Lying for Jesus

The Roe v. Wade opinion leak has exposed another example of how far Conservative Christians have moved from the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus was killed for challenging the Jewish Temple's power to dictate to Jews how they must think and behave.  Jesus rejected that authority, preaching each individual must find God for themselves, and the Temple leaders had no special authority to set up rules for life.

I have never seen a single word in the Bible attributed to Jesus which suggested he thought God had delegated the right to prejudge sin to prevent it.  The parable of the good Samaritan says absolutely nothing about stopping the wrongful attack, or punishing the bad guys.  It was all about helping the victim - regardless of his religion. Jesus's message throughout his ministry was focused on teaching people to answer only to God and treat those around us with love, respect and honesty.  Government is a different world than religious belief.

That's not the MO of modern Christian Conservatives.  Achieving their agenda trumps respect, honesty and letting each person develop their own relationship with God. 

Justice Clarence Thomas downplays his Christian conservativism to maintain the appearance of neutrality but now that abortion is before the court the judicial tradition that a judge must avoid "even the appearance of impropriety" to maintain faith in the judicial system is an irritation to be ignored.  He waves off the notion he should recuse himself from the deliberations on Roe v. Wade even though he has been an active participant in Christian Conservative events, and his wife has been a vociferous advocate for overturning Roe v. Wade.  His mind is not open to other views.  The apparent impropriety is overwhelming. 

Justice Kavanaugh, about 4 years ago when he sought to get appointed to the Supreme Court, sat before a Senate Committee under oath and in direct response to a question about whether he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, said that the case was "settled law".  He committed a Lawyers lie, lying in an indirect and deliberate manner to give the impression he was answering no.  Now he joins the majority in proposing to overturn Roe v. Wade.  He lied to get the job so he could enforce Christian Conservative sharia law.

Both seem to be of the view God has given him the special right to pre judge the sins of others.  If they need to lie to achieve their objective, the ends justify the means.

The Republican party Christian wing has become so sure they know it all, so disdainful of any view other than what's dictated from Christian Conservative church pulpits, that political corruption in the name of Jesus is now acceptable - from voter suppression to lying to get on the Supreme Court, to "believing" the January 6 invasion of the Capitol Building was justified because the election was stolen by evil Democrats.

In the 1970's the Democratic Party that had controlled Congress for decades let their success lull them into overlooking corruption in their biggest voting bloc, labor unions.  The public didn't overlook it and that opened the door for Ronald Reagan to begin 42 years of Republican dominance. 

Will the Conservative Republican current tolerance of corruption lead the public to reject them?  I have faith in the American people so I hope so.  If not we are on our way to becoming like those Jewish temple leaders of Jesus's time, or fake democracy's like Russia or China in our time, who value power and the ability to crush dissent from the ideas they preach, over the soft power of fairness and tolerance.

These Days a Christian Republican is an Oxymoron

Defintion of Oxymoron - where contradictory terms appear in conjunction

Definition of Christian - a person who follows the teachings of Jesus.

The history of Christianity (like many religions) is conflict between two basic approaches to God.

1.  Those who think how we should live is dictated by God, and they know what that way of living is and are therefore authorized by God to enforce their belief.

2.  Those who think each person should find God, and be tolerant of the path other people chose in their life.

The first notion of God is represented in Leviticus in the Bible's Old Testament.  No reported words of Jesus support this first approach to God, and Jesus's Sermon on the Mount was an explicit rejection of this first notion of God.  Jesus was ultimately crucified because those who espouse this first view of God believed he was comitting heresy in rejecting their authority to dictate God's law.  Virtually every word reported to have been spoken by Jesus fits comfortably in the second view, that we must find God as individuals and our duty is to be tolerant, compassionate and kind towards others.

Which view is consistent with Republican party ideology?

Since the 1980's an alliance between many Christians and the Republican party has produced Republican policy dominance.  When one looks back on what Republican's have done with their power over the last 40 years it is apparent all they ultimately care about is tax cuts for the very rich.   Every single time the Republicans controlled Congress and the Presidency, they cut taxes on the rich.  To get elected they also have vilified gays, immigrants, people fearful of an unwanted pregnancy and once their tax cuts were in place made efforts to create laws to impact those folks.   But only after the rich political donors have been mollified.  

