains:

Essentially, what Russian gardeners do is demonstrate that gardeners can feed the world – and you do not need any GMOs, industrial farms, or any other technological gimmicks to guarantee everybody’s got enough food to eat. Bear in mind that Russia only has 110 days of growing season per year – so in the US, for example, gardeners’ output could be substantially greater. Today, however, the area taken up by lawns in the US is two times greater than that of Russia’s gardens – and it produces nothing but a multi-billion-dollar lawn care industry.

The Dacha Model

Dachas are small wooden houses on a small plot of land, typically just 600 meters (656 yards) in size. In Soviet Russia, they were allocated free of charge on the theory that the land belonged to the people. They were given to many public servants; and families not given a dacha could get access to a plot of land in an allotment association, where they could grow vegetables, visit regularly to tend their kitchen gardens and gather crops. 

Dachas were originally used mainly as country vacation getaways. But in the 1990s, they evolved from a place of rest into a major means of survival. That was when the Russian economy suffered from what journalist Anne Williamson called in congressional testimony the “rape of Russia.” The economy was destroyed and then plundered by financial oligarchs, who swooped in to buy assets at fire sale prices. 

Stripped of other resources, Russian families turned to their dachas to grow food. Dr. Sharaskin observed that the share of food gardening in national agriculture increased from 32% in 1990 to over 50% by 2000. In 2004, food gardens accounted for 51% of the total agricultural output of the Russian Federation – greater than the contribution of the whole electric power generation industry; greater than all of the forestry, wood-processing and pulp and paper industries; and significantly greater than the coal, natural gas and oil refining industries taken together.  

Dachas are now a codified right of Russian citizens. In 2003, the government signed the Private Garden Plot Act into law, granting citizens free plots of land ranging from 1 to 3 hectares each. (A hectare is about 2.5 acres.) Dr. Sharaskin opined in 2009 that “with 35 million families (70% of Russia’s population) … producing more than 40% of Russia’s agricultural output, this is in all likelihood the most extensive microscale food production practice in any industrially developed nation.” 

In a 2014 article titled “Dacha Gardens—Russia’s Amazing Model for Urban Agriculture”, Sara Pool wrote that Russia obtains “over 50% agricultural products from family garden plots. The backyard gardening model uses around 3% arable land, and accounts for roughly 92% of all Russian potatoes, 87% of all fruit, 77% vegetables, and 59% all Russian meat according to the Russian Federal State Statistic Service.”

Our Beautiful but Toxic and Wasteful Green Lawns

Rather than dachas, we in the West have pristine green lawns, which not only produce no food but involve chemical and mechanical maintenance that is a major contributor to water and air pollution. Lawns are the single largest irrigated crop in the U.S., covering nearly 32 million acres. This is a problem particularly in the western U.S. states, which are currently suffering from reduced food production due to drought. Data compiled by Urban Plantations from the EPA, the Public Policy Institute of California, and the Alliance for Water Efficiency suggests that gardens use 66% less water than lawns. In the U.S., fruits and vegetables are grown  on only about 10 million acres. In theory, then, if the space occupied by American lawns were converted to food gardens, the country could produce four times as many fruits and vegetables as it does now. 

A study from NASA scientists in collaboration with researchers in the Mountain West estimated that American lawns cover an area that is about the size of Texas and is three times larger than that used for any other irrigated crop in the United States.  The study was not, however, about the growth of lawns but about their impact on the environment and water resources. It found that “maintaining a well-manicured lawn uses up to 900 liters of water per person per day and reduces [carbon] sequestration effectiveness by up to 35 percent by adding emissions from fertilization and the operation of mowing equipment.” To combat water and pollution problems, some cities have advocated abandoning the great green lawn in favor of vegetable gardens, local native plants, meadows or just letting the grass die. But well-manicured lawns are an established U.S. cultural tradition; and some municipalities have banned front-yard gardens as not meeting neighborhood standards of aesthetics.  Some homeowners, however, have fought back. Florida ended up passing a law in July 2019 that prohibits towns from banning edible gardens for aesthetic reasons; and in California, a bill was passed in 2014 that allows yard use for “personal agriculture” (defined as “use of land where an individual cultivates edible plant crops for personal use or donation”). As noted in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: 

“The Legislature recognized that lawn care is resource intensive, with lawns being the largest irrigated crop in the United States offering no nutritional gain. Finding that 30% to 60% of residential water is used for watering lawns, the Legislature believes these resources could be allocated to more productive activities, including growing food, thus increasing access to healthy options for low-income individuals.”

