Reasons to oppose the Democratic and Republican parties

Where to begin? The possibilities are endless.

• They both insist that they know the answers, but neither has the intestinal fortitude to honestly compare their ideas against the opposing ideas (weak moral character; fear of intellectual competition). Obviously, neither has any answers. If either party had, we would not be in our messes because they both had multiple chances to get it right and they both failed every single time. All we get is spin.
• The Democratic and Republican parties both vehemently deny that special interest money has no effect on anything. (lobbyists, not voters, control politics) Politicians say it only buys "access". Yeah right, pigs fly too.
• In the matter of the current economic meltdown, their own partisans concede they both failed, but that has no impact on or relevance to politicians in Washington today. Things like that just get ignored. (oops, we goofed)
• Although the Democratic and Republican parties both vehemently deny it, many, probably nearly all, elected federal level politicians serve their own self-interest before the public interest. (Me first, lobbyists second, you taxpayers, last)
• Although America had it all at the end of world war 2 and the rest of the world was in the sewer, so to speak, we are now in deep, deep trouble. (recent history) How on Earth did that happen in less than 70 years? This ain't the Roman Empire, that's for sure.

• According to a Republican darling, the Democrats and Republicans didn't just fail us, they betrayed us. (betrayed)
• Nobody in either party can explain why so much money is in the political system. The reasonable conclusion is that it is there to buy votes, nothing else. (only one logical conclusion) 
• Neither party has any convincing idea of how to create jobs. Both just blow their partisan talking point drivel at us while providing no details or proof of past success. (what jobs strategy?) They provide no proof or details because they have none.
• Both parties are stupefied by their own infallible political and/or religious ideology. That comes despite the current profound unhappiness with both parties. If their ideology was so freaking infallible, then why did they both fail so miserably? (blind, obstinate ideologues can't see anything) Liberal or conservative ideology backed by success is just fine. Ideology backed by failure, which is exactly what we have today, deserves to be tossed out of power with extreme prejudice.

• We had plenty of time and warning that we needed to prepare ourselves. Our elected leaders chose to do nothing in favor of reelection and narrow partisan goals. (we were fully warned) 
• There are more than just the narrow three ways to look at politics, i.e., liberal, conservative or compromise. The world is much, much bigger than that. Intelligent policy can come from none of those. (smarter ways to do things) The right and left both have a track record of failure, so why would compromise necessarily be any better? No wonder our politics failed us.

The list could go on and on. All of those points are reasonable and easily defensible. Collectively they make it clear that the Democratic and Republican parties didn't just fail us, they betrayed us.

Of course, you need to decide for yourself. Speaking for myself, Democrats and Republicans govern without my consent. In view of their failures, corruption and incompetence, they have no legitimacy or moral authority.

Budget debates - A political wasteland?

Debt default is starting to look like a real possibility. From a pragmatic point of view, that didn't seem reasonable last week. Something is starting to sink in. The Tea Party folks really are willing to force a default if they don't get pretty much everything their way.

Although this has been said hundreds of times by hundreds of others in the last few weeks, it bears repeating: If we default, we might unleash something we cannot control or cause damage we cannot recover from for years or decades - we therefore must not default. At the least, that seems to be the opinion of most business people, unbiased economists and most other unbiased non-political people who ought to know what they are talking about.

What are we jumping for?

Exactly why is it that we might leap off the fiscal cliff? What drove the minority Tea Party folks to inflexible intransigence, sort of like Grover Norquist and his absolute belief about tax policy?

Maybe this. Congress and special interests have operated for decades in their own interest, not the public interest. People in congress freely admit that they are afraid to do necessary things if it means losing the next election. Congress routinely sells out to special interest money, e.g., massive tax breaks, without any obvious regard for the financial impacts or the general welfare. That special interest money goes to great lengths to hide from public scrutiny and many people in congress do their best to help them hide. Congress operates mostly behind closed doors while sitting atop a byzantine opaque machine with millions of employees. Congress habitually breaks promises about spending restraint and being responsible e.g., the nonexistent social security "lock box". People in congress spend 25-30% of their time precious time with lobbyists and others who mostly only want something for themselves.

