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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How Two Bushes Sold Out America

Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

China is a leech in more ways than one. By way of Wal-Mart, it has destroyed decent wages and productive job creation in the U.S. See the CIA'S own list: China is No 1 with the world's LARGEST POSITIVE Current Account Balance; the U.S. (thanks to Wal-Mart) is DEAD LAST with the World's largest NEGATIVE Current Account Balance. (formerly called the Balance of Trade Deficit

We don't have far to look for culprits. They are not hiding behind bushes. They ARE the 'Bushes". Let's take a look at the history before it gets re-written:

1. Any Democratic President has presided over greater economic growth and job creation than any Republican President since World War II.
2. When Bush Jr took office, job creation was worst under a Republican, Bush Sr, at 0.6% per year and best under a Democrat, Johnson, at 3.8% per year.
3. Economic growth under President Carter was far greater than under Reagan or Bush Sr. In fact, economic growth in general was greater under Johnson, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton than under Reagan or Bush. Democrats always outperform a failed party: the GOP!

4. The job creation rate under Clinton was 2.4% significantly higher than Ronald Reagan's 2.1% per year.
5. The "top performing Presidents" by this standard, in order from best down, were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy. The "worst" (in descending order) were Nixon, Reagan, Bush.
6. Half of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector --some 2 million jobs added to the Federal Bureaucracy. Hadn't he promised to reduce that bureaucracy?
7. Reagan, though promising to reduce government and spending, tripled the national debt and left huge deficits to his successor. Bush Jr's record will be even worse.
8. By contrast, most of the jobs created on Clinton's watch were in the private sector.

To sum it all up: any Democratic President beats any Republican President since World War II. The GOP eagerly hitched its wagon to the star of elitism. When just 1 percent owns more than the rest of us combined, it is safe to conclude that the GOP --as a viable party --is finished! Good riddance!

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How Keynes Got it Right and the 'Right' Got it Wrong!

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

Many have proposed a 'flat' tax. It sounds good but isn't! Flat taxes are not really 'flat'. Ten percent of the income of a poor or middle person is a much, much greater burden than is the same percentage against the income of a millionaire. The difference is that merely keeping a roof over the family's head and food on the table is a MUCH bigger percentage of income/wealth for a poor or middle class family.

The very, very wealthy, in fact, find it difficult to spend all their wealth. What is left over after the cost of maintaining a villa in Spain or a swanky lodge in the Alps is invested in enterprises that earn even more wealth. Moreover, even Libertarians --if pressed --may admit that 10%, 20%, 30% percent, indeed, any percentage of a poor person's income is a much greater burden than almost any rate on the income of a millionaire! Among the many reasons this is so is that mere necessities --food, water and to varying degrees, shelter --are not only fixed, they will always amount to a much higher PERCENTAGE of a poor or middle class budget than that of the budget of a multi-millionaire or richer.

Libertarians, however, will maintain that income tax is immoral because tax policy may have the effect of re-distributing wealth and income. My reply is that when just one percent of a nation's population owns more than the rest of the population combined, it is time to raise taxes on the very rich.

The whole system is pure criminal as from the installation of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 by Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Not only the American people suffers, the whole world has been sandwiched by the private banks behind the central banking system.

--G. Edward Griffin, Legalized Plunder of the American People

The best argument against a flat tax, ironically, has come from a so-called 'libertarian' who wrote:

That 10 percent is a greater burden on the poor than is 10 percent on the very rich is the very reason that income tax is immoral --as it is currently imposed upon us.

Alas! The Libertarian does not go far enough. A flat tax of any sort will penalize the poor while enriching the rich.

During the 'Great Depression', the American comedian Bob Hope was asked to comment on it. He quipped (and I paraphrase)

"..I looked up the word depression. A 'depression' is a hole. I looked up 'hole'. A hole is 'nothing'. So --if you think I am going to waste my time talking about nothing, you have another think coming!"

There is nothing mysterious about depressions. They are defined by 'negative GDP growth' from which follows negative job creation rates --not to be confused with mere slowdowns or periods of slow growth. Thus depressions are disastrous for the poor. The very, very rich can actually benefit from them by buying bargains that are beyond the reach of the poorer or middle classes. The 'ruling elites' are capable of rigging markets with cleverly timed 'sell-offs'. They have the luxury of buying back in at bargain prices.

A 'depression' is a period of 'contraction'. In the U.S. every recession/depression at least since World War II has occurred during a Republican administration. That is but one reason I am not now nor have I ever been a Republican.

