Up with Chris Hayes 3/24/2013 -- The problem is government, stupid

This is Chris Hayes' last Up show. Steve Kornaki will take Hayes' place, while Hayes moves to the 8pm time slot replacing Ed Schultz. Kornaki is a Hayes look alike, smart as a whip and personable, so no one will really notice the change unless they're paying close attention. However, the five people who watch Ed Schultz will realize halfway through the show that Chris Hayes is someone else. The five Schultz viewers will not understand anything Hayes says, so Hayes will have to rely on Uppers going to the new time slot, which should be a benefit for all since Uppers aren't really morning people.

This morning's show's first segment was about NY politics, and I started to look for a Scooby-Doo rerun, but decided to see how they'd talk about NY's problem with vanishing middle-class workers. They said a lot of stuff that statist government officials say. NY government need to tax the rich, then do something else to the rich, then make the rich, new companies pay their fair share, then do something else to the rich, and so forth. Taxes have surpassed 50% for the "rich", and this includes middle class businesses. Hayes said there's some questionable research showing that higher taxes don't run off the "billionaires". Nothing runs off billionaires, but, it seems to me, that if NY is experiencing a flight of middle class workers, this might be because government interventions, costly rules and regulations, high taxes and a generally unfriendly business environment are all running off middle class businesses and preventing start-ups. They touched on this, but then didn't correct what they said earlier about taxes -- no, taxes might not run off billionaires, but they run off the real engine of economic growth -- small businesses.

I can't believe that Hayes didn't see this clearly and lead the conversation to how the NY government officials should stop intervening, taxing and regulating businesses. Increasing the minimum wage to $10 dollars or so isn't the answer, geniuses. The problem is NY government.

The next panel was about LGBT rights and the upcoming Supreme Court hearing on DOMA, Defense of Marriage Act. Yes, DOMA is unConstitutional. The different conversations from LGBT activists led me to believe that striking down DOMA is a small victory -- they want much more. As I listened to them, I got the distinct impression that these leaders of the movement have a lot to lose if solutions come too fast. When Hayes mentioned that the young conservatives he speaks to have no problem with same sex marriage, the LGBT activists rejected this possibility, saying that the Right will always be their opponents.

In a libertarian society, government would have no say-so regarding marriage, and all contractual relationships would be protected by law, so all couples and partnership arrangments could make their own rules and regulations regarding their private relationships by simply writing them out and agreeing to abide by them. I imagine this libertarian society would have strong, enforcable laws against any coercion in the private sector against LGBT individuals, not because they are part of the LGBT community, but because they are part of the American community under our Constitution which protects their rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

I have a feeling, though, that this libertarian society still wouldn't satisfy some leaders of the LGBT movement, or some leaders of practically all special interest movements. These people make their living and receive their identity from being victims and having powerful opponents to demonize. I'm sure not all the leaders of the special interest movements are like this, maybe just a handful, but I've seen enough to know that there are some who would never be satisfied -- they don't want equal opportunity and fair play -- they want advantages and for others to be punished. So, to distinguish themselves from the unhealthy charlatans, I would recommend to the LGBT leaders on UP this morning to start showing more hope for change and acknowledgement of libertarian principles to be applied widely.

The imploding political class

This manufactured outrage in media over what Romney said yesterday about the very poor, middle class and rich is a patheitc display of deceit. I don't know whether it's Orwellian or McCarthyian, but it reveals a class of wimps and manipulators. Everyone knows what Romney meant, yet we're having this big discussion over how awful it is to not care about the very poor. Give me a frigging break. Romney helped the poor as a missionary -- who else has devoted that much time to poor people? The political class is full of crap, to put it nicely.

Americans who understand how the economy works also understand that the poor will be eating mudpies if we don't stop the statist madness which has brought the economy to a standstill, and has run up so much debt we're following Greece to collapse. Romney was saying that we need to focus on economic means which create economic growth which create jobs which create the funds to keep the welfare state afloat -- if you want a welfare state to help the poor, then stop acting like an overly sensitive wimp and demand that government stop the interventions which are making economic growth impossible.