History is clear on all of that. That would seem to argue to do what the Tea Party wants to do - not compromise and force a default if that's where the chips fall. Logic supports that because it would force a change of some sort. It is true that something has to change. The questions are what needs changing and how to effect it?

If that logic is sound, then why not jump off the cliff and default? Unlike "normal" people in congress, it looks like most Tea Party folks are not there to get reelected. They are there to do a job as they see fit. Part of the job seems to be sending Washington a message, i.e., no more politics as usual.

The Tea Party approach and rationale, if all the foregoing characterization is reasonably fair and accurate, appears to be grounded in strongly held political ideology and driven mostly by emotion. The emotion seems to be some combination mostly of fear, anger and/or frustration with congress' inability to act in the public interest. It is understandable.

A non-ideologue pragmatist rationale

Well, all of that context, logic and emotion, good as it is, isn't persuasive. The analysis has to include consideration of all relevant factors, options and outcomes. It has to be based on cold, unbiased logic and a brutally honest assessment of all of our options and their outcomes (pros and cons) as best we can discern them. Although seeing reality and formulating political policy on the debt and spending issue isn't grounded in a hard science, like climate change science assessing climate change, it still requires discipline and focus.

What reality is missing?

The context and reality discussed above that apparently drives the Tea Party isn't the whole story. And, they are not fairly assessing the reality. The reality not fairly assessed is the fact that consensus opinion from unbiased people with relevant expertise is this: If we get this wrong, the effects could be devastating for the U.S. economy and our standard of living. Some (most?) Tea Party folks deny the potential gravity of defaulting. Michele Bachmann characterizes it as a "minor inconvenience". Some call President Obama's "threat" to withhold social security checks on August 3 a bluff that won't come to pass if we do default. Democrats blame Republicans for not being willing to compromise. Republicans blame Democrats for not being willing to compromise. Each party blames the other for fear mongering and flat out lying.

Politics as usual

As usual, the public is faced with two contradictory versions of reality. As usual, those two versions of reality are come to us through the distorting lens of hard core political ideology. One reality has to be closer to the truth than the other. The public is forced to choose. How is one to chose? The best way is to assess reality is to accept unspun facts, if any can be found, and accept unspun expert opinion if that accords or is all there is. The other way is to just cave in to what feels comfortable with a preconceived reality that fits the ideology.

A relevant fact

There is one fact that seems to be relevant. The U.S. accidentally defaulted on a bond in 1976 by not making a payment (redeem) on a $120 million bond when it was due. That mistake cost taxpayers billions (about $6 billion per year for some period of time) because the interest rate on all of our $800 billion in bonds increased. That says that if we default in 2011, we will have to pay tens or, maybe more likely, hundreds of billions more per year. That isn't a "minor inconvenience".

That, coupled with what seems to be reasonable expert opinion* says defaulting is a bad idea and it should be off the table. If that threat goes away, does that guarantee that congress will change its behavior and do better. Unfortunately, it doesn't. That may be an unacceptable reality for some people, but that's where reality seems to lie.

* Opinions from a range of sources that seem to be genuine and not spun. There is always risk in trusting anyone about political matters, particularly politicians in Washington. Except for most politicians, it is usually hard or impossible to spot spin (lies, including political advocacy) and hidden agendas. What we get from politicians is mostly a wasteland of empty rhetoric - they usually aren't a reliable source for much of anything except spin.

For some ideologues, like some (most?) Tea Party folks, that reality isn't acceptable, so it gets denied, distorted or downplayed. The situation is like climate change where consensus science says we have a problem that we ought to do something about but the reality is denied by some because it is ideologically uncomfortable to accept the facts. To ease the psychological pain, reality is denied, distorted or downplayed for ideologues who don't like it. For both climate change and defaulting on our debt, we ignore reality at our peril.

Ideologues who let their ideology dictate reality take needless risks. They take risks just for the sake of pounding the peg of inconvenient reality into the hole of their 'infallible' ideology. That works fine when the peg and the hole both are square or round. It fails when they aren't.