Despite how large they loom in the American imagination, immaculate green lawns maintained by pesticides, herbicides and electric lawnmowers are a relatively recent cultural phenomenon in the United States. In the 1930s, chemicals were not recommended. Weeds were controlled either by pulling them by hand or by keeping chickens. Chemical use became popular only after World War II, and it has grown significantly since. According to the EPA, close to 80 million U.S. households spray 90 million pounds of pesticides and herbicides on their lawns each year. A 1999 study by the United States Geological Survey found that 99% of urban water streams contain pesticides, which pollute our drinking water and create serious health risks for wildlife, pets, and humans. Among other disorders, these chemicals are correlated with an increased risk of cancers, nervous system disorders, and a seven-fold increased risk of childhood leukemia. 

That’s just the pollution in our water supply. Other problems with our lawn fetish are air and noise pollution generated by gas-powered lawn and garden equipment. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that this equipment is responsible for 5% of U.S. air pollution. Americans use about 800 million gallons of gas per year just mowing their lawns.

Off the Top of My Head

Guns: The Last Vestige of Male Dominance

by John Lawrence

When females run the world, hopefully soon, assault rifles will be off the streets in a New York minute. Toxic masculinity has been responsible for war and conflict resolution by violence since the world began. Gun manufacturers advertise, "Get your man card." Mamas don't want their babies to grow up to be mass murderers or the victims of mass murderers. They don't want their babies to go through life with PTSD from having participated in that primordial male occupation - war. Sure there are some masculinized females who have adopted a male consciousness and support war and dominance as a means of conflict resolution, but there are more who support diplomacy, understanding and empathy. Even Hillary Clinton had to prove she was "tough" by supporting the Iraq war because she wanted to run for President. There will be no peace and no love as long as men are in charge. Witness some of the nations on earth where females run things. New Zealand, Sweden and Denmark have female presidents or prime ministers. These ladies reside over relatively peaceful and enlightened nations. Nobody in their right mind would refer to the US as an "enlightened" nation although the enlightenment was supposedly over 200 years ago. At that time the US Constitution was written in such a way to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" for white male property owners only. The Constitution excluded African Americans and women who didn't get to vote till the 1920s. African Americans are still suffering generational effects from being excluded first by slavery, then by Jim Crow laws and later by red lining.

Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand got assault rifles off the streets in short order after a mass murder in new zealand. Ardern describes herself as a social democrat and a progressive. The Sixth Labour Government has faced challenges from the New Zealand housing crisis, child poverty, and social inequality. In March 2019, in the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings, Ardern reacted with empathy and rapidly introduced strict gun laws, winning her wide recognition. Throughout 2020 she led New Zealand's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, for which she won praise for New Zealand being one of the few Western nations to successfully contain the virus. Ardern led the Labour Party to victory in the 2020 general election, gaining an overall majority of 65 seats in Parliament, the first time this has happened since the introduction of proportional representation in 1996.

Less than one month after a gunman killed 50 people in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch, the New Zealand Parliament voted to ban most semi-automatic and military-style weapons. The law makes it illegal to possess the prohibited weapons in New Zealand. Current owners of the now-banned firearms had a short period of time to return their weapons for compensation under a buyback program. If they didn't return them, they would face up to five years in prison. Speaking before lawmakers, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she knew her country would approve a ban after the police commissioner described the deadly nature of the guns used in the attack, which had been obtained legally and easily modified to hold more than 60 bullets per magazine. "I could not fathom how weapons that could cause such destruction and large-scale death could have been obtained legally in this country," Ardern said. She described visits to hospitals where dozens of victims were still recovering. "I struggle to recall any single gunshot wounds," she said. "In every case they spoke of multiple injuries. Multiple debilitating injuries that deemed it impossible for them to recover in days, let alone weeks. They will carry disabilities for a lifetime, and that's before you consider the psychological impact."

