Social Justice Now: James K. Galbraith- 'Inequality and Instability: What's Ahead For The World Economy'

Source:Social Justice Now- Texas LBJ School Professor James K. Gabbraith.

"James K. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a professorship in government at The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Galbraith was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress in the early 1980s. He chaired the board of Economists for Peace and Security (1996–2016) and directs the University of Texas Inequality Project. He is a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics." 

From the Texas LBJ School 

"Economist James K. Galbraith (Texas LBJ School) one of the country's leading analysts of the financial crisis, speaks on the link between the growing inequality and economic instability. Galbraith, a professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, will focus on the argument in his new book, Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just before the Great Crisis... 

From Social Justice Now

I really don't like the term income inequality because that simply doesn't exist in an economy where the amount of money and ability for people to be successful in life, depends on how much you know and how qualified you are to work and then what you do with the skills that you have. In other words: how productive you are in the economy that you operate in. Which is the case in all capitalist economic systems, whether it's in America, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, wherever it is in the developed world. 

People with good educations who apply those skills well are simply going to do better economically than people who don't, it's that simple. So income inequality simply doesn't exist. I'm sure there are people who believe it does which is what the so-called Progressive Social Justice movement (Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists, in actuality) is about. But the fact is that income inequality simply doesn't exist anywhere in the developed world.

A problem that the United States has as it relates to the rest of the developed world is not income inequality, but the fact that are economic scale is kinda tilted towards the bottom. That is we have roughly 1-5 Americans who live in poverty or collect some type of public assistance. That they have to have in order to pay their bills and then we have about ten percent of the country whose doing very well economically. 

And then roughly seventy percent of the country thats doing well but not great, good education, owns a home or paying off a mortgage, cars, some money in the bank, but then a certain percentage of that seventy percent (perhaps 1-5 out) of those people who aren't officially poor, but perhaps a paycheck away of living on public assistance or being in poverty themselves. Who have the skills to get them to the point that they are now, but not enough skills to advance beyond that.

The solution to this economic problem that America has is not tell the wealthy that they are doing too well. So that government is going to take a chunk of your wealth to take care of the people who aren't doing very well indefinitely. But the solution is to create more wealth and have a better economy that benefits more people where poverty and unemployment aren't as high. 

Income equality is simply people getting out of society what they put into it. That might sound unfair or harsh, but it's not. It's simply the cold-hearted truth. So to have more people who are able to contribute a lot of society and then be able to enjoy the benefits of their production, we simply need a better education and job training system to produce a better skilled workforce in this country.

Townhall: Jonah Golberg- 'CPAC Unwise To Snub Chris Christie, Gays'

Source:The Week- Governor Chris Christie (Republican, New Jersey) too big to fit into CPAC. Or maybe there's another reason why he wasn't invited.

"What can you do with a man like Chris Christie?

The answer, according to many with the conservative movement: Throw him overboard. And while we're at it, let's toss the gays over the side too.

The popular governor of New Jersey has certainly angered many conservatives, including this humble scribe. During the crucial final days of the presidential election, Christie didn't merely embrace President Obama, he all but endorsed him." 

From Townhall 

"Seemingly everybody to the right of Jon Huntsman has been invited to speak at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference — including formerly moderate Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R). There's one name, though, that's conspicuously absent on the list of invitees: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). CPAC spokeswoman Laura Rigas says that, officially, the conference "schedule is still being finalized, with several more announcements pending over the next three weeks." But multiple news organizations are reporting that Christie won't make the list." 

From The Week

Its not often that I agree with Jonah Goldberg (to state the obvious) he's a Conservative and I'm a Liberal. But you would think that an organization that calls itself the Conservative Political Action Conference, would want one of the most popular governors in America (who also happens to be a Republican) at their annual meeting. 

Governor Chris Christie (if he doesn't eat himself to death) is also a solid possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016. He's big state governor, in a deeply blue state. If he can win statewide in New Jersey and perhaps win there again in 2013, maybe he can do it again in 2016. Just throwing some thoughts out there. 

You would also think that an organization that proud's itself on being big believers in individual freedom and free choice (like CPAC) wouldn't kick people out of their organization for simply being gay. But we're talking about the modern Republican Party that still believe its 1955 and that gays and homosexuality doesn't exist anymore or is perhaps still locked in the closet. 