If the Tea Party minority in congress forces a default and refuses to compromise, they do so in the face of whatever consequences will come. According to consensus opinion, the one fact I did find and common sense, we cannot and will not default. According to that reality effects of a default are completely avoidable. The effects are likely to be moderately to highly damaging, maybe catastrophic if we do jump off the cliff.

The fact that default is not an option may indeed let congress off the hook. That leaves the burden on voters to put an end to politics as usual. Voters will have to do that in the face of opposition from mainstream politicians and special interest money and lobby. If we do default, the Tea Party minority will bear much of the blame. The rest of us will be forced to suffer the consequences for the sake of their rigid, blinding ideology. That would be needless and pure waste.

Reality isn't always perception, part 3

Part 1 gave context for the human trait of perception dictating reality, part 2 gave an example, i.e., climate change. Part 3 takes the rationale to a logical conclusion.

Realists can be wrong

In view of the reality that realists can err, hard core liberals and conservatives would generally be inclined to say or think something like - "Aha, I knew I was right, the minority realists can be wrong and we should have done whatever my ideology told me to do in the first place. And, a pox on the science, facts and the idiot political opposition."

That's where political and/or religious ideology blinds ideologues and that's why they tend to fail in politics over time. How so? Ideologues can be wrong too, despite their vehement denials to the contrary. Ideologues know they are right, regardless of reality. Sometimes they are right, but over time they will be wrong more often than not.

The assumption: That assumes our ability to see reality through science, engineering, logic and true facts is, on balance, a better source for political guidance than reliance on raw ideology. People will consciously or unconsciously decide about that and then accept or reject the assumption. Accepting or rejecting the assumption has ramifications. Accepting it leads to success. Rejection doesn't.

The consequence: Doing politics based on reality takes guts because you might sometimes be wrong. Acting on "political principles" is easy and comfortable because you know you are always right, even when if overwhelming evidence says you are dead wrong.

When the ideologue fails

When an ideologue's principled policies crash and burn the ideologue can maybe see the failure. Maybe not. If failure is acknowledged, the typical ideologue will blame the opposition for his/her own ideology's failure, because that too accords with the ideology. That's the real and tangible evil of infallible, fervent belief in hard core ideology.

The Esmeralda - Chilean navy July 2011
Does blind hard core ideology exist?

This isn't any endorsement or criticism of the policy, but listen to the hard core ideologue Grover Norquist (at 5:15 - 6:20 of the video clip). He recently opined that he would rather see his grandmother eaten alive by fire ants than acquiesce in a tax increase. That's honest opinion spoken by a true believer. He sincerely meant what he said - granny gets eaten by bugs before a tax increase is acceptable.


Although he may be an unusual outlier, Mr. Norquist knows he cannot be wrong about his perception on this issue. For most people with strongly held beliefs grounded in ideology, unspun facts and solid logical counterpoints are irrelevant. How persuasive are contradictory facts or science for hard core ideologues inclined to believe or disbelieve that climate change, tax policy or anything else that contradicts their perception is a problem? 

Unless this is mistaken, public education isn't there to teach ideology. It is there to teach independent logical thinking and facts, including science. Political parties and church is where one gets ideology and your thinking done for you. And, if unspun truth flowing from education isn't good enough for ideologues, then why should they support it, especially if it undermines their 'infallible' beliefs? Since climate change skeptics deny what a large majority of opinion in this science is telling us, it would appear that skeptics also deny the value or veracity of the science itself, except skeptical minority opinion.

One can easily argue that a lot of political failure flows from the tendency of hard core liberals and conservatives to let comfortable perception to trump uncomfortable reality. It makes sense to be wrong for the rights reasons than right for the wrong reasons. In the long run, that approach to politics will lead to significantly more success than what we get now. If that is true, one should therefore generally trust reality and reject ideology.

Ignore education?

However, if it is true that we cannot trust science, engineering and logic, then why do we spend so much on public and higher education? Why don't we limit wasting our precious resource? Why not just cut way back on public schools and publicly funded universities?

