Saturday, January 30, 2010

Why do People Vote Against their own Interests?

Read the whole story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8474611.stm

The following excerpt was particularly profound:

Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America's poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.

Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.

"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

Friday, January 29, 2010

Obamanomics are working. Raise Taxes for the very rich and lower them for everyone else.

Bloomberg Reports:
U.S. Economy: Growth Jumps 5.7%, Fastest Pace in Six Years
January 29, 2010, 12:40 PM EST

The economy tanked during Bush I and Bush II and grew at record paces under Clinton and now Obama. Is it possible that Republican economic policy doesn't work and the Democrats economic policies do? Is it possible that it is better for consumers to extra money than for corporations?
Is it possible that when major corporations are given tax breaks they take the money OUT of the economy and give it to their wealthiest executives who put the money in overseas investments and tax shelters, while consumers will spend their extra money on goods and services in the United States thus creating growth?
Trickle-down economics is, was, and always will be nothing but bunk.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Pants on the Ground. The Neil Young (as played by Jmmy Fallon) version

Fans of American Idol will appreciate this:
(Scroll down for the American Idol original)

Here's the original: