Leave it to Seth Godin to put it succinctly and make it easy to understand.  Where I live, I get Time Warner for my cable provider and the cable news networks are all in the 40’s range of channels (or 1040’s for HD).  I often skip over them completely.  Why?  Because it doesn’t matter whether its CNN, MSNBC or FoxNews.  They all consist of sensationalizing non-news and spewing incendiary crap to try to further their owners political agenda, be it left or right, blue or red, liberal or conservative – pick your label.  Meanwhile, what is actually important is completely missed.

The shows consist of blathering morons who look better than their talk radio counterparts, screaming their opinions as fact and shouting down anyone else.  Thereby making it whoever can shout louder wins the argument rather than whoever has the better, more thought out argument.  But, the arguments have already been decided by the “panel” they’ve assembled.  It consists of the show’s host, 3 yes men cohorts, and 1 lonely dissenter.  There’s no way they can out yell the other four, so they give up before the segment is over.

The problem with all of this is: We, the average American, take what these nimrods say as gospel.  Quick, how many of the cable news shows gave you any kind of inkling that the economic collapse could happen?  Even the channels that specialize in covering the markets?  I thought so.  And how many of the rest of these so-called experts have had any kind of real impact on the world other than to polarize further?  Have they really enlightened anyone?  Or is it simply a matter that they’ve convinced people to drink their falvor of Kool-Aid?

I saw this on the news last night and got the following email this morning:

“In the unlikely event that you haven’t already heard, a bill has been introduced in the Wisconsin Legislature to increase the fermented malt beverages tax by 400%, from $2/barrel to $10/barrel.  Granted, all of the (craft) breweries you probably enjoy pay a lower rate because they produce much less than 300,000 barrels per year.  Their effective tax (for the first 50,000 barrels of production), is half that, but a 400% increase is a 400% increase.

 Such a tax increase may not make a lot of difference in cost to you in the short run as a consumer (but also don’t believe the misleading couple pennies a bottle assertion made by tax advocates, because costs are multiplied as they go through the three-tier distribution system.  Also don’t forget that beer–unlike just about any other food product–is already taxed three times, at the federal level, with the tax at issue here, and then the state and county sales tax on top of all that!  (Imagine the uproar if we taxed milk that way.)  But a tax increase could mean a huge difference for the survival of some of our state’s great small craft brewers who are already operating on the financial margins as they put pride in quality beer above financial profit.  They can’t absorb a tax increase as easily as the macrobrewers, and as they pass along the resulting cost increases to the consumer–and with those increases multiplied through the distribution chain–even a relatively small price increase of $2/case, particularly in this economy, might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and some consumers may be encouraged to “trade down” to craft beer look-alikes from the out-of-state macrobrewers.  That’s bad for Wisconsin craft brewers and their employees.  And craft brewers going out of business ultimately means less selection for you and less great craft beer for which Wisconsin has been a national leader. “

Here is the actual bill, if you’re interested.  Makes me glad Im a homebrewer, since they’re taxing the barrel of finished product rather than the ingredients that go into the product.

BTW – Sorry the blog’s been empty for so long.  I’ve been playing around with Facebook and LinkedIn and toying with the idea of Twitter.  But, what Facebook has shown me is that I don’t have enough different things happening in my life to update a Facebook status regularly, let alone a Twitter feed.

Why is it, whenever you see someone in politics these days standing at a podium offering and apology to their family for certain “indescretions”, they always seem to be members of the party that promotes family values and is backed by the “moral majority”?  I know that’s not true.  Their are plenty of Democrats running around behind their spouses backs (i.e. John Edwards) and the Libertarians advocate legalizing drugs and treating marriage like a business partnership.  Those are hardly things people who buy into the family values mantra would think of as a proper.  But it sure seems like the majority of these guys are Republicans (Ensign, Swaggert, Gingrich, Limbaugh, etc.).  Plus, the Democrats and Libertarians have not put a stake in the ground claiming “family values” and “morality” are the sole property of their party.  If you’re going to cast scorn on everyone else and be so high and mighty, then you might want to try to act the part.

Or perhaps it’s just your definition of family values and morality.  Since morals and values are a rather personal thing, perhaps their values and morals permit that sort of behavior.  That’s not what I get from them before they’re caught screwing up, but maybe I misunderstood.  All I know is that next time I screw up — being human, I’m pretty sure there will be a next time — I better not have to turn on the TV and listen to some reactionary right wing nut job, blathering on about how superior they are over everyone else.  Just remember — unless you’ve recently mastered walking on water, your day is coming.

Just for the record – I don’t want to turn on the TV and listen to some revolutionary left wing nut job, balthering on about how their going to make the world a more fair and homogenized version of itself that everyone will want to play nice-nice in while the government does everything for them either.

A friend of mine set me this link to a New York Times story on the Dutch social welfare system, including health care.  It’s a very interesting read (it might take you a little bit of time), and it makes you wonder if we truly could meld public good with free enterprise.

