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It’s a pun off of the word stagflation which was short for stagnant inflation.  Stagpression is short for stagnant depression.  It is the most accurate indicator of our economic situation today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…

We seem to be in a Depression. but we aren’t.  The Housing market is recouping, jobs are consistently growing, energy costs have dropped,  corporate profits are now at record, higher than just before the 1929 crash, and an all time record high stock market..  We should be booming. But we aren’t.  We still have too high of an unemployment both on and off the books, we still have depressed low wages, we have lost massive wealth within the middle class over this century so far, we have record high student loan debt, we have low consumer confidence,  Hence, one class of America is booming.  The other class is still in Depression mode.  Hence we are in Stagpression….

It is easy to see why.

Here is a chart showing the free cash flow of businesses……

Free Cash Flow

Record highs. See?  Record highs.  We should be growing faster than China, we have so much investment money at our fingertips. But no.

Here is our investment track record…

Fixed Reinvestment

Ironically as we gave our businesses more and more money with lower taxes, less regulation, tax funded price supports, hand-tied their unions, and made free new technology at our taxpayers expense, despite all these perks and incentives, they invested less.  So what are they doing with their money?   Pick up any financial publication and read the headlines. They all will let you know.

Rather than invest in plants and equipment, businesses are primarily using their funds to repurchase their own stocks in order to boost management earnings and ward off hostile take-overs, pay dividends to stockholders, and accumulate large cash and bond holdings.

None of which help our economy. It is as if we work hard, buy their products, and they put that money into a mattress. Soon, we are going to run out of money. Fortunately the Fed has filled the gap by printing more and giving it to banks for free. It too, filters though the system, and when it gets to the top, it goes into the mattress.

Instead of recycling money, we are letting the tap flow from our printing presses to the top echelon of our society… Now do you get it?

What is missing is a system that recycles the materials back into our economy so we have less money we need to print. If we were talking about paper, we would be saying we need to recycle paper to keep from cutting down more and more trees simply to fill up our landfills….

We need a system to return that money to the bottom so it can rise again and again and again.

Here are the options that have been tried.

  • Price and pay freezes.
  • Government set and regulated prices.
  • Lower tax rates.
  • Cash incentives from taxpayers to reinvest.
  • Pleas and entreaties from the Oval Office.
  • Higher marginal tax rates.

Only one of these has worked.  Can you guess which one?    If you guessed higher tax rates spur reinvestment you are absolutely correct.

Notice the rates of reinvestment climbing in each of these presidencies:  Eisenhower, Kennedy-Johnson,  Carter,  Clinton each time  Congress legislated higher marginal tax rates.  Also notice the drops under Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush as Republicans cut the taxes…  The Bush Tax Cuts held through Obama’s first term, and account for today’s sluggish reinvestment. More precisely, the reinvestment turned upwards under Obama  until 2010 when Republicans took over Congress, and has fallen since. I can’t wait to see 2013’s numbers, for I expect to see real investment increase there as well. However those higher tax rates on the top half percent implemented at 2013’s beginning, sent financiers scurrying and bargain empty homes were bought up by investors with lots of cash which brought up the floor of the housing market (perhaps to our future peril).  It also accounts for stocks becoming an area of liquidity to hold cash,..explaining the record highs ….

So we have an opposite relationship:  cutting taxes increases corporate profits which go elsewhere other than reinvestment back into the ecnomy.

Increasing taxes, cuts into the Free Cash Flow, and funnels some of that flow over to reinvestment projects.

Ever wonder how Delaware’s 3 banks lasted for decades and then all disappeared very close to each other?  Bank of Delaware, Delaware Trust, and Wilmington Trust. are now owned  by other entities. (Wilmington Trust had some hand in cutting off its own foot).  Commerce Bank, which was New Jersey based had the same fate.

They lasted for years because big banks never had enough free money to buy them out.  Just think.  In Delaware there are now 3 less bank presidents.  18 less bank officers,  and who knows how many clerical workers are missing because the work goes to the owners headquarters, not located here…. One still wonders if our state could be better off, had MNBA not been bought up by an outside conglomerate.

So giving more money to businesses and corporations in this case, cost us jobs… and destroyed 3 long termed Delawarean corporations…

That was one example.  Across this nation, in every city,  every county, every state are millions more….

Raising the tax rates drives re-investment.  It is the only thing we know of so far that consistently works to drive re-investment.   Everyone who insists on cuts and de-regulation, no matter how they spin it, is pursuing a policy that has been completely disproven by reality and fact and of course, recent history..

Are you better off than you were under Clinton?  Your income level will probably determine your answer…..  Because yes, some people are indeed, a lot better off.   John Carney.  Tom Carper.  Chris Coons,  Jack Markell, to name 4 off the top of my head….  Better off too, are those who these four represent… the 1%.  Much better off!