On the one hand skeptics reject what climate science tells them when it doesn't fit their ideology. On the other, they accept it if it does fit the ideology. But that makes no sense because the tools, analytic methods and data sets that scientists on both sides of the debate use are essentially the same. The tools, analysis and data just happens to lead different scientists to different conclusions, a majority on one side and a small miniority on the other.

How do you define "truth" or "reality"?

Given a dispute like this among technical experts about a complex technical issue, how is a lay person to decide? Go with what is comfortable or go with the "truth" or reality as best we can see it, i.e., majority scientific opinion. But if one denies that truth can be defined that way for a technical matter like climate science, then how is one supposed to define or arrive at "truth"? Is truth whatever fits a chosen political or religious ideology? If not that, then what else is it that defines truth for issues or debates grounded in science?

Science isn't religion

This doesn't apply to religious beliefs. Religion is beyond science and a matter of personal faith or philosophy. There, one can choose to believe or have faith in whatever one wants. Religious beliefs, e.g., a two cell human embryo has a soul, cannot be tested by science and are thus a matter of personal faith. However, a rational approach of some sort should apply to politics. Politics isn't a matter of blind belief or pure Grover Norquist type faith in certain things or all things. Politics isn't religion, especially in a secular democracy grounded in a secular constitution. Politics is a soft science with part of the softness flowing from human tendencies to be irrational or emotional instead of logical.

Heroes & patriots

Our politics is polarized and dominated by hard core ideology. That tends to close minds to contradictory facts and argument.* Good ideas and unspun facts don't get a fair hearing because they threaten accepted ideology and preconceptions, true or false. In all the chaos, smoke and mirrors, the real patriots and heroes are realists and pragmatists willing and trying to face facts, pleasant or not. Hard core ideologues are something else.

* Closed minded doesn't mean stupid. It only refers to people where perception tends to trump contradictory reality.

Even "non-science" political issues like debates over the proper size and scope of government can be far more grounded in reality than they usually are. There is relevant science to be applied even there, i.e., unspun modern analytical history. For that particular issue, reality should be based on, e.g., unspun historical facts and an honest unspun assessment of our modern condition. Debates like that tend to be heavily spun and polluted with personal ideology. That leaves people with a feeble grasp of true reality, at best. That's not at all helpful. Spun reality will likely lead to political failure.

Who is in charge?

Like it or not, it is up to regular voters to try to see reality for what it is and try to act intelligently. Ideology doesn't help. Politicians and most special interests aren't going to help either. They use our weaknesses against us - they flog us mercilessly with their infallible ideology. Non-voters can't help either - they don't vote and don't count. Average voters have to face reality alone even if it is uncomfortable. Average voters are in change and they need to intelligently assert that authority. If they fail, we all fail.

Average voters have to try to see reality even if special interests are trying as hard as they can by spending hundreds of millions on sophisticated propaganda or lies to deceive, distract and discourage it. Special interests include, first and formost, the Democratic and Republican parties. Anything less on our part gets us more failure.

Reality isn't always perception, part 2

Part 1 of this post described context for the human tendency to disconnect perception from reality. Part 3 draws logical conclusions. The following is a good example that shows the human tendency to disconnect perception from reality.

Climate change

For non-experts, its reasonable to look for consensus among mainstream climate science organizations and the main thought leaders. Ascertaining the problem is primarily a scientific issue, not a political one. For many people, what one chooses to believe and do about it is probably more political or human than scientific. As far as I can tell, there is a great deal of consensus among authoritative climate organizations that (1) we have a serious problem, (2) it is made worse to some degree by human activity and/or (3) it may be something we can at least somewhat ameliorate if we choose to.

However, if you Google the phrase "scientific consensus on climate change" you get links to articles that dispute the consensus belief or perception. That forces decisions. Is there consensus or not? Is climate change a big deal or not? Is there anything we an do about it or not? Should we care about it or not? How are non-experts supposed to decide?

There are several ways to decide. Two main ones come to mind. One can resort to common political perceptions (ideology) or one can try to stick with the mainstream science (facts as best we can tell) and then decide what to believe and do. That leads to several different scenarios.

