Update on Previous Commentary of Politidose

This will update Part III of "The U.S. Economy, What Party Performs Best" published on February 25, 2008.

 

The budget deficit is in for fiscal year ending 9/30/08 concerning Bush's second to last budget.  The deficit came in at $454.8 billion.  Another record for Mr. Bush and it does not even contain any of the $700 billion bail out package Mr. Bush urged congress to pass.  That will come in Mr. Bush's final budget ending fiscal 9/30/09.  The 2008 budget deficit is just another reminder of the damages caused and created by republican policies.  Mr. Bush's administration has the distinction of having the four worst budget deficits in U.S. history and still has one more budget to go.

 

The damages caused by Bush's reckless spending and debt is compounded by the loss of the projected $5.6 trillion surplus projected by the Clinton administration that Bush used to justify his tax reductions that benefited the wealthy the most.  One can understand why the economy has failed and so many jobs have been lost under Mr. Bush's administration.  Conservative republicans?  Their record proves otherwise. 

Another First For Politidose

Current economic conditions has prompted journalists in the news media and our elected officials in congress to finally speak out against Corporate America's greed that has been rewarding CEO's and executives lavish bonuses and other financial benefits while their companies are loosing billions of dollars and their workers loosing their jobs and benefits.  However, they have been silent for far too long.  Make no mistake this transfer of wealth goes back to the Reagan years.

 

The problem was pointed out in politidose in two articles dated November 23, 2007 titled, "Corporate America, Leaving The Average Worker in The Dust:"  And one reported on July 23, 2008, titled, "Innovation, Lost In America."  This was long before the people found out about the meltdown on wall street and the financial markets.  The media and the republicans have also been silent during the same time concerning the massive deficits and debt created by Ronald Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 during the 20 years they served and ran the country.

 

Journalists and republicans now want to talk about future deficits after the damage has already been done.  Their lack of credibility on the subject speaks for itself.  Both will also forget about Corporate greed in the next few months and will continue to support Corporate greed and the transfer of wealth as legitimate business decisions in a free enterprise system.  That has always been their position in the past.

 

Also look for journalists and republicans to use the current economic situation to open the door for the elimination of Social Security and Medicare.  That is one of the main reasons why the last 3 republican Presidents created so much debt for the country.

Republican Lies And Ditto Heads

For the past eight years our people have been exposed to the lies of President Bush, Dick Chaney and the republicans.  They adopted the philosophy of Karl Rove that if you keep repeating the same lies over and over the people will start to believe they are fact.  President Obama's stimulus proposal before congress is bringing our the same Karl Rove philosophy from some republicans.

 

As reported from the Washington Bureau published in the New Orleans Times Picayune dated February 6, republican Senator David Vitter said this.  "The extra spending (concerning the stimulus) will put the country on a spiral of deficit spending for many years to come."  Fact:  Mr. Vitter forgot to remind the public that the last three republican Presidents have already put our country on a 20 year spiral of deficit spending and debt.

 

Mr.Vitter also said, "I don't know anyone, democratic or republican who wouldn't trade the current economy for the job growth that the Bush, Reagan and Kennedy tax cuts produced."  Fact:  The current economy is the Bush economy that has lost over 3 million jobs in the last 13 months and has produced the lowest job growth since the Eisenhower administration that ended 47 years ago.  President Carter who only served 4 years had a better job growth rate than Bush who served 8 years.  Fact: President Kennedy's tax cut did not favor the wealthy and the Kennedy-Johnson administration produced the only balanced budget besides President Clinton in the past 40 plus years.  The job growth under Reagan does not even come close to Clinton's job growth and of course Reagan never balanced one federal budget in his 8 years in office.  Republicans don't even know the meaning of the word "surplus."

 

Now lets look at what republican Steve Scalise had to say in reply to President Obama's statement that past republican tax cuts have failed and helped to give us the present economic meltdown.  "History shows us that tax cuts have proven to grow the economy and increase revenues to the federal government while also creating jobs.  The problem has been that both republican and democrat have spent even more money thanthe tax cuts brought in."  Fact: History has shown just the opposite.  Republican tax cuts that favor the wealthy and known as trickle down economics have never produced a sustained economy, sustained job creation, low unemployment or a balanced budget.  The unemployment rate is now at 7.6%.  When George Bush took office it was 4.2% thanks to the Clinton administrations fiscal and economic policies.  Fact:  In the past 28 years only republican administrations spent more money that tax cuts brought in.  President Clinton's fiscal and economic policy and selected tax cuts gave the country the greatest economy, created a record number of new jobs and created surpluses.  No republican administration can match that.

