Friday Fish Wrap: September 17, 2010

I feel like autumn is here already, and I feel energized. So energized that I was able to do battle with the AT&T mothership and win. I got an email the other day from Ma Bell telling me that I was two months in arrears on paying my monthly tab. This isn’t small change we’re talking about here, since I’m doing the Uverse bundled billing. It was one of those amounts guaranteed to make most of us actually wonder what instant heart failure might feel like. I was even more confused since I’d set up a no-fail auto-payment thingee several months ago. But let’s face it, stuff happens.

So I sort of went into crisis mode and paid it online. Whew! Tragedy narrowly averted!

Oh, not so fast. When I caught my breath, I started doing a little digging and found that it had indeed been paid. I wasn’t in arrears. So what gives? It turns out that AT&T needs some help with programming their computer to understand holidays happen. The email was in error and “gee, but they were so darned sorry that I’d been upset and inconvenienced!”

“So send my money back.” This is where things got ugly.

They apologized and promised all manner of prompt action, but it didn’t happen, and my bank account was looking sort of sad. After about three more calls to the mothership - having to start from scratch each time explaining the purpose of the call - I was getting pretty frayed and angry. It went from bad to worse after they started blaming my credit union for the foul up, suggesting that the credit union hadn’t actually sent them the money - while I sat there with a faxed disbursal memo in hand proving they had.

Long story short, it pays to say “escalate my call to your supervisor, please.” And keep saying it until you get action. Finally, they promised to have my money back in the account in seven to ten working days. It actually only took two. Ha!

What’s really guaranteed to grind my grits is that AT&T operates in so many differing departments - wireless, land-line and Uverse. You have to go through all of them in order to get anything done since you essentially have all those things. There is no direct line to the mothership.

So each time I called, I had to explain to wireless that it was a Uverse issue, then be transferred to land-line where I could tell them the same thing and wait and wait and wait until Uverse came back to this universe.

Yes, it bites. This is what deregulation - which was supposed to solve all this - has gotten us.

Talking about deregulation, did you see that United and Continental Airlines are becoming wed? Now they, not Delta, will be the biggest player on the block. Wait, wasn’t deregulation supposed to prevent that sort of industry consolidation? Kiss your low fares goodbye as we inch ever closer to a huge oligopoly - which was the real goal all along.

Did you know that the ranks of millionaires and the just plain ‘affluent’ are rising? Yup. There are more people joining the ranks of those in poverty, too.

What’s up with that? It’s simple. The millionaires and richer, saw their investments take a serious ‘dip’ in value at the bottom of this current recession. Yes, there was a bottom. And now those same investments are coming back rather well. The poor, having no investments to speak of, well …. didn’t see them tank or come back.

There are currently about 25 million folks that are considered ‘affluent’ - meaning that they have at least $250k of investable assets at their beck and call. There are 5.5 million millionaires and 182,000 deca-millionaires … those worth $10 million and over. Then there are the really rich.

It’s these folks that the GOP is so durn’ed worried about. Gosh, they need a giant tax break or they won’t play anymore. And to get those tax breaks going where they are so desperately needed - to make a payment on the Gulfstream 5 - they are willing to hold legitimate tax breaks for the merely middle-class hostage.

Isn’t that nice?

Here’s the bottom line. If the Bush tax cuts to the upper 2% of ‘earners’ (hard to think of hedge fund managers and trust fund babies as ‘earners’ isn’t it?) are extended that will add $700 billion to the deficit. But wait! The GOP is the party most deficit adverse, right? Then why would they do that?

It’s a game of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. Its sad but true that this sort of brinksmanship - rather like 1995 when the GOP closed down the federal government - is what Americans are really mad about. It’s also the poster child for why we need campaign finance reform. This goes on between politicians of both parties, but the GOP has taken it to new heights - right along with the radicalization of the party.

Here’s another way to look at this - from the 2%’s point of view. If you can decimate the middle class economically, you effectively silence them. The poor don’t have the voting record and activist energy of a strong, well-educated, well-fed middle-class with a roof over their heads and a bit of money in the bank. This is about having a voice in democracy. Take a look around at the Third World where it’s a rich minority and everybody else. You don’t see much free speech or democracy there, do you?