So now the Supreme Court is in the process of reverting the US to the Constitution as originally written where only white male property owners were in charge, the "Age of Enlightenment." Male dominance means that the only means of conflict resolution is by war or the threat of war. There is no such thing as peace. Power and strength is what prevents your neighbor from conquering you so why bother to empathize with your neighbor? The end of the Cold War was the biggest opportunity for bringing about a peaceful world. Gorbachev and Reagan hit it off and actually reduced nuclear weapons with the INF treaty. But their initiatives were never extended and capitalized on. Instead the US and the world reverted to hostility with Russia by extending NATO to Russia's border. It was an opportunity to create peace between the western world and Russia, but no a stance of power based containment ensued so that the Reagan-Gorbachev peace initiative ended up being almost entirely worthless with power politics becoming the operative policy as it always has been, and war is the culmination and outworking of power politics.

Off the Top of My Head

What the Future Holds: Even More Mass Shootings

by John Lawrence

The US is the only nation that has embedded the seeds of its own destruction in its Constitution. What we can expect is an accelerating rate of mass shootings unless assault rifles are gotten off the streets which is something Republicans have refused to do. So now there are only 3 or 4 mass shootings a day. Pretty soon there will be so many that they will crowd out all other news on the news channels. They will need multiple split screens showing mass shootings in multiple areas. The mass shooting response industry will become big business. There will need to be more law enforcement, more investigators, more prosecutors, more pundits wondering about the motives of the shooter. This is what we should expect: increased numbers of mass shootings. Six months into 2022, there have been at least 309 mass shootings in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Shooting incidents in 2022 are rivaling last year’s record-breaking numbers. Right now there are almost two mass shootings a day. By the end of the year we can expect three or four a day. The only effective thing that could change this trajectory would be to outlaw assault weapons and get them off the streets, but there is little likelihood that this will be done so we can expect more of the same.

So now that mass shooting has become almost an industry, we can expect to see mass shooters vying to set records, vying to be the one with the record of the most victims. So the planning in their minds will consist of trying to kill a number of victims at least in the double digits. Less than that number of deaths will be seen in their own minds as a failure. The Las Vegas killer took out 60 people and wounded over 400. These are the numbers that future mass killers will be shooting for. They not only want to join the club of mass murderers, they want to do so in a leadership position. Unfortunately, the gun industry and Republican politicians are enablers. The courts that have interpreted the Second Amendment to mean anything goes as far as gun purchases are concerned are the enablers of mass murder. Other countries have outlawed assault rifles as soon as one mass murder occurred. Less than one month after a gunman killed 50 people in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch, the New Zealand Parliament voted to ban most semi-automatic and military-style weapons. Ditto for Australia. The US, however, will go down fighting to preserve the rights of mass murderers.

It's unthinkable in the US that assault rifles could be outlawed. Witness the current toothless "gun safety" law that was just passed by Congress. It will do nothing to prevent mass murder to accelerate since it does nothing to get guns off the street. The confiscation of guns is the only thing that will put a stop to the continuation of these events, and they will only get more horrible as time goes on. This is what America has to look forward to. This is America's dystopian future. American culture supports and encourages mass murder. Video games consist almost entirely of people committing mass murders. American movies almost always feature guns and murder. The current shooter was listening to rap lyrics. The situation favors mass killers. They can choose the time and place. They can choose any gathering of people be it a religious congregation, a parade, a grocery store or a school. The police are helpless. Mass killers use the tactic of surprise to their advantage the same way the Japanese used the tactic of surprise to bomb Pearl Harbor. The advantage is always on the side of the mass killer who uses the military tactic of surprise. So while those in power twiddles their thumbs over gun violence and are paid off by the gun industry, America will continue to be terrorized by its own people. Geez, Usama bin Laden must be laughing in his watery grave.

Today I Am Grateful

Dear friends,

      Today I am grateful.  For everything. For it all. For being human, having a physical experience.  For the good, the bad and the ugly. For the beautiful, the graceful and the sublime. I have had it all. Haven’t you?  Why would we bemoan the downside when the upside is so wonderful?  It is all an adventure.

     Having said that, I prefer the Good.  No doubt about it. I love being happy and healthy and well-supplied. I do not enjoy fear and doubt and lack.  I want life to be good for everybody.  I desire peace and plenty for all.  I want justice and compassion to be the normal way of doing things. It occurs to me that I cannot be open to that if I am ungrateful for any of it. 

