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Friday, May 31, 2019

The United States... And An Ancient Indian Burial Ground

America Sure Is Having Some Bad Luck. It's Almost Like It Was Built On An Ancient Indian Burial Ground. | made w/ Imgflip meme maker
Alan: Profuse thanks to my daughter Maria for giving me her copy of 
"An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States."

The Origin Of White Supremacy: "An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States"

Trump Describes Official Who Directed Cover-Up Of "USS John S. McCain" As "Well-Meaning"

Trump Describes The Official Who Directed The "Cover-Up" Of The "USS John S. McCain" As "Well-Meaning." What The F*ck Is "Well-Meaning" Abou | made w/ Imgflip meme maker
VIDEO: Trump Excuses U.S.S. McCain Directive
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Donald Trump, America's "Victim In Chief"

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NPR: Scientists Genetically Modify Fungus To Kill Mosquitoes That Spread Malaria

Hard To Imagine A More Succinct Epitomization Of Trump's Deviousness And Mendacity

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LIES LIES LIES LIES

Compendium Of Pax Posts Concerning Trump's Habitual Lying

Ted Cruz Gives Detailed Explanation Of Trump's Pathological Obsession With Continuous Lying


Fred Owens' Facebook Page, "Fake News" And The Credibility Of The Mainstream Press

Compendium Of Pax Posts Re: Trump's Non-Stop Ability To Tell One Lie After Another

Compendium Of Pax Posts On Post-Inaugural Blur Of White House Lies And "Alternative Facts"

Find Out What "The Deplorables" Want And Promise It To Them | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

Millions Of Deplorables Voted For Trump Because He Was The Only Candidate Who Was As Crazy As They Are

The Borowitz Report: "Trump Blasts Media For Reporting What He Says"

28 Enormities That Prevent Conscionable People From Hoping Trump Is A Successful President

Donald's Doozies: A Yuge (And Yugely Incomplete) Compendium Of Trump's "Pants On Fire" Lies

Compendium Of Pax Posts About Donald Trump

Donald Trump, Felon: Re-Visiting Trump University

Married Couple Say Trump Defrauded Them Of $36,000.00 But Will Vote For Him Anyway

We Redacted Everything That's Not A Verifiably True Statement From Trump's Time Magazine Interview About Truth

Donald Trump: A Man So Obnoxious That Karma May See Him Reincarnated As Himself

Shit-Slinger Trump Says Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower During Campaign. Obama Is "Bad, Sick"

The Best Photographic Evidence Of Trump Inaugural Crowd Size: From Stage & From Monument

National Park Service Releases Official Photos Of Trump And Obama's Inaugural Crowds

"There Are Two Ways Of Lying..." Denis De Rougemont And Donald Trump

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Behind The Mask, The GOP's True Face: Ayn Rand's Ideological Acolyte Paul Ryan Promotes Her Central Belief That Altruism Is Evil

Why Americans Have A Moral Obligation NOT To Respect Donald Trump

American Conservatives And Aggressive Ignorance

Too Ignorant To Keep Democracy Alive

"Are Republicans Insane?" Best Pax Posts

"President Trump's Lies, The Definitive List"
New York Times

The Toronto Star's Complete Tally Of Trump's 337 Lies Since Inauguration (June 26, 2017)

Compendium Of Best "Pax" Posts About Devious Donald, "The Deplorable One"

Best Trump Memes From "Pax On Both Houses"

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics - And Devious Donald

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"Has America Lost Its Mind?" 1A's Brilliant Interview With "Fantasyland's" Kurt Andersen

Televangelist Jim Bakker Resurrected: If This Doesn't Scare The Bejesus Out Of You, Repent For Your End Is Near!

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Organized Religion And The Everyday Validation Of Violence

The Christian Doctrine Of Damnation... And The Destruction Of Christ-Spirit

"My Gripe With Christianity"

Reprise: "Trump Raped His Wife" | In A 1990 Divorce Proceeding Trump's First Wife, Ivana, Said Trump Made Her "Feel Violated" During Sex And Described The Attack To A Friend  | image tagged in deplorable donald,despicable donald,devious donald,dishonorable donald,delusional donald,dishonest donald | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

Why White Evangelicals Are Okay With Voting For Sexual Predators Like Moore And Trump


Evangelical Minister: "I Was an Anti-Abortion Crusader. Now I Support Roe v. Wade."

