from the National Income and Product Accounts Handbook, Chapter 6 (pdf), we find that the deflators used for residential investment are the Census Bureau price indexes for new one-family houses under construction and for new multi-family homes under construction; while a bunch of other indexes are used to deflate other components of construction spending, ie, the Turner Construction building-cost index for several types of buildings, the PPI for new school construction, the Engineering News Record construction cost index for utilities construction, and so forth..in addition, the GDP categories for construction spending include brokers’ commissions, title insurance, state and local taxes, attorney fees, title escrow fees, fees for surveys and engineering services, and remodeling that are not all captured in the construction spending report...in the face of all that, i opted to look up the residential index and just use the deflator BEA used in the most recent quarter for all other construction in making my estimates, figuring construction prices aren't that volatile and the figures would be revised in the next month anyway..
construction spending for May was up 0.8% over an April that was up 2.2% over March...i know you can see the double digit annual growth rate there...at the April rate of construction growth, i figured 2nd quarter residential construction would add .26 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP growth, private non-residential would add .83 percentage points to 2nd quarter growth, and public construction would add .42 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP in the various government investment components...now we're above that already in May...
the caveat to my figures is that there are dozens of construction price indexes and i just estimated a deflator
to estimate the change in PCE that applies to GDP, we have to compare April and May real PCE to the real PCE of the 3 months making up the first quarter...that's done by applying the monthly PCE price index, from Table 9 in the pdf, to the current dollar values of each month's annualized PCE; that gives us monthly PCE in chained 2009 dollars, which aren't really dollar amounts at all but merely the means that the BEA uses to compare one month's or one quarter's real goods and services produced to another...that result is shown in table 7 of the PDF, where April's annualized chained dollar consumption works out to 11,214.7 million and May's annualized chained dollar consumption is 11,276.9, which we can then compare to the 1st quarter's annualized chained dollar PCE of 11,177.9 shown in Table 8, which is identical to the inflation adjusted first quarter PCE from table 3 in the first quarter GDP report we just reviewed...since we dont yet know real PCE for June, one method of estimating the 2nd quarter change in real PCE is to average the two months we do have and compare them to the 1st quarter...when we do that, we find that 2nd quarter real PCE has grown at a 2.5% annual rate for the two months we do have; note the math to get that annual rate: (((11,214.7 +11,276.9 ) / 2) / 11,177.9 ) ^ 4 = 1.02452... given that real PCE is about 68% of GDP, we could thus estimate that growth in real PCE would add 1.67 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP...and that has to be considered the low end estimate; even if June's PCE is unchanged from May, our equation becomes (((11,214.7 + 2 * 11,276.9 ) / 3) / 11,177.9 ) ^ 4 = 1.02830, meaning PCE growth at a 2.8% annual rate, which would add 1.92 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP...
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) did not vote for fast track and TPP. She was against both. She may have been ill when she missed the first vote, but had she voted "no", the vote would not have mattered. But she would not have voted "yes". http://thehill.com/policy/technology/243901-dem-tech-knows-more-about-tr...
FYI: Jackie Speier was the aide to Congressman Leo Ryan on November 19, 1978. After visting Jonestown (Guyana) Speier was shot five times when Ryan and four others were ambushed and killed by members of the People's Temple. Jim Jones didn't drink the Kool-Aid. He had a trusted aide shoot him in the head.
I don't know about y'all, but I ain't voting for any incumbent democrats who voted in favor of TPA or the TAA that was passed on Thursday. That means I won't be voting for Diane Feinstein, who voted for TPA and TAA in the Senate, or Jackie Speier, who didn't bother voting the first time TPA and TAA went to a vote in the House but voted for TAA this Thursday. I won't vote for Hillary either in 2016. I'm done with the corrupt democratic party (small caps intentional) in California. I won't vote for the democratic party in 2016 unless Speier and Clinton lose their primaries.