     The mind is a doorway.  It opens inwardly and outwardly. The splendor of what is found within cannot be transported into the outward except on the wings of gratitude, cheerful expectation and Love.  Love is the energy of renewal, of birth, of healing, of everything we could ever desire. Love is gratitude without object.

Affirm with me: “I love this life and everything in it. I am grateful for the whole shebang!”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.carol-carnes.com 

These ideas and more will be our topics of discussion in my new class The Big Picture.

Social Security Independence Day

Stephanie Kelton

2 hr ago

 

Happy 4th of July to everyone with $291,000 in gross annual wage income! Today is the last day you will contribute to Social Security. For you, Independence Day begins tomorrow, when your take-home pay will jump by 6.2 percent. That’s because only about half of your wage income (50.5%) is subject to the payroll tax withholding for Social Security.

For those of you with gross annual wage income of $147,000 or less, your contributions will continue through December 31. That’s because 100 percent of your income is subject to the payroll tax withholding.

Many democrats would like to change that. Here’s Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT):

Today, absurdly and unfairly, there is a cap on income subject to Social Security taxes which is just $147,000 a year. That means that if you’re a multi-billionaire you pay the same amount into Social Security as someone making $147,000 a year. 

It means if you make $147,000 a year or less you pay 6.2% of your income in Social Security taxes. But if you make 10 times more – $1,470,000 – you pay just 0.62% of your income in Social Security taxes. That may make sense to someone. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Sanders has introduced legislation to change the way the payroll tax withholding is applied. It won’t pass, but if it did, it would apply the Social Security payroll tax to all forms of income, including capital gains and dividends, for those who make over $250,000 a year. It would have no impact on 93.6 percent of Americans, but it would raise taxes on the wealthiest 6.4 percent of households. 

As I’ve explained in recent columns, his motivation is simple:

[O]ur legislation would make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years, expand benefits for seniors and people with disabilities by $2,400 a year, and increase COLAs, which would lift millions of seniors out of poverty.

I won’t rehash the MMT line of argument here. Just click on one of my recent columns if you need a reminder. And if you want to play around with the numbers to see when Independence Day comes for people who occupy different rungs of the income ladder, just click here.

Have a safe and Happy 4th!

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Economic analysis, research, and commentary using the lens of MMT

With SB54, “California is righting the ship,” leading U.S. out of ocean plastic pollution crisis

Ocean Conservancy scientists estimate that newly passed California law will eliminate 23 million tons of plastics in the next 10 years – equivalent to 26 times the weight of the Golden Gate Bridge.

by Dr. Anja Brandon, Nicholas Mallos, and Jeff Watters are available for interviews.

June 30, 2022 Español Français Deutsch Italiano Português русский বঙ্গীয় 中文 日本語

Green Turtle attempting to eat a discarded plastic bag. © Troy Mayne

Sacramento, CA – Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB54, or the Plastic Pollution Producer Responsibility Act, which passed the state Assembly with a 67-to-2 vote yesterday evening and the state Senate with a 29-to-0 vote this morning. Ocean Conservancy has been negotiating the language of this bill with fellow environmental advocates for months to make it the single strongest plastics legislation ever seen in the United States. 

“It’s hard to capture how momentous this feels,” said Dr. Anja Brandon, U.S. Plastics Policy Analyst at Ocean Conservancy and a principal contributor to the bill text. “The United States is the number-one generator of plastic waste in the world and a top contributor to the ocean plastics crisis. We can’t solve this problem without U.S. leadership, and by passing this law, California is righting the ship. This is a huge win for our ocean.” 

Scientists estimate that some 11 million metric tons of plastics enter the ocean every year. Data from 35 years of Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup show that the majority of the most common items littering our beaches and waterways are single-use plastic packaging and food ware.

Among other measures, the 76-page bill: 

• Requires a 25% reduction in single-use plastic packaging and foodware by weight and item count by 2032;
• Mandates that nearly half of that reduction result from the direct elimination of plastic packaging or switching to reuse and refill systems rather than simply replacing it with alternative single-use materials (Ocean Conservancy scientists have estimated that this provision alone would directly eliminate 23 million tons of single-use plastic packaging and foodware over the next ten years – equivalent to nearly 26 times the weight of the Golden Gate Bridge);
• Requires that all single-use packaging and foodware, including non-plastic items, be recyclable or compostable within the state of California by 2032 and mandates a 65% recycling rate for plastics by that time; and
• Provides hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to support communities and restore ecosystems most impacted by plastic pollution.