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Once Militantly Anti-Abortion, Evangelical Minister Now Lives "With Regret"

Overturning the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision would not be “pro-life.” It would be destructive of life.
By Rob Schenck

Reprise: Catholic Nun Explains "Pro Life" In A Way That Will Surprise American Conservatives

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/05/reprise-catholic-nun-explains-pro-life.html


Are "Pro-Lifers" The Deadliest "Baby Killers" Of All?

American Conservatives And The Righteousness Of Cruelty 

VIDEO: "Yes, He Is A Crook," David Leonhardt (And Former Federal Prosecutors)

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"Yes, he is a crook."
If you have two-and-a-half minutes to spare, watch this video in which former federal prosecutors make a strong, succinct case against President Trump.
“We all strongly believe that there is more than enough evidence to indict President Trump for multiple felony counts of obstruction of justice,” the prosecutors say (summarizing a statement signed by more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors). “If he weren’t in the White House, President Trump would be charged with serious crimes. This isn’t even a close case. If you or I did what President Trump did, we’d be facing prison.”

"Progressive Capitalism Is Not An Oxymoron," Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Stiglitz



Excerpt: In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s regulatory “reforms,” which reduced the ability of government to curb the excesses of the market, were sold as great energizers of the economy. But just the opposite happened: Growth slowed, and weirder still, this happened in the innovation capital of the world.

The sugar rush produced by President Trump’s largess to corporations in the 2017 tax law didn’t deal with any of these long-run problems, and is already fading. Growth is expected to be a little under 2 percent next year.

"Plutocracy Triumphant"
Cartoon Compendium

The Facts Are In: The Republican Party Is Terrible For Prosperity But Unparalled At Catastrophe

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-facts-are-in-republican-party-is.html

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts: Plutocracy, Economic Inequality & Collapse Of Conservatism

"Politics And Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"

Pope Francis: Quotations On Finance, Economics, Capitalism And Inequality

Teddy Roosevelt: "Malefactors Of Great Wealth... Are Curses To The Country"



Progressive Capitalism Is Not an Oxymoron

We can save our broken economic system from itself.
Mr. Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics.
CreditNicolas Ortega

