2013

As with every year there are lost opportunities and lost grievences…  Some things that have bothered us, disappear.  Somethings that have bothered us, don’t….

This year was no different, and yet, it was very different…. If one asks oneself what was the greatest factor involving the entire year, then pulls back layer after layer until he gets the full perspective,  I think he comes to a surprising conclusion….

This year, 2013 was the tipping point.  We realized we are a third world nation when it comes to the proportion of wealth across our population….   Like global warming, this disparity was first proposed long ago.  Like global warming it was argued by the power brokers that such a proposal was only a crackpot’s theory;  it gradually gained momentum….

2013, brought that home…. In 2013, we had the party of the Teas, vote against giving New Jersey relief for Hurricane Sandy, and vote themselves relief when a little hail landed in their district…. In 2013, we had government shut itself down to stop Obamacare, then open itself without creating any change at all.   In 2013, we had unemployment benefits cut, then reinstated, and now cut again… We had food stamps cut.  We had a sequester go into effect to save $85 billion dollars….

We had the news media lead fake scandals… when the biggest scandal should be, how is Fox and CNN and CBS still able to call themselves news organizations?  We had the IRS scandal… despite that they dealt evenhandedly with groups of both political persuasions.  We had the Benghazi hearings… Much ado over absolutely nothing… For when it came down to why those four died, all fingers point to that very Congressional committee led by Republican Darrell Issa, which cut well over $100 million in funds that were specifically designated to secure advanced unsecured places of that type.

But when we had a real scandal, which was illuminated by Snowden, all the media shied away.  Calling him a traitor for releasing the documents…  As more came out, Americans began to really fully grasp the totalitarian phase our nation’s government was just on the threshold of achieving….

In 2013 we had civil right voting laws thrown out by the Supreme Court, and instantly all those dark ugly human traits those laws previously regulated, took over and sprang out into the open…

We had a rational push for gun control, that bumped into the irrational group against it.  We did not win the first battle… WE did make considerable ground and showed the NRA was led by psychotic bloodthirsty killers, both nationally and locally….

And the unions… are all bought out… from the top down.   Only those on the very bottom in our service industries, the Wal*marts, McDonalds, and retail outlets, who have nothing to lose, are bravely carrying the fight forward… They are on the right track…

Our sole problem in America is that out of every dollar that trades hands in our economy…. 50 cents of it gets sucked out by the top 1%….  The rest of America is economically playing with a half deck…50 cents on the dollar.  No wonder job growth is slower than it should be?

If you invested, you love this year….  The year’s DJIA started at 13,000 and is now at 16,500….  25% yield….   For every $100,000 you had in stocks… you just made $25,000….

We now realize this was at the expense of the QE 3.  The Federal Government is lending the large brokerage houses all the money they wanted at zero interest, and instead of creating jobs, it went right into the stock market, chasing prices and making them higher….  When that free money begins costing the brokerage houses… those investments are going to deflate.

Most of America no longer has money in the market.  The market is primarily owned by those at the top.

And education?  We had corporate America exposed for trying their hand at teaching little children and failing miserably.   Just as Corporate enterprises have now destroyed Facebook,  television news, and are now destroying Twitter, the same forces demolished education.   An attack on the public school system aimed to demolish it and install a privately owned system, is well underway….   It was all just theoretical until 2013.

The prime problem  behind all of these?

It took a new Pope to make it mainstream… To tie all these individual threads into one rope.  As he spoke, people turned to look at each other and said, ” Wow, why didn’t we see it before?”

When one homeless person dies on the streets it  is not news.  But the DOW drops two points, it is THE news….

What 2013 did, was bring to light that we were not a nation beset by little battles…  Loss of labor unions, stymieing of minimum wage, fierce lobbying against Obamacare, a court controlled by corporate interests, lobbyists writing all our nation’s bills,  What 2013 did was bring to light that all our “think tank” research, was pure propaganda, not research.   What 2013 did, was show us just how much power and wealth lie in the hands of very few people…. roughly 100,000…… with most of that being held by a core of 1000 individuals…. Meaning 314,899,999 of the rest of us are out in the cold…

2013 showed us that the happiest people in the world, are those where wealth is more equally shared…  to be happy, one has to tax heavily…  A sharper sense of wealth is gleaned from looking at happy societies…  Where there is enough wealth to be shared, it is…  It makes little sense to pursue the opposite  tack.  To let those with money have it at no cost, and charge the masses heavily for their use of it…

2013, is the turning of the tide… Now when someone says low taxes are job creators they are viciously humiliated and never dare mention such again. Now when someone says trickle down economics work, we now know they are secretly praising how well it works for those at the top.

2013….  We know.

2014…. No Tea Party.  No Republicans.  No Third Way.   Only by mandating that the wealthy who got rich over nothing, pay their fair share and everyone else’s fair share too, can we again create an economy and a nation that thrives from the bottom up…

2014 is the battle year.  This is where those few at the top will throw billions into protecting the trillions they’ve made from our assets…  But… they only have 1% of the population… The question is whether they can mobilize their toadies to vote and suppress the rest as they have successfully done in the past… when in truth, we were still half asleep….

The rallying cry for the 99% needs to be this:  the 1% needs to do more for our nation!.  We should not be ashamed to mention marginal income (including capital gains) tax rates over 50%, 60%, 70%… at least for the short term, until our economic war is over!  That is not too much! Most livable nations have such.  and the USA itself had such during our grandparent’s time, back when it was easy to go out and find a job….  we had more demand for jobs than we had people….

Income equality is the lens with which all items need to be viewed….  What that means is that with every question, every line item, every debate, this question gets asked…. “What does this proposal do to reverse income equality?”  If it does nothing, it is not good…

What does controlling guns do for income equality?  What do charter schools do for income equality?  What does cutting taxes on Delaware’s 1% do for income equality?  What does making the Port of Wilmington non-union do for economic equality?  What does creating NO-prevailing wage zones in Delaware, do for economic equality?  What does opening Beaver Valley to development do for income equality?  What does raising minimum wage do for economic equality?  What does Common Core do for income equality?  What does opening Family Court to the public do for income equality?  What does building a power plant that runs 24/7 on the brown fields of Newark, do for income equality?  What does building a new Wawa in Newark, do for income equality?

I acknowledge some of those are stretches but that is what having a prime filter does.  One looks at everything through that perspective….  It is one thing to bash the governor for a luckluster economy in his state…. Republicans do that too often, and offer neither specifics, or alternatives.   It is another to bash the governor for ignoring 99% of Delawareans’ needs, or  990,000 people, to the benefit of 10,000, or 1%…..  That is legitimate….

Hurting the 1% to the benefit of the 99% will cause 99 times more economic activity in this state.  99% of our citizens will buy more….  If those 1% continue to make more money off our localized spending, then at least they are earning their income honestly for a change….

Perhaps what is missing, is a retort, the kind that becomes a mantra……. When the Chamber of Commerce steps up to a microphone and says, …. “we pay most of the taxes in this state, we should not pay more…”.

The proper response hitherto missing, should be…. ” Then pay your employees more money, so they can help you share that burden…”

2013:  the arrow was released… 2014 is when it impacts its target,….

(This came out last spring. Most of you have seen this.  If by chance you haven’t, be prepared to have your mind blown. If you’ve become jaded since the last showing, prepare to have your mind blown again.)