I was in third grade, red crayon in hand, with a blank piece of white construction paper sitting in front of me.  My instructions were to draw a red poppy, and Mrs. Peterson had brought in some Buddy Poppies for us to use as our models.  I drew a big World War II-style helmet with a poppy growing out of it, and added the caption “Remember our Vets” written in my third-grade cursive.

Mrs. Peterson took the posters we had made to the various businesses in Hallock to display on their windows and after school my friends and I went around town to find out which store displayed our “artwork.”  Mine was put up at Gullander’s Hardware on the window facing the street.  I was proud that my artwork was on display, but then I started actually thinking about Memorial Day.

In 1970 we were in the midst of watching our government fight another war, and this war was on TV nearly every night.  The war was hugely unpopular with my family, and we supported the peace protests that were being held around the country.  My dad was the only person in the family who would defend the idea that the United States should be at war against the Viet Cong and North Vietnam.  The battles at the kitchen table sometimes rose to shouting levels between my brother and my father.

My brother ended up dropping out of school at the University of Minnesota in 1971 and shortly thereafter joined the Navy.  The main reason he volunteered was to avoid the draft.  He didn’t want to go into the Army, and he certainly didn’t want to be sent to Vietnam.  He served out his tour aboard an Admiral’s cruise line that ran from Norfolk to Bermuda.  He had his own reasons for volunteering for military service. Not many would say they were “admirable,” but I think it was a pragmatic solution for someone opposed to the Vietnam War.

Twenty-six years earlier, my father volunteered for the Navy and his war was far different.  Dad was just leaving high school.  He graduated in 1945, and by the time he could enlist, Hitler had been defeated and the Allies had finished celebrating V-E Day.  The attention and the might of the U.S. military and our South Pacific allies were focused on Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese.  By August of 1945, with Dad still in San Diego waiting for assignment, the bombs dropped and Japan surrendered.  He never saw battle.  Now, when I consider the ethics of nuclear war as practiced by the United States in August of 1945, I wonder whether I am alive because of the horrible deaths of hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens.

My maternal grandfather’s war was World War I.  It was the Great War, billed as the “War to End All Wars.” My grandfather was gassed while in the infantry in France, and he survived to come home.  He lived a full life without long-term ill effects.  He raised children, started a farm, carried the mail and served as mayor of Lancaster in the 1960′s.

His son, my uncle, volunteered for service during the Korean War.  I know this from photographs, but he doesn’t talk about it much.  In fact, he doesn’t talk about it at all.  He returned, uninjured, and like his father, started a farm and raised children and grandchildren and delivered the mail.

This is the extent of the military participation of my immediate family.  All of them came home, even during times of war.  And as I was thinking about the poppies and how they have come to symbolize those who don’t come home, those who are buried in foreign lands or in Arlington National Cemetery, I thought of Flanders Field and the poppies made famous by John McCrae of Canada in 1915:

Poppy

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

When the U.S. entered the Great War in 1917, it was supposed to be the final time that nations took up arms against each other.  Following the war, democracy would be the manner in which disputes were to be settled.  Wilson proposed a League of Nations, but it faltered.  A treaty meant to miserably punish the Germans for their role in the Great War led to resentment and an excruciating economic crisis in Germany and resulted in a second Great War for freedom and democracy.

Contemplating poppies, I realized that even though “freedom” and “democracy” are inspiring words that induce Americans to go to war in foreign countries knowing that they may not return, there has never been a war for freedom and democracy.  I realized that wars are a function of differential economics, and whatever face is put on a war, it comes down to “our side” fighting so we don’t starve.  I am aware that this is an oversimplification and that throughout history, wars have had complex roots, but I think that buried below these tangled roots lies the perception that one must keep the enemy from blocking access to the resources needed for survival.

These resources may be land, food, energy or lebensraum, but they are vital resources.  Manifest Destiny was a matter of securing the vast lands of the Western United States so that our white descendants could continue to expand their range and have access to resources and diminish Mexico’s access to those resources, contrary to the survival of the natives we found here when we arrived.