Don't get me wrong. I won't vote republican either. Given a choice, I'll vote Green or I'll leave the ballot blank. I am absolutely never going to vote for politicians that disrespect me as a voter and as a citizen and look at me with contempt as these democrats (and republicans) do. These politicians especially democrats believe that Americans are so stupid that American voters will continue to vote for their re-election despite a track record of opposing the interests of the voters that elected them to office. Voting for such politicians will only confirm in their minds that American voters are stupid. I ain't falling victim to this scam. I am not going to re-elect or advance the careers of any politicians that look at me with contempt. They can burn in hell as far as I'm concerned.
Unfortunately, I live in CA so, as usual, this stupid state will likely blindly re-elect Feinstein to the Senate in 2018 and Speier to the House in 2016 just because these two sellouts have a "D" appended to their last names. Elections in CA and in this country are joke courtesy of the corruption of both major parties.
I would also respectfully ask that any faux progressive, who plans on regurgitating the "vote for the lesser of two evils" slogan in 2016 to scaremonger votes for the democratic party, kindly STFU indefinitely. If you support corruption, you're not progressive. After the last seven years of watching the democratic party work against the interests of suffering middle class citizens of this country, it is perfectly clear that voting for the lesser of two evils only begets more evil and economic violence against the vulnerable and disenfranchised workers, middle class, unemployed, and poor of this country. There's absolutely no point in voting for any evil.
NYT is spyware ridden, login requiring tracking cookie nasty so please do not use or link to any of their stuff. It breaks our site.
On TAA absolute bullshit. It has been used to "retrain" college educated highly skilled tech workers to flip burgers. I am not making this up, absolute waste of money as corporations displace U.S. workers with foreign ones to the point people have to train their replacement before being fired in order to get any severance. They are fuking U.S. workers financially FOR LIFE denying them their middle class, higher wage income to be "retrained" as the lowest paid workers in America. Despicable.
The trade adjustment assistance program [TAA] was approved overwhelmingly in the House (286 yeas to 138 nays)
It funds $2.7 billion for worker re-training and education ( through June 2022).
It makes workers in the service industry eligible for a program that was once only used for displaced manufacturing workers.
It extends and expands a tax credit for the purchase of health insurance for displaced workers.
It includes subsidies for the wages of workers age 50 or older who are forced to take lower-paid jobs than the ones they lost to low-wage countries — that the Times calls "international competition".
It also includes a trade measure with Africa.
It also ensures that Obama can complete other major trade deals with Asia and Europe [TPP and TTIP].
Representative Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) said: “I would rather have my representative fighting for my job than coming up with a public assistance program after I lost my job.”
Representative Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said fast track is already the law of the land: "The question for us today is whether we are going to include the last parts of the package.” The 13 Democratic Senators who gave Obama fast-track claimed it was only on the promise that "the last parts of the package" (TAA) would later be added.
New IMF research shows that income distribution itself—not just the level of income inequality—matters for growth:
"Specifically, we find that making the rich richer by one percentage point lowers GDP growth in a country over the next five years by 0.08 percentage points—whereas making the poor and the middle class one percentage point richer can raise GDP growth by as much as 0.38 percentage points.
Put simply, boosting the incomes of the poor and the middle class can help raise growth prospects for all.
One possible explanation is that the poor and the middle class tend to consume a higher fraction of their income than the rich. What this means is that the poor and the middle class are key engines of growth. But with inequality on the rise, those engines are stalling.
Over the longer run, persistent inequality means that the the poor and the middle class have fewer opportunities to get educated, enhance their skills, and pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. As a result, labor productivity and growth suffer."
(* Like Nick says, if you put more money in people's pockets, they'll spend more. Maybe that's the whole premise of "supply and demand" --- but where "demand" comes before "supply" --- because as Nick says, the rich don't buy 1,000 times more shirts just because they make 1,000 times more money.)
U.S. polling shows strong opposition to fast tracking trade deals (from Independents to Republicans and Democrats alike). But yet, Congress still votes against the will of the American people. Over half the people in Congress must be just plain evil; and President Obama (if not evil himself) must be gullible for believing his manipulative advisors.