What did Jesus think of taking care of rich folks?   In Matthew 19:24 he is quoted as saying "...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!"  He saw fundemental contradictions between the behaviors that make one rich and the values he promoted.  

What did Jesus think of the powerful being the only conduit to God?  The idea of using the power of the state to vilify or make illegal individual behaviors that have no impact of their fellow citizens is simply rehashing the notions in Leviticus that Jesus's rejected.

A compassionate Christian would value affordable and compassionate healthcare that is available to all.  But Republican's for 100 years have believed the best healthcare comes from folks seeking maximum profit, and if you can't afford it you don't deserve it.  As a result the US, the economic leader of the world, spends twice as much per person on healthcare, with statistically mediocre results - people in some dirt poor dictatorships have lower infant mortality rates and live longer.  When President Obama finally created a universal health care system, it was only after compromises that weakened its effectiveness, and it was then used to villify "Obamacare".  It became a talking point as they sought (successfully) to regain control of goverment.  They were successful and (of course) Donald Trump immediately cut taxes on the wealthy.

A compassionate Republican would want a tax law that produced a country that lifted everybody up.  We had that law from WW II until the early 1980's, we paid down the debt from World War II even as our economy grew consistently (an average of near 3% per year) and wealth was spread broadly across society.  But when Ronald Reagan bought into an Ivory tower notion that cutting taxes on the wealthiest would build a better economy the countries fortunes reversed course.  Tax cuts became the centerpiece of the Republican exercise of political power.  

In the early 1980's when Ronald Reagan started cutting taxes the National debt was at about 30% of GDP, down from a high of 116% of GDP at the end of World War II.  The National debt has gone up every year since and now is about 140% of GDP, by far the highest is has been in our countries history.   At the same time the super rich have attained unprecendented levels of wealth even as the numbers of people living an the margins of society, or destitute, grows each day.

Political activism has turned Conservative christians into the reincarnation of the Temple leaders who implored the Romans to crucify Jesus for challenging the Temple's right to dictate how people behave, and our country has been financially and morally weakened by their activities.

 

 

We Need a Worldwide Organization of Democratic States

 The last 100 years have demonstrated that simply creating a democracy is not enough.   Without strong education systems, informed voters and economic fairness democracies can be converted into a sham democracy where there are elections but one party or person controls who can run for election, and often manufacturers pretexts to jail the most popular opposition leaders.  A despot in a sham democracy may then look for pretexts to engage in good old fashioned empire building (as we see Vladimir Putin doing now in Ukraine and as China theatens to do with Taiwan).

The last century has also demonstrated that free democracy's tend to be much more productive and economically stable, so in the long run Democracies are economically stronger countries than despotic regimes or sham democracies.

The United Nations is a solution from the pre-connected world that has proved a weak and often useless organization in forwarding democracy across the globe because it includes a lot of countries controlled by strongmen who do not want to be answerable to their people.  NATO, another solution from the per-connected world, also has been incapable to effectively addressing aggression against non-member Democratic states.

We need to create a new organization, an organization of Democratic States.  

The organization should set up objective criteria for membership to insure verified free elections where all adults citizens can vote and all those who want to can run for office.  Any country that qualifies and is admitted will then be part of a organization wide free trade zone, and an organization wide mutual defense pact.  Fake democracy's or outright despots who want to bully a smaller democracy will face a united world democratic community.

Any country that moves away from being a free democracy should be expelled.

The history of the world is of a world run by Darwinism, the strongest and most brutal often dominate.  Despots believe that is still the case.  We have the brain power to provide a world where all persons are free and secure, but that will only happen if those who believe in Democracy band together.

Minimum Wage - We Can Do Better

The Federal Minimum wage law was a partisan issue from the day it was enacted in 1938.  Democrats in favor, Republican's opposed.  Politics has shaped the minimum wage more often than problem solving.  Dealing realistically with the minimum wage laws would be a great way to begin a new era where the good policy for the entire country comes before partisanship.

