Weekend Reading

How did Wisconsin get the largest telescope in the world?

Ron Johnson is a virus that infects the Wisconsin GOP

Mount Pleasant Pays For Foxconn Water Shortfall

Eating meat may not have been as crucial to human evolution as we thought

Bari Weiss and Bill Maher said it’s time to live with COVID. A local doctor fact-checked them.

Economist Paul Krugman explains why so many Americans are 'very down on' a booming economy

What to know about the battle over Wisconsin health care workers now playing out in court

The Dark History of Medicare Privatization

The Anti-Vaccine Right Brought Human Sacrifice To America

The Fed's War on Inflation Is Really an Attack on Workers

Why the COVID death rate in the U.S. is so much higher than other wealthy nations

Weekend Reading

The Dark Side Of Recycling
Lies, Damned Lies, And Recycling
RIP, Paul Adolph Volcker
Trump's Tax Cut Was A Mammoth Fraud
Is College Worth It? A Georgetown Study Measures Return On Investment
How Business Leaders Caused Black Poverty
Economic Errors: Right-Wing Edition
How Oil Companies Avoided Environmental Accountability After 10.8 Million Gallons Spilled
Jillian Michaels Says We Shouldn't 'Celebrate' Lizzo's Body
The College Wealth Premium Has Collapsed
Popularity Of CBD Oil Vexes Regulators And Researchers
Deceased GOP Strategist's Daughter Makes Files Public That Republicans Wanted Sealed
Trump's Biggest Fox News Boosters Suddenly Stop Railing Against 'Deep State' Intelligence
Damning New E-Mails Show Trump Knew He Was Breaking The Law On Ukraine
Ex-Apprentice Staffer Noel Casler Speaks Out: 'Trump's A Raging Drug Addict'

Vicarious

Opiate

Weekend Reading

For Democrats, Cleaning House Means Pelosi and Schumer Too
Surviving The Age of Trump
Did Trump Steal Wisconsin?
Why Oklahoma Can't Turn Off Its Earthquakes
Fracking Isn't Causing Oklahoma's Earthquakes - This Is
Do Markets Really Hate Uncertainty? Not At All
Why Are These Clowns Winning? Secrets of The Right-Wing Brain
Treat Start-Up Companies Like The Bucks
Walker's Lead Poisoned Politics
David Clarke The Demagogue
John Doe, Open Records Proves Harsdorf, Olsen Crooked, Unfit for Office
Wisconsin Corporations Won't Step Up To Improve State's Economy
Almost Two-Thirds of People In The Labor Force Do Not Have A College Degree
10 Facts About American Workers
How America Grew -- and Grew Unequal
Who Really Runs Your City?
Why I Left The Republican Party To Become A Democrat
Democratic Presidents are Better at Making Us Rich. Eight Reasons Why
Art of the Steal: This Is How Trump Lost $916M and Avoided Tax
Paying For Job Reductions: The Unreported Story of a Ballooning Tax Credit
The Deficit is Too Small, Not Too Big

Holiday Reading

Truths & Myths About The Rise Of Part-Time Jobs
What Science Says About Marijuana
The Health Benefits Of Trees
Corporations Used To Pay Almost One-Third Of Federal Taxes. Now It's One-Tenth.

Charts To Email Your Right-Wing Brother In-Law

How Your City's Public Transit Stacks Up
State's Job Growth Defies Predictions After Tax Increases

Business Tax Climate Bull

The Tax Foundation reported Wisconsin dipped to 43rd, among the 50 states, in its business tax climate ranking.

The Tax Foundation said Wednesday that the state's rating is likely higher than its analysis originally showed. 

"We received some feedback from reporters and legislators about Wisconsin's place in the index, and would like to make some clarifications about the state's ranking this year," the foundation said in a statement late Wednesday afternoon. It had released its index on Wednesday morning... 

State Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) raised concerns about the ranking when it was released, arguing that with the tax law changes, there is no way the state's tax climate for business worsened.

Last year Wisconsin ranked 42nd. This year's revised ranking is 40th.

The top 10 states in 2014 are Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada, Alaska, Florida, Washington, Montana, New Hampshire, Utah and Indiana.

Not really a murderers' row of dynamic economies. Plus, these 10 states only account for 13.6% of the United States population.

Matthew Yglesias looked at the correlation between employment, business friendly tax codes, and wages. 

There is a weak negative correlation between business friendly tax codes and wages. 

And a weak positive correlation between business friendly tax codes and employment-to-population ratio. 

In sum, it's a nothingburger. I note that this would confirm the results of a useful Thumbtack survey which found that licensing policies drive business-friendliness but taxes don't.

Scott Walker is a Republican hopeful for the 2016 presidential election (not to mention he also has to run for governor in 2014). The party can't allow one of their poster boys to have a record (yet again) demonstrating the failure of supply-side, trickle-down, tax-cutting, deregulatory policies.

