Why GOP Administrations Do Not Create Jobs

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

What tycoons of old understood was that if wage earners earn more, they spend more. Jobs are created. Even more spending follows the additional jobs. That's the left/dem/progressive model. But the GOP method is just the opposite and so --too --the miserable results.

The effects of the GOP model are confirmed with official stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Commerce Dept and various other studies.

A GOP tax cut --from which only elites benefit --is invariably followed by a recession/depression, increased joblessness, higher prices and the export of jobs, most often, to China. [See: CIA'S World Fact Book, online] For example, Reagan's "infamous" tax cut was followed quickly by a depression of some two years (or longer). It was the LONGEST, DEEPEST depression since H. Hoover's GREAT DEPRESSION.

The Axis of Reagan/GOP are wrong. Wealth does not and has never trickled down. "Suppy Side Economics" was and remains a scam, a con job sketched out, it is said, on a napkin by Arthur Laffer. Laffer is remembered for his "Laffer curve" illustrating the theory that reducing taxes for the very wealthy would result in increased production. That has never happened. It's either a lie, a fraud, a fairy tale or all of the above. The Axis of Reagan/GOP are wrong. "Suppy Side Economics" was and remains a scam, a con job sketched out, it is said, on a napkin by Arthur Laffer. Laffer's curve, it was said, would result in increased production. That has never happened. It's either a lie, a fraud, a fairy tale or all of the above.

GOP tax cut for its elite base was quicklly followed by a recession of some two years. It was the deepest, longest depression since H. Hoover's big one! Not addressed with Laffers curve is the fact that elites have the purchasing power to bid prices UP! They also have offshore bank accounts. The results are not inflation! At least since Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, the GOP has tried to peddle tax cuts that have benefited only the elite classes with various forms of trickle down theory. No GOP plan has ever worked!

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The "Malibu Effect" and Why Greed is Not Good for You

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Inflation is crudely defined as too many dollars chasing too few products. A good example of inflation: in 1960 $30,000 would buy you a mansion. 30,000 today will buy you an outhouse. That's most probably inflation. Not inflation, however, is the effect that income disparities have on markets. When a smaller percentage of the population takes in a greater percentage of the nation's wealth, people who may seem to be earning the same amount of money are actually LOSING ground because of what I call the Malibu effect. As the rich get even richer, they bid up the prices of desirable items. Malibu, for example, is just another stretch of beach. But neither you nor I can afford to live there. This is not inflation; this is money controlling the market for the benefit of the very rich. As was said in the motion picture Wall Street: "Greed is Good"!

More accurately: greed is good but only for the privileged elite, the GOP base. This is seen to have happened during the Reagan Administration as Reagan took credit for bringing inflation under control. It was high unemployment over a period of some 16 months that brought inflation under control --not Reagan! But --that's beside the point. The point is that even as inflation was "brought under control", the GINI Index began a trend of exponential increases --the direct result of Reagan's tax cut of 1982.

Economists use the GINI index to measure inequality, disparities in income. Therefore, the loss of ground that middle and lower income families and workers experienced during the Reagan regime had nothing to do with inflation and everything to do with the fact that they had been "bid" out of a lifestyle that they might very well have afforded just five, ten, twenty years prior.

Someone posting on the now-defunct NPR "How's Bush Doing? Board" wrote:

I've been working for nigh onto 36 years; maybe I've finally made it.

How much credit did Clinton's prosperity get for that? The GOP was more interested in his sex life. When the nation finally began to emerge from the effects of Reagan's tax cut for the rich [namely, the 16 month long recession, the longest since the Great Depression, it was the result of "liberal" economics policies --not "conservative" ones.

That there was a recovery at all in Reagan's regime is a triumph of Keynesian economics --not the policies of that GOP "darling" --Milton Friedman. Keynes --not surprisingly --is reviled by "conservatives". Despite GOP lies to the contrary, Keynes defended the capitalist system. What the GOP really despises about Keynes is that he did not pretend to defend the "mythical" market economy model. Keynes proposed that prudent and well-planned government spending could prevent recessions. Just as Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was "proven" by putting it to the test, Keynes theories have been --by and large --proven in England, at least by those governments having the good sense to implement them.

In the U.S., unfortunately, the right wing associates Keynes with FDR --whom they still revile however  irrationally. In fact, FDR "stumbled" upon Keynesian economics by accident. In the first 100 days of his administration, he tried everything hoping SOMETHING would work. Those programs that worked turned out to have been KEYNESIAN! "Conservatives" still have not forgiven either FDR or Keynes. It has been said: a conservative is never so miserable as when times are good.