That the minimum wage laws have made the country a stronger and fairer country is beyond question.  But the minimum wage is far from a perfect policy solution.  Republicans have long objected to the minimum wage on the basis it destroys jobs.  They are correct, it does destroy entry level jobs, particularly in economically depressed areas.  But Republicans ignore the bigger picture that the minimum wage also reduces income inequality and in the process creates a stronger consumption base that builds a stronger economy and makes the country more financially solvent.

The basic problem the minimum wage seeks to solve is an unregulated free market pushes business to drive wages as low as possible to survive.  If one business in a market exploits workers they drastically reduce their costs of production.  Every other business in the market will be undercut on price and end up either cutting what they pay workers, or getting out of the market.  As this dynamic plays out across all industries in an economy it undermines the consumption that supports and grows our economy.

The formula enacted in 1938 addressed that problem by setting a floor on wages.  Summarizing the current law, the US Department of Labor website states:

"The minimum wage law (the FLSA) applies to employees of enterprises that have annual gross volume of sales or business done of at least $500,000. It also applies to employees of smaller firms if the employees are engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce..."

The second part of the current law is the problem - virtually any business is arguably "engaged in interstate commerce..."  The distinction drawn by the first test of gross business income of over $500,000 is undermined by the interstate commerce test.  Small local businesses that generate little revenue provide a disproportionate number of the entry level jobs in this country.  A high minimum wage makes hiring too expensive for these small businesses.   

We should learn from history.  The US and many European nations have followed this model that disregards the impact of a single minimum wage standard on small business for decades.  They have always been plagued with high unemployment rates.  The burden of unemployment always falls on the folks who need the most help.  A mandatory minimum wage that works for dynamic urban areas crushes entrepreneurship in not so dynamic urban pockets and more rural areas, while no minimum wages fosters market driven exploitation.  We need a minimum wage law that draws careful distinctions - and distinctions based on "interstate commerce" have failed. 

Facts about the minimum wage:

1.  Unemployment falls disproportionately on folks under the age of 34, and over the age of 54.  In particular people under the age of 24 have consistently high unemployment rates.  Within those age parameters people of color are the most likely to be unemployed. 

2.  64% of the new jobs in the United States come from small business.   In the 81 years between the enactment of the minimum wage in 1939 and 2019 the country averaged an unemployment rate of  5.8% of the working population.  That 5.8% unemployment figure represents literally millions of people who cannot find a job.  But that 5.8% figure is misleadingly low about the true impact of minimum wage laws. Really low unemployment years bring the average down.  In the last 81 years really low unemployment rates have usually occurred during wars when a large part of the young male population were in the military - substantially reducing unemployment among the demographic most likely to be unemployed.  

In the 10 years from 1961 to 1970 the minimum wage was raised 4 times and we experienced a prolonged period of rapid economic growth (without a subsequent financial collapse).  Purchasing power of the minimum wage reached its historical peak in 1968 when the minimum wage was 52% of the average wage.  For that period the average unemployment rate was 4.6%. That is still a lot of unemployed folks but that figure is deceptively low.  Many millions of the young men at highest risk of being unemployed were not in the job market - they were "employed" in the military as we rotated half a million soldiers in and out of Vietnam while maintaining forces in Europe, Korea and other locations around the world.

In the 10 years from 1971 to 1980 the Vietnam war wound down and the military downsized.  The minimum wage was only raised once while the unemployment rate averaged 6.49%.   From 1981 to 2000 as we moved to an a smaller, all volunteer military unemployment averaged 6.1%.

Historically, adjusting for wars and recessions, rising purchasing power from the minimum wage correlates directly with higher unemployment.

How to improve the minimum wage law - A conceptually better way to address the problem of market driven exploitation would be to link how much the owners and managers get paid to how much their employee's get paid.  That will take exploitation out of the marketplace while also enable fledgling business where no one is making a lot of money to bring in help to grow the business for everyone.  The kind of business that provides most of the entry level jobs for young people.