The 13 Most Corrupted Democratic Senators in Congress — who on June 23, 2015, gave fast track to Obama.
1) Dianne Feinstein of California
2) Ron Wyden of Oregon
3) Bill Nelson of Florida
4) Claire McCaskill of Missouri
5) Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota
6) Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
7) Michael Bennet of Colorado
8) Maria Cantwell of Washington
9) Patty Murray of Washington
10) om Carper of Delaware
11) Chris Coons of Delaware
12) Tim Kaine of Virginia
13) Mark Warner of Virginia
Why would anyone represent that this bill would be acceptable if it contained funds to retrain displaced US workers?
I am a displaced worker, BTW. I lost my job to several engineers in China, who collectively are paid about as much as I was, and who collectively do not appear to me to be able to get as much done. I'm doing alright, because I saw it coming, but I am still not happy about the situation.
Saying it is better if it has funds to retrain displaced workers is like saying it is OK to import polio, as long as the importer will pay part of the cost of wheel chairs and iron lungs.
It is like saying it is OK to kill American workers, as long as you agree to pay part of the cost of their funeral plots.
How is that OK?
The things we built, created, invented being given to people who don't have a clue what they are or how they work is offensive.
My son, who has more mechanical aptitude that anyone I have ever seen, (and I have seen a lot) will not enjoy the privilege of following me in a technical career, because our technology is being given to people who could never have developed it, don't understand it, can barely maintain it.
This is not a zenophobic rant. I have worked for years alongside of organizations in Asia which were developed with the idea of eliminating my job. I know these people personally. They are not bad guys, and on a personal level, I like some of them. But I was to some extent responsible for their technical development. I have seen their work product, over a period of many years. I have reviewed their work. This is a large organization. I am not talking about a few individuals. My observation is that they do not compare at all well with Americans with similar paper qualifications.
There are aspects of American culture and world view which account for American exceptionalism. It isn't an accident.
Right now, there is some money to be made for technical people, in the business of disemboweling US industry, and sending it overseas. But once everything is packed up and shipped off, it is going to get really unpleasant.
So is this like good cop - bad cop? The good cop says "I'll make sure there are bandages for you after the bad cop beats you up?"
The idea that people sell you out, but want to make sure before they do that they give you 5 cents worth of compassion in exchange for every dollar they take, and that because of this they are your friends is repulsive. (And by the way, that 5 cents actually comes from you).
Better open hostility than feigned affection. The republicans want to rob you and don't care if you know. The democrats want to rob you, but want to make sure you know they are your friends. Do I have that right?
I just don't get it. Requiring funds to retrain the displaced is an open admission that this bill will injure US workers. No question. It will displace people. Who? People in higher paying and productive jobs. Who will it benefit? Wal-Mart shoppers.
I can understand the appeal of fast track to politicians. After all, it means they don't have to pretend to defend the interests of their constituents.
But why isn't everyone up in arms about the idea it is OK to destroy the lives of American workers, as long as you promise to train them to do something they don't want to do, that pays less? Why isn't the mere suggestion of this offensive? I don't get it.
Corruption has destroyed America. All we have today are feudal lords called multinational corporations and government isn't even the king, more the court jester bowed to their every whim and desire.
Were there any citizen groups, labor unions, letters to the editor, personal blogs or petitions pushing FOR fast-track or the TPP trade agreement?
There were hundreds AGAINST it.
So essentially, the majority in Congress have voted (again) AGAINST the will of the American people — and in favor FOR major U.S. multi-national corporations.
$$$ in politics is destroying democracy this country, and destroying the livelihoods of American workers.
This illustrates a point I have made before. The Democrats are no more the friend of the working man than the Republicans. They always manage to get enough votes for their corporate paymasters. All the rest is just theater.