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CreditCredi


Despite the lowest unemployment rates since the late 1960s, the American economy is failing its citizens. Some 90 percent have seen their incomes stagnate or decline in the past 30 years. This is not surprising, given that the United States has the highest level of inequality among the advanced countries and one of the lowest levels of opportunity — with the fortunes of young Americans more dependent on the income and education of their parents than elsewhere.
But things don’t have to be that way. There is an alternative: progressive capitalism. Progressive capitalism is not an oxymoron; we can indeed channel the power of the market to serve society.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s regulatory “reforms,” which reduced the ability of government to curb the excesses of the market, were sold as great energizers of the economy. But just the opposite happened: Growth slowed, and weirder still, this happened in the innovation capital of the world.
The sugar rush produced by President Trump’s largess to corporations in the 2017 tax law didn’t deal with any of these long-run problems, and is already fading. Growth is expected to be a little under 2 percent next year.
This is where we’ve descended to, but not where we have to stay. A progressive capitalism based on an understanding of what gives rise to growth and societal well-being gives us a way out of this quagmire and a way up for our living standards.
Standards of living began to improve in the late 18th century for two reasons: the development of science (we learned how to learn about nature and used that knowledge to increase productivity and longevity) and developments in social organization (as a society, we learned how to work together, through institutions like the rule of law, and democracies with checks and balances).
Key to both were systems of assessing and verifying the truth. The real and long-lasting danger of the Trump presidency is the risk it poses to these pillars of our economy and society, its attack on the very idea of knowledge and expertise, and its hostility to institutions that help us discover and assess the truth.
There is a broader social compact that allows a society to work and prosper together, and that, too, has been fraying. America created the first truly middle-class society; now, a middle-class life is increasingly out of reach for its citizens.
America arrived at this sorry state of affairs because we forgot that the true source of the wealth of a nation is the creativity and innovation of its people. One can get rich either by adding to the nation’s economic pie or by grabbing a larger share of the pie by exploiting others — abusing, for instance, market power or informational advantages. We confused the hard work of wealth creation with wealth-grabbing (or, as economists call it, rent-seeking), and too many of our talented young people followed the siren call of getting rich quickly.
Beginning with the Reagan era, economic policy played a key role in this dystopia: Just as forces of globalization and technological change were contributing to growing inequality, we adopted policies that worsened societal inequities. Even as economic theories like information economics (dealing with the ever-present situation where information is imperfect), behavioral economics and game theory arose to explain why markets on their own are often not efficient, fair, stable or seemingly rational, we relied more on markets and scaled back social protections.
The result is an economy with more exploitation — whether it’s abusive practices in the financial sector or the technology sector using our own data to take advantage of us at the cost of our privacy. The weakening of antitrust enforcement, and the failure of regulation to keep up with changes in our economy and the innovations in creating and leveraging market power, meant that markets became more concentrated and less competitive.
Politics has played a big role in the increase in corporate rent-seeking and the accompanying inequality. Markets don’t exist in a vacuum; they have to be structured by rules and regulations, and those rules and regulations must be enforced. Deregulation of the financial sector allowed bankers to engage in both excessively risky activities and more exploitive ones. Many economists understood that trade with developing countries would drive down American wages, especially for those with limited skills, and destroy jobs. We could and should have provided more assistance to affected workers (just as we should provide assistance to workers who lose their jobs as a result of technological change), but corporate interests opposed it. A weaker labor market conveniently meant lower labor costs at home to complement the cheap labor businesses employed abroad.
We are now in a vicious cycle: Greater economic inequality is leading, in our money-driven political system, to more political inequality, with weaker rules and deregulation causing still more economic inequality.
If we don’t change course matters will likely grow worse, as machines (artificial intelligence and robots) replace an increasing fraction of routine labor, including many of the jobs of the several million Americans making their living by driving.
The prescription follows from the diagnosis: It begins by recognizing the vital role that the state plays in making markets serve society. We need regulations that ensure strong competition without abusive exploitation, realigning the relationship between corporations and the workers they employ and the customers they are supposed to serve. We must be as resolute in combating market power as the corporate sector is in increasing it.
If we had curbed exploitation in all of its forms and encouraged wealth creation, we would have had a more dynamic economy with less inequality. We might have curbed the opioid crisis and avoided the 2008 financial crisis. If we had done more to blunt the power of oligopolies and strengthen the power of workers, and if we had held our banks accountable, the sense of powerlessness might not be so pervasive and Americans might have greater trust in our institutions.
There are many other areas in which government action is required. Markets on their own won’t provide insurance against some of the most important risks we face, such as unemployment and disability. They won’t efficiently provide pensions with low administrative costs and insurance against inflation. And they won’t provide an adequate infrastructure or a decent education for everyone or engage in sufficient basic research.
Progressive capitalism is based on a new social contract between voters and elected officials, between workers and corporations, between rich and poor, and between those with jobs and those who are un- or underemployed.
Part of this new social contract is an expanded public option for many programs now provided by private entities or not at allIt was a mistake not to include the public option in Obamacare: It would have enriched choice and enhanced competition, lowering prices. But one can design public options in other arenas as well, for instance for retirement and mortgages. This new social contract will enable most Americans to once again have a middle-class life.
As an economist, I am always asked: Can we afford to provide this middle-class life for most, let alone all, Americans? Somehow, we did when we were a much poorer country in the years after World War II. In our politics, in our labor-market participation, and in our health we are already paying the price for our failures.
The neoliberal fantasy that unfettered markets will deliver prosperity to everyone should be put to rest. It is as fatally flawed as the notion after the fall of the Iron Curtain that we were seeing “the end of history” and that we would all soon be liberal democracies with capitalist economies.
Most important, our exploitive capitalism has shaped who we are as individuals and as a society. The rampant dishonesty we’ve seen from Wells Fargo and Volkswagen or from members of the Sackler family as they promoted drugs they knew were addictive — this is what is to be expected in a society that lauds the pursuit of profits as leading, to quote Adam Smith, “as if by an invisible hand,” to the well-being of society, with no regard to whether those profits derive from exploitation or wealth creation.