How do we draw the necessary distinctions?  Some ideas include:

Develop Tax policies that make it advantageous in the marketplace to pay your employees well, by setting up tax penalties if the managers make some specified amount more the the lowest paid workers. 

A distinction based on the form of business ownership could also be simple partial solution.  Make the minimum wage law presumptively applicable to any business organized as a limited liability entity as a part of the price of limited liability.  But businesses that operate as a sole proprietorship or partnership, where the owners are directly liable for the business losses, could be exempt from the minimum wage subject to some yearly income test.  

We are a country built on the notion we offer everyone the opportunity to choose their own path.  A one size applies to all minimum wage can preclude entrepreneurial folks trying to create their own path from taking on entry level employees.  A small business without big profit margins that might employ low skill entry level workers to grow into a bigger business can't afford the same wage a big established organization can afford.  The result is some people who would like to be employed are not.  That should be unacceptable.

We can do better.

Problems in Government: Social Security and Pension Plans

 In 1935 the Federal government created the Social Security system to address a chronic problem in society - how to take care of people who cannot support themselves through age or disability.

The problem had been an issue long before 1935, so many local and state governments, and some businesses had begun seeking to address the problem by creating pensions systems for their workers.  The concept that dominated was a defined benefit plan - if you worked a certain number of years you would be entitled to a amount of money each month after you reached retirement age defined as a percentage of your final salary.  It relies on complex  formula's to project how much money has to be set aside each year to have a pot big enough to meet retirement obligations.

Social Security as created in 1935 was a work around to supplement defined benefit plans already in place.

In the century since the defined benefit plan became popular it's two glaring deficiencies have long been apparent.  

The first problem is the model relies on the managers correctly projecting how much per year they need to set aside to provide a big enough pot for retired employees.  Management who have other business priorities, like finding money for raises for themselves, are incentivized to err on the side of putting too little aside.  Rather than what would be prudent they assume the best case scenario.  Assuming a 7% annual return has been common even during recessionary times.  The result has been pension plans often verge on insolvency during stock market downturns.

The second problem is defined benefit plans usually contain "vesting" requirements - money set aside for each employee did not actually become the employee's money until the employee had worked a specified number of years.  This was a considerable benefit to the organizations.  It allowed them to dangle the carrot of a pension to entice potential employees, but they could rely on a certain number of the employees leaving before their retirement vested, so the contributions in the leaving employee's account went back in the pot and reduced the overall contributions the organization had to make - in effect long term employees were subsidized by of short term employees.

The result has been chronically underfunded pensions, and workers who often accumulate little or no pension as they move through life.  It also tended to keep people at jobs they no longer liked in order to become vested.  Finally it is a hurdle for potential entrepreneur's needing a little financial security before striking out on their own to create new business.

Congress recognized the problems decades ago and responded with regulations aimed at private business. Private business, in response, moved away from defined benefit plans to 401K's, employee investment programs created by Congress that effectively funnel money to Wall Street - not only a huge money maker for Wall Street but also a huge factor in the chronic overvaluation of stock markets.  

Government and church related non-profits are still unregulated and continue to imposed vesting requirements that may require years of working service before the worker is entitled to their money.

The Congressional solution to the insolvency issue was a program aimed at funding bankrupt retirement plans,  But with the National debt currently exceeding the national income the ability of the Federal government to bail out underfunded pensions is limited, particularly given that the reason many retirement funds currently appear solvent is because of a stock market chronically inflated by low interest rates.  A market crash could devastate retirement plans, which could crush consumption.  

It is time to start redesigning Social Security law around what's good for workers rather than relying on the poorly aligned incentives of private pensions and 401K's herding retirement money to Wall Street.  A big step forward would be to give workers the option of having retirement contributions directed into the social security system in their name, or rather than supplementing their social security account, use it to fund a business, buy an asset or otherwise take control of their retirement pot without a complex web of restrictions. 