The idea of having the state provide for all of those things that fall through the cracks in the U.S.A sounds kind of nice.  Everyone gets access to housing, health care, vacations, etc.  People work when it’s time to work and the pager rarely goes off when you’re not working.  Why?  No one else is working either.  Who wouldn’t want such a paradise?

The problem, as I see it and as the author illudes to at the end of the article, is the American culture itself.  Americans pride themselves on individuality and the entrapaneural spirit.  The idea of upward mobility is the most American of notions.  We are pioneers settling the wild West.  That rides smack into the face of the social welfare state of things where conformity is prized and individuality a no-no.  The idea of being a lemming is one most Americans bristle at.

But, wait, isn’t that what the Moral Majority and evangelical right wing conservatives actually want?  They want you to behave within a set of parameters they’ve prescribed when it comes to personal behavior.  Yet those same folks begin wailing when you suggest anything in the economic realm that differs from Adam Smith’s view of the world.  They’re already trying to create a strange dichotomy that contradicts itself, aren’t they?  Or how about the left wing liberals who want to help out those less fortunate and are okay with taxing you to do it, yet scream bloody murder if your personal freedoms are impeeded upon to to make sure everyone stays honest.

We seem to be a nation of contradiction.  Why is it that the party that is against abortion is for the death penalty and vice versa?  Who knows, maybe the Dutch are onto something.  Maybe we wouldn’t really be giving up much more of our freedoms than our ruling parties want us to.  Just trading them for different ones.  On the other hand, our government seems to have a nasty habit of taking new things away without ever giving back the things they’ve already taken.  We may just end up with the worst of both worlds.  Maybe that’s not such a good idea.

Who knew my nephew was such a political activist?  Well, that may be going a bit too far, but he made the local newscast in Minneapolis speaking against a proposed sales tax on digital downloads.  You can watch the video here.

Note – They got the caption wrong, as my nephew is not the balding state congressmen, but rather the college student with the iPod and the hoodie.

BTW – I tend to agree with him.  The makers of the product (the studios, muscians, etc.) are getting paid for their work.  But, because the states have mismanaged their money they’re  going to tax something they haven’t yet to make their budgets balance.  Good ol’ government asking you to bend over again.  Unfortunately, in my home state of  Wisconsin (also known as the biggest tax hell this side of New York), they’ve already started taxing such things.

Fight the power Paul!  ‘Cuz when you come home in the summer, you’ll be paying those taxes.

I’m sitting here watching the President address Congress and other than being annoyed by all of the applause that keeps interrupting him — that’s always annoyed me and I’ve never understood that regardless of who the President is — I keep wondering, how can he do it all?  This is a tremendous amount of work he’s trying to pull off, and almost all of it needs to succeed for this to work.  This is government, I’m not used to everything they do working.

If he does pull it off, it will be amazing.  He’s talking about health care reform, millitary spending reform, education reform, banking reform, more stimulus/bailout packages, tax code reform and he still wants to provide tax cuts, balancing the budget, cutting wasteful spending and reducing the debt.  That’s quite a visionary.  I’m waiting for him to start leaping buildings and outrunning trains.

I’ve been conditioned to be skeptical of government — they really have never given me a reason to believe them.  It just sounds too good to be true.  But, I really hope he can pull it all off.  The country needs him to be able to pull it off.  The world economy needs him to pull it off.  No pressure there.

Now, after 8 years of a Republican administration that more than doubled the existing debt from 5 trillon dollars to 10 trillion dollars, they’re worried about debt?  The esteemed Senator McCain from Arizona had this to say:

“We need to spend money on infrastructure and on other programs that will immediately put people to work. But this is not it… We’re going to amass the largest debt in the history of this country, by any measurement, and we’re going to ask our kids and grandkids to pay for it”

See, this is why the Senator lost the election.  Um, John – can I call you John or does that bring back bad memories of that brilliant VP nominee you picked? — we already have the largest debt in history by any measurement and we’re going to ask our kids and grandkids to pay for it.  Would you like a repeat of the Great Depression to boot?  Oh, and by the way, that debt was amassed by those fiscally responsible Republicans.  Tell me again why I should believe you?  And, what new ideas do you guys have to solve this mess?  I’ve heard you all complain about this plan yet I haven’t heard a different option.  Please, I beg you, give me another option that doesn’t lead to nationalizing the banks.  Trust me, that is not what I want.  I desparately would like to hear another plan, but sadly I have yet to hear one that doesn’t involve millions of Americans losing their jobs and their ability to food on the table for their kids.  You wanna talk about the need for social programs and the cost after that happens?

Further Republican genius came from Senator Shelby from Alabama:

“This is not the right road to go. We’ll pay dearly” and the current stimulus plan will put us on “a road to financial disaster.”

Guess what Senator Shelby?  We’re on the expressway to financial disaster and you guys have been driving the bus!

We’ve spent trillions of dollars destroying and rebuilding countries on the other side of the globe, but now that the current administration would rather try to rebuild this country, that will create too much debt.  Huh?  What am I missing here that makes this less like hypocrisy? 

Oh wait, I’ve got it, we didn’t blow anything up yet.  Except of course our financial markets.