In order to inspire the people to sacrifice for war, other more palatable causes and reasons for war are placed in front of the public.  “King and country.”  “Democracy.”  “Order.”  “The rise of new socialist man.”  “Our god is the True God and their god is false.”  It is easier to kill an infidel than it is to kill someone defending their homeland. Whatever the purpose of a war may be, its root cause is a fight for limited resources when trade fails.  Demonizing and diminishing the enemy, either those against whom we defend our homelands or those whose homelands we need, takes on various faces of hatred so that we willingly sacrifice our soldiers and our efforts and selves, takes on the face of religion, freedom, philosophical differences over how people should be governed, or retaliation for past wars and indignities.  It is economic.

The members of my family who went away came back.  I am grateful.  On Memorial Day, we give thanks to the sacrifice of those who faced the horrors of war and “saw sunsets glow” just days before they died on foreign seas or soils.  The poppies bloom and the larks fly over their graves.

Individuals go to war for various reasons.  Some are conscripted into war to fight as slave soldiers for their enemy, as in the case of the Irish in the Napoleonic Wars.  Some leave their families believing it is the best way to protect them, to have something worth returning to.  Pat Tillman, an atheist who was opposed to our war in Iraq, volunteered and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.  Those who don’t return leave behind families who must deal with the loss. They must deal with a mixture of despair, pride and hatred for war.

That my family has emerged so far relatively unscathed by war doesn’t take away my personal frustration and resignation that war will never end.  President Obama may be able to fully pull out of the Iraq mess caused by Cheney and Bush (using torture as a means to create a false link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda). Afghanistan may never be resolved, and we will likely be mired there for years and then be fighting in Pakistan.  It’s a scary situation, and I am glad I am not the President trying to figure this all out.

There are more than six billion people on one planet, struggling to survive, to eat and keep warm.  There are other people in our way of doing this.  Humanity is not yet capable of figuring out how to strip away the veneer of the nominal causes of war and deal peacefully with the root causes of war, and I don’t honestly see a way out of it.  I have seen videos on “Forgiveness Training” and how peacemakers are trying to end tribal hatreds among the youth in troubled lands.  I admire their efforts, and I think it will help people who have been hurt by war and tribal hatreds.  I don’t think that it will end war. Hatred is a function of war and not its cause.

We have the torch passed to us by the dead, and whether they wanted us to go on fighting for their same cause or wanted us to end the endless cycles of war, we don’t really know.  I think that the best we can try to do is fight for little pockets of peace along the way, and then our dead will pass along the torch.  What the torch means, McCrae isn’t clear. I think it means “survival.”

Memorial Day is a somber day and a reminder that the world is never safe.  There will always be enemies.  When the parades hit your streets, when the governors speak of sacrifice, when you open that beer and slap another steak on the grill, take a deep breath and realize that we in America are secure in our abundance (for now) because of war and death.  Stop partying for a moment or two and go to the local monument for those who have fallen and thank them.

And if you should chance on a returned vet, whether disabled or physically whole, say thank you.

Minnesota Legislature: It’s over — No deal

In an act of defiance in the final hour, DFLers passed a revised tax bill that faces a certain veto. Gov. Tim Pawlenty stayed firm in his decision to make $1.2 billion in budget cuts all by himself.

Star Tribune

Sheila Bair, Brooksley Born: JFK Award Recipients For Predicting Crisis

Two U.S. federal regulators who sounded early warnings on the financial crisis and a Liberian peace activist who helped end that nation’s civil war were honored for their efforts Monday at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairwoman Sheila Bair, former chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Brooksley Born, and peace activist Leymah Gbowee (LAY’-mah BOH’-wee) were presented with Profile in Courage Awards, annual honors named for a 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by John F. Kennedy.

Huffington Post

FBI infiltrated Iowa anti-war group before GOP convention

An FBI informant and an undercover Minnesota sheriff’s deputy spied on political activists in Iowa City last year before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Confidential FBI documents obtained by The Des Moines Register show an FBI informant was planted among a group described as an “anarchist collective” that met regularly last year in Iowa City. One of the group’s goals was to organize street blockades to disrupt the Republican convention, held Sept. 1-4, 2008, where U.S. Sen. John McCain was nominated for president.