The conservative mind set: The usual conservative perception is that government action is usually bad. Dealing with climate change would likely require some sort of government action (cap and trade, carbon taxes, whatever). Given the conservative perception, there is psychological pressure to believe that climate change (i) isn't a problem, (ii) can't be affected even if it is a problem and/or (iii) human activity has nothing to do with it. Most climate science skeptics (but no major authoritative organizations I am aware of) believe some or most of that. I suspect this is the perception and belief for most conservatives.

The liberal mind set: The usual liberal perception is that government action is usually good. There is psychological pressure to believe that climate change (i) is a problem, (ii) can be affected and/or (iii) human activity has a great deal to do with it. Many authoritative scientific organizations apparently agree with some or most of that. I suspect this is the perception and belief for most liberals.

The realist/pragmatist mind set: Realists don't care about what conservatives or liberals want to believe. They want to figure out what is real and what isn't, i.e., do we have a major problem on our hands and, if so, is there anything we can do about it? If not, then fine and we do nothing. If we have a big problem, then fine (sort of), but what do we do, if anything? Some realists may also ask themselves, what if I am wrong?

When perception trumps reality

If climate change is a serious problem that we may be able to do something about if we act, it is easy to see how political policies that let perception substitute for reality can lead to failure. For the climate change issue, one side or the other has to be more right than the other. Their opinions are mutually exclusive. Four simplified scenarios illustrate choices and outcomes.

Scenario 1 - Science has it right that climate change is a problem that we can do something about and we act accordingly. That averts catastrophe. In this scenario, reality successfully guided political policy and it worked for the best. Two groups of people got it right, realists and liberals.

Scenario 2 - Science has it right that climate change is a problem that we can do something about but we do not act accordingly. That leads to catastrophe. Here, reality did not guide political policy. That was a political failure. Realists and liberals got it right, but they simply lost the political policy fights.

Scenario 3 - Science says there is no global climate problem but that is wrong and we fail to act based on faulty science. That leads to an avoidable catastrophe. Here, realists and conservatives were wrong.

Lesser Kudu
(eastern Africa, not endangered)

Scenario 4 - Science says there is no global climate problem that is wrong and we try to solve the problem anyway. That avoids an avoidable catastrophe. Here, the science was wrong but did not guide policy. Realists and conservatives were wrong.

One of those scenarios has to be closer to the truth (reality) than the others. When the realists failed and got things wrong, they got it wrong mostly because the science was wrong. When the liberals or conservatives got it right or wrong, that was their ideology or perception of reality talking.

If that isn't persuasive, then why is it that conservatives tend to be the climate change skeptics and liberals don't? Is it because of the science, the ideology or a combination of the two? Why is there a split like that when identifying the problem is in fact grounded in science, not political or religious ideology? For this issue, perception tends to be reality, regardless of what reality actually is.

End of part 2 - link to part 1.

The 2012 U.S. military budget

The House recently passed a $649 billion defense budget for 2012. The pentagon gets $530 billion and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq get $119 billion. The bill does not include spending for some items, e.g., nuclear weapons, that will also need funding. That is reported to add about another $33 billion, making defense spending for 2012 about $682 billion. For now.

Included in the House bill was, among other things, a provision requiring the pentagon to maintain some weapons it didn't want to maintain. That presumably comes from House members with at least some of that spending in their districts. There are other interesting provisions.

The M777 howitzer - my artillery favorite piece

Context

Military spending in 2010 for the top 8 defense spenders was about like this:

• U.S. - $687 billion - 4.7% of GDP
• China - $114 billion - 2.2%
• France - $61 billion - 2.5%
• UK - $57 billion - 2.7%
• Russia - $52 billion - 4.3%
• Japan - $51 billion - 1.0%
• Germany - $47 billion - 1.4%
• Saudi Arabia - $43 billion - 11.2%

From that short list, spending by the US and its 5 allies on the list amounted to about $946 billion while our top two military adversaries China and Russia spent about $166 billion. The next largest adversary spender on the list was Iran, coming in at 25th with a military budget of $7.0 billion, 1.8% of GDP. Other US allies on the list were Italy ($38 billion) and Canada ($20 billion). Neutral powers India and Brazil spent $37 and $28 billion respectively in 2010.