I was writing an email to a friend and decided to share this with all of you.  I happen to live in one of the reddest counties in the country and work in an environment that is extremely pro-republican.  So, you can imagine the complaints I’ve been hearing this morning.  Let me start with the same advice Republicans gave Democrats 4 and 8 years ago, “Suck it up, Buttercup.”

It’s obivous why the Republicans (well, maybe its obvious to everyone but the Republicans themselves) lost this race.  And lost big!  This country got into a huge mess on their watch.  They screwed things up.  So, they’re out.  That’s politics in the U.S.  You screw up big enough, bad enough, you lose your job.  The American public may move slowly with this kind of thing, but eventually you will lose your job.  Kind of like the free market virtues the Republicans extoil every chance they get.

And, you know what?  I used to believe them.  I actually thought they would lower my taxes, make a smaller government, put money back in the people’s pockets and the free market ways of Adam Smith will fix all that ails you.  But, let me leave you with these questions to ponder:

• When was the last time your taxes went down?  Mine never have.  Oh sure, I might pay less on capital gains than I did before, but I know pay more in other areas.  If I look at the debits column of my personal ledger from year to year, the number for taxes as a percentage of my income has never (and I’m not using hyperbole, I mean never) gone down.  Yet, my income has.  I thought that’s something only Democrats did?
• When was the last time we had a balanced budget?  Oh yeah, it was when a Democrat lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
• When was the last time government got smaller?  Under Bush we’ve added another layer of bureacracy with the Department of Homeland Defense.  Did we get rid of any departments?  Don’t think so.
• When were were fiscally responsible and eliminated debt?  Isn’t that what fiscal conservatives are supposed to do?  Isn’t that what they’re telling Americans to do?  Yet, the Republicans borrow more and more money, leaving more and more debt for our children and grandchildren to pay for.  Did you really think you could run a war that costs $1,000,000,000 a week and you wouldn’t have to pay for it?

These are things the Republicans were elected to do.  They didn’t do it.  People lost jobs, homes, retirement savings all while the banks ran unchecked (why would let the people who create/control the money run unregulated?) and the administrations buddies in the oil industry had record quarters one after the other.  That’s why they lost the election.  Americans decided they had enough.  The free market is a wonderful thing, but if there aren’t some check and balances people are going to suffer when the market does its whole creative destruction thing.  And its ordinary citizens who are paying that price.

So, to the Republicans I say again, “Boo-hoo.  Suck it up!”

And to the Democrats I say,”It’s not usually a good thing for one party to have this much power.  That checks and balances thing I was just talking about, works pretty good in government too.  Screw this up and next election,  you’re out!”

Wahoo!  We’re down to less than 1 month of annoying, mud slinging commercial after the other.  Even a person who doesn’t pay close attention to the TV, notices the commercials.  There aren’t any other commercials on and I can only ignore “I approve this message” so many times.

What has become apparent to me is the nastiness the Republicans resort to, how quickly they do it and how slowly the Democrats counter.  Perhaps its all the shouting on talk radio that has put the conservatives in such a rotten disposition.  When the campaign started, both candidates had commercials that tried to outline what they would actually do.  As soon as McCain started to slip in the polls, the commercials became less on what McCain would do and more about what Obama would do wrong.  See the difference?  No longer any mention on what McCain would do and why it would work.  Just what Obama would do and why it wouldn’t work.

The sad part is that advertising strategy of mud slinging has worked.  McCain started to go back up in the polls until the Democrats finally countered.  Now McCain is slipping again and the Republicans are bashing Obama by bashing Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi while showing pictures of Obama.  I can only imagine what the next month of commercials will bring.  I’m sure it will be full of outlandish accusations and half-truths from both sides. 

Anyone remember when Sideshow Bob ran for mayor of Springfield?  The Simpsons writers made a satire out of the political commercials and now fiction is becoming reality.

And the American public will eat it up.  Apparently, we’re not capable of listening to a set of ideas and figuring out for ourselves what we agree with.  We need people to shout at us and tell us the other guy is dumb, scary or both.  Whoever shouts the loudest and nastiest seems to win.  Are we really that spineless?

I for one can’t wait for it to be election day.  Because, if nothing else, it will mean an end to these annoying commercials.  And I can go back to pretending the American public is smarter than the average bear.

Well, she surprised me.  She did not seem as incompetent as I thought she would.  The Governor made some mistakes a ducked some questions but she didn’t fall on her face like I thought she would.  The Senator didn’t stumble either.  It’s a very interesting dynamic because she was given high scores for going on the offensive and Biden was given some criticism for not fighting back strongly enough.  However, he had a delicate balance to strike.  People talk about equality and everything, but if he would have shot back as storngly as some of the talking heads wanted, I’m sure he would’ve been criticized for picking on a woman.

But, the fact of the matter is still this, people don’t vote for the Vice President.  They vote for the President.  Neither debater hurt their ticket, but I don’t think they helped much either.  What scares me the most is McCain is pulling his resources out of Michigan and sending them to states like Wisconsin.  As if I haven’t seen enough of his crappy negative style ads, it looks like I will see even more of them now.  Yippie skippy.