I'm a big believer in truth, honesty and reason, and because of those values I believe that for political labels to mean anything in America, people who self-describe to those labels should actually have to own the philosophy of those labels before I take them seriously about their self-description. 

For CPAC to call themselves Conservatives (even though neither Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan could win the Republican Party presidential nomination today) they actually have to be Conservatives. And kicking people out of your organization for simply being gay, even though gay Republicans are about as conservative as Republicans get fiscally, economically, and constitutionally, seems to me to be as anti-conservative that an organization can get. 

When the Republican Party whether it's CPAC or some other so-called conservative group tells minorities, Muslims, gays, women, and immigrants, that they're not welcome at their dance, simply because of who they are physically or who they're attracted too physically and not because of what their political national values are, they're no longer conserving as a political organization, but contracting. 

So maybe CPAC should stand for the Contracted Political Action Committee, or even the Confederate Political Action Committee, since they don't seem to like two of the greatest American values that we have which is pluralism and diversity. 

The Atlantic: Alex Roarty- 'Can This Congress Be Saved?'

Source:The Atlantic- "President Barack Obama is applauded as he gives his State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday Feb. 12, 2013. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)NATIONAL JOURNAL." An inside look at one of the most expensive, inefficient, and overpaid institutions in the world: the United States Congress. But we only have the Americans voters to blame for that.

"Much of America prays Dan Boren is wrong. Parents worried about the threat of gun violence certainly hope he is. So do the roughly 11 million people who immigrated to America illegally and the deficit hawks who demand a grand budget bargain.

These men and women are depending on Washington, Republicans and Democrats, to come together and reach an agreement on the national agenda: gun violence, immigration, and the budget. But Boren, a retired House member from Oklahoma, doubts they'll end up satisfied. It's why he left Capitol Hill last year." 

From The Atlantic

To put it simply: the only way to make the United States Congress work which is still divided between Democrats and Republicans, with Democrats controlling the Senate with a bigger majority in this Congress, with the Republicans controlling the House, but with a smaller majority in this Congress, is going to have to come from the people. And they are finally going to have to not just say they don't like the current leadership and system that they are getting from both parties but actually do something about it. 

And this starts at the state level where the people say they are tired of the gerrymandering from both parties. And want more competitive House elections, so Representatives would actually have to run for reelection and not just win the primary to return to Congress. And that we get back to some type of regular order in Congress.

Info Wars: Larry Elder- 'Democrats: The True Racists'

Source:Info Wars- right-wing radio talk show host Larry Elder, calling Democrats the true racists.

"Democrats, The True Racists - HD" Originally from Info Wars, but I guess this video was deleted when YouTube deleted Alex Jones's and company YouTube channels. 

Larry Elder was apparently referring to the Southern Democrats (the Dixiecrats) who were Neo-Confederates (right-wing Southern Nationalists) the whole time that they were in the Democratic Party, up until the point that they left the Democratic Party in the 1970s and 1980s, in opposition of the Democratic Party now being in favor of civil and constitutional right for all Americans. Not just for Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, rural men, who've been in country ever since their ancestors left Britain in the 1600s or so. 

What the Larry Elder''s of the world never mention (probably intentionally) is that the Dixiecrats of the 1950s and 60s, who overwhelmingly opposed the civil rights legislation of that era, are Far-Right Republicans today. 

Strom Thurmond and many others who were Far-Right Democrats in the 1960s and 60s, late became Far-Right Republicans. Senator Thurmond (for example) left the Democratic Party in 1964, over his opposition to the civil rights legislation of that decade, for the Republican Party and died as a Republican in 2002. And there are many other examples like that. 

Library of Congress: 'Thomas Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum: 2012 National Book Festival'

Source:Library of Congress- New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

"Thomas Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum appear at the 2012 Library of Congress National Book Festival.

Speaker Biography: Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman writes a syndicated column for The New York Times. His book "Hot, Flat and Crowded" was an international best-seller. He has worked for The Times since 1981 and a year later was appointed Beirut bureau chief, six weeks before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. His column on foreign affairs began in 1995. His 2005 book, "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century," was a No. 1 New York Times best-seller and has sold more than 4 million copies. His new book, the best-seller "That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back," was written with Johns Hopkins University professor Michael Mandelbaum.