“A few years ago legislation of this magnitude was unimaginable in the U.S.,” said Jeff Watters, Vice President of External Affairs at Ocean Conservancy. “We are here today because of an incredible amount of hard work, perseverance, and ambition from Senator Ben Allen, Assemblymember Luz Rivas, their tireless staff, and the team of experts at CalRecycle. This is what strong, forward-thinking political leadership looks like.”

The bill was signed just hours after petitioners withdrew a parallel plastic pollution ballot measure. Ocean Conservancy had supported both efforts but supported withdrawal of the ballot measure given that SB54 had passed both chambers of the state legislature.

“Our number one priority has always been fewer plastics on shelves and less plastic pollution in our ocean, and both SB54 and the ballot measure were viable pathways,” said Nicholas Mallos, Senior Director of Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas program. “We believe this is the surest outcome for impact, though. Historically, ballot initiatives face an uphill battle for implementation even when passed, meaning it could be years before any of its provisions would go into effect. Not only is SB54 as strong or stronger than the ballot in many ways; but we are looking at guaranteed action on this critical issue immediately.”

About Ocean Conservancy

Ocean Conservancy is working with you to protect the ocean from today’s greatest global challenges. Together, we create evidence-based solutions for a healthy ocean and the wildlife and communities that depend on it. For more information, visit oceanconservancy.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Off the Top of My Head

Manchin and Sinema Should Be Kicked Out of the Democratic Party

by John Lawrence

They have blocked Biden's agenda every step of the way. Biden and his team have spent countless hours "negotiating" with them to no avail. They have treated them with kid gloves to no avail. Now they should call them out. They are effectively blocking the codification of Roe v Wade, voting rights legislation, Biden's Build Back Better initiative and every other thing every other Democrat stands for. They are Democrats in name only - DINOs. Instead of being treated with kid gloves, they should be treated like the pariahs they are. Democrats are too nicey nice. Biden got a little testy and said he was open to ending the filibuster in order to codify Roe. Who's standing in the way of ending the filibuster? Manchin and Sinema. Who's standing in the way of every other thing Biden and most Democrats want to get done? Manchin and Sinema. If it weren't for them, Democrats could get rid of the filibuster today and codify everything the Supreme Court is torpedoing plus do a lot more. As it is, Biden is hamstrung by two quasi Democrats who are really Republicans in sheep's clothing.

The filibuster is an anti democratic rule of the Senate that prevents decisions being made by majority rule. There's no good reason for it to exist. Democrats think that, if they get rid of it, Republicans will go wild with their legislation when they control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. But they are just wrong. When Republicans control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency but don't have 60 votes in the Senate (the number of votes necessary to overcome the filibuster), they can just vote to end or suspend the filibuster to get their legislation passed and signed into law. They don't care whether or not Democrats "observed" the traditions of the Senate by not voting to end the filibuster for their purposes. They will just do it themselves when it suits their interests. That's what the Democrats don't get. Democrats are afraid to end a "rule" when they theoretically have the power now to do so which is anti Democratic in order to get good things passed for the American people. And who are standing in the way of that? Not Republicans but 2 Democrats - Manchin and Sinema. If it weren't for them, abortion rights could be codified. A whole host of other things which the Supreme Court is casting to the wind, could be codified. In fact everything that was considered settled law is not because, if it hasn't been codified, it is under attack by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has pointed out that it's not enough to win a case before the Supreme Court. It must be codified by the Congress and signed into law by the President before it is "settled law." Therefore, the Supreme Court will throw out every so called "Constitutional protection" because nothing is constitutionally protected just because somebody has won a case before the Supreme Court. As sclerotic and underperforming as Congress is, the Supremes know that throwing things back to Congress effectively overturns every decision the Supreme Court has ever made! Forget about Roe v Wade. They are now attacking the EPA so that the US can do nothing about climate change except to sit back and let it happen. The US is fast becoming a backwater among nations and all because Trump had the power to appoint 3 conservative Justices to the Supreme Court. So what will be next on the Republicans' agenda? Getting rid of social security and Medicare? The Supreme Court will help them with that. Their only talent is using arcane language to do the Republicans' dirty work.