To the conservative echo chamber. All hands on deck. Republicans need to make sure their water carriers look good in the media. They do this by making sure all the editorials, reports, and talk show appearances regurgitate the same manufactured storyline - cutting taxes and deregulation work. 

Enter the Tax Foundation. A right-wing, anti-tax, anti-regulation interest group masquerading as an unbiased think tank. Of its founders, two were General Motors executives, one was president of the Standard Oil Company. Funny how the policies the Tax Foundation support also happen to benefit the businesses of it's founders.

Thus, when bad news slips out, to the backtrack machine. Oops. Scott Walker is actually improving things. He's been such a lightning bolt, Wisconsin's business climate moved two whole spots! 

Business climate rankings have been found to be meaningless. The money and time involved in producing and propagandizing such could actually be put to productive use. 

Lastly, why are "business-friendly tax codes" a good thing? Corporate profits are at an all-time high, yet wages continue to stagnate. How much more business-friendly do we need to be? Where's the worker-friendly policy rankings?

For Further Reading:

Grading Places: What Business Climate Rankings Tells Us

Business Climate Rankings Mislead
Tax Foundation and Competitive Environments: more bunk!
Tax Foundation--up to its usual nonsense
Tax Foundation Figures Do Not Represent Typical Households’ Tax Burdens

Midweek Reading

Concept Of "Limited Government" Is Right-Wing Bunk
Move To Ghost Job & Back Gives Capitol Police Chief Big Raise

Chief Dave Erwin — who has overseen a crackdown on Walker protesters at the statehouse — received an overall salary hike of 11.7%, to $111,067 a year, the same rate as his predecessor. That amounts to an $11,680 annual raise... 

Walker officials took similar steps to skirt civil service salary limits for Deputy Police Chief Dan Blackdeer. His pay jumped by 14.6%, to $96,048, on June 16.

Why Pot Makes You Feel Good
A Texan Tragedy: Ample Oil, No Water
Social Security A Model For Washington Budgetmaking
How The State Borrowed A Billion Dollars To "Cut" Your Taxes
Billion Dollar Blunder
Five Facts About Household Debt In The United States

Tuesday Reading

A Tax System Stacked Against The 99 Percent
Reinhart-Rogoff...There Are Serious Problems
Density
Debt-To-GDP Nonsense
Right Wing Twists Facts
Corporate Tax Expenditures

Sunday Reading

Competitiveness Is About Capital Much More Than Labor
Decades Of Decline In Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Coverage
Gary Oldman
Medicaid's Big Spenders, In One Chart
No Shortage Of Rental Housing, Rents Not Rising Rapidly
Representatives & Senators: Trends In Member Characteristics Since 1945
Right-Wing Plot To Undermine Science In Public Schools
SuperPAC-Men Playing For Big Payday
The 10 Worst Things About The Oscars
Universities In Innovation Networks
You're Not Paying The Tax Rate You Think You Are

Employment Readings

Alternative Measures Of Labor Utilization
Comparing Recessions & Recoveries
Down & Out
Eleven Telling Charts From 2011
Employment Population Ratio
The Employment Situation
Lies, Damned Lies, And Politics
1 Million People Didn't Drop Out Of Labor Force Last Month
Right-Wing Relying On Discredited Information
Wow. But Is The Number Real?

The Unhinged

Right-Wing Violence

It's The Teachers' Fault...

that Wisconsin students are performing so well.

Wisconsin's teachers are successful. The anti-union, right-wing, pro-business crowd always talks about rewarding success or, as they phrase it, "Not punishing success."

Shouldn't they be defending teacher compensation as a rightful outcome of the teachers' success?

Weekend Reading

A clarification on public workers

Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly AFL-CIO Union-Affiliated Members

It's the inequality, stupid

Mad as hell in Madison

Rupert Murdoch and David Koch collude against Wisconsin workers

The shrinking of state and local government

Smaller government can be a drag on growth

Solution to budget problems: Raise taxes on the rich

State budget cuts imperil U.S. economic revovery

States' Rights

Operating Instructions

A few falsely-framed and dubious issues in this election cycle (and something I've noticed as more prevalent over the last decade or so of elections) seem to have taken hold.

Ronald Reagan told us government is the problem. Bill Clinton said the era of big government was over. George W. Bush drove government into the ditch. An increasingly popular theme running through all these administrations: the public sector is The Problem, it should operate more like a private sector business [the perfection of the market and its omnipotence is implied], and the primary goal is job creation [although they're more concerned with price stability than full employment].

We have slowly morphed from the idea of government as a floor. A basic, humane foundation upon which we all try to make our own and others lives better. The public sector would give us clean water, make our workplaces safe, build roads, make the trains run on time, police our streets, put out our fires, etc. All these rudimentary and basic tasks, which our society needs to exist, have been diminished. Suddenly, these tasks were secondary, unimportant. Government needed to start subsidizing development, provide low-interest loans to the private sector, and build the infrastructure for private business. Government became the junior partner of the private sector.