Des Moines Register

Supreme Court: Pregnancy discrimination A-OK!

Today our nation’s highest court ruled in AT&T v. Hulteen that women who took maternity leave and were discriminated against by AT&T are shit out of luck.

Before the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed, when women took leave from their AT&T jobs to have a baby, those days did not count toward their pensions — even though other types of leave, such as temporary disability, were not removed from the pension equation. So when the women went to retire, they had lower pensions than other employees who had worked there the same number of years, even those who had taken leave for other reasons.

Feministing

US to Limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Autos

The Obama administration is expected to announce guidelines Tuesday that will toughen existing federal mileage standards. Automakers have signed off on the plan, sources say.

Truthout

Primer on unallotment: How it works and why it’s done

Instead of a flurry of negotiations between Gov. Tim Pawlenty and lawmakers, Session 2009 might end without a deal, what with the governor’s announcement last Thursday that there would be no special session and that he would use his powers of unallotment to balance the state’s budget.

“The governor thinks he’s a dictator,” Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, said at the Capitol Saturday. “He’s like George W. Bush. He’s ‘the decider.’ For him to abuse unallotment is unconscionable, especially for a guy who never got a majority of the vote.”

MinnPost

The Quiet Coup

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

The Atlantic

Administration Seeks an Out On Bailout Rules for Firms

Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.

The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.

Washington Post

Bailout Watchdog: Treasury’s stonewalling

Elizabeth Warren, the law professor appointed as Congress’s oversight czar on bank bailouts, blasted the Treasury Department — saying new legislation might be needed to give the House and Senate more access to details of the $700 billion rescue program.

Warren, testifying before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday morning, said keeping Congress in the loop isn’t a “priority” of Secretary Tim Geithner — and suggested a possible “next step” would be to pass legislation that would “require [Treasury] to consult” with her.

Glenn Thrush

Where Wall Street Trades in Political Currency

With sweeping reforms coming, the Wall Street-Washington connection may be more important than ever, and political connections may be the new currency for deal makers.

Below is a matrix of Wall Street chiefs and private-equity bosses, as well as their personal contributions to politicians in 2007 and 2008, as recorded by the Center for Responsive Politics. The list, which gives politicians’ titles at the time, also illustrates the political action committee money given by each chief’s firm and its employees.

NY Times

The Definition of Insanity

A few months ago, I did some posts and TV appearances discussing some of the problems that would inevitably occur with the appointment of Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson as the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. As Mother Jones subsequently reported, we’ve already seen some of those problems happen.

Open Left

Mr. Taleb Goes to Washington

Nassim Taleb is an unlikely choice to play the Jimmy Stewart role in a 21st-century remake of the Depression-era classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But the tale of a naive do-gooder who tries to remind a corrupt political class of its obligations was re-enacted this week when Taleb attended the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Finance conference in Washington, D.C.

The Big Money

Was Eliot Spitzer Taken Out Because He Was Going to Bust AIG?

Eliot Spitzer is back and he’s talking. The thought of this, no doubt, brings a small shiver to the boardrooms of some of the perps walking around trying to figure out how to hide the money this week. Today Edward Liddy testified that there have been death threats made to or about executives who received bonuses, so no names will be put on the record, but these anonymous players must know that the jig is up in the land of easy-money. Isn’t what to do a no-brainer for these great Americans?

AlterNet

Specter Announces His Intention To Vote Against Employee Free Choice Act

Today on the Senate floor, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) announced his intention to vote against cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act. Specter was the only Republican to vote for cloture when the measure was last considered in 2007. During his announcement, Specter noted his previous support for EFCA, but suggested that the current condition of the economy makes “this a particularly bad time to enact employee’s choice legislation”

Think Progress

Recruited to Serve and Sniff — Again

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t just forcing thousands of soldiers and Marines to deploy for two and three tours. The sacrifice is being shared by a key, and growing, part of the U.S. military: highly trained German shepherds and Belgian Malinois. In a war with no front lines, they have become valuable at sniffing out makeshift bombs, which cause most U.S. casualties.