It is a lot like a WWE WrestleMania event. It is pretty unsophisticated to think that those guys are really on opposite "sides", since they are all paid by the same paymaster. The "Good" guys aren't good, and the "Bad" guys aren't bad. They are all motivated by self interest, and basically wicked, which is the normal state of fallen humanity. Actually, they are friends, like Scalia and Ginsberg. or Bush I and Clinton.
The game is played this way: Some democrats will pretend to oppose legislation that favors the wealthy, while others (those in safe districts) will quietly vote for it. So it is assured to pass, but they get some credit for "fighting against" it.
So in that case, since there is no difference between the politicians at all on the economic issues, you might as well be a values voter.
Maybe Dennis and Bernie aren't for sale (maybe) but those two are just mascots, trotted out to burnish the party reputation. They don't actually represent where the party is going. To see where the party is going, follow the money.
Of course, if voters at large were more sophisticated, and spent the time people in this forum do evaluating political candidates and their actions, the world would be a different place. But, as Churchill noted "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
So there really is very little hope for the political process. Especially with the sensory bombardment of the population with distracting and disinformational messages, which takes their attention away from anything of significance.
Perhaps, if things got worse, people would "wake up", but it seems more likely that instead of investing 10 minutes in serious thought on the matter they would attach themselves to some opportunist that promised them "Hope" and "change". Not much chance of improvement there.
And some would say there needs to be a revolution, but revolutions usually result in a lot of bad things happening to a lot of people. Not a prospect any reasonable person would look forward to.
So it seems to me that we should enjoy the good in life that we can find, since we will not be able to prevail by force (of logic, persuasion, arms, or organization) against those who own the political process.
And preach the Gospel! It is the only thing that changes mens' hearts. And that is where the problem is.
from the National Income and Product Accounts Handbook, Chapter 6 (pdf), we find that the deflators used for residential investment are the Census Bureau price indexes for new one-family houses under construction and for new multi-family homes under construction; while a bunch of other indexes are used to deflate other components of construction spending, ie, the Turner Construction building-cost index for several types of buildings, the PPI for new school construction, the Engineering News Record construction cost index for utilities construction, and so forth..in addition, the GDP categories for construction spending include brokers’ commissions, title insurance, state and local taxes, attorney fees, title escrow fees, fees for surveys and engineering services, and remodeling that are not all captured in the construction spending report...in the face of all that, i opted to look up the residential index and just use the deflator BEA used in the most recent quarter for all other construction in making my estimates, figuring construction prices aren't that volatile and the figures would be revised in the next month anyway..
might be an article to show how Census construction spending goes into GDP report. Deflators ain't easy and seems BEA has some secret sauce going on.
construction spending for May was up 0.8% over an April that was up 2.2% over March...i know you can see the double digit annual growth rate there...at the April rate of construction growth, i figured 2nd quarter residential construction would add .26 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP growth, private non-residential would add .83 percentage points to 2nd quarter growth, and public construction would add .42 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP in the various government investment components...now we're above that already in May...
the caveat to my figures is that there are dozens of construction price indexes and i just estimated a deflator
although other elements may pull it back down of course.
to estimate the change in PCE that applies to GDP, we have to compare April and May real PCE to the real PCE of the 3 months making up the first quarter...that's done by applying the monthly PCE price index, from Table 9 in the pdf, to the current dollar values of each month's annualized PCE; that gives us monthly PCE in chained 2009 dollars, which aren't really dollar amounts at all but merely the means that the BEA uses to compare one month's or one quarter's real goods and services produced to another...that result is shown in table 7 of the PDF, where April's annualized chained dollar consumption works out to 11,214.7 million and May's annualized chained dollar consumption is 11,276.9, which we can then compare to the 1st quarter's annualized chained dollar PCE of 11,177.9 shown in Table 8, which is identical to the inflation adjusted first quarter PCE from table 3 in the first quarter GDP report we just reviewed...since we dont yet know real PCE for June, one method of estimating the 2nd quarter change in real PCE is to average the two months we do have and compare them to the 1st quarter...when we do that, we find that 2nd quarter real PCE has grown at a 2.5% annual rate for the two months we do have; note the math to get that annual rate: (((11,214.7 +11,276.9 ) / 2) / 11,177.9 ) ^ 4 = 1.02452... given that real PCE is about 68% of GDP, we could thus estimate that growth in real PCE would add 1.67 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP...and that has to be considered the low end estimate; even if June's PCE is unchanged from May, our equation becomes (((11,214.7 + 2 * 11,276.9 ) / 3) / 11,177.9 ) ^ 4 = 1.02830, meaning PCE growth at a 2.8% annual rate, which would add 1.92 percentage points to 2nd quarter GDP...