Speaker Biography: Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter professor and director of the American Foreign Policy program at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He has written 10 books on U.S. foreign policy, and Foreign Policy magazine has called him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers. Mandelbaum is also on the board of directors of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He most recently co-wrote "That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back" with New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman." 

From the Library of Congress

I guess a Patriot or a Nationalist in its best form at least to me is someone who loves their country so much that they don't want to see it fail or do badly. So when things are good, they are the first to praise their country and when things aren't going as well as they should or could be doing. 

A Patriot (let's say) would say: "Look, this is an area where we are lacking and need to make some changes here to make it work as well as we need it to." I believe thats the message of Tom Friedman and Mike Mandelbaum, that they didn't write a book to bash the United States like some Socialist or Jihadist, but they truly love America their country and are seeing a country thats not doing very well right now and want it to do better because they believe it can and has to do better for the sake of the country and for the world. 

I probably don't agree with everything in the Friedman/Mandelbaum plan but at least they have one and are on the right course.

Chicago Tribune: Steve Chapman- 'A Balanced Budget Amendment?'

Source:Chicago Tribune- The U.S. Congress.

"Almost unnoticed in Sen. Marco Rubio's response to the president's State of the Union address was a drastic proposal: amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget every year. Or rather, it would be drastic if it were serious, which it plainly is not.

It's not serious because Republicans are no more determined to balance the budget than Democrats. Mitt Romney's budget blueprint envisioned the elimination of the deficit only in the last year of his second term. And no one really believed it. President Obama is even less ambitious.

If the amendment would actually force them to balance the budget, they wouldn't be interested. If they were truly interested, the amendment wouldn't be necessary. 

Nor is it clear it would work. States generally require their budgets to be balanced. That hasn't stopped Illinois and many others from making pension commitments that are financially unrealistic -- in effect, getting around the rule by spending future dollars instead of current ones.

The amendment is a cheap gimmick: a way of feigning fiscal responsibility while making none of the hard, politically risky decisions needed to bring it about. Everyone, after all, wants a balanced budget. But hardly anyone in Washington wants to make the spending cuts or enact the tax increases needed to achieve it.

From the Chicago Tribune 

"A balanced budget amendment is a constitutional rule requiring that a state cannot spend more than its income. It requires a balance between the projected receipts and expenditures of the government.

Balanced-budget provisions have been added to the constitutions of most U.S. states, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland, among others. The Republican Party has advocated for the introduction of a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Balanced budget amendments are defended with arguments that they reduce deficit spending and constrain politicians in making irresponsible short-term spending decisions when they are in office.[1] Research shows that balanced budget amendments lead to greater fiscal discipline.[2] However, there is substantial agreement among economists that strict balanced budget amendments have harmful economic effects. In times of recession, deficit spending has significant benefits, whereas spending cuts by governments aggravate and lengthen recessions.[3][4][5][6][7][8] To prevent that, most balanced-budget provisions make an exception for times of war, national emergency, or recession, or allow the legislature to suspend the rule by a supermajority vote." 

From Wikipedia 

I could just  rest my case with the piece that Steve Chapman wrote, but I feel it's my duty as a blogger to weigh and explain why he's damn right about this. Actually, I just want to punish my readers with a lot of boring nonsense, so bare with me. LOL

I agree with Steve Chapman that a balanced budget amendment were even to pass and generally when they do, you are looking a ten-year process anyway and you would probably need some so-called progressive (social-democratic, in actuality)) states like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont (to use as examples) to go along with this. The Bible Belt states wouldn't be enough. 

But even if a BBA like this were to pass, that wouldn't stop Congress and the executive branch from spending money. Congress by law is required to pass a Federal budget every year, but when was the last time the Senate passed their own budget plan? Whether you like the Republican House, or not and I don't as a Democrat politically and on policy that is, but at least they do their half of the Congressional budget process and have the last two years. 

The Senate will hopefully pass their own budget plan this year, but Congress under law is required to pass a Federal budget every every year. But you don't see members of Congress, House or Senate being arrested for not passing budgets, or appropriations bills. Something they are required to do every year and the same thing would happen even if a BBA were to become the law of the land.

The fact is these are the three things that are keeping the Federal Government from getting their fiscal house in order. And on course for eventually balancing their budget, is a lack of discipline. They can't figure out when they are spending too much, because it's never enough for them. 