Questions

The questions are painfully obvious. Why do we spend so much, especially when no one else comes even close? Why do we spend so much when we are deep in debt and ready to make deep cuts in domestic programs? Is our continued military spending in Iraq or Afghanistan going to do any good in the long run? Did our overwhelming military advantages keep deter any wars anywhere or keep us out of wars? For the wars we did get into, how many of them did we win, whatever it means to win these days? Probably none, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why do we spend so much when there is no direct military threat* from anyone? If that is in error, then who is the direct military threat? Mexico ($5 billion) or its drug cartels (who knows how much in 'military' spending)? Is China going to attack with 100 infantry divisions backed by 10 heavy armor divisions? Are the Canadians going to send a hoard of irate lumberjacks and professional hockey players over the border to besiege Green Bay Wisconsin? Are China and Russia (who hate each other) going to pool their forces and attack us through Alaska?

* Military threats don't include terrorism threats. The two are fundamentally different. We spend billions for homeland security ($57 billion for 2012) and billions more on spies and spy technology ($26.7 in 1998; maybe $44 billion in 2005 for the CIA; $53.1 billion in 2010) to deal with terrorism. Spending on terrorism defense is a real growth industry.

If nothing else, it is arguably the case that our massive military advantages helped nudge us into wars, e.g., Iraq part 1 and Iraq part 2, instead of keeping us at peace. Nobody can reasonably argue that massive military spending has kept the U.S. out of war.

The M777 inflicting discipline on

unruly locals in Afghanistan

(from a distance of about 20 miles)

In short, what on Earth do we think we are doing and why are we doing it? Where is the rationale and what is the evidence of a commensurate payoff after decades of massive military spending? I can't see either. China and Russia still hate us and remain military adversaries. Pakistan is slipping away. Iran, Syria and North Korea aren't intimidated - they still do whatever they want. NATO isn't a source of much comfort.

What success?

Where exactly is the success from those trillions in U.S. military spending over the last three decades? What threat has been eliminated? What new friends have we made through all that military spending? What good has it all done? Where is the payoff? Was whatever good it did, if any, worth the awful cost? It looks like we are simply expected to just keep paying our taxes for all of this and keep quiet with no expectation of any benefit.

If nothing else, Republican calls for shrewd and meaningful spending cuts ring hollow. They spend like drunken fools on things they like regardless of actual need. As for the Democrats, they are not much different. President Obama asked for more than what the House approved so far.

Reality isn't always perception, part 1

You've heard it - "perception is reality". What does it mean? Is it relevant? Does it matter?

What it means

According to one source, "perception is reality" applies to people who let ideas from philosophy, e.g., religion, economics and other fields shape their view of reality. For them, their perception is, for the most part, actual reality. Reasonable counter arguments don't carry much weight and usually can't change perception. Facts or evidence that contradict are generally dismissed as of marginal weight, wrong, biased and/or outright lies. Not surprisingly, facts that do fit with the perceived reality are accepted and reinforce perception. To that extent, reality and perception overlap.

Who cares?

So, what's wrong with that? For many things, not much. Its just part of human behavior with no harm for the most part. People can believe whatever they want, real or fairy tail. Knowing you are right is comfortable. Having doubts isn't. Allowing unquestioned perception stand in for contradicting reality has strong appeal. But in some areas like science, business and politics, things are wrong with that when rejecting unspun (true) reality leads to waste or failure.

Vested interest tactics

In politics, vested interests like the Democratic and Republican parties and other special interests understand human behavior very well. They know that distorting or ignoring inconvenient reality is a powerful way to persuade. Spin reinforces partisan perceptions, masks weaknesses in the spinners' arguments and confuses most average people with an open mind. All of that is intended. Vested interests have an awful lot to lose if perception becomes too polluted with true reality. Their role is to keep partisans in the ranks (pander) and distract the rest of us (inject emotion, etc), while quietly maintaining the rotten status quo.