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) did not vote for fast track and TPP. She was against both. She may have been ill when she missed the first vote, but had she voted "no", the vote would not have mattered. But she would not have voted "yes".
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/243901-dem-tech-knows-more-about-tr...
The voting record on TPP (First Senate and last 2 house votes)
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2015/06/hillary-clinton-economic-populist...
Voting record: The last Senate vote
http://www.bud-meyers.com/TPP/
FYI: Jackie Speier was the aide to Congressman Leo Ryan on November 19, 1978. After visting Jonestown (Guyana) Speier was shot five times when Ryan and four others were ambushed and killed by members of the People's Temple. Jim Jones didn't drink the Kool-Aid. He had a trusted aide shoot him in the head.
I don't know about y'all, but I ain't voting for any incumbent democrats who voted in favor of TPA or the TAA that was passed on Thursday. That means I won't be voting for Diane Feinstein, who voted for TPA and TAA in the Senate, or Jackie Speier, who didn't bother voting the first time TPA and TAA went to a vote in the House but voted for TAA this Thursday. I won't vote for Hillary either in 2016. I'm done with the corrupt democratic party (small caps intentional) in California. I won't vote for the democratic party in 2016 unless Speier and Clinton lose their primaries.
Don't get me wrong. I won't vote republican either. Given a choice, I'll vote Green or I'll leave the ballot blank. I am absolutely never going to vote for politicians that disrespect me as a voter and as a citizen and look at me with contempt as these democrats (and republicans) do. These politicians especially democrats believe that Americans are so stupid that American voters will continue to vote for their re-election despite a track record of opposing the interests of the voters that elected them to office. Voting for such politicians will only confirm in their minds that American voters are stupid. I ain't falling victim to this scam. I am not going to re-elect or advance the careers of any politicians that look at me with contempt. They can burn in hell as far as I'm concerned.
Unfortunately, I live in CA so, as usual, this stupid state will likely blindly re-elect Feinstein to the Senate in 2018 and Speier to the House in 2016 just because these two sellouts have a "D" appended to their last names. Elections in CA and in this country are joke courtesy of the corruption of both major parties.
I would also respectfully ask that any faux progressive, who plans on regurgitating the "vote for the lesser of two evils" slogan in 2016 to scaremonger votes for the democratic party, kindly STFU indefinitely. If you support corruption, you're not progressive. After the last seven years of watching the democratic party work against the interests of suffering middle class citizens of this country, it is perfectly clear that voting for the lesser of two evils only begets more evil and economic violence against the vulnerable and disenfranchised workers, middle class, unemployed, and poor of this country. There's absolutely no point in voting for any evil.
NYT is spyware ridden, login requiring tracking cookie nasty so please do not use or link to any of their stuff. It breaks our site.
On TAA absolute bullshit. It has been used to "retrain" college educated highly skilled tech workers to flip burgers. I am not making this up, absolute waste of money as corporations displace U.S. workers with foreign ones to the point people have to train their replacement before being fired in order to get any severance. They are fuking U.S. workers financially FOR LIFE denying them their middle class, higher wage income to be "retrained" as the lowest paid workers in America. Despicable.
The trade adjustment assistance program [TAA] was approved overwhelmingly in the House (286 yeas to 138 nays)
Representative Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) said: “I would rather have my representative fighting for my job than coming up with a public assistance program after I lost my job.”