Another thing would be priorities, meaning that Congress doesn't have them and the White House is not being much help here. 

The other being courage and leadership that Representatives and Senators are afraid to tell their constituents the real truth about the sixteen-trillion-dollar national debt and 845B$ deficit and that there's a limit to what Congress can for it's people with their money. And that we simply can't fund everything that the government is doing right now and run them the way they are currently being run. 

Money and time is running out and when it does run out, we are going to see high interest rates that we've never seen before. (If and when the Federal Reserve forces Americans to live with real interest and inflation) Which would be largest tax increase we've ever seen in the country with the cost of living going up everywhere.

Once if ever Congress and the Executive Branch get discipline, priorities and leadership, then they'll go where the money is to get our fiscal house and order. Which is, defense, entitlements and the tax code. And an economic plan that leads to economic and job growth and we are still a long way away from seeing any of these things happen. Which is why a balance budget amendment at this point is nothing but a gimmick. 

If the Federal Reserve ever forces real interest rates on the American economy and people, especially with how much the Administration and Congress borrows every year (because they want to continue to lie to their constituents that government services are free and interest rates are low) then American voters will start to give a damn about deficits and debt, because now they'll be forced to live with it because of the real interest rates and inflation because of all the debt and deficits that the U.S. Government has piled on them. 

Once American voters start to care about deficits and debt, then they'll force their members of Congress to care about it and the members who don't, will lose their part-time jobs with full-time pay at taxpayers expense. And at the very least be replaces by members who claim to care about deficits and debt, if only because their constituents care about it. 

Book TV: The Heritage Foundation- Ben Shapiro: 'Bullies- How The Left's Culture of Fear Intimidates & Silences America'

Source:Book TV- Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro, speaking to the right-wing political action organization, Heritage Foundation, in Washington.

"Ben Shapiro, editor-at-large of Breitbart.com, contends that liberals are guilty of bullying their opposition and creating an environment that discourages political debate.  Ben Shapiro speaks at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C."

From Book TV

Ben Shapiro is lucky to be living in America where he can say whatever he wants to true or otherwise. And demagogue whatever people who he ideologically disagrees with, without having to worry about the truth and can say whatever he wants to, to suit his own political goals which is to make the so called Left ( as if its one group of people who look at politics and current affairs the same way) which tells you what Ben Shapiro knows about the Left, which is what fish know about basketball.

A big problem with American politics today is that the fringes have too much power. They don't really run things as far as government but they have too much influence over the party they are in and are part of. To the point that if the leadership in their party doesn't do what they want them to do, they risk losing power with having to deal with primary challenges and having to spend resources defeating candidates from their own party. Money they are going to need to defeat the other party.

And when it comes to Congress the fringes represent a big enough block in both parties that if they all vote one way, a lot of times it's the difference in passing or defeating a bill. When both parties have to work together to pass legislation and the Far-Right (or Hard-Right, if you prefer) and Far-Left (or Hard-Left, if you prefer) in the Republican and Democratic parties know this and aren't really interesting in governing but destroying the other party: "Why should we work with them when we would be better off politically destroying them." So they say whatever they can come up with to make the other party look bad.

Ben Shapiro is a perfect example of someone in this case on the lets say hard-right ( to be nice ) or overly partisan right who says things just to make the other party look bad. Including putting words in other people's mouth like what he did with President Obama's 2013 inaugural address. The garbage that if you don't believe in gun control, you are not a real Christian. If you don't believe public assistance and the Affordable Care Act you don't care about senior citizens, poor people and women and so-forth. Things that the President has never said. 

I'm afraid unless Ben Shapiro is even more ignorant than I've have given him credit for being so far, he knows better and has chosen to say things that are simply not true about the President of the United States. Of course the hard-left has people who play the same politics about Republicans but this video is about Ben Shapiro.

A fringe is supposed to be a sort of a loony minority of people who see the real world as something that it's not. Which is why they are such a small group of people because the rest of the country simply knows better and is in touch with reality. Thats sort of the long definition of a fringe but the problem with American politics right now is not so much the fringes but the leadership's in both parties who actually take these people seriously. Because they are afraid to standup to them and Ben Shapiro is part of one the fringes in American politics.