Left In Lowell

I hate Democrats. I really do. We win big, overwhelmingly take the White House, gain 59 seats in the Senate, increase our majority in the House, and what do we do? We do what Republicans want. What is wrong with these people??

[MSNBC:] President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses in his economic recovery program, advisers said Sunday, as his team seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending.

The legislation Mr. Obama is developing with Congressional Democrats will devote about 40 percent of the cost to tax cuts, including his centerpiece campaign promise to provide credits up to $500 for most workers, costing roughly $150 billion.

John’s right, especially about TPM’s Josh Marshall. If Josh is having big doubts (”Can someone help me come up with an argument for why the Obama stimulus plan isn’t turning out to be a painful joke?”) we ought to pay attention. Krugman weighs in here in his usual succinct manner.

Let’s lay out the basics here. Other things equal, public investment is a much better way to provide economic stimulus than tax cuts, for two reasons. First, if the government spends money, that money is spent, helping support demand, whereas tax cuts may be largely saved. So public investment offers more bang for the buck. Second, public investment leaves something of value behind when the stimulus is over.

He argues that there’s reason to include tax cuts for the middle class as part of the stimulus, but making up 40% of the package? And since this appears to be largely to assuage reluctant (read: obstructionist) Republicans, who are never going to be on board with the public works and investment stimulus no matter what, this is a sign of weakness before even heading into the negotiations.

I say, peel off one or two moderates (say, from ME) in the Senate, and kill the filibuster that way, if you can keep 100% of the Dems on board. Screw trying to please the losing party, they never had so much consideration for anyone else when they were in the majority.

A party of abused spouses, indeed…

It looks like Lowell’s Hamilton Canal (a state-designated Growth District) is on the 180-Day shovel-ready project list for Massachusetts; specifically, $25M for “supplement state investment in proposed street and bridge improvements” according to this list (page four, linked to from this comment on Blue Mass by Eric Bourassa of MASSPIRG). Hat tip to Mr. Lynne for finding it.

This is a good sign for Lowell (if it comes through) and hopefully puts Hamilton on the right track despite the downturn, and creating some local jobs besides.

A lot of very smart people are deriding yet another round “traditional” economic stimulus, that of the tax rebate or cut in the hopes that consumers will spend their way out of our economic woes. They’re right of course - spending beyond our means is what got us into this mess, and they are right that people used their last big spending check to pay of debt instead of spend - but I have to wonder, is this paying down debt with stimulus checks actually a bad thing?

Obama is eyeballing a $500/person tax cut for the middle class, which will come in the form of less payroll taxes (rather than a lump sum check in May). Which means a mere $19 extra in your average two-week paycheck in 2009. Rightfully so, John complains that people will not even notice this (unless you make so little that $19 is a decent portion of your wages, but that makes you very poor anyway) or else, sock that extra $20 bill into your savings or debt repayment.

But given that savings in this country recently was at a negative rate, and could be heading there again, and that a large portion of the current economic downturn is because of a credit crisis, would it be so bad if families took a $1000 bonus check and paid down some debt, especially high-interest? Wouldn’t this free up some liquidity in the system so that some confidence in lending can be restored, and give families more security in not owing as much? And in the meantime, maybe consumers will form better habits instead of retaining the borrow-and-spend attitude we had during the ever-rocketing housing market?

I know the point of a stimulus package is to have immediate effect, which increasing the savings rate won’t do, but surly we also want to have longer-term, stabilizing results which comes from a bigger savings and declining debt pool as well?

Kos tells us we told you so:

Of course, passing the bailout, and pissing away hundreds of billions of dollars to Bush’s and Paulson’s best friends haven’t really done much to stem the bleeding, we’re in a brutal recession and job losses are piling up in numbers unseen for decades, and the market sure as heck wasn’t propped up:

Government by Dow was a failure. […]

I understand the argument that had nothing been done, then things might be worse today. That’s an unprovable assertion, but it’s a plausible one. Yet can anyone really argue that had Congress waited a few more weeks for the smart economists and policymakers to weigh in, thus allowing for a better diagnosis and solution for the problem, that things would be that much worse?

Go read the rest. He’s right.