Morning Joe 2/1/2012 -- Scarborough promotes heroin use

I couldn't watch but an hour and a half of Morning Joe today. I knew they were going to run with the Romney "gaffe". So, over and over they expressed their amazement at Romney's insensitivity and tone-deaf-ness. They also brought on the usual suspects from the Left to pile on, and they even showed examples of those on the Right who are critizing Romney's propensity for gaffes.

Let me say that I understood exactly what Romney said and I didn't have to do any intellectual gymnastics to understand. The very poor in America have a safety net, and they always will have a safety net unless our statist system collapses totally and we can't recover. Whether the safety net is in the private sector or government, Americans will help the very poor, and as Romney said, if we find holes, we fix them, or try to. The very poor are a fact of life and they've always been in existent -- less so today than in past times. Now, though, we have people in the middle class falling into poverty. The rich are doing fine. It's what's been considered the middle class that's the problem, because progressive/statist policies have killed jobs and caused a stagnant economy. Romney wants to concentrate on the economic means to recovery, and if we concentrate on economic means, many who are in poverty now, who are in poverty because of government policies harming the economy, can escape poverty and return to the middle class or enter the middle class for the first time. There was no need for Romney, in this short interview, to go into all that -- I understood exactly what he was saying. The problem is that there are media/political types who follow Romney's every words and purposefully twist anything they can find to twist.

Romney doesn't need to be handled more, polished more, dulled more, politicized more -- no, we, the American people, need to reject political games and condemn the twisting and spinning. I can follow anyone around all day and find something they say to twist and spin, not matter how much political experience and polish they possess.

An example is Joe Scarborough. Joe was in congress and has been around politics for a long time. Joe prides himself on his political knowledge and skills. Some even think he has designs on being a possible pick in a brokered convention, and Joe is certainly hitting the talk show circuit lately. Joe said this morning that he could never let the words "I'm not concerned with the poor" escape his lips regardless of any context. Well, Joe certainly let a lot more than that slip this morning. In response to Mika's reporting on a new study showing the addictive qualities of sugar, Joe talked about moderation and said that heroin is good in moderation. Sure, in context, Joe might have been joking, but it wasn't clear that he was joking to a causal observer. Joe then opened what looked like a sugar packet and made a line on the desk which resembled a line of cocaine. Recently Morning Joe made a commercial of the show in which it shows Joe waking up, after someone using paddles to shock him awake, and then immediately grabbing a bottle of liquor and a cigarette -- then the commercial shows the Morning Joe producer getting Joe away from a circle of people on the street gambling with dice, with a cigarette dangling from Joe's mouth.

This total insensitivity to the problem of addiction in America, and especially among the poor, is revolting. Alcoholism, heroin addiction, crack addiction, nicotine addiction, gambling addiction -- many of these addictions hit the poor the hardest, creating a downward spiral that ends in prison, institutionalization or death -- not to mention an impressionable 15 year old who's already under peer pressure who passed the tv this morning and heard Joe say Heroin is okay in moderation. The context doesn't matter. Or, how about some poor African-American crack addict who is in his second day of recovery trying to stay away from this terribly addictive drug who sees Joe make the line of powdery substance on his desk -- this is what they call a relapse trigger in drug treatment circles, and relapse triggers are powerful -- they can send a person in early recovery into a compulsion to use the drug. Nothing to take lightly, and certainly nothing to glamorize.

What Romney said pales in comparison to what Joe said and did this morning and in the past regarding addictive behavior which hurts the poor more than any other group.