Washington Post

Around the Country, Calls for Lawmakers to Address “Real Problems, Not Imaginary Ones”

As several states enter critical phases in their legislative sessions, the debate for one of the most controversial election reforms continues to dominate headlines and legislative hearings. This year, more than 26 states introduced legislation to go above and beyond federal election law relating to voter ID, despite near consensus among voting rights advocates that it hurts the process far more than it helps. Last week, the hysteria around voter ID reached an all time high in six states, evoking public concern from advocates and citizens alike.

Open Left

The Woman Who Could Nail Bush: Are the Worst of the Torture Memos Still to Come?

On March 19, the nomination of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC was endorsed by the Judiciary Committee with every Republican voting against her and Sen. Arlen Spector (R-PA) abstaining. The nomination was to have been brought to the Senate floor for a vote on Monday and then again on Wednesday, but it has been held back. Republican leaders, it appears, are playing with the notion of making Johnsen the target of their first filibuster.

AlterNet

Insurers shun those taking certain meds

Trying to buy health insurance on your own and have gallstones? You’ll automatically be denied coverage. Rheumatoid arthritis? Automatic denial. Severe acne? Probably denied. Do you take metformin, a popular drug for diabetes? Denied. Use the anti-clotting drug Plavix or Seroquel, prescribed for anti-psychotic or sleep problems? Forget about it.

Miami Herald

Alas, it was not to be. Bachmann continues to run her mouth (now, there’s an alternative energy source) at every opportunity, regardless of the presence of cameras and microphones, regardless of her whether she had anything to say, regardless of who she’s speaking to. It’s behavior that has a certain effect on those who have to listen to her. Eric Kleefeld of TPMDC has named this, of course, the Bachmann Effect.

Gawker explains what that facial expression really means in English. Greg puts this phenomenon in its proper context. Oh, if only she were trying to be that funny. But no, she means it, and there are enough people taking her seriously that we must too. The Replace Michele Bachmann Blog Carnival is back.

We should have known. It only took her three days after the election to be named Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World for snuggling up to Obama after suggesting he be investigated as anti-American.

It wasn’t much later that Bachmann denied ever calling for his investigation, telling Alan Colmes that the direct quote he was reading was an “urban legend.” Colmes didn’t display the Bachmann Effect, unfortunately. I guess that’s a side effect of having reality denied to his face that often. However, a number of bloggers, fairly new to the train wreck that is the Sixth District’s congressional representative, couldn’t keep the literary equivalent of the effect out of their posts, calling her “crazy” and “out there.”

The local paper reported on the urban legend affair and noted that she also used the opportunity to accuse Al Franken of trying to “stuff the ballot box with rejected ballots.” Emily Kaiser at City Pages has the transcript of the interview and points out that Bachmann was repeating allegations that even Tim Pawlenty, our governor who dreams of a national stage for his hair and smile, had declared false by that point.

What else was Bachmann up to in November? Dump Michele Bachmann has the information on how she used the I-35W bridge collapse as an occasion to flirt with Bush and later tried to turn it into a political lever in her reelection campaign. OneNewsNow covers her defense of Sarah Palin. Bachmann herself used her blog (at Townhall.com) to argue that it’s perfectly reasonable for capital to control political speech in this country and to talk about how she’s finally against executive power now that a Democratic executive was taking office. No kisses for Obama, I guess.

December was a quieter month, starting with speculation that Bachmann might run for governor if she loses her congressional seat to redistricting. She was discovered to have endorsed a ministry that fraudulently wormed its way into public schools under the cover of anti-drug education to deliver their real messages, like:

In the girls’ session a female staffer from the band told the girls that they “would get black spots” on their wedding dresses if they held hands with a boy and would be serving “leftovers” to their husbands if they lost their virginity before marrying a “God-fearing man.”

She made the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s list of 2008 Most Embarrassing Re-Elected Members of Congress. She also made the NY Times list of top 2008 television moments for her appearance on Hardball and won Comedy Central’s contest for the Indecision 2008 Best Campaign Villain. Bachmann herself ended her year by eulogizing Paul Weyrich, dominionist and separatist founder of the Heritage Foundation.