Sadly, however, FDR was not yet spending enough to stimulate an economy that had all but died. WWII changed all that. Expenditures jumped from some 15 billion to some 105 billion almost instantly. I have not taken the time to check those figures but I am sure that my recall is within the range and can be checked out. To the extent that the increased government spending made its way into wealth creation i.e. manufacturing etc, WWII ended the depression. But the effect tended to confirm Keynes.

What is worrisome is this: the United States became addicted to war. If we are not waging a Cold War, a War on Terrorism, a Korean War, a Viet Nam War, would we slip back into depression? Most certainly --if "conservatives" get their way. Conservatives will oppose government spending on what they consider to be "social programs", but, hypocritically, have no objection to even larger amounts of spending on the military or on corporate welfare.

Reagan ranks near the bottom of the list of American Presidents since WWII in terms of job creation. But Reagan is near the top if not the top in the manner in which he helped create the "ruling elite", in other words, the top one percent of the population.

Sir/St Thomas More describes modern day Republicans:

...so God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth. They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be.

--Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

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Tragedy and Consequences of Fascism

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In the U.S. if you're not rich you're screwed. To top it off, the filthy rich --the ruling "one percent" wants to turn over your social security to the big banks. Americans have not confronted the fact that 'privatizing Social Security' equals giving your money to big banksters, the same big banksters who engineered the last depression. Alas -the GOP scheme to privatize Social Security is either a heist or a gift, depending upon whether your are for it or against it.

With this gift/booty, the big banksters will invest and/or speculate with your monies offshore and international money markets. Not a single job will be created. Not one! Rather --the effect will be the loss of U.S. jobs just as there has been a loss of U.S. jobs under every GOP President since World War II.

I am hard pressed to name a single instance in history when a GOP tax cut or big business tax cut benefiting only the upper classes has EVER created ao much as one job. In fact, the GOP destroys jobs. Every GOP tax cut or other largesse has resulted in declines of both GDP and job creation. To be perfectly clear that is not just a slow down in growth; it is a real decline in job creation itself. Recessions/depressions are even worse. Growth does not merely slow down; rather --economies begin to shrink. Jobs disappear. Economies contract. That any American believes the GOP line dumped on them proves that American education system is a dismal and utter failure --especially with respect to economics.

Texas is the fascist 'lab' experiment which confirms me. Under recent GOP governors, high school graduations have declined. Only corporate prisons benefited from the inevitable rise in crime, most tragically murder and armed robbery.

At the same time, Texas is a nightmare vision of the future that awaits us all. Big corporations have robotized many jobs; the labor movement has been finished since Ronald Reagan waged war against labor and won. Ironically, as jobs became increasingly technical and/or high tech, education, though it has become even more important, declined. The GOP doesn't care. In fact, that was the GOP plan. Sure enough --Texas ranks dead last nationwide in high school graduations. As a result crime --especially murder and armed robbery --has increased.

Who benefits from rising crime?

Another result: Texas leads the nation in executions, a result which the GOP/right wing extremists who run the state seem to enjoy. It's perverted. Who benefits from this epidemic of deliberate incompetence? The corporate run prison system, that's who!

The prisons are no longer run by state. All very high security, high tech affairs, the prisons are owned by huge and growing corporations. They have formed a fascist partnership with Herrs George Bush Sr and his successor Rick Perry, dubbed 'Mr Hair Club for Men' by the late Mollie Ivins. The state lets contracts to their corporate sponsors in the prison business. And what a lucrative business it is! Certainly, with Texas education hitting rock bottom the warehousing of people is a growth industry. Given the 'circle jerk' nature of the Texas government and the corporate prisons, it is reasonable to conclude that the neglect of Texas education is deliberate. It has become GOP policy. Crime is a last desperate resort for increasing numbers who are deprived of education, opportunity and hope! This is Judge Dredd come true. And Texas is the lab experiment.

In the meantime, those landing high paying, corporate jobs persist in their delusions, primarily that they are rich! So they believe! Believing thus, they have assumed huge mortgages for pretentious houses most often behind layers of security --if not moats. This is the case in almost every 'affluent' Houston suburb. I call it modern feudalism but for the fact that feudal 'lords' had a much greater sense of responsibility to serfs. The psychopathic robber barons of Houston do not give a shit! The walls and moats are designed to keep you and the rest of the the riff raff out and, in Houston of late, anyone not among the top 20 percent in wealth and income is riff raff. They have much in common with Scrooge who said: "Let them die and decrease the surplus population!"