I wouldn’t worry so much about this, if I thought the Democrats could really hang tough on this one, but the DINO’s (Democrats in Name Only - or Dixie-crats as we used to call ‘em in the South) could help derail party efforts. But hang tough they should. And spare me the tripe about ‘let’s quit blaming George W. Bush’. It’s probably going to take Obama’s four years and more to clean up the mess that ‘Dubya’ left us, so it’s still entirely fair to keep reminding everybody just who spearheaded this calamity.

Here’s what Paul Krugman says about it:

” … But there are reasons beyond partisan maneuvering to reject any deal here.

First, temporary tax breaks for the rich are stunningly bad economic policy. As I tried to explain, basic economic theory — Milton Friedman’s theory! — tells us that affluent taxpayers are likely to save the great bulk of a transitory tax break. And bear in mind that while a 2-year extension wouldn’t increase debt as much as a permanent extension, it would still be much more expensive than measures like aid to the unemployed and to small businesses that would do far more for the economy, yet spent months held up in Congress because of alleged concerns about the deficit.

Second, this is obviously — obviously — a setup. The whole point is to avoid a vote on the middle-class tax cuts while Democrats control the House; when and if Republicans regain control, they can refuse to let anything but a full extension reach the floor. So the goal is actually permanent extension; what they’re offering isn’t a compromise, it’s a trap.

So just say no.”

It’s time to stop allowing the GOP to frame themselves as the responsible keepers of the nation’s checkbook - their imprudent spending is well documented - or paragons of national virtue. They are spectacularly bad at both.

Somehow my attention got re-directed to Nevada’s flagging economy and frantic attempts to cut everything to the bone rather than - gasp of horror! - raise taxes. I got looking at a paper by a couple of economists from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorites on this very subject back in 2001.

The title is BUDGET CUTS VS. TAX INCREASES AT THE STATE LEVEL: IS ONE MORE COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE THAN THE OTHER DURING A RECESSION?  Authors: Joseph Stiglitz and Peter Orszag  I strongly suggest that policy makers in Nevada take a look at it, as it’s remarkable prescient (especially see page 2).

“The conclusion is that, if anything, tax increases on higher-income families are the least damaging mechanism for closing state fiscal deficits in the short run. Reductions in government spending on goods and services, or reductions in transfer payments to lower-income families, are likely to be more damaging to the economy in the short run than tax increases focused on higher-income families. In any case, in terms of how counter-productive they are, there is no automatic preference for spending reductions rather than tax increases.

It is worth emphasizing that any state spending reductions or tax increases are counterproductive at this time: they restrain the economy at a time when it is already slowing. Given the existence of balanced budget rules at the state level, some form of federal fiscal relief to states is therefore warranted.8”

In other words, you have to spend your way out of a recession - on a state level or a national level and yes,  that may result in some short term deficit spending. So what? When the ship is taking on water, the short term is all you have.

It’s also worth noting - given that Nevada is constitutionally bound to have a balanced budget, and that Tea Party candidates are also wont to call for this sort of misguided notion - that balanced budget amendments are generally greeted with derision by economists for a reason. They’re stupid and destructive. Keynesian economists like Paul Krugman have blamed them for worsening and extending the current recession.

Well, Ladybird Kat is demanding - and I do mean ‘demanding’ - that I do the head bump and give her some ‘kitty kandy’ - AKA that yummy hairball stuff in a tube. And it’s hard to type with her tail continually falling across the ljlauiroiuje..olue4$23l.;;; keyboard.

So, have a good weekend. I’ll be nipping down to Houston next week, but I’ll see you on the flip side.

Cheers.

-maven

P.S. - I would be remiss if I didn’t point you toward reading Desert Beacon today. It’s another one of those stunningly well executed, scholarly posts taking Angle’s nuttiness apart line by embarassing line. Don’t miss it.