Representative Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said fast track is already the law of the land: "The question for us today is whether we are going to include the last parts of the package.” The 13 Democratic Senators who gave Obama fast-track claimed it was only on the promise that "the last parts of the package" (TAA) would later be added.
If one puts cash in the pockets of especially the poor, they spend it (not save it) thus adding to consumer spending which in turn boosts GDP.
A photo you can paste on your Facebook Wall...
http://www.bud-meyers.com/TPP/
New IMF research shows that income distribution itself—not just the level of income inequality—matters for growth:
"Specifically, we find that making the rich richer by one percentage point lowers GDP growth in a country over the next five years by 0.08 percentage points—whereas making the poor and the middle class one percentage point richer can raise GDP growth by as much as 0.38 percentage points.
Put simply, boosting the incomes of the poor and the middle class can help raise growth prospects for all.
One possible explanation is that the poor and the middle class tend to consume a higher fraction of their income than the rich. What this means is that the poor and the middle class are key engines of growth. But with inequality on the rise, those engines are stalling.
Over the longer run, persistent inequality means that the the poor and the middle class have fewer opportunities to get educated, enhance their skills, and pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. As a result, labor productivity and growth suffer."
http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2015/06/15/growths-secret-weapon-the-poor-...
(* Like Nick says, if you put more money in people's pockets, they'll spend more. Maybe that's the whole premise of "supply and demand" --- but where "demand" comes before "supply" --- because as Nick says, the rich don't buy 1,000 times more shirts just because they make 1,000 times more money.)
U.S. polling shows strong opposition to fast tracking trade deals (from Independents to Republicans and Democrats alike). But yet, Congress still votes against the will of the American people. Over half the people in Congress must be just plain evil; and President Obama (if not evil himself) must be gullible for believing his manipulative advisors.
http://www.citizen.org/documents/polling-memo.pdf
The 13 Most Corrupted Democratic Senators in Congress — who on June 23, 2015, gave fast track to Obama.
1) Dianne Feinstein of California
2) Ron Wyden of Oregon
3) Bill Nelson of Florida
4) Claire McCaskill of Missouri
5) Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota
6) Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
7) Michael Bennet of Colorado
8) Maria Cantwell of Washington
9) Patty Murray of Washington
10) om Carper of Delaware
11) Chris Coons of Delaware
12) Tim Kaine of Virginia
13) Mark Warner of Virginia
http://www.thenation.com/blog/210665/fast-track-fight-effectively-over-i...
Why would anyone represent that this bill would be acceptable if it contained funds to retrain displaced US workers?
I am a displaced worker, BTW. I lost my job to several engineers in China, who collectively are paid about as much as I was, and who collectively do not appear to me to be able to get as much done. I'm doing alright, because I saw it coming, but I am still not happy about the situation.
Saying it is better if it has funds to retrain displaced workers is like saying it is OK to import polio, as long as the importer will pay part of the cost of wheel chairs and iron lungs.
It is like saying it is OK to kill American workers, as long as you agree to pay part of the cost of their funeral plots.
How is that OK?
The things we built, created, invented being given to people who don't have a clue what they are or how they work is offensive.
My son, who has more mechanical aptitude that anyone I have ever seen, (and I have seen a lot) will not enjoy the privilege of following me in a technical career, because our technology is being given to people who could never have developed it, don't understand it, can barely maintain it.
This is not a zenophobic rant. I have worked for years alongside of organizations in Asia which were developed with the idea of eliminating my job. I know these people personally. They are not bad guys, and on a personal level, I like some of them. But I was to some extent responsible for their technical development. I have seen their work product, over a period of many years. I have reviewed their work. This is a large organization. I am not talking about a few individuals. My observation is that they do not compare at all well with Americans with similar paper qualifications.
There are aspects of American culture and world view which account for American exceptionalism. It isn't an accident.