If FDR had been either a Republican or what is commonly called a 'libertarian' (in the Ron Paul sense of the word) the U.S. would have eventually collapsed. Even so, it may have required the U.S. entry into WWII following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to get the U.S. into the war. As a stimulus, 'war' created millions of new jobs and put women to work where --earlier --their presence had been unknown. The image of 'Rosie the Riveter' is still symbolic of the period. The good effect is that women would never again consent willingly to 'second class' citizen status.

As for Keynes, he would not have been surprised by the American experience. He was, after all, famous for his proposal that in times of increased joblessness, the government may do well to bury 'pound notes' in a landfill and let 'private enterprise' dig them up.

If it's all about jobs, why wait for a war to create jobs? A 'liberal' administration has a responsibility to society overall --not just to the 'ruling elites' who finance his campaigns. Rather, a liberal and/or progressive regime will support a more egalitarian society, in fact, a more efficient society as a result.

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How Steinbeck 'Predicted' a Decline and Fall of America

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

There are MANY differences between the GOP and Democrats! Enough to write books about! Why, then, has the meme taken hold that there are no differences between the parties?

That's found in 'Right Wing Campaigning 101', better known as a GOP 'Campaign Manual'. There exist such manuals, produced for candidates by their highly paid consultants. At one time, I had several of these large tomes. Lesson no 1 states (in effect): in appropriate situations, it is to your candidate's advantage to BLUR the distinction between the candidates. Generally, the GOP is a minority party. It is often to their advantage to convince the public that Dems are just GOP-lite! It "ain't" necessarily so! For a start: EVERY Democratic President since WWII has enjoyed greater GDP and JOB CREATION rates than has any GOP President.

No one was surprised recently when some 227,000 NEW Jobs were reported. Those were among many more that had disappeared under Bush Jr. That the Shrub lost and/or destroyed jobs put Obama in the position of having to regain lost ground and add to the baseline! The cycle is repeated whenever a Democrat assumes the White House; he must create jobs and quickly. When a Republican assumes the White House, he or she will promptly destroy them. If there were NO differences between the parties then HOW is that pattern explained?

Clue: STOP buying the bullshit! Check the official numbers.

The great motion picture --The Grapes of Wrath --was all about the disastrous, often heart-breaking loss of jobs that began with the incompetent if not evil policies of a GOP administration, that of Herbert Hoover and the GOP administrations which preceded him --Harding and Coolidge. The GOP OWNS its creation: the GREAT DEPRESSION.

Daring to tell the truth about the Great Depression and the GOP which created it earned John Steinbeck numerous death threats, an FBI investigation, and --to be expected of the nation's moronic/crooked right wing --charges of 'Communist sympathy', charges never proven. They were not proven because they were not true! What if they had been? Are we not guaranteed freedom speech? Are we not free to vote as our consciences dictate? Are we --in fact --NOT free?

The actions of the GOP/right wing define them thus: 1) they are liars who know their 'economic policies' are disingenuously conceived and promoted;the GOP knows its 'theories' are hooey but does not care; 2) the GOP are ruthless and will rig elections in order to seize power.

In the meantime, we have no choice but to exercise free speech until it is denied us by a tyrant. We narrowly survived one recently --George W. Bush who might have parlayed a success in Iraq into a 'triumph' perhaps with laurel wreaths and a parade of slaves from conquered nations.

That the GOP is utterly incompetent may very well be our only salvation --so far! It may be dumb luck that things worked out in our favor. In the aftermath of Bush Jr, we should be thankful that we are still --on paper at least --guaranteed freedom of speech and, by extension, the freedom of conscience that inspires it.

Not surprisingly, it was an Oklahoma Congressman who labeled John Steinbeck's novel --The Grapes of Wrath' --a "dirty, lying, filthy manuscript”. Nevertheless, it remains one of America's great novels, one of America's great motion pictures starring Henry Fonda. Predictably, the GOP despises it because it dares to tell the truth and depict it realistically.

Tragically, a 'sub-stratum', i.e, the right wing inclined, has refused to evolve, progress, grow or, in any way, transcend a disastrous mental constipation that has --it seems --forever retarded our nation's best but utterly lost dreams and better aspirations. One fears that America will be remembered as Rome is remembered, that is, as a repressive, failed, cruel empire remembered most often for its cruelty, its obsession with spectacle, it's neglect of anyone not of 'noble' lineage.

Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace!

--Tacitus: Calgacus' Speech to His Troops (A.D. 85)

Dust Bowl --a 1950s Documentary

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