Will Work For Food?

Monday, August 22, 2011

California AB 750 ALERT

AB 750, calling for a Task Force to study starting a state bank, will be heard later this week in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

This is not a controversial bill and simply asks for a task force to study a state bank.

A public bank will pull the state's money out of Wall Street and bring it home, where it will be used to partner with community banks to lend credit to small businesses so they can start hiring.

North Dakota has done this already.
California needs to get our economy going.

Please act on supporting this bill right away: today or tomorrow.

Call the Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Christine Kehoe (San Diego), to urge passage:
916-651-4039.

Or email:

Asm. Hueso, author of the bill
.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Did you get what YOU wanted in debt deal?

Poll on what WE wanted. Share this with your representatives.

Too Bad They Weren't Interested In Having Some Of The Top Corps Pay Their Taxes

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes_slide.html

Bunch of whiners.

ACTION NEEDED NOW REGARDING NATIONAL BUDGET DEAL

(Blogger is having a formatting problem. Please let me know if this post looks bizarre in any way! Contact me at starving.e@gmail.com)

On to the post...

UPDATE:

HAPPENING NOW:

If a deal becomes already done, we should still read the below and then take the action to give them the information they should have paid attention to. Damn it!

As for what's happening now
Call C-SPAN now at 1-292-585-3886.

You can follow what's going on, and also Twitter
http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3
http://on.msnbc.com/nvQ1mCand

We can contact the White House, and also Congressman Ryan--who, since he put forth his budget plan for the entire country, should hear from the entire country and not just his constituents.

UPDATE: Debt Ceiling bill passes House :( :( :(

What idiocy is going on.

One problem that seems to be affecting those representing us in Washington is confusion about the National Debt, the Deficit which contributes to it--

and, the Debt Ceiling. They do sound a bit the same. Such as Car and Car Seat. But would you try to drive a car seat down the freeway?

So you don't hold up raising the Debt Ceiling while you work on the National Debt/Deficit. They are not the same. They are not the same. Let Washington know. They need a clue.

Many people wish to make cuts in national government spending, which would reduce the Deficit which contributes to the National Debt. There should be DEBATE about which cuts to make, as well as when to make them.

Why? Because the public, we the people, haven't had much time to have the options explained to us, how the cut proposals would really affect us and the people we know, and how to then give our representatives OUR opinion.

In addition, WHEN to make the cuts is an economic issue. Cuts result in lost jobs. We are unfortunately in a period of high unemployment. Lost jobs mean those who lost their jobs have less money to spend. So they don't spend at all of the businesses which they did. before, right? The businesses have less income, and lay off people. This results in more and more unemployment.

Unemployment also means the government receives less tax revenues. So they make more cuts...it is a spiral. Circling the drain.

Cuts are thus dangerous in periods of high unemployment and a fragile economy. The time to make large cuts is when the economy is strong. It's not strong now.

There is no reason to address the National Debt and the Deficit at this exact moment. There is time which should have been given to you and me to become informed and to then let the representatives , who do work for US, know what we want! We should always be consulted!

Raising the DEBT CEILING, on the other hand, which expires tomorrow, would allow our nation to pay our current bills. Whether you pay your bills with cash, check or credit card, you must pay them on time. What if you don't pay them on time because you have decided to review your budget first and make personal changes in your spending and revenue? Wouldn't you sound like an idiot?

Do you tell your plumber to wait until you feel like paying your bill? What about your credit card payments? What happens to your reputation for paying your bills if you do this? What happens to your credit rating? Then what happens to your interest rates?

If our country loses our reputation for paying our current bills, other countries will lose confidence in us and this will cause us economic harm. If we do not pay what we owe on credit, our credit rating could be downgraded and our interest rates could increase.

Ironically this would make it HARDER to pay off our debts and reduce the Deficit and the National Debt. Harder, Washington. Listen and learn.

But: we can't (or should not have raised) raise the Debt Ceiling by forcing a bad deal through Congress which would make things worse, such as unemployment. We have more than enough unemployment.

So we must tell them we oppose or opposed a rushed, bad deal for the National Debt and Budget Deficit, and tell them to always give us time to respond to important proposals. But raising the Debt Ceiling should have been done a lot earlier so we could pay our bills and keep a good reputation! Sheesh, how hard is that? Why don't they get it?

Those who read this are not likely to have had a chance to register YOUR opinion, based on receiving information like what is written above, about any deal in the making.
Clearly this is not a good time for large cuts. Who wants more unemployment?

Also, the cut proposals seem mainly focused on discretionary social spending. This is more harmful to the economy than increasing revenues from billionaires and many profitable corporations (who now pay little or no taxes) would be. Hopefully I can write more on this later. We are being ripped off. In the meantime we don't need to harm our economy any more. Obvious.

We have to let our representatives know NOW that we oppose (d) any bad deal which is in the making or which has been made.

Call your own representative at the capital switchboard and tell him or her the same thing: (202) 224-3121.

