First: I hope readers will scroll down to my Easter message (the tale of John Dark). And then I hope you'll peek further down to the important story of Bush family links to a child-abusing cultist -- and I don't mean Moon.
Thanks, Dubya! How bad is the state of our economy? Read the text of this speech by David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. A couple of numbers put the deficit into scale: The Federal Government owes or is committed to pay $43 trillion, while the net worth of all Americans is $47 trillion.
Greg Palast reports on the TWO secret plans for Iraq's oil (the real reason for the war, of course). You can read about it in the latest Harpers, and you can see his video report here.
Giuliana Sgrena: You think you know why she was shot? You think you know the circumstances? Doesn't matter whether you're on the left or right -- the fact is, everything you know is wrong. Check out this important Democracy Now interview.
Brad Friedman: I privately warned him to think twice about appearing on Dr. Stanley Monteith's radio show -- Monteith is (or should I say "was"?) a rightist with what some consider extremist tendencies. But we owe "Dr. Stan" a round of applause for providing Brad with a friendly forum in which to discuss vote fraud. A great show -- check it out!
The exit polls in 2004 were weighted in favor in Bush, not Kerry. We've noted this under-appreciated fact before, but here's further discussion.
Ralph Nader has joined the "save Terri" movement!
3 comments:
Hey, we can pay off the debts and have FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS left over!
There's much to despair over in current U.S. economic policy, but the $43 trillion figure is misleading in the extreme. It's based on an infinite horizon of liability, whereas the $47 trillion figure is derived from current assets only, not wealth and GDP that will be generated over that same infinite horizon.
For example, if the Bush tax cuts were measured on an infinite horizon, they'd also be worth trillions.
What the author of this report is really trying to do is make a case for cutting "entitlements" (i.e., programs people have paid for, and continue to pay for, but which Republicans want to loot so they can avoid taxing wealth).
The projected figures also ignore the role of public policy (i.e., the lack of national health insurance) in creating inflated costs to society. You'll notice the author of the report isn't talking about ways to reduce health care costs, only cutting benefits.
Fair enough, but I maintain that eh Comptroller Generals' little speech still serves our purposes, especially in light of the likely failure of Dubya's Social Security reform efforts. There's still some juice in that third rail. Despite the GOP's most vigorous brainwashing efforts, people just do not want their traditional benefits cut. Eventually, they will have to look elsewhere to solve the deficit problem. So right now, the important task is to convince them that the problem is extremely grave, and to make sure GWB bears the blame for it.
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