Bachmann started the new year with more awards: third place in Crooks and Liars 2008 Golden Crookie Wingnut of the Year contest, fifth place in Comment Is Free’s American Hall of Shame, and two runner-up spots in City Pages list of Best Minnesota Scandals of 2008. Bachmann, perhaps less than pleased at not coming in first, bitched about Democrats in Congress wielding the power they were elected to use. Twice. She also joined Twitter, so now you can keep up with her every thought and public appearance.

January stayed fairly quiet for Bachmann. She said much of what one would expect from a Republican: No multi-million dollar estate tax for small family businesses. (How small is small, there, Representative?) Cut taxes to stimulate the economy. (Which has such a great track record.) The Hill ran a profile suggesting that she had become cautious.

Still, she managed to sneak in a couple of classic Bachmann moments. She opined again on the Coleman/Franken recount in an interview with Glenn Beck, suggesting that a fair judge would be one who found in favor of Coleman. She also made an appearance on Sean Hannity with Al Sharpton and Meatloaf (yes, really) in which she said, among other things, that African Americans would start voting Republican because of the issue of gay marriage.

January was just a hint of things to come. In February, Bachmann was back to drawing media attention with her appearances. She really does have a knack for making statements that tell in a few quick words how wrong both her priorities and her facts are. “We’re running out of rich people in this country,” is just one of those perfect gems. Bachmann made the comment to protest the stimulus package. The emphasis on the rich instead of those suffering from our current economy shouldn’t need any comment. Not that that stopped people. Dump Michele Bachmann collected many of the links to the outrage.

Bluestem Prairie has the audio clip and was inspired to evaluate Bachmann’s claim that the stimulus package was a conspiracy to direct funds away from Republican districts. Is anyone surprised to discover that Bachmann’s district would be the district best served by the package? Actually, the people who voted for her probably would be. Unsurprisingly, there was even more silliness to the interview, including unfounded allegations about ACORN, fact-checked by CNN. The Huffington Post was moved to collect reader suggestions for things Bachmann would believe if they were printed on the internet (a game also played later by Gawker).

February also brought Bachmann’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and her question, “I just wondered that if our founders thought taxation without representation was bad, what would they think of representation WITH taxation?” Not to mention her applauding RNC chair Michael Steele with the words, “You be da man!” Seriously.

TPM felt the need to end their post on her words with, “And no, this is not from The Onion.” The City Pages offered her some tips to keep her slang up to date. Greg used her words about taxation as an opportunity to talk about levels of understanding, or in this case, levels of misunderstanding.

Whew. That’s a long way to go to catch up with Bachmann, but we’ve finally reached March. Submitted to a Candid World has a nice summary of March in Bachmannland that brings us up to the ides, but most of the fun has really been in the past week or so. So what’s the representative with the crazy eyes been up to lately? Whoo, boy.

There is, of course, the “armed and dangerous” comment. If you’re not already familiar with her exact remarks, Dump Michele Bachmann has the full audio. Some people are calling this sedition and suggesting that, by her own standards, Bachmann should be censured. Bachmann’s representatives are calling her words merely metaphor, although Jefferson was certainly not speaking metaphorically. Prendergast at Dump Michele Bachmann makes a good case that Bachmann meant every word. Crooks and Liars also sees her statements as part of a pattern–paranoia in this case. Athenae at First Draft explains why claiming that Bachmann’s language is metaphorical doesn’t make her statements a whole lot better.

Then there were the questions to Geithner and Bernanke on the constitutional basis for the bailout. There’s a bit of disagreement about which is the worst part of her questions: the fact that she didn’t know without asking that the Constitution states that Congress authorizes spending or the fact that she didn’t understand that her question was being answered. I’m going for the first one, not just because she really should know, but because I believe her questions are merely the echo of a broader, conspiracy-mongering movement.

Truly, the scandal here is that she doesn’t know this, any more than she understands the basis for U.S. currency or the currency used in international trade. After all, as a commenter pointed out at Dump Michele Bachmann, not only is she on the House Financial Services Committee, “in fact it’s been your ONLY committee assignment for your entire tenure in Congress.” Not a quick learner, that Bachmann. Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that she doesn’t “show up to your own committee hearings.”