The Government's Own 'stats' Indict the GOP

Official stats bear me out. Wealth and income disparities increased significantly, alarmingly under every GOP administration since World War II. The administration of Ronald Reagan was the most blatant 'wealth grab' in U.S. history. Only the top twenty percent benefited from his infamous tax cut. Every other segment became increasingly poorer. A picture of the future was a 'depression' of some two year in which even boom town Houston suffered. Thousands of Houston jobless lost their homes and were reduced to living in tent cities. Many another lived under bridges and overpasses. I saw this for myself.

Bush Jr has apparently finished what Reagan had begun. Now --just one percent of the population owns more than the rest of us combined. Everyone else is losing ground. Should the GOP get control of the nation, that mere one percent will surely shrink yet again, perhaps to just one half of one percent or even less. It's just a matter of moving the decimal place at this point.
This is not what statisticians call a 'normal distribution' curve. It is, rather, an ever steeper curve representing a non-elite class growing exponentially, an elite class whose numbers are increasingly smaller, by now approaching zero. Any point on this curve reveals the rate at which the nation's wealth is literally transferred upward. This is the result of deliberate and official policy. It is, in fact, a payoff to the top 1 percent of the total population.

This is not a policy! This is war!

This is a culture war, declared upon the people by what is often called a 'ruling elite'. Given the trends i.e, the ever shrinking percentage benefiting from robber baron tax cuts, even those currently among the elite should beware. They are next!

Everyone's wealth can be transferred upward to the ever dwindling few. It will be done with the Orwellian use of the term 'tax cut'. Never in history have the results of these 'tax cuts' been so ruinous and devastating. For proof of that see the CIA's own "World Fact Book".

Under Reagan, even boom-town residents (Houston) had been reduced to living in tents. Some never fully recovered economically. I don't even like to think about what new horrors may be inflicted if the psychopaths should continue to dominate American political life.

My conclusions are based entirely on official statistics and the results that I witnessed for myself. I just recently watched an independent film by director/producder John "Carpenter. The film is 'They Live'. If the U.S. is not there, it is getting there and very, very quickly.
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How the GOP Pays Off its 'Base' of Elites

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

When more and more have less and less to spend, what is an economy to do but shrink? Economists call it 'contraction' but by any term, it results in recession/depression.

When workers are not FAIRLY compensated for their labor and productivity, the income and wealth inequalities that result lower GDP and official INDICES measuring the national standard of living. This has been the case following every GOP tax cut.

GOP tax cuts either bribe or pay off the shrinking class of ruling elites that currently make up just one percent of the US population. This class of ruling oligarchs owes its existence to Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut of 1982 which initially benefited the upper quintile. Subsequent tax cuts have enriched this class even as the percentage benefiting has shrunk --from 20 percent to just one percent. Every member of this class should be asking themselves: when do I fall off the bottom rung?

Indeed, that the world's millionaire's are decreasing in number does not mean the wealth is being equitably distributed. Rather --the reverse. Millionaires are decreasing because total wealth is decreasing even as the super-super rich, the ruling elite increases their share.

The number of millionaire households in the world dropped from 11 million in 2007 to 9 million last year, a fall of almost 18%, according to The Boston Consulting Group. The figure was worse in North America where the drop was 22%.

The world’s wealthy are getting poorer and poorer at an alarming rate.

The study’s other important top-line statistic is that “Global wealth fell from $104.7 trillion in 2007, measured in assets under management, to $92.4 trillion in 2008—a decline of 11.7 percent. It was the first decline since 2001.”

The rich seem to have joined the middle class on the metaphorical bread line, which is not good news for developed economies that are counting on consumer spending to help drive GDP growth rebounds. The wealthy may buy different goods and services than the middle class do, but their share of overall purchasing power is tremendous. What has been described as a “jobless” recovery is becoming a “wealthless” recovery as well.

The erosion of personal wealth matches the erosion of wealthy pools of capital. Harvard and Yale announced that their endowments dropped by more than 25% during their fiscal years which ended June 30. These institutions are clearly no better at managing their money than people in the top tier of the economic scale are.

