From Harper's...

Comes A retrospective of the Bush era

Portion of all U.S. income gains during the Bush Administration that have gone to the top 1 percent of earners: 3/4

Increase since 2000 in the number of Americans living at less than half the federal poverty level: 3,500,000

Percentage change since 2001 in the average amount U.S. workers spend on out-of-pocket medical expenses: +172

Estimated percentage by which Social Security benefits would have declined if Bush’s privatization plan had passed: –15 ...

Portion of the $3.3 billion in federal Hurricane Katrina relief spent by Mississippi that has benefited poor residents: 1/4

One Year Ago Tonight

Nine Eleven Nine Eleven Nine Eleven

Americans act as if that day’s events were practically the worst thing to happen to any nation anywhere, ever. Well, sorry, but no, it wasn’t. To be sure, that day sucked, and I’d rather not go through that again; but more Americans died on D Day and Pearl Harbor than died on 9/11. More Americans are murdered in 3 months than were killed on that day. Twelve times as many civilians were incinerated alive in one night in Dresden Germany in World War II. Up to thirty times as many were incinerated in one night in Tokyo.

Has it ever occurred to the hawks in this country that by sending armies into the middle east, the US has given Osama Bin Laden exactly what he wanted?

My Predictions for 2008 2009

[Update: Title changed thanks to Henry in comments.]

This is the time when people are making predictions for 2009 (with the understanding from the reader that the diarist is pulling a good portion out of his you-know-where.

Given what the world looks like in early January 2009, this is bound to be more sober and somber than usual.

Before I get to the "list" part of this, let me say that in certain ways I am optimistic about this year. Obama is a charismatic, capable leader who has the broad support of the American people, and plans to move American policy, both foreign and domestic, in a decidedly more progressive direction. Anyway:

1. The headline Unemployment Rate will exceed 12% by year’s end.

I really hope I'm wrong on this one, but I don't see a significant turn-around in 2009. Stimulus will take time to show itself in the employment numbers; the economy is currently in free fall, and the first six months of 2009 will be looked back on as the nadir.

2. The Employee Free Choice Act will pass over the strenuous objections of Southern conservatives.

The Provisions of Taft-Hartley that allow Southern states to ban closed shops may (please, Lord) go down too. Leaving aside questions of social and economic justice for the moment, this would be an extremely shrewd thing to do for Democrats from a purely political perspective; Unionizing the South would allow southern working-class voters to see the benefits of having unions, and get them voting for democrats on a regular basis, forever undermining the "Solid South." The Southern elites know this, of course, so expect a fight of monumental proportions over this; conservatives would be fighting for their very survival, and would use every means at their disposal to try and stop the effort.

3. The US will be effectively out of Iraq by the end of the year. Casualties will be under one per week.

Please God...

4. Barack Obama will prove to be more popular in his first year than Ronald Reagan, Jack Kennedy or even Roosevelt were in their first years.

There will be widespread support for his economic initiatives; the only exception will be the previously-mentioned conservative anti-union redoubts in the south, but even there cracks will appear (see above).


5. The US railroad system, especially the passenger piece of it, will begin to be modernized on a large scale.

This is essential; not doing this will mean no one but the top income quintile will be able to travel long distances once the economy recovers and fuel prices resume their relentless long-term rise. Air travel as a mass-consumption phenomenon is, I'm convinced, going away rather soon (within 10 years would be my guess). The US used to have a passenger rail system that was the envy of the world. It only declined when Air travel became convenient and cheap; I’m convinced that increasingly-expensive plane fuel will return air travel from mass-transportation back to something only the elites do.

6. GM and Chrysler will still exist, but will also still be described as “troubled.” Ford will be in somewhat better shape.

I predict that the Pontiac division, and the US (but not Chinese) Buick division, will bite the dust, leaving GM with only the Cadillac (for luxury cars) and Chevy (for the rest of us) car-building divisions standing; GMC will remain as a truck-building enterprise.

Screw the Rich

You know, there was a time when Democrats like Harry Truman were not afraid of saying "The Republicans are the Rich Man's Party, while the Democrats are the Party of The Common Man."

Here's the thing: screw the rich. They've been doing just fine for the last 35 years, getting richer and richer and richer, while no one else has gotten a raise.

The top marginal tax rate during the administration of that notorious Leninist, Ike, was 91.5 percent. That is not a typo. It resulted in it not being worthwhile to make 300 times as much as your lower paid workers, because taxes would eat up the portion of your income that could be described as obscene. The fifties were not exactly a time of breadlines and hardship. There was a broad and solid middle class.

Obama's Holiday Address to Nation

Unaffordable Homes were supposed to make everyone rich, or something

Anyway, as I've said many times... all you had to do was look at home prices, look at incomes, and realize that not enough people actually made enough money to afford those mortgages. If you wanted some confirmation you could look at rent-to-own ratios, as someone did in the Bush White House (and was ignored), and look at what was happening to Option ARM mortgages (negative amortization). Those things were up front and obvious, even if not everything was.

From the Police Blotter

LAPD detectives were hunting Friday for a thief who made off with an estimated $2 million worth of jewelry after ransacking the Mulholland Estates mansion of socialite Paris Hilton in a brazen overnight burglary.

In what may be one of the city's highest-dollar home break-ins this year, a security guard called police shortly after 5 a.m. Friday to report a burglary at Hilton's house in a gated community nestled in the hills of Sherman Oaks.

A man Identified only as "Lazarus," who lives outside the gates of her community, was unhurt in the incident.

Republicans Alienating Their Remaining Working-Class Base

By standing against The UAW in their recent torpedoing of the auto company bailout, Republicans will only continue to alienate their remaining working class voters. Which is fine by me. The Republican Party is, at its core, the rich peoples’ party, and the sooner the working classes wake up to that fact, the sooner the Republican Party will be further marginalized.

Passage of The Employee Free Choice Act is part of the solution; another part is repealing portions of Taft-Hartley, specifically section 14(b) which lets states decide whether or not to allow union-shop agreements, would overturn “right to work” laws, and make it even easier to organize in those states, further eroding Republican support in their southern strongholds.

If southern workers want to work in a union shop, they can’t, due to the provisions of Taft-Hartley I mentioned. The owners in the south are very anti-union and have managed to convince some of their workers that they should oppose unions too…but it is in their workers’ interests to organize, and repealing “right to work” would allow southern workers to discover this. Once they are organized and represented by a union, there will be no going back.

The southern elites know this of course, which is why I expect this will be a battle of monumental proportions. I look forward to it.

More Republican Support for their [Real] Base

More evidence of who the real Republican base is (and it ain't socially conservative bible-belters):

But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.

Boy, is conservatism expensive...

Lithiumcola, at Dailykos, talking about the staggering cost in treasure and human misery of the Bush presidency:

Bilmes and Stiglitz further state, "the total bill for Bush-era excess -- the total new debt combined with the total new accrued obligations -- amounts to $10.35 trillion."

In that time -- that is to say, in the time that Washington was racking up that excess, using that money for something-or-other; the time from when President Bush took office to now -- the cost of a family health insurance premium has gone up 87%; the number of uninsured people has gone up 19%; the number of families living in poverty has gone up 19%; real median household income has dropped 1%; and corporate profits have gone up 68%.

Note that last: everyone is worse off, except the people whom the Republicans really serve: the rich.

Suprise Decision

If Only.