It’S the Jobs, Stupid

Dedication

To my Mother, one of many millions of Americans who go to work every day and hold this nation together.

Those who can not remember the past,

are doomed to relive it.

-Santayana

Acknowledgment

To Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

Without you, I never could have found the courage to write this book.

It’s The Jobs, Stupid

Introduction

It probably won’t come as any great surprise that politicians lie to us. They lie all the time. They lie about little things. They lie about big things. They lie when the truth would do, always looking toward the next election, always trying to manipulate the passions of the electorate to garner a few more votes, always trying to paint the other political party as evil. Once elected or reelected, they sell their congressional votes to the highest bidders which, in virtually all cases, are the biggest corporations with the deepest pockets.

So this book is about truth-telling. And facts, big, bold, in-your-face, red, white and blue facts that anyone with a computer and access to a search engine can verify for himself. And blame. Blame is good. If we don’t learn anything from our mistakes, what’s to stop us from making the same mistakes over and over again (which, in fact, we have). And solutions. Since an old military friend suggested that a soldier should never present a problem unless he is also prepared to offer a solution, part of this book is devoted to just that: solving the problem.

It’s tough to make facts and figures entertaining, especially numbers. I mean from zero to nine there’s only ten digits. How exciting can it get? So I tried to keep the numbers to a minimum wherever I could.

I am positive you will find things in here that you absolutely hate and reject. I hope you also find a few things that have the ring of truth about them. That’s where our conversation as Americans can begin.

It is so sad that we’re scared to death to talk to each other, except maybe to our immediate family, about our views on economic, governmental, or environmental issues even though an honest exchange of creative ideas is desperately needed at this time in history. Suppose I espouse one opinion to a co-worker and it’s the exact opposite of what he believes? Things could get pretty tense between us and even worse if the boss happens to agree with the other guy’s position. So we avoid conversations which could morph into testy remarks even though a sincere dialogue about our economic plight and what to do about it could become a learning experience and a chance to expand our options, for both of us. No wonder sports, music and Hollywood celebrities dominate our social conversations. They’re safe subjects. They’re also totally meaningless to our ability to make the rent payment or the mortgage payment every month.

Nothing of any significance changes in these fifty United States unless a huge number of people come together to form a critical mass. 111 million people tuned in to watch the 2011 Super Bowl, an historic record. The country was just as bad off economically after the Super Bowl as it was before it but at least for a brief moment we came together as Americans to cheer for our teams. We didn’t question whether the individual players were Democrat or Republican, Methodist or atheist, we just wanted our team to win. You and I are also playing on a team. It’s the American team and we’re playing against the rest of the world to win the global economy war. For us and our kids and our grandkids, it’s the only war that matters. The last thing we need is for members of our American team to get into arguments over who’s more conservative or more liberal or more patriotic. What we do need is a coming together to form that critical mass of purpose to make good things happen.

Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. (Matthew and Luke)

We are all Americans. We’re all in this together, like it or not. So let’s look at our national situation in new ways. Let’s beat the politicians and the money changers at their own game. Why just reform the system when we can redesign the system from scratch? We’ll look at the past to see what worked and what didn’t but not too much past because we Americans are forward-thinking, progress-oriented. This country wasn’t built by playboys and dilettantes who were afraid to get their hands dirty and it won’t be destroyed by them either. We, the American people, are absolutely undefeatable once we set our minds to a common goal. It is this strength that we must draw on now. It is o.k. to be angry about our current economic situation as the Teabaggers are. Anger can be very energizing. But let’s use that anger to seize control of our lives and build something brand new, not to attack our fellow citizens because they happen to belong to a different political party. That’s not the American way and nothing good or wholesome can come of it. It is more likely to spark violence than to spur progress, something the politicians are too ignorant to understand even though it is they who have caused this widening chasm between us with their lies.