 

It is obvious why Mr. Vitter and Mr. Scalise never mentioned the Clinton administration.  It would only remind the people of how well they did during those 8 years and that republicans have no record to run on. Karl Rove's philosophy is still playing out in the name of Vitter and Scalise.

 

Note:  The U.S. Labor Department reported that for the year 2008 the economy lost a net of 2.9 million jobs.  The highest job losses in a single year in the history of our country.  That is Bush and the republican record of what trickle down economics has produced.  Vitter and Scalise do not know the meaning of truth or facts.  Trickle down economics is a myth of those republicans who feel so inadequate they can not tell the facts.

A Conversation With Corporate America

More and more details are coming out each day how CEO's and executives of Corporate America have been fleecing their own companies and their average worker with lavish bonuses for themselves taking billions of dollars.  CNN's Headline News reported that CEO's and executives of wall street, financial firms and other businesses received almost $100 billion in bonuses in 2008.  Yea you read right, that's billions.

 

I reported earlier how Merrill Lynch gave its CEO's and executives approximately $4 billion in bonuses one month early because of the Bank of America buy out.  It matters not that Merrill Lynch was losing billions of dollars at the same time.

 

One can imagine the conversation coming out of Corporate America's board rooms between their CEO's and executives.  I think it went some thing like this.

              Our company is losing billions of dollars and will be reporting that in our financial statements soon.

              We need to reduce our work force, cut salary, cut back working hours, reduce our compensation or

              eliminate our contribution to our workers IRA and 401 plans, reduce insurance benefits and warn

              our employees there will be more cuts to come.  Mean while we will reward our CEO's and

              executives with bonuses, stock options and other benefits despite these difficult times.

 

I believe this type of conversation has taken place in many board rooms in Corporate America and I believe the facts as they are unfolding and being made know every day prove the existence of this type of conversation. 

 

We have a recession that started in December 2007, over 2.6 million jobs have been lost just in the last 12 months and more are announced every day.  Workers pay have been cut and benefits reduced or eliminated, home foreclosures at an all time high and the list goes on and on.  The transfer of wealth from the average worker to Corporate America has been complete.  Greed is the corrupting influence and the people responsible for this transfer of wealth need to be dealt with.  They do not deserve any respect and have no place in the board rooms of Corporate America.

Living With The Cycle Of Time

Most everyone has heard the expression, "things seem to happen in cycles."  That expression is usually used when several events happen in a short period of time.  The truth is we do live in a cycle of time and everything we do is related to that cycle.

 

We count time because of the movement of earth and the moon.  Planet earth takes 365 days to make one complete orbit of the sun.  That cycle of time we count as a year on earth and we also celebrate birthdays on that cycle of time.  At the same time earth is orbiting the sun it is rotating on its axis and takes 24 hours to make one complete revolution.  That 24 hour rotation is the cycle of time we call a day.  The day is divided into twelve double hours that we designate day and night.

 

Our calendar is based on these cycles of time and is a solar calendar.  The Muslim calendar is based on the movement of the moon and is called a lunar calendar.  Earthly time began on earth in 3760 b.c. and the Jewish people still use that calendar today.  The Jewish calendar reads the year 5769 instead of the western world calendar of 2009.

 

The cycle of time fits a mathematical scheme.  The cycle of 60 seconds equals one minute and the cycle of 60 minutes equals one hour.  What do the numbers 12, 24 and 60 have in common?  They can all be divided into 360 evenly, the number of degrees in a circle.  The number 12 has always been considered a sacred number.  There were 12 Apostles, twelve tribes of Israel and 12 houses of the zodiac.

 

Our ancient ancestors built temples that were oriented to earth's movement to tell time and to celebrate various events.  Our nation celebrates Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.  That is Easters cycle of time.

 

Everything we do in life is related to our way of counting time.  A change in the cycle of time as we know it would result in a disruption of our hours, days, weeks, months, years, night and day, our four seasons and just about everything we touch. 

 

For those who worry about their age factor keep this in mind.  Since we use the cycle of 365 earth days to count one year on our planet, a person who is 75 on earth would be only 6 years of age if he lived on Jupiter because it takes Jupiter approximately 12 earth orbits around the sun to complete one year on Jupiter.  So age is related to the cycle of time of the planet one lives on.  This should give people another perspective how to look at ones age.

 

The average person does not give it much thought but our cycle of time keeping is very orderly and fits in with our place in the universe.