Then, in response to Romney's failed attempts to identify with the poor, Joe talked about his parents growing up in the Great Depression and how in desperation they looked to FDR as a king and savior. Joe approved of FDR's inability to relate to the poor and his arrogant assumption that he, FDR, knew what was best for the poor. Lately, well respected economists have shown how FDR's lack of understanding of economics, his economic experimentation, and his royal-like disconnection from those in the private sector who were struggling to overcome the many government interventions, caused the Depression to last way longer than it should have lasted. FDR caused the misery of poverty to last day in and day out for years past what was necessary. Joe praised FDR's actions and disconnectedness from average people. The context doesn't matter -- it's what Joe said and implied. How can anyone consider someone this insenstive as a Presidential candidate? Yet, many of the guests on Morning Joe have urged Joe to run. What is wrong with this guy? 

OWS and their apologists

There's been much talk about OWS, with some saying it's a politically impotent movement that lacks focus and defined purpose, and other saying it's a movement outside a corrupt political process attempting to affect a response from without.

From what I've gathered, in spite of the mercurial posturing to avoid definition, the movement is a new form of counter-culture represented by a relative handful of young people separating themselves from the "system". There are older 60's throwbacks and those in the political class on the Left who "relate" to OWS, but the main core is a counterculture group displeased with the way things are.

While OWS apologists rail against outside analyses, nothing prevents observers on the outside forming opinions. As convenient as it would be to insulate the group from critical analysis, it's not the way things work, especially when outsiders can be affected if OWS influences change. This counterculture collective appears to have little desire to work within the system to affect change -- they want the system to respond to their displeasure. OWS has promoted few morally righteous, floating abstractions, , like fairness and equality, disconnected from messy facts in reality and nuance.

My best guess is that this counterculture group wants the system, the State, to respond to their partially formed ideas of fairness and equality, whether this means having access to meaningful, good paying jobs, forgiveness of debt, disempowerment of Wall Street, or a more comprehensive entitlement structure that includes meeting the basic human needs of shelter, food, clothing and income for everyone who's not rich. In order to meet the requests, OWS wants the State to fund the transformation through fair redistribution from the 1% to the figurative 99%, and by making corporations responsive to hiring needs and debt relief.

OWS appears to want a more pure and direct government control over industry, free of cronyism and dedicated to general welfare. In some ways Obama is pandering to these requests from the OWS counterculture movement by calling for fairness and denigrating the free market as an "on your own" losing proposition for the middle class and the poor. OWS requests are purposefully vague because they don't want to short themselves of potential benefits. As long as their displeasure is not sharply defined, the umbrella of fairness and equality can cover many requests for fairness and equality going forward -- the main victory is subjugation of the 1% to the needs and wants of the not-1%. Of course, if OWS gets their way, the golden goose will sicken and die, and then there will be a shared decline and lowered standard of living for all. In the long run (not that long though), there will be financial collapse, but in the long run we're all dead, right?

Morning Joe 9/14/2011 -- Populism?

On Morning Joe today, the show started with Mark Halperin and John Heilemannn discussing the President's job plan and the Republican candidates, plus the new report on poverty.

The interesting conservation centered around populism as it relates to the increase in poverty and lack of increase in worker pay while corporations are making record profits. There are at least two ways to look at this class divide. The Morning Joe crew discussed the viewpoint which posits large companies as generally responsible for the disparity in wealth. From my perspective the real problem is an interventionist government which has created a system which diverts the energy of corporations, or any company with the wherewithal to play the game, to the game of political advantage. In other words, companies, in order to compete, have to lobby government for favors, and the companies most favored who can give politicians the best support to stay in power win this political game.

This Merchant State political game is anti-economic, so it's no wonder the economy suffers from such a game. Solyndra is a recent, prime example of the political game between companies and government, and how capital is misdirected and the economy suffers. Both parties, if they want to show bipartisan harmony, ought to end all government welfare and separate government from the economy, but the game is too lucrative. We'll have to send enough representatives to DC to end the game -- this want be easy.

The current populist, political strategy of pitting wealthy producers against the middle class and poor and framing government as knights in shining armor fighting for the little guy is bogus -- more and more, the public is not falling for this myth -- thus the polls showing government about as popular as Michael Moore at a Tea Party rally.