Monday Musings: March 7. 2011

It’s been an oddly nice weekend - quieter and more relaxing than usual. That always seems to happen when you’ve made big plans to go somewhere, things fall through and you end up making the best of it. Maybe we’ll try to do this more often.

Well, it’s been relaxing when I’m not trying to explain how email exists in ‘the cloud’ to Mr. Maven. He battles email - having made it into a huge boogeyman/bane of his existence. It’s the one ‘thing’ with the internet and computers that he can’t get his head wrapped around. I alternate between trying to keep my own head from exploding - “why do you even care how many emails exist on Yahoo’s servers?” - to forcing myself to sit down and once more explain that Outlook isn’t Yahoo and neither is his iPhone. I think …. I hope I’ve got it through that to affect what shows up in Outlook or the iphone has to be ultimately managed from the Yahoo source. Maybe.

But if you hear a scream of anguish from my direction, you’ll know why. I know that, at 79-years-old, it’s remarkable that my husband (who successfully flew jet airplanes for a living!) even gets on the internet at all, not to mention be the undisputed king of keeping our finances and investments in fine tune on Quicken. This irrational email boogeyman was one reason I was hesitant to encourage him to get an iPhone. Yet, he took to that like a duck to water - big toy. He immersed himself in the Dummies book, and now goes around the house all plugged in to the ipod playlists that I loaded - merrily humming and singing to himself.

Sigh. If somebody else wants to take a crack at explaining it, be my guest.

I want you to read the essay by Michael Moore on the Impurely Maven page. Seriously, this expresses everything that has been running through my head for months now.

Moore is spot on right.

America IS NOT BROKE.

America HAS PLENTY OF MONEY.

Unfortunately, we are short of cash right now. Why? Moore explains:

“Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.”

That’s right. Every credible economist that I’ve been reading for the last two years has been saying essentially the same thing - in more academic, high faluting terms, perhaps. Which may explain why so many haven’t been listening. Robert Reich has said it. Simon Johnson has said it. Paul Krugman has said it. Joseph Stieglitz has said it.

Now if we could just get the message where the average American will see it and get it - like during the Super Bowl halftime show, or a NASCAR race, or as a question on Millionaire … sigh.

These 400 uber-wealthy folks are probably laughing over some very pricey wine tonight. It’s got to be hysterically funny to watch the theatrics of Americans tearing themselves apart, tripping each other to grab pennies out of the gutter to pay the bills of state and society … when if we still had OUR SHARE of that enormous wealth, we’d be having a much different national conversation. Like which expensive university to send the kids to.

The bad people stole our national wealth, and then - brilliantly! - got us blaming each other for wanting a freaking paycheck, health care and a retirement that we forgot to form a posse and go lynch them!

How stupid is that? Not quite as stupid as it is to keep on fighting each other and letting the 400 bandits get away with it completely - as the once richest country in the world descends into madness.

As airline people, what Moore says about the modern day airline pilot - hoping for a few hours more sleep before he flys a trip, having slept in the car in the employee lot to save money, resonates with us. Capt. Ryan talks to pilots when we travel, and he always comes back shaking his head, saying that he and his fellows had the best of it, that the industry bears zip - zero - resemblance to his heyday in the skies.

We saw it happening years ago. The First Class section seemed to empty of what we used to think of as First Class Passengers. Movie stars. Famous writers. The wealthy. The movers and shakers. Champagne flights. Oh, the Mexico City and Honolulu ‘service’ was extraordinary. The “Only Way to Fly”.

That was back in the day, when tax rates were still high and there was a booming middle class.

Hmmmm. Where did they go? To corporate jets. No security line nonsense. No stale peanuts. Waited on hand and foot. First Class became where the ‘non-rev’s’ (pass riders) sat. Then it became where the regular passengers - those with upgrades sat.

Airlines are now the Greyhound of the skies. Carry on lunches from the airport fast food joint, and the ubiquitous water bottles.

And those that can’t afford an airline ticket today. Here’s where they are:

What’s that? 25% of today’s children are being raised in poverty? The largest number since the Great Depression? Yeah, and these are the people that stole the American dream with their demands for a living wage.

Wrong. Don’t you wish that the Tea Party Islamophobes in Orange County could quit raging against Americans who wear headscarves, and rage at the real problems? Like homeless kids?

I can’t listen to more of this ‘can’t afford to do this or that because of deficits’ - either in Washington or Nevada. It’s a false argument. A Red Herring argument, intended to divert our attention away from who stole our loot - the national wealth. It’s sound and fury signifying nothing but lies.

It’s the Big Lie. That America is Broke. We’re not.

Stop those two damn wars - and if we are going to send troops somewhere, send them to Libya or Haiti where they can actually do something right and good. Mexico might be a better place to exercise some military might against the drug cartels.

Take back the billions the military-industrial complex has stolen.

Impose an Estate Tax on estates valued over $1million dollars - before the donations to foundations and other gimmicks.

Apply a progressive income tax, with tax rates at what they were 30, 40 or 50 years ago.

Impose higher corporate income tax rates, and no ‘off-shore’ exceptions. Pay it or go do all your business in Bum-Fuck Where Ever.

The proceeds that go to hedge fund managers? Tax that just like ordinary income.

Enact draconian campaign finance reform. Legitimate candidates get their money from the Department of the Treasury. Take a nickel from somewhere else and you’re done. Get elected cleanly, without shadowy AstroTurf groups and you can exercise all the Free Speech for the People you want.

Then spend like crazy for education. Send every kid to college or advanced technical school - for FREE - and watch our economy grow.

Like Moore says, there are more of us than there are the 400 with all of our money. It’s time we all stood up and called a spade a spade, and insisted that we get our country back. It’s time to quit letting talking heads on 24 hour news cycles divert our attention from what is truly amiss.

We’re not broke. We’ve been robbed by the uber-wealthy.

-maven