Whatever the case, Bachmann first pressed both Geithner and Bernanke to pledge to keep the U.S. dollar as our country’s currency. Both were perplexed, but neither thought it was anything but a good idea. Of course, the issue under discussion isn’t the U.S. currency, but the reserve currency used for trading between nations. The difference isn’t rocket science, and if Bachmann needed someone (besides her fellow committee members) to explain it to her, she could have turned to one of our local alternative news weeklies. Or a local liberal blog. Or any of a number of blogs elsewhere. Or the Treasury Department’s release on the state of the U.S. reserves. Or the largest local daily paper. Or a national news outlet. Or anything or anyone connected to reality.

But no, instead Bachmann has proposed a constitutional amendment to keep America safe for the dollar. And last night, she did an interview with Glenn Beck to explain why it was necessary. Think Progress has this excerpt.

BACHMANN: As you know, Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, many nations have lined up now and have called for an international global currency, a One World currency and they want to get off of the dollar as the reserve currency.

BECK: Most people don’t understand, Michele, what that means.

BACHMANN: What that means is all of the countries in the world would have a single currency. We would give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency. … If we give up the dollar as our standard, and co-mingle the value of the dollar with the value of coinage in Zimbabwe, that dilutes our money supply. We lose control over our economy. And economic liberty is inextricably entwined with political liberty. Once you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom. And then we are no more, as an exceptional nation, as we always have been. So this is imperative.

Forget what the rest of the world is actually saying, Bachmann is pushing this as a conspiracy theory. That’s My Congress puts this in the context of existing currency conspiracies, and Dump Michele Bachmann ties this to her apocalyptic religious beliefs. It’s Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly who really ties everything together, though, and it’s to him that I give the final words of this carnival.

Now, Bachmann simply isn’t well. Were she not an elected member of the U.S. Congress, she’d probably be shouting conspiracy theories and holding cardboard signs on some sidewalk somewhere. But what I find especially interesting is that her paranoid delusions are so detached from obvious truths. If Bachmann wanted to complain that a 39.6% top rate was the epitome of Marxism, she’d be just another conservative. But she’s convinced herself that the Obama administration will “move us to an international currency,” due entirely to her breathtaking stupidity.

My fear, at this point, is that lunacy from deranged politicians and their media allies is going to end up getting someone hurt. Republican officials believe they should emulate the insurgency tactics of the Taliban. They see themselves as “freedom fighters” taking on the “slide toward socialism.” They want a “revolution” because Americans “can’t let” Democrats succeed in taking away “our very freedom.”

This is obviously madness, not from some right-wing blog, but from elected federal officials. But I worry it’s more than that. Incendiary rhetoric like this leads strange people to do strange things.

The Missing $1,000,000 Tax Bracket

Matt Yglesias has this creepy habit of writing about things the very moment that I’m thinking about them. Today I was looking at this handy chart prepared by the National Taxpayers’ Union on the top marginal tax rates at different points in time. If you’re at all familiar with debate over tax policy, this will be pretty familiar territory to you: the top marginal tax rate is now higher than it was under Reagan, but lower than it was under Clinton, and much lower than it’s been at various other points in history. (The average top marginal tax rate since the income tax was established is 60 percent).

What the discussion over the top marginal tax rate ignores, however (and what Ygelsias picks up upon) is that this rate has been assessed at very different thresholds of income. In 1940, for example, the top marginal tax rate was 81.1 percent — but this rate only kicked in once you made $5,000,000 or more in income, which is equivalent to about $75,000,000 in today’s dollars.

FiveThirtyEight

Why Labor Law Doesn’t Work for Workers

Behind the verbal fireworks, workers on the ground say that current labor law has no teeth and must be changed. In Lancaster, California, one of the country’s hardest-fought organizing drives highlights the obstacles they face. A year ago, employees at Rite Aid’s huge drug warehouse there voted to join a union. On March 21, 2008, the National Labor Relations Board certified that union, giving it the right to negotiate a first union contract. But Rite Aid, workers say, has just been waiting for the year to expire. Once it does, the company can stop the pretense of negotiating.

truthout

Competing Views of Government: Universal Medicare or Government-Protected Insurance Companies