--The World’s Millionaires Are Disappearing

Unless trends are reversed and unless the world economy crashes and makes paupers of all us, the number of billionaires will one day decrease as a handful of trillionaires claim world ownership.

As a result of GOP largesse, this 'ruling' elite of just one percent owns more than 95 percent of the rest of us combined. Clearly --everyone not a member of this class amounts for very, very little among the leadership of the GOP. The US 'ruling elite' have become oligarchs. Bush Jr said: 'You are either for us or you are agin' us'. Surely, he had his base in mind. He waged war on their behalf just as Rome waged war to benefit the nobles, as Rome had invaded Dacia for the gold! If you are not 'elite', you are, like most of us, among the ass-kissin' paupers. Revolutions have begun upon less cause! GOP inequities depress the economy.

Deficits Caused by Tax Cuts Negate Any Potential Economic Benefits

Studies by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JTC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirm the common sense conclusion that GOP deficits undermine the alleged economic benefits of GOP tax cuts. The so-called Laffer Curve is crap! Arthur Laffer drew a HYPOTHETICAL curve in which additional revenues would be derived by cutting taxes for the 'investor' class. The curve is said to have shown how by cutting taxes for an 'investor' class, the increased investment thus stimulated would increase both employement and GDP while reducing federal deficits in the bargain.

Reagan's tax cut of 1982 put Laffer to the test and his curve failed miserably. GDP did not increase; rather, a depression of some two years --the longest and most severe since the Great Depression --resulted! It was accompanied by massive job losses and homelessness. Tent cities sprang up in boomtowns like Houston.

GOP Tax Cuts For Cronies Cause Recessions

Recessions and depressions have followed every GOP tax cut.

• In 1978, capital gains tax was cut --39% to 28%, GDP growth % fell from 5% to 2.9% in one year.
• 1981, capital gains tax was cut from 28% to 20% and GDP growth % fell from 2.5 to -2.1% in 1982.
• 1997, when capital gains taxes were cut from 28% back to 20%, GDP GROWTH FELL about 0.2% from 1997 to 1998.

It has been said that if you charge too much for something you will make $0 and if you charge too little --same thing. That thought process may apply to a small manufacturer; it does not describe or predict the effects of US tax policy. It is, rather, a simplistic demand curve --not the Laffer Curve which presumed to predict the effect of tax cuts. It was --in fact --a baseless rationalization for making the rich even richer. Politicians saw in it the perfect cover, a way to 'launder' a pay off to the base!

Aside from inflicting upon the US economy what may yet prove to be a mortal blow, Unca Ronnie sold arms to Iran, an avowed enemy of the US. Alone, that is treason as defined by US Codes. But Reagan was not done. He funneled the proceeds to a right wing insurgency in Nicaraugua. All 'off the books'. Reagan arranged billions of dollars in unreported loans to Saddam Hussein for the purchase of military tech. [See: Lawrence Walsh, Iran-Contra Report, Concluding Observations]

Later, Bush would accuse Saddam of having WMD! Who but Reagan, the US in general, could have have armed Saddam? If WMD had been found, what are the chances that they would have come from any other nation BUT the nation that has sought to arm insurgencies all over the world --not in defense of Democracy but in defense of a US ruling elite of just one percent of the total population! Weapons for his oil was surely a part of the 'sweet deal' GOP regimes cooked up with Saddam Hussein.

Reagan removed Iraq from the list of known terrorist nations in 1982 despite objections from Congress. A bargain had been struck!

Defense contractors, the de facto enforcement arm of the GOP, shipped helicopters and howitzers to Baghdad in the 1980s, even as the U.S. Dept. of Commerce gave its stamp of approval to the shipment of weapons-grade botulin poison, anthrax, nerve agents and chemicals needed for mustard gas. If WMD had been found in Iraq (they were not), chances are, they would have been traceable to either the Senior Bush or Unca Ronnie Ray-guns, terrorists of the GOP brand!

Until Bush Jr, Reagan had been the very worst President in US history. Bush Jr was not to be outdone. Both idiot-criminals enriched just just one percent of the US population --robber barons, insiders and arms merchants who were already rich. Under both so-called 'Presidents', every one but the very, very rich got poor! The middle class was left behind and falling off the bottom rung. Surely, you figured that out when you tried to re-finance your big house recently.

OFFICIAL STATS from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labors Statistics and the US Commerce Dept et al prove conclusively that the age of US egalitarianism ended with the rise of Reagan Republicanism. It's all been downhill for America since then. You can thank the GOP.

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