I see too often the word "hero" used in situations where they just don't apply. I expect a hero to risk life and limb. To be a hero you have to do something that is beyond the usual. It must be exceptional, such that most people would say, "I'd never do that". Take the pilot who landed his plane in the Hudson river. He is a fine man, exceptional no doubt as a pilot. Most likely he is one of the best pilots at his company. Why is he a hero? He had no choice but to make a great try. He was saving his own life not just his passengers. How are his actions above and beyond?
I write this not to diminish him. I was happy for a week when this story broke. It filled me with optimism. He is no doubt a fine man and has reason to be proud.
I bring up the overuse of the word hero because I see the same thing with the word "torture". Right now torture has come to mean putting prisoners in cold rooms, making prisoners go without clothes for hours, exposing prisoners to loud music, putting them into rooms where it is uncomfortable to sit or stand. This is not torture in my opinion. It does no damage to the prisoner, real or imagined. It will not leave mental or physical scars. How can it be considered torture? For the record, I'm against torture. Its wrong. Its only wrong. Its always wrong.
Yet this distinction between viable interrogation and torture is important because we are looking into establishing a "truth commission" to look into claims of torture. I don't want to see the country tear it self apart over a poorly defined issue like this. I flinched when the torture memos were released. I didn't want to read about it. I was shocked to see that so many methods were included as torture. The only one listed that I think is clearly torture is water boarding. Its easy to see that this could cause deep psychological problems. If we are going to have a truth commission lets get our terms right first. I don't think you can know the truth while purposefully being vague. If we don't then the truth commission is just a witch hunt.
DJH
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
The forest not the trees
The Obama proudly proclaims he has given us a middle class tax cut and that he will cut the deficit by 50% by the end of his term. Each of these things is true and each of these promises contains a lie.
The Obama is fond of mentioning the tax cut he gave 95% of Americans, as if it answers all the complaints about high taxes. We are not supposed to realize that this tax cut is tiny and the mountain of deficit spending he has built will cause massive tax increases in the future under nearly all scenarios. Look at the situation in California as an example of our future. They reached an agreement to close the 40 billion dollar deficit just to discover that they are still 8 billion short. They are short because tax revenues are falling faster than they could cut spending and raise taxes. The same thing is playing out on a national stage, federal tax reciepts are plundging, yet no one is supposed to notice. If you do the Obama will reprimand you publicly. Send the tea party protester away! I gave him a tax cut! Its true he gave us a tax cut its a lie that our taxes are going down.
The lynch pin to his plan to cut the budget in half by the end of his term is the 4% GDP growth rate he has penciled in for our economy. No one that I can find beyond his staff believes the economy can grow at 4%. It is exceptional to see that in the best of times. Now , damaged by a banking crisis and a severe recession that has substantial unemployment he expects 4% GDP growth. The reality is we won't come close to that figure and the deficit will explode like an atomic debt bomb. For now its the Obamas dirty little secret. Later it will be our nations shame.
Still it may be possible that he succeeds in cutting the deficit in half (under nearly perfect conditions) but the question is half of what? Half of Bush's $500 Billion deficit that Democrat's screamed about for years? No ! Half of the current $1.7 Trillion deficit? No! It will be a nearly $4 trillion deficit that he will cut in half. We couldn't live with $500 billion of debt so we voted Bush out. Now the Obama will nearly quadruple it and we are delighted that at least he kept his promise and cut it in half to just $2 trillion. His next lie is in the making now. He is looking to reduce government programs to the tune of $100 million. With this in place he will shout I cut taxes! I cut government spending and waste! I cut the deficit in half! Which will all be true is some insignificant way and will all be bold lies in the ways that matter most.
DJH
The Obama is fond of mentioning the tax cut he gave 95% of Americans, as if it answers all the complaints about high taxes. We are not supposed to realize that this tax cut is tiny and the mountain of deficit spending he has built will cause massive tax increases in the future under nearly all scenarios. Look at the situation in California as an example of our future. They reached an agreement to close the 40 billion dollar deficit just to discover that they are still 8 billion short. They are short because tax revenues are falling faster than they could cut spending and raise taxes. The same thing is playing out on a national stage, federal tax reciepts are plundging, yet no one is supposed to notice. If you do the Obama will reprimand you publicly. Send the tea party protester away! I gave him a tax cut! Its true he gave us a tax cut its a lie that our taxes are going down.