If you find someone willing to raise taxes, stick to them like glue. They are the ones who will lead us back to prosperity…..

Until then, economic stagpression will continue…. continuing through tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow….(at a) petty pace that creeps from day to day….


Today it is depicted as sml.  Or fml.  Loosely translated, it means “I’m screwed”….

When I was young, grandparents were very sympathetic.  So we milked them for it.  However to all my problems they had one answer. “Well, it could be worse.”  i always felt that was a cop-out, like “hey, really man?  I come to you for aged wisdom and guidance and all you can tell me is that… hey dude, you know man, it could be worse?”


Only now I am fully comprehending what it must have been like living through the Great Depression.  Only now can I fully realize what it was like to lose your house, your farm, and actually have nothing.  Only now can I fully realize the true horror of having evil tear apart your world, and land a sucker punch out of the blue with an unprovoked Pearl Harbor or an invasion through the Ardennes.  Only now, can I appreciate what it truly meant, that zero ships made it up the coast from Florida to New York in quite a few months. Only now can I fully realize what it meant to watch evil take out civilization like shutting off light switches and there was nothing we could do about it except read of the defeats in the newspaper….  Only now, can I fully realize what it meant to put your life and job and family’s future welfare on the gambling table and agree to strike your employer, until he agreed to pay you a little more than the starvation wages you were stuck in…

What my grandparents were telling me was this:  “That’s not really that bad;  try hard and you can dig yourself out of it… “

What was unsaid, probably because they hated bragging, was this……. “We did, and it was much, much worse than what you face today.”

Quit complaining, and do.

This is the newest revelation from Snowden.  It should not be a surprise knowing what we already knew.

Essentially the NSA uses cookies to track your internet traffic.

Which brings up this moral question.

Cookies were allowed for commercial opportunity.  To find what you like, and then offer you ads for that activity.   That sort of benefits both advertisers and potential consumers.  if I as a consumer have to look at ads, aren’t i better served seeing ones I’m interested in, as opposed to ignoring all of them as I do in the News Journal?

Yes… I’ve benefited from cookies.

At the same time, someone out there, knows a lot about me.  And a lot about you…  Whereas computer technology can accurately predict where Peyton Manning will throw the ball on 3rd and 10, it can also predict when and what you will buy at Wal*mart with 90% accuracy…  One could get in big trouble if ones spouse ever got hold of that information….

But we were given ways of opting out of cookies, of removing them if we wished, and it continues to be allowed…

There are no laws against making bets on what someone will buy..   However.. THERE ARE LAWS AGAINST  government spying on you.   Against powers of prosecution innocent victims have no powers other than forcing prosecutors to produce evidence.   Now that evidence can be produce readily whether a person is guilty of anything or not,  there is no defense against state prosecution.

This disrupts commerce.  Now I can’t engage in commerce because my government may one day invade my domicile, grab my computer,  pull one or two bytes out of one or two gigabytes, and prosecute me.

So now, with the NSA, a government entity using cookies,  the actual use of cookies themselves may become under suspect of being illegal…

With continuous free use of cookies, using them to spy on you will continue.  Now is the time to  move to requiring cookie-use only with a court order, and hopefully, it must emanate from a court which has an advocate for privacy rights being the antagonistic force against the government’s claim for its right to spy….

So with the right advocacy, this crumbling cookie situation may lead to legislation ensuring our privacy is again under our control, and as a result… no longer forcing us to live like celebrities or former witches and fear Allan Loudell or the paparizzi  (of course, in the form of cookies)….   hiding in our bushes

Award For Delaware's Most Influental P/P/or T of The Year
The Golden Flush Award
/Click Image for Past Winners

Usually this is an after thought…” Oh, wow, year’s over, let’s get a person of the year”…  And then once we elect one,  we go… “holy crap… we totally forgot so and so….”

So to try to stir up some old simmering coals of memory, both mine and others, and perhaps even to (heaven forbid) get some debate going in the blog sphere, I thought I’d make an initial run on Thanksgiving Week, and then add people into the nominating category as others mention various ones I should kick myself for forgetting.

It will also force me to review the year which is something I rarely do… because face it, as a human being, I am slave of the moment….  If I did this last year, come December 14th the entire world would have been turned upside down and all the old priorities of 2012,  would in one day become trivial….

And so starting early gives me the chance to make the argument for each of those I decide to enroll with your kind recommendations included….

Julius Cephus:  Particularly this one man organized and stopped an end run around the Port of Wilmington.  The Kinder Morgan deal did not go through, and the Wilmington Port is bustling like never before…   Kinder Morgan was to strip the union of power, and drop the rates of pay, further dampening the economy of Wilmington proper.  It was also the first defeat of a Lavine-Markell development project, .. Fisker and Bloom had gone forward without a hitch.  Julius and other’s push back resulted in a General Assembly motion that stated they, not the governor, had final approval. It was the first time we were exposed to the current Governor’s manipulations.  They were to play a significant part across this year’s tapestry.