Right now, there is some money to be made for technical people, in the business of disemboweling US industry, and sending it overseas. But once everything is packed up and shipped off, it is going to get really unpleasant.
So is this like good cop - bad cop? The good cop says "I'll make sure there are bandages for you after the bad cop beats you up?"
The idea that people sell you out, but want to make sure before they do that they give you 5 cents worth of compassion in exchange for every dollar they take, and that because of this they are your friends is repulsive. (And by the way, that 5 cents actually comes from you).
Better open hostility than feigned affection. The republicans want to rob you and don't care if you know. The democrats want to rob you, but want to make sure you know they are your friends. Do I have that right?
I just don't get it. Requiring funds to retrain the displaced is an open admission that this bill will injure US workers. No question. It will displace people. Who? People in higher paying and productive jobs. Who will it benefit? Wal-Mart shoppers.
I can understand the appeal of fast track to politicians. After all, it means they don't have to pretend to defend the interests of their constituents.
But why isn't everyone up in arms about the idea it is OK to destroy the lives of American workers, as long as you promise to train them to do something they don't want to do, that pays less? Why isn't the mere suggestion of this offensive? I don't get it.
End of rant.
People are wicked. That's why they need a Savior.
Corruption has destroyed America. All we have today are feudal lords called multinational corporations and government isn't even the king, more the court jester bowed to their every whim and desire.
What a show, of course the American people, U.S. worker get royally screwed here.
Obama can "fast-track" the trade pacts he negotiates through Congress, preventing filibusters or amendments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/23/senate-fast-track_n_7645348.html
Were there any citizen groups, labor unions, letters to the editor, personal blogs or petitions pushing FOR fast-track or the TPP trade agreement?
There were hundreds AGAINST it.
So essentially, the majority in Congress have voted (again) AGAINST the will of the American people — and in favor FOR major U.S. multi-national corporations.
$$$ in politics is destroying democracy this country, and destroying the livelihoods of American workers.
This illustrates a point I have made before. The Democrats are no more the friend of the working man than the Republicans. They always manage to get enough votes for their corporate paymasters. All the rest is just theater.
It is a lot like a WWE WrestleMania event. It is pretty unsophisticated to think that those guys are really on opposite "sides", since they are all paid by the same paymaster. The "Good" guys aren't good, and the "Bad" guys aren't bad. They are all motivated by self interest, and basically wicked, which is the normal state of fallen humanity. Actually, they are friends, like Scalia and Ginsberg. or Bush I and Clinton.
The game is played this way: Some democrats will pretend to oppose legislation that favors the wealthy, while others (those in safe districts) will quietly vote for it. So it is assured to pass, but they get some credit for "fighting against" it.
So in that case, since there is no difference between the politicians at all on the economic issues, you might as well be a values voter.
Maybe Dennis and Bernie aren't for sale (maybe) but those two are just mascots, trotted out to burnish the party reputation. They don't actually represent where the party is going. To see where the party is going, follow the money.
Of course, if voters at large were more sophisticated, and spent the time people in this forum do evaluating political candidates and their actions, the world would be a different place. But, as Churchill noted "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
So there really is very little hope for the political process. Especially with the sensory bombardment of the population with distracting and disinformational messages, which takes their attention away from anything of significance.
Perhaps, if things got worse, people would "wake up", but it seems more likely that instead of investing 10 minutes in serious thought on the matter they would attach themselves to some opportunist that promised them "Hope" and "change". Not much chance of improvement there.
And some would say there needs to be a revolution, but revolutions usually result in a lot of bad things happening to a lot of people. Not a prospect any reasonable person would look forward to.
So it seems to me that we should enjoy the good in life that we can find, since we will not be able to prevail by force (of logic, persuasion, arms, or organization) against those who own the political process.
And preach the Gospel! It is the only thing that changes mens' hearts. And that is where the problem is.
"Eve of Destruction"
But you tell me
Over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction
(With apologies to Barry McGwire)
A good song for this sort of day...
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