Working Life

This is not another analysis or observation focusing on the strategy and tactics that led to the deal just made on taxes. I was bored by the whole debate weeks ago because, frankly, it missed a much more central fact: the Democratic Party long ago gave up the fight over having a sensible tax rate for the richest people.

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Elections don’t happen in a reality created in one debate, or even one election season. People think about things– emotionally — in ways that reflect being propagandized to over many years. And that brings us to taxes– and a reason Democrats lose elections and, when they win, they often drag us in the same poor policy direction.

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   I love it when billionaires feel misunderstood. It sounds something like this: “I’ve fleeced you or just piled up gobs of money at your expense but, gee, that really wasn’t personal, I’m really a good guy with all the right motives, if you could just see it my way because, well, my way is [...]

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   If I was a "one percenter", I’d love the debate under way in the U.S. right now. What’s not to love? You whine and cry about the "Buffett Rule", how unfair it is and hurts the "job creators", and, then, laugh all the way to the bank as you barely can see where the [...]

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   I took a longer break from blogging than I thought–to think, observe a bit, rest the brain, cycle New Zealand’s spectacular South Island. But, what stirred me to break this hiatus, at the very moment that people are switching off their computers to turn to libations and debauchery, was, well, the modest observation that [...]

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    You may join me in the celebration of failure–a celebration I have been urging we look forward to for a very long time. Do not listen to the hand-wringing and whining about the implosion of the Catfood Commission II. This is a great thing. It is fabulous.    BUT…    Let us also pause, [...]

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   One of the things I’ve said, only half-jokingly, to a bunch of radio stations and in numerous posts (including just a couple of days ago) is that I am not a religious person but I get down on my hands and knees every day and pray, pray, pray that the Catfood Commission II fails [...]

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   As I have said in a number of recent radio interviews, I am not a religious person but I get down on my knees every day and pray that the Catfood Commission II collapses, does nothing and goes home. A glimmer of hope for that: Democrats said they were dismayed to see Republicans rallying [...]

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   If this is true, Obama is done: The parties are looking for ways to include smaller tax increases than Democrats had previously sought but more than Republicans want. In addition, Democrats last week proposed keeping upper-income tax rates at 35%, the level set in the Bush-era tax cuts.    And it’s absurd at the [...]

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   Paul Krugman wasn’t actually writing directly to the Catfood Commission II (speaking for myself, I decline to use a superlative being used by many to describe the Congressional fool’s gathering because the superlative implies higher quality). But, his message, looking at the debacle in Europe, is very clear: austerity is a loser.    In [...]

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    May I introduce to you my hero for the day: Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court in Manhattan. Yesterday, Rakoff said what we all know: the government, our government, is not serious about holding people accountable for the robbery and greed and incompetence that led to the financial collapse, costing millions of [...]

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    Yesterday, I wrote about the monumentally crazy letter co-signed by 60 House DEMOCRATS, who, by adding their names to the letter, in my view, were embracing austerity, cuts in Medicare and a de-funding of basic government services. One of the signers of the letter, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), responded to my post. So, in [...]

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   In today’s installment of stupidity, crass political calculations and the desperate need to be inducted into the Washington Post’s circle of Very Serious People, I present to you a list of 60 House Democrats who now say they are willing to lock arms with the people who seek to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security [...]

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   Well, we didn’t really have to wait for the Congressional Budget Office to tell us this: the rich got richer. But, the timing is good, what with Rick Perry trying his snake oil salesman pitch for a flat tax, which would make the robbery grow, and the continued growth of the Occupy The Country [...]

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   You can smell the fear and the alarms going off–not by reading The Nation (snore…kick me when it has something new to say) or The New York Times, whose "economic" reporters, with one or two exceptions, are astonishingly dumb. For some real insights, look to the Financial Times and The Economist. And the message [...]

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   In one important respect, the poodle-for-the-rich governor of New York brings to mind another bullying, immoral politician, George W. Bush. Back when one of the most corrupt and dangerous Administrations in our nation’s history had sky-high approval ratings, thanks to igniting a gusher of misguided and illegal revenge and retribution in the wake of [...]

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