The second thing that you should read today is Michael Moore’s requiem for GM:

For all of that, the auto heads had to sit there in November and be ridiculed about how they traveled to D.C. Yes, they flew on their corporate jets, just like the bankers and Wall Street thieves did in October. But, hey, THAT was OK! They’re the Masters of the Universe! Nothing but the best chariots for Big Finance as they set about to loot our nation’s treasury.

Of course, the auto magnates used be the Masters who ruled the world. They were the pulsating hub that all other industries — steel, oil, cement contractors — served. Fifty-five years ago, the president of GM sat on that same Capitol Hill and bluntly told Congress, what’s good for General Motors is good for the country. Because, you see, in their minds, GM WAS the country.

What a long, sad fall from grace we witnessed on November 19th when the three blind mice had their knuckles slapped and then were sent back home to write an essay called, “Why You Should Give Me Billions of Dollars of Free Cash.” […]

Let me just state the obvious: Every single dollar Congress gives these three companies will be flushed right down the toilet. There is nothing the management teams of the Big 3 are going to do to convince people to go out during a recession and buy their big, gas-guzzling, inferior products. Just forget it. And, as sure as I am that the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions are not going to the Super Bowl — ever — I can guarantee you, after they burn through this $34 billion, they’ll be back for another $34 billion next summer.

So what to do? Members of Congress, here’s what I propose:

1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes): The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.

2. You could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You’re going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the “loan,” and because we know they will default on that loan, you’re going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now.)

3. None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century. […]

This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure — and millions of jobs. More importantly, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.

In contrast, yesterday General Motors presented its restructuring proposal to Congress. They promised, if Congress gave them $18 billion now, they would, in turn, eliminate around 20,000 jobs. You read that right. We give them billions so they can throw more Americans out of work. That’s been their Big Idea for the last 30 years — layoff thousands in order to protect profits. But no one ever stopped to ask this question: If you throw everyone out of work, who’s going to have the money to go out and buy a car?

These idiots don’t deserve a dime. Fire all of them, and take over the industry for the good of the workers, the country and the planet.

What’s good for General Motors IS good for the country. Once the country is calling the shots.

This dkos diary by TocqueDeville, besides sounding the alarm that half of America’s credit lines will be cut (which is terrible timing considering that the American consumer is already not spending), also says one of the things that has been at the back of my mind a long time (emphasis mine):

How did we allow ourselves to be brought to our knees by parasites who produce nothing, and a monetary/banking policy that has sucked all of the money away from the real producers?

Corruption. Plain and simple.

Most people go their entire lives without even questioning where money comes from. It’s just always been. But currency is supposed to be a symbol, a tool. Not a shackle. We, as a society, have grown so accustomed to never asking questions about where the money comes from, that we don’t see the most obvious thing in the world - we have become slaves to bankers who make more money off the money itself, than the goods or services the money is supposed to represent.

Money is supposed to represent real wealth - so you don’t have to carry around your chickens. It should never be the sole source of wealth. Anyone who is making money solely off of money is a parasite.

What kind of system penalizes the producers of real wealth, things that have real value, and rewards the parasites? A system designed by parasites.

This is the greatest opportunity in almost a century to fix this absurd monetary system, and rebuild our country. But it won’t happen because the parasites also control our political system. So the people are being taxed to death to pay for the parasites ponzi scheme.

This is the meat of the nut of the whole entire problem. The reason the economy is failing and the credit crisis exists is because people making money off of money (mortgage-backed securities et al.) screwed all of us true producers of real wealth (the workers and the companies that produce things). They not only screwed us of our own money, but they overreached and overextended their investments and screwed us with the very real failure of their money, and now we are bailing out these parasites, because we have no choice, our whole system is going down because of it, and we all would lose if that happened. This crisis has shown us what this system truly is - of parasites, for parasites, so help me God.

The deck is stacked against the producer and the real wealth generator in this system, and it appears there’s nothing we can do about it. The robber barons will continue to make money with our money, our wealth, stealing it from us as surly as if they held up a bank. Which is, essentially, what they have been doing all these years under our noses.

