Entries for January 2009
Communism Lasted for 90 Years.......Reagonomics Lasted for 28 Years.
The year 1991 the Soviet Union broke up and following year in USA the a Republican president to raise taxes amidst ballooning fiscal deficit was ousted out of office.
What made a Republican president to raise to taxes, especially the one who followed Reagan is a mystery. Probably he wanted to be responsible unlike other republican presidents who gathered debt while talking about smaller government, cutting taxes and individual responsibility.
The following eight years under a democratic president some fiscal responsibility was established, but in the years of Bush administartion we had fiscal deficit, large government and large government spending.
Reagenites will attribute mid 2000s growth to tax cuts, on the contrary it was due to increased govt spending for security.
Tax cuts and giving the money to the rich have never worked to make the economy grow, especially when there is a strong market failure like we are seeing one now.
If the stimulus work is unleashed targeted at poor they spend to get thee economy going again, if the rich are given tax breaks or refunds as we saw when banks were given TARP money they partied by not releasing the money into the system but taking a huge bonus.
Reaganities didn't have anything to prove their point, but the anecdotal evidence of payments proves Reganomics has failed without any doubt.
Let's be clear rich understand money how to save it, multiply it and invest in companies sending jobs overseas. Middle class will talk about market without knowing anything about it, and poor understand economy better because they know if the inventory piles up in the factory they will loose their job.
The Reagonomics finally died this year after a run of 28 years but Communism lasted for 90 years
Nano Second Decision and Year Long Enquiry
Recently we saw the "Splash Landing" of an A 320 in the Hudson river. The process is not as simple as dumping the aircraft, it involves aligning the aircraft without any instrument support and hitching it whereby an aircushion is created in the last seconds of the aircraft using every bit of the Auxillary power. The aircushion is necessary jump, into water from 3000 ft is near death as can be noticed by people dying from jumping into Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
It took nano second for the Captain of the aircraft to ditch into Hudson, now the year long review begins, the beauty of the review is that it took two days for the NTSB to confirm whether the wreckage had one or two engines. Now the so called enquiry will subpenoa FAA records, US Airways records , Airbus , and National Weather Service. The enquiry will accumulate a lot of records, will do simulation and finally issue a probable cause report covering everything and finally a chapte on crew lapses. Crew lapses give me a break, it is a tradition in enquiry reports to drag the crew over the coals.
Even in the Challenger disaster there was inadequate training of crew, whereas any untrained eye could have seen huge debris hittting the side on take off.
Blaming crew is easy and that is what everybody wants, FAA wants to wear emprorer's new clothes saying it runs perfect system, Airbus wil want save its skin despite its A 320 has had one of worst safety records. US Airways as a commercial operator will stop anything that affects its brand. So, finally it is blamed on the crew shortcoming, atleast in this case Captain lived to walk up and down the aisle twice checking everybody is safe before getting out, in many cases crew don't have the luxury living to fight for the truth.
I forgot............
In one of the earlier posts I had complained that Presidential candidates disappear from Ohio soon after elections. Last week Now Pres. Obama spent a day in Cleveland, hoping to seeing him soon in Ohio as President.
Thanks Pres. Bush
I have a lot of Democratic leanings, but I think it's my duty to thank Pres. Bush. In an era public service is increasingly least preferred option, people who step forward should be thanked. This is not a day for looking back, that's for another day. Thanks Pres. Bush and bye.
I am Concerned
I am really concerned by a decision handed out by the conservative majority in the US Supreme court this week. The decision HERRING vs UNITED STATES diluted the fourth amendment which protected citizens from "unreasonable search and seizures". This important check prevented police abuse and suppression of evidence collected illegally during trial.
The case was about a person by the name HERRING was stopped by police officer despite no any signs of criminal behavior. HERRING refused such a search without a warrant, then the officer checked with the local warrant clerk who replied in negative for the presence of such a warrant. Then officer requested the clerk to check with neighboring counties for pending warrants, the neighboring county reported a pending warrant against HERRING, officer immediately conducted search and found traces of meth and a gun, he was not allowed have a gun by law because of his previous felony conviction.
Immediately after the search it was discovered the warrant mentioned by the relevant clerk had expired, so technically the search should have called off and any evidence seized should have been returned to HERRING.
The court said that evidence need not be supressed the court has given reason and my comment in italics follow them.
1) The fact that a clerk had only been negligent means that evidence has to be suppressed, I am always negligent so I am not going to pay taxes
2) Fourth amendment is targeted at police officers who may abuse powers not court officers who may not officers. Court officers and Police Officers are so intertwined that court officers have a tinge of blue, what is a guarantee that warrant are entered as a conspiracy and latter just explained as conspiracy.
3 There was a reason of GOOD FAITH under U.S. vs Leon. US vs Leon is one reason that helps police to get away with any brutality
I think justices are thinking that they are empowering police to launch a war on some social strata of society, they must monster unleashed by them may come comeback to haunt them.
Endpoint of Hamas Israel Standoff
Some body asked me when will current middle east mess end ? Hamas knows its fate but what the quatret of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, really want is the over throw of Egyptian and Saudi Arabian regimes. I really doubt whether US has spare intellegence and clandastine assets those friendly regimes.
When do you know recession is bad ?
When an McDonalds employee goes around the restaurant offering free Coffee refills
Republicans have gone Bonkers
This evening I was watching the evening news, after seeing the Republican Congressional leadership including Boehner(Bonehead) R-OH, I nearly jumped out of my seat. Among the measures proposed by President Elect Republicans lapped up tax cuts, as for the the other measures they said they were worried about leaving debt to future generations. They should have looked at the example set by the current resident of White House (Bush 43), who leaves after incurring deficit, fighting wars while doling out tax cuts to wealthy and slept on the wheel while the economy tanked.
I think Dems should learn to launch a campaign against Reps for not co-operating against Economic Failure caused by Bush 43.
Russia and Gas
So it is the time of the year when Russian pipeline technicians stop the flow gas into Ukraine. As a nation which has gone to war two times to secure energy supply (11991, 2003) US citizens are infuriated by the audacity of a ramshakle country for denying their friend Ukraine gas.
There are many aspects to it, Ukraine acts like an independent nation with market orientation, it has to pay what the seller demands or find new seller. It can't find a new seller because for the curreent asking price of $250 dollars for 1000 cubic meters is ridiculosly cheap. I pay 100 times more for my gas here in US.
US has set a wrong example, acccording to US foreign policy any country possesing energy has to be invaded (IRAQ), ridiculed (VENEZULA) or divide and conquered (BULK of the ISLAMIC MID EAST). US shows more deference to countries which supply inconsequential things to Wal Mart.This attitude has rubbed on so called friends of US who want to treat Russia badly and then turn to US when things turn worse. Let it be clear Russia is not a banana republic it can easily assert itself in its sphere of influence ANYBODY WHO FORGETS IT WILL DO IT AT THEIR OWN PERIL. Anybody who wants to buy gas from Russia should negotiate as they are negotiating with a peer state like many countries of "OLD EUROPE", the new European states may well learn from them.
After spending 8 yrs and Billions of Dollars to lay a pipeline to by pass Russia, considerable length of pipeline is in South Ossestia the breakaway region of Georgia.
Conclusions that can be drawn are, energy is suppliers' market which we haven't realized till date, Russia is in a strong position to thwart any challenge to its dominance of the energy market in the Caucus, and Russia expects to be treated like a equal partner in the energy business.
Last but not the least the EU depends on Russia for 50% of its gas any disruption will worsen the EU economy and worsen the global recession