from Brassville: “‘It’s the Inequality, stupid'”

“‘It’s the Inequality,  stupid'” [to paraphrase the Clinton-era message]

Since Reagan (and I would argue Nixon) Rs have ’tilted the ice’ and have effectively installed Trickle Down philosophies as the common,  central economic norm —  rejecting the New Deal and Great Society ideals as extreme. 

Trickle down is now orthodoxy. Again, Trickle Down came with tax cuts to the wealthy, deregulation of industries, demonization of unions, to name a few.    various markets were becoming less and less competitive as mergers and leverage buyouts accelerated, creating greater levels of wealth consolidation. As a result, the social contract and social safety net are generally forgotten, or labeled as worse.

How this played out during recent election cycles:

–When Dems are in power, they are politically restricted to still working within the Trickle down norms. So, any Democratic party successes are within the existing, skewed playing field.  When Ds are in power, they are politically restricted to still working within the Republicans norms.

So, any Democratic party successes are within the existing, skewed playing field. As a result,  wealth inequality is the orthodoxy. So, even now as the strongest economy in the world, so many Americans do not benefit from any such gains.

Put another way, it mirrors the current “weather  vs climate” arguments -i.e.: ‘economy ‘ is to ‘weather’ as ‘wealth inequality ‘ is to ‘climate. So when Dems respond to the ‘weather,’ they do not /can not fix any of the fundamentals of ‘climate change‘. As a result, the 2024 presidential elections pigeon-holed Ms. Harris as the more-of-the-same candidate who didn’t understand the economic lives of average Americans [granted, there was a lot of mis- / dis- and skewed information btw FOX, corporate media and social media algorithms, but that’s a discussion for another time…]

So how do we get the pendulum to swing back? I’d like to propose a few ideas in other posts that I will refer to as “‘We the People,”‘ proposals as part of future posts.

First & foremost: Corporation’s Are NOT People. This country has to codify in statue – and probably in a constitution amendment in order to neutralize the current SCOTUS.

In 2025, are we a country, a confederation of states, or geographic home base for corporations

Reading the following HSNewsWire article [link below] on supply chains and the language differences between the private sector vs government, i am reminded of the 1976 movie Network.

https://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20250122-securing-supply-chain-resilience-requires-a-common-vocabulary-and-vision?page=0,1

Network. Paddy Chayefsky. Big 70s all-star cast.

There’s a great soliloquy – no not Peter Finch/Howard Beale’s “I’m mad as hell and i’m not going to take it anymore…” The one i often think of is the Ned Beaty/network CEO:

“‘ You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it!! Is that clear?! You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West.

There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, Yen, Rubles, Pounds, and Shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet.

That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state — Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality — one vast and e****enical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

Article: The Killer CEOs of Big Oil | Common Dreams

The Killer CEOs of Big Oil | Common Dreams https://flip.it/oj.9PQ

Why are states allowing insurance companies to cancel policies instead of requiring insurance to go after the party at fault?

My policy premiums pay for insurance company’s cadre of lawyers ready to go after the “guy who rear-ended me”

If I get rear-ended, my insurance company goes after the other driver’s insurance to recover their costs.

about Accountability

As part of current and future messaging on “accountability,” I firmly believe we need to correctly pronounce that Vitek/”Leon” “DOGE” er,hm…thingy… that will be up in our public communications space during 2025. 

The proper pronunciations Is:

“dodg·y [ˈdäjē – as per Merriam Webster] . 

These 2, ‘tres commas’, $B-boys are pronouncing it all wrong. Of course.

I am retiring from 4 decades of federal service.  My soon-to-be-former agency is, IMHO, the leading experts in government acronyms –i.e.: we must master the acronyms of every agency across all branches of government PLUS our own– we know that the “E” is NOT silent.  C’on man?!.  Big. Red. Flag.   The E isn’t silent when we refer to  

  • ICE – US Immigration and Customs Enforcement; or
  • the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE); or
  • the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE); or
  • the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE); …

…and I could go on – with the help of A-Z index of U.S. government departments and agencies | USAGov