And then, on top of all this, they pass themselves off as patriotic and American heroes. They pat themselves on the back, these giants of industry, and think they deserve the accidents of their birth or their luck in getting to robber baron status. Then as they begin to be buried by the detritus and dung that is a result of their greed, they come to Washington, with their hands out, to ask us, the producers they stole the money from in the first place, for more money to bail them out. It’s criminal.

Reading around the blogosphere, I came across this short post by Susan at Below Boston, suggesting that whatever gifts you buy, you buy locally. It’s an idea I’ve always promoted here, and there’s plenty of places to do so in and around Lowell - whether at the Brush Art gallery (plenty of arts and crafts gifts there) or at the extended holiday Open Studios at Western Ave (12-5pm December 6th and 7th, 13th and 14th) or other fine, locally-owned establishments like Humanity or Welles Emporium, or the new C’est wine and gift shop on Merrimack.

Here’s an open thread to list your favorite place to shop locally for Christmas gifts. Also, does anyone have good suggestions for “shopping locally” for a 1 1/2 and a 4 1/2 year old? I would rather not buy them junk from China, either, if I can help it, though it may come to that.

Imagine if we had abolished the income tax in Massachusetts two weeks ago. Our chances to headline lists like “Best ‘New Economy’ State” would be next to nil.

One of our biggest strengths here is our higher education system, and our investment in new economic opportunities for self-starters. You can’t do that if you slash 40-70% of revenues to the state which helps foster this. People start businesses here (despite the higher cost of living) because they are supported here.

Hopefully the investments in up-and-coming fields such as clean energy, nanotech, and biotech will keep us in this number one position for a long time.

Back on April 20th, the Sunday Sun had a front page article, written by City Editor, Christopher Scott on the hospital rivalry that exists in the City of Lowell. Unfortunately, it is no longer available on line without paying $2.95. If you have not read it or cannot remember the details, and you care about the economic and social future of the City, it is well worth paying that sum. Or you could visit Pollard Library, where everything is free.

Scott’s article focused on the “tension over the long-term future of the locally controlled hospitals in Lowell,” Saints Medical Center and Lowell General Hospital, and the “friendly rivalry.” At the time of the printing of the article, Women’s Health, providers of obstetrical and gynecological services, left Saints and signed an exclusive agreement with LGH.

The April 20th article is probably one of the best researched and written I have read in the paper. Unfortunately, it did not create the public noise it should have but it probably created the private discussions it demanded.

In addition to detailing the failed 2001 merger, Scott quotes State Senator Steve Panagiatakos, “The last thing we need is a boxing match between the two hospitals….They [the hospitals] are not for profit businesses formed to take market share from the other…We need functioning, high-efficiency hospitals. If one succeeds at the detriment of the other, that doesn’t help the system.”

Six months have gone by since that article. Last week, Scott reported that our state delegation, lead by Senator Panagiatakos wrote a letter to both hospitals and urged the two institutions to form an “alliance…to ensure that we have a locally controlled and community-oriented health-care system.” (more…)

Only a few more months, let’s see how much damage Paulson can do on his way out the door to sabotage Obama’s chances of fixing this economic nightmare. Sigh.

And AIG is dipping its hands into the pot again. Why aren’t more heads rolling?

January-freakin’-20 can’t come fast enough for me. Obama already has a plan to make it seem like the Bush years never happened.

Update: Regular dkos economic writer Jerome a Paris has more. Go read. Then be prepared to upchuck your breakfast.

Sitting on the Board of Directors for The Wish Project (www.thewishproject.org), myself, the ED and the entire board were waiting on pins and needles for the hatchet on our $75,000 funding from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The final outcome is that we were reduced to $37,500. For this we are extremely grateful, as an organization.
We all breathed a huge sigh of relief last evening, when we found out we had somewhat escaped the Governor’s pen.
My hope is that the Governor’s Office and the Department of Housing and Community Development, saw that The Wish Project served 24,500 Merrimack Valley residents in FY08 and we’re on course to see that figure increased by at least 25% over FY09.

Also, noted:
1.) JAM funding remained intact at $500,000
2.) Neighbors in Need, remained intact at $100,000.
3.) United Teen Equality Center (UTEC), saw a reduction from 100,000 to 50,000
4.) Lowell House saw a reduction from 150,000 to 75,000

What are your thoughts on the Governor’s Emergency cuts?