You can tell them:

1) You should always stand up for THE PEOPLE, who have already sacrificed their jobs, homes, healthcare, and economic security. And by the way, cuts which only affect US, THE PEOPLE, are more harmful to the economy than if the superrich and the corporations who are practically drowning in profits--pay their fair share!!!

2) THIS IS A BAD TIME TO MAKE LARGE CUTS, INCREASE UNEMPLOYMENT, AND TO CONTRACT THE ALREADY FRAGILE ECONOMY.

AND YOU MUST SAY: I WANT (or wanted) YOU TO VOTE "NO DEAL" AND PASS A *CLEAN* DEBT CEILING BILL!


You may also tell the White House what you think.

None of this is not as hard as it looks and takes extremely little time! Please do this! Our country needs you!

We DESERVE to be heard. We want the economy to improve and we don't want anything more to stand in the way of a recovery. Anyone who thinks we are in a wonderful recovery, based on things like the DOW, is out of touch with most of us--aren't they? Are you doing well in this Great Recession/Depression?

If not, speak up to your employees in Congress.


And please pass on this post.

Note: proofreading welcome.


Thursday, July 14, 2011

Don't make US debt harder to pay off

The debt ceiling is, in a way, misnamed. And is an EMERGENCY! Americans must ALL take action now.
Everyone needs to call their representative in Congress, immediately. Not raising the "debt ceiling" actually means it could be much HARDER to pay off our debts!
An explanation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/warning-to-washington-dont-mess-with-the-debt-ceiling/2011/07/12/gIQA5Q4ADI_story.html .
If this needs translation for non-financial types, let me know :)
The mainstream media has not explained this well. We've got to pass on this information ourselves. Find your rep and CALL: http://www.house.gov . Tell them you want the ceiling raised. And let the people you know, know this. Urge them to take action as well, sending something like this, or in your own words:

Let's not make it harder for America to pay off its debt! The debt is bad enough as it is. Please call your reps and ask them to raise the debt ceiling and to take the issue out of partisan battles. This is something that is important for all Americans. Give the people you know this information. The situation is not necessarily what it appears to be. It's complicated! It's got to do with bonds, and stuff like that! Info at: http://thestarvingeconomist.blogspot.com/2011/07/dont-make-us-debt-harder-to-pay-off.html

UPDATE:
The Coffee Party has a letter-writing campaign to join!
http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/cx-debt-ceiling-hostage-crisis

Don't make it harder to pay off US debt

There was some sort of bizarre technical error with this post. Please go here: http://thestarvingeconomist.blogspot.com/2011/07/dont-make-us-debt-harder-to-pay-off.html and thank you for your patience.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Deregulators and Creating (really?) Jobs

Interesting article (which does not absolve Democrats, by the way) claiming deregulation has a negative effect on job creation.


The author was a regulator during the savings and loan crisis, which I remember vividly. My parents, middle managers for a bank and a title insurance company, were so badly affected by this crisis that our family was in financial trouble ever since. This put tremendous stress on my parents and may have made Dad die younger than he would have. It made helping me, one seriously ill woman, difficult, and probably had a bad effect on my disease course--hence my not being able to continue my education or have a career. How the actions of unethical people who head the financial industry harm so many us who are not in positions of power is something I believe is important to think about when we make collective decisions about regulation.

From the article:
"Deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization (the three "des") created the criminogenic environment that drove the modern U.S. financial crises. The three "des" were essential to create the epidemics of accounting control fraud that hyper-inflated the bubble that triggered the Great Recession. "

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Another Split-Second Stop On The Runaway Hate Train

I wish I were surprised. My heart is broken, my mind is sad, but the surprise button remains quiet and hiding in a dark corner.

Many in our country have been fueling fires. Advocating passions and politics of hate. And some of the haters have been moved to voice sometimes veiled, sometimes blatant, calls to arms.

If we were computers. If we could turn off our emotions and our prejudices and what we perceive, rightly or wrongly, to be our self-interests and/or the interests of our nation. Then we could clearly see that the farther we go in the direction of ignoring, sanctioning or even participating in what has become the demonizing of many of our fellow citizens, there will be people who decide to express the anger burning in their hearts by violent means.

Do any of us hate anyone for social or political reasons? Do we seek to fuel that hate, to spread that hate, or mandate that hate?

When we hate, we have complicity in tragedies like this:


I will be writing more about this. But right now I have to allow myself to let my tears flow. My poor country. I wish I could put my arms around it, an angry and frightened child. To cradle it in my arms and whisper calming and loving words about community, safety, tolerance, compromise, coming together, moving to center, renewal and peace.

Anger is part of our human makeup. And it can be channeled in useful and important ways.

But what happened in Tuscon today is not the way.

Links (will update when possible)
















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An undergrad economics degree was all I could afford. Alas and alack, it did not guarantee me regular meals.

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Except where individually noted, photos for this blog were taken by xbeepx .