How Obama wasted the stimulus

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Via Hot Air:

Theoretically, for the stimulus to have worked, the government would have had to target idle resources. Instead, the government funneled money into already-existing government contracts. Similarly, for the stimulus to have worked, state leaders would have had to spend stimulus money on top of what they were already spending. All too often, they used stimulus dollars to cover general expenses rather than to increase overall spending.

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They should have asked me:

As historian J.D. Hicks pointed out in Republican Ascendency,

“. . . money poured in at the top of the economic system tended to stay there, whereas money poured in at the bottom tended to rise through all levels of business and to strengthen the economy as a whole.”

Guess where Dick and the Dickocrats poured the money?

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Obama would have done better if he had just given the money directly to the unemployed.

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I wonder what Eleanor Smeal thinks now?

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Flashback:

This Is What A Feminist Looks Like

It’s not every day Ms. puts a man on its cover.

In choosing the cover for this special Inaugural issue, Ms. wanted to capture both the national and feminist mood of high expectations and hope as the 44th President of the United States takes the oath of office.

Expectations have only grown since the election, with President-Elect Obama now enjoying over 80% of the public’s support. Most people wish him well, and indeed hope he does “save” us from economic disasters, unending war and occupation, global warming, the decline in our international reputation, and relentless attacks on women’s rights, civil rights, human rights, science, privacy…the list goes on.

When the chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation board, Peg Yorkin, and I met Barack Obama, he immediately offered “I am a feminist.” And better yet, he ran on the strongest platform for women’s rights of any major party in American history. Feminist Karen Kornbluh, the platform’s principle author, ensured women’s rights, opportunities, advancement, and issues were addressed throughout the historic document.

Never has it been easy fighting for equality and social justice. The politics of Washington, our nation, and our world are tough. We have spent far too many years fighting to hold the ground we had already gained. Now is the time to move forward. We are in one of those rare transformational times in history.

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and there was this:

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That was then, this is now:

More on the Plan B debacle

Because I’m still just so fucking furious.

Egalia has an excellent round-up of the reactions, very much worth reviewing: Round-Up: Obama Betrays Women & Science Over Plan B Birth Control.

[...]

Meanwhile, the handful of Obama apologists still left in the tubes are making their faint squeaking noises. I’m not going to link to any of it, because, bullshit. In addition to the chess people (“Obama will overturn this as soon as he’s re-elected!”) and the Wingnut Appeasement Squad (“The Republicans forced this move on Obama!”) and the President Who? team (“Goddamn that Sebelius!”), there are the usual attempts to blame “us” rather than Obama — “us” being feminists and liberals. One clown says this is “our fault” for not turning out in sufficient numbers to vote Democrat in the 2010 mid-terms. Another clown says this is “our fault” for not making a strong public case for the joys of teenage sex. Then there’s the clown who says this is “our fault” for not adequately lobbying for Plan B, which is fucking hilarious considering the history.

Even worse are the Obama apologists—Democrats, presumably—who are nodding along with the President’s “wisdom.” Good move, they say; makes sense. The Overton Window is now somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy.

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One minor quibble with Egalia and Violet – I’m not sure that it’s fair to call anything Obama does a “betrayal,” especially at this point. To betray implies a violation of trust, and anyone who is still trusting Obama is too stupid to be walking around without a keeper.

I never trusted him and expected the worst. He has exceeded my expectations.

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This Kool Aid Tastes Funny

Oh noooo!

If you were to look at the fun house mirror that is the Internet, you would think that Ron Paul was the most exciting candidate in history. If you read his voting history, you’d think he was some old crank that would vote the sky was red if everyone else passed a resolution that it was blue. If you listen to him, you’d think he was the only one in the world who had the blinders off and understood how to solve all problems. How is that different from Newt Gingrich?

I started to lose steam on Herman Cain when I was thinking about his 9-9-9 plan. The idea is that if you abolish the Social Security tax, drop capital gains tax and create a national sales tax, you can tax less and get more. Wait. Get rid of the Social Security tax? Create a national sales tax? We can’t get a Social Security tax reduction bill through Congress. Now we’re going to remake a 100-year-old tax code?