Trump's Tax Cuts Add $18,600 in Debt for each Taxpayer per Year

A social media post comparing the Biden plan with the Trump tax cuts notes a lot of middle income families paid somewhat less under the Trump plan compared to the Obama years.  I presume the goal of the comparison is to help in figuring out for whom to vote. The posting computed how much taxes a regular family would pay over a couple years before and after the Trump tax cuts. 

The post neglected to consider the National debt. Considering the National Debt exposes how the Trump tax cuts were crassly aimed at buying votes now with total disregard for future generations.  

The bottom line:  For each year the Trump Tax cuts have been in effect $18,600 in debt has been added per taxpayer.  Here is the data (and a website to help with your own computations - don't take my word for it).

In 2017 (the latest year for which the internet has data) around 144 million people filed Federal Income tax returns.  If you divide the National Debt by the total number of taxpayers here is what you get. 

The current National debt is approaching $27 Trillion.  (https://www.usdebtclock.org/ ).  When the Trump Tax cuts were enacted in 2017 the debt was $20 trillion.  At $20 Trillion the share of the debt for each of the 144 million taxpayers was about $158,000.  With the debt currently at $27 trillion each taxpayers share of the debt has increased to about $215,000.

So in the three years the Trump tax cuts have added $56,000  to each taxpayers share of the debt, about $18,600 per year, vastly more than the short term tax savings realized by any hypothetical middle income taxpaying family.  

This isn't just about Donald Trump, he is just playing out of the Republican party playbook.  Here are some historical facts:  

Between 1933 and 1981 the wealthiest taxpayers paid an average of 70% tax on that portion of their yearly income that was far beyond what the average taxpayer made.  In those years GDP growth averaged nearly 3% per year, and in 1981 the National Debt was the same as it was in 1933 - no net growth, even after funding WW II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War and sending folks to the Moon.  This period also saw middle class incomes peak in the decade before Reagan.  

In 1981 when Ronald Reagan became President the National debt stood at about 30% of GDP.  Keeping taxes low on the wealthy was a top priority for Reagan and every Republican since, as Republican's have dominated Congress and government policy since Reagan.  The National debt has increased every year while GDP growth has been mediocre and middle class buying power has deteriorated. 

The net result is since Reagan the National Debt, as a percentage of GDP, has grown faster than GDP.  As a country we have gone backwards in economic development. 

Republican tax cuts for the wealthy (trickle down economics) are an abject failure.  Globalization hid the extent of the failure, the shrinking wealth of the middle class in the United States was offset by big corporations selling stuff to people all over the world so GDP was at least mediocre.  Wall Street did great, Main Street did badly.  

Forget Donald Trump and all his...quirks.  To get this country back on a sustainable fiscal path voters need to realize the problem has been and is Republican economics.

P.S. - Don't be confused by folks talking about a lower National Debt figures.  About 20 years ago Republicans who wanted to finance more tax cuts borrowed money from the Social Security Trust Fund.  The debt to the Social Security Trust Fund is often excluded (since it is the Fed owing money to the Feds) and only debt owed to the rest of the world is counted as the "National Debt".  Ironic in that the Social Security Trust fund is working folks retirement money - by borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund Republicans managed to put workers on the hook for paying the interest on their own retirement funds.

Will the Protests Help or Hurt the Racial Justice Cause?

Been engaged in a long discussion on Facebook with various members of younger generation who basically excuse all the violence over George Floyds death for various historical and emotional reasons.  I tried to make the point if they want to make progress on racial justice they have to distinguish between non-violent protest and violent protest.  Didn't feel like I made much progress so decided to do some research.

Since the 2014 events in Ferguson Missouri seemed to offer a recent similar sequence of events, I decided to see what happened in the 2016 Presidential election.  Interestingly, in an election that saw very low voter turnout in many states, in Missouri the turnout was unusually high, around 70%.

Then the question becomes who did the Ferguson events motivate to vote.

In the 2016 election in Missouri Hillary Clinton got the lowest vote percentage (just under 38%) for a Democrat since 1972.   Donald Trump got 56.4%.

It seems to me to suggest that the outrage at the violence sent more people to the polls than outrage at the original shooting.  

Be happy if someone can find some other statistics to explain this result.