We all know that people have different ideologies about the proper role of government. Some people, who tend to be left of center, think that the government’s role is to try to promote the general good, by providing basic services, protecting the poor and the sick, and ensuring a well-working economy. On the other hand, there are others, who usually place themselves right of center, who believe that the proper role of government is to redistribute as much income as possible to the wealthy.

truthout

Capitalism and Moral Sentiments

In recent days, both Tom Friedman and David Brooks urged us to take our attention away from the trivialities of the AIG bonuses (just 0.001 percent of GDP, sniffed Brooks), to focus on truly weighty macroeconomic matters. Friedman bade us to look forward to, and support, the next mega-bailout of the banks, and Brooks applauded the leadership of Mssrs. Geithner and Summers in leading the G20 to macroeconomic stimulus and a rejuvenation of the International Monetary Fund.

Both pieces had the feel of planted stories, with insider tips about what’s coming next and praise for the economics team as it battles against little minds in Europe and populist sentiments at home. Whether or not the stories came from Washington, both stories are wrong.

Huffington Post

AIG

I’ll leave to others the question of who knew or should have known that the bonus firestorm was coming; but it’s part of a pattern. At every stage, Geithner et al have made it clear that they still have faith in the people who created the financial crisis — that they believe that all we have is a liquidity crisis that can be undone with a bit of financial engineering, that “governments do a bad job of running banks” (as opposed, presumably, to the wonderful job the private bankers have done), that financial bailouts and guarantees should come with no strings attached.

The Conscience of a Liberal

Financial Policy Despair

Over the weekend The Times and other newspapers reported leaked details about the Obama administration’s bank rescue plan, which is to be officially released this week. If the reports are correct, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has persuaded President Obama to recycle Bush administration policy — specifically, the “cash for trash” plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.

New York Times

Franken Lawyers To Court: Throwing Out The Election Is Not A Legal Option

The Franken legal team has written a letter to the judges in the election case, sharply rebutting the Coleman camp’s new idea to nullify the whole election.

The letter mainly rebuts the Coleman camp’s call to retroactively un-count a number of absentee ballots on a geographically-targeted basis. Team Franken argue that the binding case law says this is not a viable option, and that the court is not allowed to calculate that any illegal ballots favored one candidate over another — that would be relieving Coleman of his responsibilities under the burden of proof.

Talking Points Memo

Court rejects Franken petition for election certificate

Minnesota’s Supreme Court on Friday blocked Democrat Al Franken’s petition for an election certificate that would put him in the U.S. Senate without waiting for a lawsuit to run its course.

The decision means Minnesota’s second Senate seat will remain empty until the lawsuit and possible appeals in state court are complete. Republican Norm Coleman’s lawsuit challenging Franken’s recount lead is at the end of its sixth week, and both sides expect it to last at least a few more weeks.

MPR

Coleman-Franken trial: Week Six ends in an avalanche of numbers to ponder

Norm Coleman’s chief legal spokesman Ben Ginsberg likes to joke with journalists who are covering the election contest trial. A repeated quip is that when he was hired for this gig, he was told he “wouldn’t have to do any math.”

But Mr. Ginsberg and the others of the math-challenged among us learned six long weeks ago that any hoped-for abdication of numerical knowledge was impossible.

MinnPost

Panic in Detroit, as CEO kleptocrats loot pensions for another few billions

Yay!

Gee, are you getting the feeling that everybody at the top of the food chain is either a thief, a tool, or a fool? [To be fair, unless proven otherwise] First, we find that GM was looting its pension fund while it was gearing up for a bailout:

Corrente

10 Reasons Why Conservatives’ Fiscal Ideas Are Dangerous

It would almost be funny if their ideas about spending didn’t lead us into the deepest financial catastrophe in nearly a century.

AlterNet

Ivory Tower Unswayed by Crashing Economy

Yet prominent economics professors say their academic discipline isn’t shifting nearly as much as some people might think. Free market theory, mathematical models and hostility to government regulation still reign in most economics departments at colleges and universities around the country. True, some new approaches have been explored in recent years, particularly by behavioral economists who argue that human psychology is a crucial element in economic decision making. But the belief that people make rational economic decisions and the market automatically adjusts to respond to them still prevails.

New York Times