Demand demand

We demand more demand!

And an economic policy that goes with it.

P.S.  It's the opposite of 'supplyside' baloney, and it's based on the crazy idea that when workers make money, we spend it; when our wealthy overlords make money, they hoard it or play the stock market with it.  Duh!

Texas secedes again

Fifth time's a charm?

In 1822 a bunch of white Americans from the Southeast, proto-Texans, left the US and crossed the Mississippi River and essentially re-introduced the institution of slavery into northern Mexico. In 1829 Mexico outlawed slavery, but gave the white slavers in the state of Coahuila y Tejas special dispensation until 1830. (The abolition movement was growing around the world, and slavery was abolished in the French Revolution - although Napoleon brought it back briefly - was outlawed in the British Empire in 1833, and so on.) Against this worldwide trend, early Texans seceded from Mexico in the so-called "Texas Revolution" (more accurately a Reaction) in 1835-6. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Sam Houston are still revered in the US as heroes of that war for slavery.

The American ex-pats of the Texan Republic soon joined the US - no shocker there - but a generation later left the US again in 1861. It was over slavery again (which wasn't strictly under threat in the US at the time, but slave states felt challenged by the election of Abe Lincoln, a moderate in that he opposed expansion of slavery - the slavers' bluff had been called, essentially).

After the war, black and Latino Texans faced regular atrocities from the Ku Klux Klan and the revered Texas Rangers (not much like the Lone Ranger), as well as Jim Crow laws and so on. In 1954 when Brown v. Board of Education banned racial segregation in public schools, the governor called out the Rangers to impede black students. Racist resistance continued through the 1970s - a kind of running secession from the trend toward civil rights and equality that was sweeping the world. "White flight" from cities in Texas - as elsewhere - represents one facet of this subtler, but no less racist neo-secession.

There's a connection here to anti-immigration movements, like the Minute Men (a kind of continuum between US Border Patrol and American Nazis - but that's for another time.

Now yesterday, with the recession growing and the threat of federal "expansion" of officially-defined unemployed (most people who aren't working don't count, rather conveniently) Texas governor Rick Perry turned down $555 million to bailout the state's sinking unemployment fund - which the state's own Workforce Commission chair says could be in the red in seven months.

"During these tough times," he says, "Texas employers are working harder than ever..." blah, blah, blah (my emphasis). What about Texas workers, being canned by the hundreds of thousands every week?

Perry's not alone, of course, which is what suggests there's a new wave of genuine neo-secessionism in the birthing here.

Diversify or die

In today’s news there’s another stark reminder of the need for a Social Monetary Fund, which would push the economy in general and bailout recipients in particular toward a new, social kind of diversification. The worse the economy gets, the more people hold onto their old cars, and the more people hold onto their old cars, the more we need to convert some of that capital that’s frozen up now in making cars that people aren’t buying into some more useful purpose (more useful to us chickens, that is).

I heard someone on the radio the other day mention Zipcars, and the speaker raised the following I think very timely question: Will the business of Ford, Toyota, whoever, be selling more cars to people [whether they need them or not – ed.] or will it be providing the means for people to get from one place to another?

But the stimulus money being released now, though it may have been necessary to get the ball rolling in the very shortest of runs, is not what we’re looking for. Building more roads and bridges, willy-nilly, is ultimately self-defeating. It’s not “sustainable” (as we say these days), laying more pavement and concrete we can’t afford to maintain for cars people are driving less and less to jobs they are losing more and more.

How much money do we have to spend to create every 60 jobs? That’s a drop in the unemployment bucket – especially since the workers who need these jobs the most aren’t getting them.

Clearly there are some profound needs that are being addressed by the stimulus discussion. But there are also colossal needs being missed, some that have been metastasizing for more than a generation, screwing up the federal poverty numbers, etc. The point is, there is a much better way.

Say it ain't so, Barack!

Obama's gang is telling us today (anonymously - how slick) that the new Prez might delay tax cuts to the rich ... because (incredibly) of the economic "downturn" (AP, 11-23-08).

WRONG! The "downturn" - economists sometimes call it a "correction" (or a "major correction") - is the best reason that's come along in a long time to increase taxes on the rich. In the immortal words of the esteemed Senator from Vermont: "Let the rich bail out the rich!"

Sanders's 10% on incomes over a million ($500,00 for individuals) won't be enough, but he's on the right track.

It is true, I have to admit, that income tax is not the best way to do it, not even a progressive income tax, which we barely still have. (The Bushies lowered the top bracket from 39% to 35% - a long drop from the 77% I recall from my pre-Reagan youth, as if in a dream.) A wealth tax would be better, according to the really smart people. In other words, we ought to tax what we don't want, not what we do. That is, we want production, not speculation, etc.

But in the short run, income tax is what we've got. Somebody has to pay, not just for the bailouts, but for all this stimulus ... and those of who are losing income, prospects, and so on, should not be the ones, nor should our children.

My point? Obama's apparently feeling a lot of pressure from the Dark Side - let's give him some from our side!