Unfortunately, that tactic results in people with beliefs that are at least party grounded in fantasy (spin). That makes it easier for vested interests to move public opinion in their direction. From their point of view, a misinformed, confused voter is a good voter. Voters who don't drink the Cool-Aid tend to be problematic, being a little harder to fool.

Given our current unhappy state of political affairs, reality probably isn't doing much good for most vested interests. It makes most of them look pretty bad and doesn't help them maintain the status quo. Under present circumstances, the incentives to take advantage of human behavior are enormous. What we get is a lot of political rhetoric and policy grounded in a fair amount of fantasy.

Our politics and policies are heavily influenced by what comes from a combination of (1) the normal human tendency to want to believe that comfortable perceptions are reality and (2) sophisticated and well-financed vested interests who know how to play that human trait for their benefit. From the perspective of a non-ideological, neutral observer (me), that toxic stew looks like a major source of failure and waste in American politics today. It keeps us misinformed, distracted and unfocused, i.e., easily misled.

End of part 1, part 2 (examples of the perception-reality disconnect)

Creating jobs: A politics-reality disconnect, part 2

Part 1 of this 2 part post dealt with the context of trying to understand job creation and seeing an apparent disconnect in how Democrats want to reduce unemployment. This part deals the apparent disconnect in how Republicans want to reduce unemployment and suggestions for what makes sense from the viewpoint of a pragmatic non-ideologue.

The raw beauty of the capitalist beast

The Republican plan to gut regulations (kill the EPA, etc) and unleash capitalist impulses is not just unconvincing, it is frightening. Recall the great Ronald Reagan and the 1980s? He didn't much like government in the context of his time*. To unleash the beast, he deregulated the savings and loan financial institutions. That set the beautiful and sacred capitalist creature to roam free and wild in the economy. What did we get from that?

* In the context of the present, Reagan was a flaming liberal tax and spend "socialist" compared to today's debt and spend Republicans, some of whom now appear to repent on the spend part. Times and political definitions certainly have changed a lot. And, that's for the worse if our current state of affairs is any indication.

As I recall, deregulation in the 1980s gave us the S&L meltdown and us boob taxpayers were on the hook for at least $125 billion. Of course, that was peanuts by today's colossal standards of epic political policy failures. After Reagan, the Republicans tried deregulation again and got (1) Pres. Clinton to deregulate financial institutions, (2) special interests (including Freddie Mac and Fannie May, neither of which could legally lobby congress but did with impunity) to deregulate consumer mortgage credit, and (3) Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. From all that unrestrained beauty, purity and raw capitalist power we got (a) financial institution collapse, (b) a major recession, (c) the still ongoing housing collapse with major financial damage to millions of innocent under water home buyers (not flipping speculators - I don't care about damage to them), (d) an apparently endless period of high unemployment, (e) damage to the middle class and our standard of living and (f) etc.

Unless all that looks good to you, deregulation over the last 10-20 years has a track record of failure, not success.

Nothing surprising there. Many (most?) folks in government seem to believe in making failed policies work by trying harder with more of the same, like we are doing in Afghanistan now. All we seem to get is bigger, more costly failures. If that is in error, exactly and precisely where are the successes, i.e., good jobs, that should be gushing from all that unrestrained calipalism of the last 10-15 years? I can't see them. Are they hiding behind small bushes somewhere?

Does anyone really think we will ever see 4% unemployment again under Democratic or Republican rule? I don't any time soon. Not given politics as usual, i.e., where special interests buy votes in their own interest and politicians either routinely deceive the public (spin) and put their personal reelection interests above the public interest and/or blind themselves by worship of sacred ideology of some sort or another. As long as they stay in power, we are hosed. If things are going to get better, it will happen despite politics as usual, not because of it. That seems to be the case because politics as usual is what got us where we are today, so why should anyone expect it to get us out?

It costs how much??

