Election Day 2008

H’s Curve waited only 3 hours this morning to firmly ensconce itself among the participants in this day’s historic event.  Even though the sky was cloud and threatening to rain, no one planned to move from the line without first casting their vote.

Early on, there was an elderly lady behind me in line.  Precinct officials were going up and down the line offering to lead the elderly up front so that they would not have to endure what was clearly going to be a long wait.  When she was asked, she declined the offer, adding, “I’ve waited a long time for this, so no thank you, I’ll wait here in line.”  I haven’t waited nearly as long as she has to participate in an historic election, but I sure felt the same way as I waited patiently to cast my vote.

‘Trickle-Up’ Economics – A Policy Whose Time Has Come? (Yeah, like 20 years ago.)

Couple of swells

Continuing my spittle-filled rant about the US economy, I’m going to change gears in this post and approach the subject not from the side of what’s wrong, but rather what can be done to make things right.

In a previous post, I noted that the US economy is driven by middle class consumption, so policy makers that push supply-side economic policies to de-hobotize our economy seem very hopeful, at best, that they can motivate the middle by giving to the top.  What is the fucking goal here? Motivate the middle class through envy to work harder for a few extra scraps to be tossed their way?  I mean, sure that shit hasn’t worked since, what, 1982, but hey, that’s no reason to stop trying! Right? Guys?

Supply-side economics seems predicated on the quaint notion that eventually the drippings will drizzle down the chins of America’s swellegant set to sate the thirst and fuel the consumption of the nation’s remaining 95%.  Meanwhile, as we wait and the temperature falls, don’t be surprised to hear:  “Jeeves! I’ve a discomforting chill in the marrow. I say, throw another hobo on the fire, there’s a good man.”  That is, unless you are the hobo.

Seems a quicker path would be to directly pass a goodish chunk of The Splurge funds directly to the remaining 95% and let them have a go at it (consuming that is.)  And by directly, I mean the provision of cash, not just the reduction of taxes.    Quite frankly, the recent economic nightmare the lower and middle class is living these days will leave most hesitant to shove cash out the door when the bank account is running low and the bills piling high.

Not only is America’s economic engine fueled by middle-class consumption, it is also dependent on small businesses to employ the bulk of its citizens – not on the Cokes, GMs and Goldman Sachs of the world. Those two facts alone bolster the argument that the key to America’s economic recovery, its pace and depth, resides with the middle class. Specifically, the middle class must have two key resources (money and confidence) if America is going to pull itself (sooner rather than later) out of this deep-ass economic hole it has dug for itself.  At the moment, we seem to be unkindly short of both but stuffed to the gills with debt and uncertainty.  (Ruh roh!)  Any plan that is to work must provide us the former two will riding us of the latter two.  To put forth anything less would be un-American (or very elitist).  Where do you stand?

Before you answer, just note that October’s consumer confidence reading dropped to a record low of 38.0 from September’s revised reading of 61.4.  Expectations were for a reading of 51.5.  Discuss .

Bloomberg columnits John F. Wasik recently posted an opinion piece on ‘trickle up’ economics that address the role of small businesses in the context of the presidential election.  Defs worth a read.

Enlightened Republicans Contra Mundum?

Accio, nerds!

I’ve had the increasingly nagging suspicion that an important subset of Republicans have set in motion a Phoenix-like strategy against the party’s leading faces. This creeping suspicion of mine centers on the chasm in the Republican party that has widened in recent years, unceremoniously ranging its members into two distinct camps: those appreciative of critical thinking and enlightened thought and those suspicious of anything smacking of enlightenment or the more forgiving and loving elements of Christianity.

An Obama victory in the upcoming US presidential election would very likely result in bitter recriminations from each side against the other, with the baser elements of the base charging abandonment (rightfully so), while the enlightened justify their actions due to their party having slowly morphed into something partially (if not wholly) unrecognizable.

This morning, Huffington Post led me to an article at the Telegraph.co.uk that touched on growing Republican fears of an intra-party civil war. In Tim Shipman’s Telegraph article, Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to President Bush, dismissed Republicans critical of La Palin as little more than “cocktail party conservatives,” and had this to say about the flag bearers of the party’s enlightened sect:

There’s going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?

And by God is he right. Unfortunately, where we disagree is not on who will be dead to whom, as undoubtedly each will be to the other and all to me, but on who will be in charge of the Republican Party and its “litmus test”. (Down with the ship, eh Jim?)

The cultural conservatism that has split the Republican party into  its two camps is one that has morphed from some form of personal responsibility into one’s confirmation of redneck bona fides or the hothatred of all things “unchristian.” (Sweet dancing Moses, don’t they realize that hatred isn’t much of a Christian value?  What?  Oh.  Never mind.)

Have the enlightened Machiavellian branch of the Republican party set out to sabotage the party as currently constituted? Is their hope to see the extremist now in control thoroughly discredited and the Republican party reduced to ashes? From these ashes do they seek to have the party reborn and in their control?  Yeah.  Seems like it.