Steve Newton:  A blogger who has written infrequently, but effectively. His piece on SB 51  is what alerted us to the end run being performed by Dave Sokola on lowering the current standards being used for educating teachers.  It is brilliant.  It took an evening of reading the legislation line by line and cross referencing  it with Steve’s analysis, to understand the huge negative impact this bill would cause.  By the time this was done, the Bill had already passed the Senate unanimously without comment, and with an friendly amendment added that was voted upon without even being read.  Some public outcry was mustered within the House, both in committee and on the floor, but under the Governor’s direction, the Speaker of the House, pushed the bill to the floor before significant outcry could be mustered.  Only 4 House members were not on record for it’s passing.  Our educational schools now have to water down their teaching standards to meet the new law.  Steve also has brought the Highmark story to Delaware.  His research in the increase of medical costs in Western PA as a result of knocking out competition by unfair practices, leads one with a cold chill of what to expect in Delaware’s future.  We are already there.  As an insurer, Highmark is only paying medical claims in its own affiliated clinics.  As the new Blue Cross/Blue Shield owner, that is a huge percentage of Delaware’s residents.  None can go to any other hospital.  He has properly fingered Karen Weldham Stuart for not catching this prior to implementation.  Without Steve, this would have passed unnoticed.  The News Journal still has not once mentioned the takeover of Delaware’s health field under one owner.

Ernest Lopez.  If Kennedy were still writing Profiles of Courage, he should include this man.  Ernest Lopez is a conservative, and voted with Libertarian values to pass the gun legislation recommended by Markell and Biden.  Reflecting the views of his district, instead of taking the threatening message sent to him down from the NRA, he voted for his district.  A very vocal minority, who is always vocal, and always in the minority, swore they would unseat him.  He disregarded their idle threat, and voted both his and his constituents conscious.  A major billboard was put up to call him out.   His vote caused the passage of us now requiring background checks at public gun sales.  Now a certifiably insane person cannot slap cash and get a gun.  It is a no-brainer, and Ernie was the only Republican with brain enough to even know what a no-brainer is….

Cathy Cloutier:  her vote allowed gays to marry.  Again, she is a Republican who said enough is enough… Tired of voting against her conscious just so Sussex County would not flip over to the Democrats, she finally did not toe the line and voted along the lines of her own constituents, all overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage.  In doing so, she went against the entire grain of her party, who firmly feel that gays are second class citizens, even though most Republicans in office are closeted gays.

Bethany Hall Long:  on the same vote, made a viable personal decision, and also voted for the legalization of gay marriage. Unlike Cathy’s vote, this was accomplished at great personal sacrifice, for all of those in her personal life, were solidly against this policy from taking effect.  In voting for what was morally right, she had to contend against those whose influence she could not escape.  She went with the correct vote, over the easy one.   As a result, Gay marriage is now legal in Delaware.

Paul Baumbach:  gave great ammunition against the fight for SB51, and later against HB 165. Both bills which will damage Delaware’s education for years to come.  He was one of the four who put up a fight on the House floor.  Paul also arranged for the meetings in Newark to discuss the new Power plant that figured in this past week’s election.

John Kowalko:  also was against SB51, HB 165, as well, being against the power plant.  In fact, John was the first person to sound the alarm over how big the power plant would be.  Without his big voice, it may have slid through unnoticed.  The power plant has defined northern Delaware politics since September.

Kim Williams;  responsible for HB 40 which investigates Charter School’s meddling into our educational systems.  She was as an acting state representative, allegedly refused entrance into a committee hearing on education, for fear she might say something damaging to the bill being rushed through….  She brought to the public’s knowledge, that the Charter School bill was drafted illegally without public input, and the charter group constructing it, was also under FOIA, to which the private group denied.  The Attorney General backed up her assertion, that the bill was formulated illegally but their decision was moot, because the bill was passed both houses anyways.  Kim Williams also in the HB 40 task force, led the group to realize that charter schools unlike public schools, do indeed filter those entering charters to weed out those who might lower their test scores….

Mark Murphy, Rodel, Sweeney, Hefferman, and the Fake Educational Reform Establishment:  I almost purposefully did not post this.  Although the first person’s name is usually followed by explicatives whenever mentioned, it is unlike Voldermort’s, still getting mentioned.  Mark Murphy was not put in his position based on his ability. He was placed there for his loyalty to the cause of  corporatizing public education.  Markell pulls the strings, Murphy figures how to get it done…  It is hard to make a puppet the most influential person of the year… So I was going to skip him… But at the last minute, remembered that every time  he or anyone of these make an op-ed, it resonates as gigantic news. The entire community rises up to counteract each op-ed, usually with the word “lies” thrown liberally about…. So, they do exert an influence.  I looped all of them together, as the group of liars in a Greek play, who stand on the stair steps and taunt the protagonists.  Well,… they are part of the play…….