The lynch pin to his plan to cut the budget in half by the end of his term is the 4% GDP growth rate he has penciled in for our economy. No one that I can find beyond his staff believes the economy can grow at 4%. It is exceptional to see that in the best of times. Now , damaged by a banking crisis and a severe recession that has substantial unemployment he expects 4% GDP growth. The reality is we won't come close to that figure and the deficit will explode like an atomic debt bomb. For now its the Obamas dirty little secret. Later it will be our nations shame.
Still it may be possible that he succeeds in cutting the deficit in half (under nearly perfect conditions) but the question is half of what? Half of Bush's $500 Billion deficit that Democrat's screamed about for years? No ! Half of the current $1.7 Trillion deficit? No! It will be a nearly $4 trillion deficit that he will cut in half. We couldn't live with $500 billion of debt so we voted Bush out. Now the Obama will nearly quadruple it and we are delighted that at least he kept his promise and cut it in half to just $2 trillion. His next lie is in the making now. He is looking to reduce government programs to the tune of $100 million. With this in place he will shout I cut taxes! I cut government spending and waste! I cut the deficit in half! Which will all be true is some insignificant way and will all be bold lies in the ways that matter most.
DJH
Maybe I missed something about the tea parties
I saw this item in Robert Reich's blog. I was shocked because clearly he knows this can't be true. Its at the heart of the Tea Party protests.
""The huge debts we're wracking up will cause your taxes to rise!" Wrong again. When it comes to the national debt, as I've said before, the relevant statistic is the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product. The only sure way to bring that debt down and make it manageable in future years is to get the economy growing again -- which requires that, in the short term, the government spend a lot of money (because consumers and businesses won't). In the long term, the biggest source of concern is rising health-care costs. And that's something Obama and Congress are aiming to tackle."
This is clearly a lie for the following reason:
1 We built this decade long bubble economy on leverage. The leverage is now gone. We will not be able to borrow and spend at a rate near we did before, this means economic activity will be lower than in the past as we are deleveraging now. If we have massively higher national debt and modestly lower growth how will we be able to balance the budget without tax increases? Answer we won't.
2 The numbers that the Obama is useing for the growth of GDP are silly numbers that no one thinks will be achieved. We were not able to get that kind of growth before the bank crisis. Now that we have been damaged by the bank crisis we will come no where near the targeted 4% growth in GDP. This small point will cause our debt to GDP to surge as federal tax revenue falls far short of target. This will create a situation where we borrow to pay the INTEREST on the debt and will be unable to pay it down without higher taxes.
Then if you add the health care proposals that the Obama has slated for in his social engineering experiments, it becomes clear that we will be swallowed under a mountain of National debt and spending. The spending by the way is not one time spending. These spending plans are expected to go on forever. They will most likely go up every year as all other government spending does. Where will we get the funds to pay for this? Taxes!
So to suggest that we are keeping the national debt at a manageable level is clearly a lie and that was the basis for the tea party protests.
On a side note I'd like to point out that here in Massachusetts where I live most participants were not Republicans if informal surveys are correct. Most claimed to be independents.
DJH
""The huge debts we're wracking up will cause your taxes to rise!" Wrong again. When it comes to the national debt, as I've said before, the relevant statistic is the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product. The only sure way to bring that debt down and make it manageable in future years is to get the economy growing again -- which requires that, in the short term, the government spend a lot of money (because consumers and businesses won't). In the long term, the biggest source of concern is rising health-care costs. And that's something Obama and Congress are aiming to tackle."
This is clearly a lie for the following reason:
1 We built this decade long bubble economy on leverage. The leverage is now gone. We will not be able to borrow and spend at a rate near we did before, this means economic activity will be lower than in the past as we are deleveraging now. If we have massively higher national debt and modestly lower growth how will we be able to balance the budget without tax increases? Answer we won't.
2 The numbers that the Obama is useing for the growth of GDP are silly numbers that no one thinks will be achieved. We were not able to get that kind of growth before the bank crisis. Now that we have been damaged by the bank crisis we will come no where near the targeted 4% growth in GDP. This small point will cause our debt to GDP to surge as federal tax revenue falls far short of target. This will create a situation where we borrow to pay the INTEREST on the debt and will be unable to pay it down without higher taxes.
Then if you add the health care proposals that the Obama has slated for in his social engineering experiments, it becomes clear that we will be swallowed under a mountain of National debt and spending. The spending by the way is not one time spending. These spending plans are expected to go on forever. They will most likely go up every year as all other government spending does. Where will we get the funds to pay for this? Taxes!
So to suggest that we are keeping the national debt at a manageable level is clearly a lie and that was the basis for the tea party protests.
On a side note I'd like to point out that here in Massachusetts where I live most participants were not Republicans if informal surveys are correct. Most claimed to be independents.
DJH
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