Every Democratic Candidate Must Have Your Support!

Moderate Republicans in Washington no longer exist.

In today’s Republican Party the Tea Party and big money rule, while the middle class loses, women lose, seniors lose, education loses, the environment loses, cities lose, health care loses, Latinos lose, unions lose and, most importantly, America loses.

Make no mistake about it, this election is about power and the Republicans will do anything they can, including Jim-Crow style voter suppression, to win it all: the White House, the House and even the Senate. If that happens corporations will decide what’s best for you and me, and a packed Supreme Court will doom America to generations of ultra-right-wing policies.

Personally, I will fight that with everything I have and I implore you do to the same. Talk to your friends. Tell them how you feel and why their vote for all Democratic candidates is so very, very important. And reach out to moderate Republicans. The party that they once knew has been hijacked by extremists with whom they have nothing in common.

This is not just another election. Thank you for caring about all Americans. Thank you for fighting back!

On this Labor Day weekend…

…we should realize that our FREEDOM IS NOT SECURE when inequality reigns and corporations rule. Workers have been reduced to economic servitude fighting for subsistence wages with no benefits and even less security. Labor Day celebrates an illusion, a memory of the 50s when labor unions gave birth to a nascent middle class. But now, we are told by people who would turn the clock back to the ’20s, that labor unions are part of the problem.

So, for the sake of workers everywhere, we must fight for a rebirth of trade unionism as a means of resurrecting the American dream and assuring that tomorrow will be a better day.

America Deserves Better!

Imagine being very, very sick. Your chest hurts, you can’t catch your breath and every step feels like your last. With shaking hands, you dial 911 and, before long, you’re doing the emergency room thing.

Too bad, because the hospital you’re in has a dispute going on. Two groups of doctors, each having its own approach to patient treatment, are locked in a bitter struggle for prominence. No matter what one group does to provide patient care, the other group steps in to stop. The way the obstructionists see it, better patients should die than allow the caring group to look good. Outrageous, isn’t it. Except the very same strategy guides today’s Republican politics. The people don’t matter. The country doesn’t matter. Only beating Obama and gaining control of the government matters.

The poor don’t matter, either; nor does the middle class, or hungry children, education, pollution, financial regulation, women’s reproductive rights or even voting rights. Nothing matters but winning. That is why I wake up every day anxious to talk to anyone who will listen about the perils our nation faces from people who wrap themselves in the flag, carry a cross and who don’t give a damn about anything but themselves.

The people of America deserve better and unless we get better our democracy will be on life support.

The Financial Meltdown: Social Engineering Gone Bad or Criminal Behavior?

I am a REALTOR. As part of the licensing procedure in New Jersey, licensees are required to participate in an ongoing education program. That’s a good thing. What isn’t so good is that sometimes instructors feel obliged to spread their political views to their captive audiences. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often…at least in my experience…but it did recently which prompted the following response. Unfortunately, when these things do happen leverage is on their side since one voice can reach many. That is why those of us who are serious about change must remain vigilant and spread the truth as often we can to as many people as we can.

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Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Board of Governors, The Federal Reserve Board, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I want to respond to a couple of points you made during your presentation that had more to do with politics than with housing or with the state of the housing market. The first point was your allegation that the mortgage/financial meltdown was the result of social engineering. Since “social engineering” is often linked to Democratic or left-wing politics, the political implications of the linkage are clear. What is less clear is any factual support for the allegation.

Since the 1970s individual employment income dropped in the United States while, over the same period, worker productivity increased. In addition, vast numbers of women entered the work force, a large worker migration arrived from the south, and the offshoring of jobs all conspired to exert powerful downward pressures on wages.

In order for middle-class lifestyles to be maintained in this environment, which was essential in order to sustain America’s consumer-driven economy, easy-money policies of the Fed fostered a dependence on credit and encouraged home equity cash outs.

Then, along came Alan Greenspan, the arguably libertarian Fed Chairman who set the stage for economic disaster. He knew that as housing went so went the economy so, he reasoned, why not make home ownership possible for a far broader population? All it took was low interest rates, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and the easing of mortgage credit requirements.

The housing industry boomed, business boomed, Wall Street and the banks swam in money and strutted their bullet-proof, too-big-to-fail power for all to see. It was crony capitalism at its worst. But the only connection to social engineering was how it was sold to potential home buyers…the people who did not yet own a home. We know who they are; those evil people who should have known better than to take loans that they couldn’t pay for despite the fact that from America’s top banker all the way down to the Wall Street scum bags who securitized the toxic paper and then took the government’s bailout money all said it was the right thing to do.

No, it wasn’t social engineering that caused the problem. It was economic mischief of the highest order, the results of which are the financially engineered destruction of the middle class, and a staggering and unsustainable level of income inequality.

And the second point…

You gushed over Governor Chris Christie’s private sector job creation numbers. That, too, is not supported by the facts. In terms of the percentage increases in total jobs and private-sector jobs as of April 2012, New Jersey’s growth since the beginning of Christie’s tenure has been less than the growth in New York, Connecticut and the nation as a whole, according to seasonally-adjusted data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (more)