Media Watch

  1913 – Implementation of individual taxes led to a bloated government, incentivized 85% of tax lobbyists to represent corporate interests, enabling overburdening of the workforce and the general marketplace, and giving business interests motivation to loot newly created government revenue on the backs of the tax-paying public. 1953 – Military conflicts debt-financed, not tax-funded, leading to enormous growth of national debt. Much of the fruits of our labor (treasure) go to military defense contractors. 1870-1970 – End of century-long trade surplus, leading to diminishing domestic wealth creation, dismantling of US manufacturing, urban decay, violent crime, and the drug war. 1971 – Nixon Shock, causing deep & broad economic instability, and individual wealth & income shrinkage, furthering blight. 1973 – Nixon’s HMO Act, incentivized for-profit speculative trading in medical care providers and pharma. Public medicine further gave-way to market-managed hospital c...

The storefronts are empty, the pension funds are hollow, and the ticker tape continues to roll. To the casual observer, the American economy is a marvel of modern resilience. To the autopsy surgeon, however, it is a body being systematically harvested for its parts. We are no longer living in a period of growth; we are witnessing a global fire sale of the remaining assets of a once-prosperous civilization. The tragedy of Sears —once the heartbeat of American retail—is not merely a story of bad management. It is a microcosm of the national condition. A venerable institution was stripped of its real estate, its brands were sold off, and its workforce was discarded, all while a few financial engineers extracted billions. This isn't "creative destruction"; it is the liquidation of the American foundation. The Great Uncoupling (1971–Present) The dismantling began in earnest a generation after 1972. When we severed the link between the dollar and gold, we didn’t just change a m...

  Sam Harris on his book, The Moral Landscape; How Science Can Determine Human Values. Appearance on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart October 4, 2010 The challenge we’re faced with is to create a global civilization based on shared values, economic, political and social goals. We have to begin giving similar answers to the most important questions in human life. We have to talk about morality and human values in the context of our growing scientific understanding of ourselves in the world. There is an intellectual and moral emergency. The only people in the world who think they have the right answers to moral questions are religious demagogues who think the universe is 6,000 years old. Everyone else thinks there’s something suspect about the concept of their moral truth. Morality and values clearly relate to human and animal well-being. Our well-being emerges out of the laws of nature. It’s fantastically complex. Genetics, neurobiology, psychology, sociology and economics and everyt...

I feel for the loyal workers at John Deere, who for decades created wealth for the billionaires, and doing so at great cost to themselves, both physically and mentally. I’m sad for the 1,104 Iowa plants workers that have lost their jobs this year alone. I think it’s safe to say the jury’s no longer out; the supply-side promise was and remains a failure for the economy at large. The wealth never trickled down and the lower tiers of society, which are on an accelerating decline, and that’s caused all kinds of societal dysfunction (decay, crime, illness, homelessness). It's a fundamental fact that commerce relies on robust economic activity – a balance between cost of living and living wages – but no one’s explaining how the growing working-poor sector is going to keep Iowa business afloat. Sub-living (& lost) wages for Iowans is cutting into business’ ability to remain a going concern in our state. Slashing payroll to fund stock dividends and $845 million in buybacks per quarter ...