Guys like Ron Paul and Herman Cain have been promising to wipe out the government and put prosperity in its place. Ron Paul has done about as much in government as Cain has. Paul constantly proposes legislation that won’t pass and votes against legislation that will. His ideological purity is intact. That and $2 will buy you a cup of coffee.

I am over Republicans offering an Ayn Rand fantasy and Democrats promising a Karl Marx fantasy. What’s the point of asking what a president will do about Iran? Do you think the day he gets in office he’ll do anything other than what the other guy did? If he did plan that, he sure as hell won’t tell you anyway. And that’s assuming Iran itself doesn’t do the unexpected. Candidates can talk about raising and lowering taxes all they want. They still need Congress to let them.

One thing that drives ideologues nuts about Newt Gingrich is that he talks and thinks in terms of government legislation. To be a real conservative, you can only talk about eliminating the government, not fixing it. Newt learned that lesson almost 20 years ago. The only way to write a law Congress can’t revoke is to make it an amendment and amendments don’t pass easily. What you can do is hold the reins of government as long as you can.

We know what the Obama side of politics represents. It’s full of morons who think a cult of personality can bring hops and change to the country just by reading stuff off a teleprompter. It’s a side that thinks you can sit outside a park at night in a drug drum circle and make all the rich people explode and all their money rain down on the poor. They’d have a better chance starting a Fight Club.

Maybe the real Obama opposition is made up of realists who know government is what it is, but want to fix the machine instead of tearing it down. The mechanic has a better chance of breaking down the machine in the end anyway.

Sunday Morning Pop Quiz

6-6-6

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666 points to whoever answers these two questions:

1. Did you watch the GOP debate last night?

2. Who do you think won?

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I watched the first 20-30 minutes. I think Newt won because it was his debate to lose and nobody landed any really good shots. I’m beginning to believe it will be Obama vs. Gingrich.

I am making out a bucket list.

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What’s so bad about Walmart?

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HuffingPaint:

Another Shocking Fact About the Walmart Heirs

The Waltons currently own 49 percent of Walmart stock.

That’s right. The six Waltons, heirs to Walmart founder Sam Walton, not only have a net worth equal to the combined wealth of the bottom 30 percent of Americans, as we learned this week from University of California economist Sylvia Allegretto, but they also own and control nearly half of Walmart, the world’s largest corporation.

That’s an astounding fact. Last year, Walmart had sales of $422 billion and generated $16 billion in profits. That’s quite a cash stream for a single family to be able to dip into, year after year.

While one could argue that other wealthy corporate founders made their money by producing something that benefited society as whole — the founders of Google, Apple, and Microsoft, for example, introduced products that fueled the creation of many new businesses and jobs — that’s not the case with the Waltons.

Sure, Walmart built a more efficient system for distributing goods, but that accounts for only a small portion of its profits. The main way the Waltons got their wealth is by squeezing workers at every point along Walmart’s supply chain.

The Waltons are a fitting face for the 1% (actually the 0.000006%), because Walmart has arguably done more than any other company to undermine the American middle class and force an ever-growing share of the population into working poverty. As Walmart has grown, it has eviscerated two key pillars of the middle class — small business owners, who have lost their livelihoods by the tens of thousands, and union-wage manufacturing workers, more than 3 million of whom have seen their jobs shipped to low-wage countries, thanks largely to pressure from Walmart and other big-box retailers.

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$16 billion in profits from $422 billion in sales is a profit margin of less than 3.8%. That’s not exactly the definition of price gouging.

Where are all the people railing about how much Bill Gates makes, or Mark Zuckerberg? Or for that matter, what about Arianna Huffington?

I know, I know, I’m committing heresy (again) for not joining in on the knee-jerk hatin’ on Walmart. But it’s just a fucking store. It’s a REALLY BIG store, but it’s still just a store.

Nobody has to shop there. Nobody has to work there either. The reason they put competitors out of business is they sell more stuff and sell it cheaper than anyone else. Doesn’t that benefit society as a whole?

Yes, they are non-union. So are their competitors. And so were all those mom-and-pop small business owners they put out of business. Nos, they don’t offer health benefits. Neither do their competitors. And neither did all those mom-and-pop small business owners they put out of business.

If you want me to hate WallyWorld you’ll have to give me a better reason.

BTW – When the Walmart opened here in my home town the first place they put out of business was Kmart. Guess where I worked?

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