Now we have the Ron Johnsons of the world running as "manufacturers" and "accountants." He bemoans lawyers in the Senate and mocks them as know-nothings. Does he realize that the Senate is a legislative body? They make laws. This actually sounds like the appropriate position for someone educated in the law. And...What the hell does an accountant know about airports, road building, water and sewage systems, etc.? How, by merely smearing someone else, does one become more qualified?

These purveyors of all things private proclaim the often-repeated mantra about running a lean government, just like a business. But, the thing is, government is not a business! Plus, in case people haven't noticed, over the past few decades, we have been continually subsidizing and bailing-out the private sector every few years. Including finance, banking, manufacturing, farming, information technology, medicine, construction, real estate, yeah, pretty much everything!

The right-wing has been snarling about cutting spending, shrinking government size, lowering taxes, etc. These are all red herrings. Every metric, measure, or indicator examined regarding the Republican platform has been an utter failure. Yet, for some reason, each election cycle they declare they're going to cut taxes, shrink government, and make our lives lovely. And, they're going to do it by operating the government like business.

They have failed every time. Yet, voters are still fooled by their snake oil.

Stop telling me what a great businessman you are! Stop telling me about all these jobs you're going to grow!! Stop telling me how you're going to manage the government like a business!!!

Run government like government.

People, this emperor has no clothes. Can we please drop this and start having a rational, adult discussion about the proper and necessary role of Government?

Lies, Lies, Lies

As is their wont, the right-wing is energetically espousing revisionist and false views, and accomplishing their objective of having these lies envelop and permeate public discourse, thereby, sadly, steering the debate.

Complaints regarding President Obama's employment numbers are simply petty, bitter, and nothing less than an attempt to besmirch the President and score political points.

First, stimulus policies have stabilized what could have been a second Great Depression. And, let's not forget which party was in office the last eight years, not dithering, but actively encouraging the bubble economy by continuing to deregulate, loosening monetary policy, and a completely disregarding any oversight.

Second, to expect the Obama administration to overcome this economic juggernaut of a mess in the ten months they have been in office [some started complaining merely weeks into his first term] is not only mind-boggling, it shows a complete lack of understanding of economics, business cycles, and previous economic downturns and their recoveries.

How many jobs did George Bush create per year while he was in office? 375,00 - the worst total among U.S. presidents. Unemployment increased from 4.2 to 7.2 percent during the Bush reign. This all after inheriting a surplus from the Clinton administration. The fact that Bush pissed that away with giveaways and tax cuts to his cronies didn't help matters.

These facts are never mentioned by the right and their sheep. They pretend Barack Obama created all of these problems since taking office. And, let's not forget, the initial $700 billion bailout was initiated by the outgoing Bush administration.

During an economic recovery, the initial-phase success gauge is "jobs saved." One can not seriously expect some magical initiative to simply revert the economy back to full employment overnight. Or are these cranks advocating a Public Works Program?

The general idea, and hope, is to return to a more stable and sustainable economy. Slowly returning to full employment, with the ability to create steady growth while maintaining less volatility in the market. Thus enabling, again, full employment.

To pretend trillions of dollars, due to the collapsed bubble, in lost wealth can be re-created within a few months is disingenuous and counterproductive to our discourse. These critics have two choices (as I see it): sit back, enjoy unemployment, and wait for the market to correct everything, which could take a while; or, allow the government to create public jobs (repairing infrastructure, etc.) and spend on needed policies and programs to make up the difference now.

Media-created Misinformation

Why do networks present Liz Cheney's opinion? Because she's the daughter of Dick Cheney? It seems the more illogical, nasty, and delusional the Republicans get, the more the media presents their opinions as viable.

The Republican party should be the laughingstock of anyone whom overhears their irrational suggestions. They call Obama a communist, they feel Sarah Palin is on par with FDR, the want to do nothing to fix health care, they would like to see more programs cut (especially Medicare and Social Security), they are against increasing the minimum wage, the stimulus (only months in) is already a failure, and they are against anything that helps everyday workers at the expense of the uber wealthy. They are the antithesis of public servants.

Hopefully this country will get its collective head out of its ass and stop listening to and giving credibility to these cranks on the right.

The Love Affair

Some, on the right, are trying to solidify the idea that the media has a "love affair" with President Obama. Because this President actually talks to the press, gives speeches, addresses the public...and the media cover it...this is what qualifies as a "love affair." Although, I agree with Bill Maher, Obama is permitting himself to be overexposed, and thus, allowing these silly distractions - the media having a love affair with him - to take hold.

But what about all the misinformation the media allows out there, such as - he's a muslim, he wasn't born in America, he's a socialist, he's a communist, and on and on - how does this fit into the "love affair" meme?

Even Sam Donaldson said "there are a lot of things he should be commended for," on This Week With George Stephanopoulos.

I guess as far as the right is concerned, creating false stories to fill the 24-hour news cycle is better than actually having to develop public policy, like formulating environmental policy, health care reform, constructing new financial regulations, or helping people get back to work.

It's so much easier to just criticize President Obama, and blame the media for reporting on him.