Finally, this book is most especially addressed to our future, our curious young adults who may have not quite decided on their politics. Older Americans have pretty much staked out their turf as either conservative or liberal and most are not likely to be swayed one way or the other. Young Americans are more likely to still be undecided, and it is you who have the most to lose or gain from our country’s direction in the future. You are very busy, I know, whether you have a job or are looking for a job and you may believe politics has nothing to do with you. The truth is, politics has everything to do with you. Political decisions are the reason you may be unemployed or under-employed. And for way too long, we have paid little or no attention while the politicians gave the whole farm away. This book is going to show you how to get the farm back. We will provide some perspective on events that may have happened before some of you were born and some context for the seemingly insurmountable mess we’re in now. There is a way out but before we can solve the problems we must name them, something the politicians are working hard to prevent us from doing.

Contents

I. The Past Is Prologue

1-Noblesse Oblige

2-Humpty Dumpty

3-Remembering F.D.R.

4-One More Trip To The Reagan Ranch

5-A Zero Sum Game

6-Dorothy And Prescott’s Boy

7-Slick Willie

8-The Law Of Supply And Demand

9-A Bird In The Pot Is Worth Two Of The Bushes

10-If It’s 2012, It Must Be Somalia

11-Se Habla Espanol

II. Never Let A Calamity Go To Waste

12-Tony Hayward Redux

13-Businesses, Corporations And Profit 101

14-Sorting Through All Those Goodies

15-The Big Squeeze

16-Tea And Nihilism

17-There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

III. Whose Country Is It Anyway?

18-Parsing The Vote

19-It’s My Party And I’ll Lie If I Want To

20-Et Tu Brute?

21-Where Is Our Moon Shot?

22-A New Kid On The Block

23-Schools Of Learning; Universities Of Making Stuff

IV. From The White House To Your House

24-Where The Rubber Meets The Road

25-Power Blogging

26-It’s All About You, Honest

27-Don’t Get Mad, Get Even

V. Parting Shots

28-Make Them Work For It

29-Insane Or Not

30-Enlightened Self-Interest

31-Postscript

Appendices

A-Methodology & Acknowledgments

B-DARPA’s Organization

C-F.D.R.’s Inaugural Address 1933

Noblesse Oblige

Taken from the French, the literal translation is nobility obliges or more to the point, with privilege comes responsibility. In the moral sense, the philosophy came over on the Mayflower with our European heritage which posits that the fortunate, well-off upper classes have a duty to help the poor, down-trodden lower classes and to serve for the common good. Princess Diana’s two sons, William and Harry, both served their turns in the military as did their father, Charles, following a long, British tradition. Royalty, most especially, is bound to this obligation of service. All of our American institutional charities have evolved from this concept of giving and serving.

So too has the idea that society’s privileged bear the greatest burden in crisis, especially war. In this vein, when Harry Truman (1945-53) took office during World War II, the top marginal tax rate (See Chapter 29 for full definition) stood at 94 percent of individual income and we needed every penny of it. It financed the war. It was lowered to 91% during Dwight Eisenhower’s (1953-61) eight years in office. The income rate upon which the top marginal tax rate applied was $400,000/year, a lot of money in those days. Come to think of it, it’s still a lot of money compared to the average American wage today. During John Kennedy’s three years in office (1961-63) the tax rate stayed at 91%.

When Lyndon Johnson took office (1963-69) he was able to lower the top marginal tax rate to a low of 75.25 percent but he did it by also lowering the top tax threshold to $200,000. In other words, people making 50% less money had to pay more in taxes to make up for the shortfall in revenues caused by the lowering of the top marginal tax rate.

During the terms of Richard Nixon (1969-74) and Gerald Ford (1974-77) the top marginal tax rate ranged from a high of 77% to a low of 70% and stayed at 70% throughout the office of Jimmy Carter (1977-81).

Now we arrive at a point of critical departure in the history of our modern economy. The presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981-89) was marked by a dramatic decline in the top marginal tax rate from 69.125% to 28% over his eight years in office. More startling were the top incomes to which the rate applied: $171,000 to $106,000 to $90,000 in 1987, to $29,750 in 1988. In other words, he turned the concept of noblesse oblige on its head.

At the same time, Reagan announced that we would shift the main emphasis of our economy from manufacturing hard goods, to the information sciences. We would off-shore the production of routine products to free up Americans for the coming service-centric economy. At that time, even though I was the beneficiary of the largess of the Department of Defense, I asked myself how Reagan’s proposition could work. Would we all stand around with our hands in each others’ pockets and sell insurance to each other? Coming from a blue