A striking aspect of creating "good" jobs, maybe defined (by me) as paying at least about 3-4 times minimum wage and providing a meaningful health care benefit, is how expensive it generally is and how few jobs are created from major investments. When a company wants to build s new plant to make appliances, they can spend $600 million to create a facility that will ultimately employ about 800 workers. Ford spent $300 million in 2005 to upgrade an existing plant, which saved 3,500 existing jobs.

However, even if each of those new or saved jobs creates or saves 4-5 additional good jobs, the total new jobs isn't much for an awful lot of initial investment. We need millions of good jobs, not thousands. The situation is probably better for manufacturing some things that aren't as complicated, but you get the picture. Given the high cost to build much of anything, each worker has to be very productive and the few jobs that are created aren't going to make much difference in unemployment.

Nothing I hear from Democrats or Republicans directly or clearly addresses the problem. All their rhetoric is the vague divisive blither we get from clueless hate-filled partisans and special interests that benefit from the status quo. They do not know how to fix our problems. But, they sure do know how to spin, deceive and distract while benefitting at our expense.

Absent some local catastrophes, our economic competitors are just not going away. Our dependency on imported energy will continue to drain wealth hundreds of billions per year from our economy (2003 estimate; 2011 estimate, see figure 2, page 4). Our roughly 40 year-old trade deficit (1996-2008 numbers) will remain negative for years or decades. Our politicians and political institutions will continue to fail and our economy and standard of living will continue to suffer.

How to fix it

Despite that negative context, there are some things we can do to make a real change in the situation. Those things are politically unpalatable because (1) they entail both "liberal" and "conservative" ideas and (2) gore the oxen of powerful special interests with powerful nasty lobbyists. Other than those fatal flaws, these things are pragmatically quite appealing because they ought to make a real difference. At least the logic should be clear.

• Close ineffective tax loopholes - congress has both inadvertently and intentionally created loopholes amounting to about $100-$200 billion per year in revenue losses. Much of that confers little or no benefit on our economy.
• Simplify the tax code - that could reduce the compliance costs per year by about $50-$100 billion. Everyone wants it. Congress always says it wants it, but never, ever delivers. The reason is obvious - a complex tax code is the perfect hiding place for political payoffs for "campaign contributions". The downside, of course, is the loss of some of the 3 million jobs of people working in the tax compliance industry. Althought a two-edged sword, I suspect the benefit would outweigh the cost - its real hard to see how hoards of lawyers and accountants chasing after tax loopholes contributes much to our competetiveness.
• Spend intelligently to fix infrastructure that can help our economy. If that drives up the debt, then offset with reductions elsewhere, e.g., ineffective farm subsidies to welfare Kings and Queens like Michelle Bachman or getting rid of the National Institutes of Health (an ossified bloatware organization and impediment to progress if ever there was one).
• Have government (federal, state and/or local) build energy, preferably safe nuclear (which does exist) as fast as reasonably possible (waive environmental laws, take needed property by eminent domain and prevent lawsuits - if all of that isn't done, nothing will happen) and sell the energy to the public at cost. If you can get the profit motive out of energy, it will make our economy noticeably more competetive.
• Wind down our military presense in Germany, Japan, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. We have done our part for world peace. Its time for the rest of the world to step up and carry their weight. This isn't coming from isolationism. Its coming from a realization that we are not getting our money's worth from the use of our military for foreign policy objectives (another area seemingly devoid of recent success). Our vital security interests no longer requires a significant foreign U.S. military presence, except maybe the 5th fleet in Bahrain.
• Establish an intelligent, shrewd, coherent national strategy on energy policy and international trade. What we have now is ineffective chaos and/or non-existent.

There are other common sense things that can be done, but doing anything will take real pressure and focus from outside the two parties in power. Unfortunately, meaningful and direct actions from Democrats or Republicans are not possible in view of, among other things, their sacred ideology that bars meaningful action and their abject dependency on special interests with money and their own ideas, i.e., maintaining the failed status quo. From the special interest point of view, nothing is broken or needs to be fixed. They are benefitting just fine and certainly would fight to keep it that way. Those special interests fighting to maintain the status quo include the Democratic and Republican parties.

Its time for regime change. Long overdue actually.