Dan Short:  Sometimes villains get noticed too.  Primarily a single issue candidate, who personally supports the NRA, he actively campaigned and organized to create enough backlash so Markell’s gun laws could not get enough votes…  Without him, there is a possibility that all four of Markell’s gun control pieces of legislation would have passed both houses of Delaware’s legislature. Dan Short should be given the credit for stopping them.

John Sigler: Single handedly by his very brief tenure as the re-elected head of the Republican Party, he pointed out through his pigeon shooting, just how inept the Republican Party was at everything else.  With his leaving, all fissures cracking the Republican bedrock, were impossible to ignore.  Blogs split. The IPOD’s split. Former candidates of the same party just months earlier, now not talking to each other. The Delaware Republican Party is dead; no it is past dead.  More dead than a pigeon shot inside a box by John Sigler, former head of the Delaware Republican Party.

Nancy Willing: Her blog, the Delaware Way, is the go-to site for local information. Whether about Dover, about New Castle County, about any of New Castle County’s associations, Nancy combs all sources and puts them down in aggregate form. Heavily involved in the Power Plant controversy, The Delaware City Rail Yard controversy, Barley Mill controversy, the Woodlawan controversy, the Kinder Morgan controversy, the Charter School Controversy, the Common Core Controversy, Nancy has who is saying “what”, and links to “why”. One can expend less energy by using her blog to follow all the stuff the News Journal neglects, in a few quick empty steps.

Amy Roe:  a head of the Sierra Club, who emerged from nowhere to lead the fight against the power plant, and give quite a run against the establishment candidate.  Becoming the face the anti- power movement could coalase behind, she gave the anti power plant movement both dignity and grace.  Coming up short only 115 votes, she has awakened Newark now politically as never before…  The power plant if it goes forward, now has a strong group of Newarkeans against it.  Hopefully they will be monitoring it regularly and helping authorities keep in in compliance with all local law.

Tom Gorden; although much quieter than his first term in office, Tom Gorden is rapidly rolling back the privileges the previous Clark administration handed over to our state’s top developers. The Barley Mill plaza which had a green light, is now parked at a red. In a big sea change, though handled quietly, community groups are now no longer persona non grata in county government. It is no longer accepted as a matter of course that the Woodlawn Trust will be gobbled up by developers. If enough fight can be mustered, it can be stopped. Furthermore, with Tom there is closer coordination with the City of Wilmington, than we have experienced anytime in our lifetimes. In the county, local policing has been stepped up, particularly in neighborhoods prone to crime…

Dennis Williams: Came in with grand expectations, which looked deliverable for a while. The tide is turning and his relevance on this list, is because every day, the headline reality in Wilmington’s streets, brings his electioneering boasts back to haunt him, like a sizzling hot branding iron.  Time, Dennis, to say “Damn the torpedoes… Their punk asses are going in jail no matter which blowhard on City Council spouts off,before mine gets tossed in jail for impersonating a mayor..”

Alan Levin:  Jack Markell’s second in command, he was instrumental in defending Markell’s position on Kinder Morgan and the port, as well as the new power plant for the data center. He also had a hand in keeping Dole in Delaware, and worked to slip the power plant past a slew of unsuspecting Newark City officials.

Jack Markell: had his hand in everything.  He was behind Kinder Morgan’s takeover.  He was behind SB 51 and HB 165.  He was behind the illegal charter group, requiring HB 40. He also was the driving force for the four rational steps to gun legislation, 2 of which were passed. He was also the driving force behind the passage of gay marriage, signing the bill in the chambers just moments after its passage. He also supported the transgender bill in its travels through the labyrinth of Legislative Hall. He as behind keeping Dole in Delaware. He was behind changing an icon in Millsboro away from pickles, over to poultry. He pushed the bill to curtail Flowers. Despite your opinion over whether these were good or bad, they still showed a ubiquitous and wide reach across the state of Delaware. Seems like nothing got done that didn’t have his fingerprints all over it.

John Young: As head of Christina board, John Young led the board in standing up to Mark Murphy and Jack Markell, by refusing the RTTT funds slated for his district. Although some hired fools, (Jea Street) tried to paint Young into a corner, it served the opposite purpose and gave Young a platform. For the fist time, Common Core was getting publicly bashed. For the first time, many were finding that aligning themselves blindly to this sham of improving standards, was probably going to hurt them politically in the next couple of years. It was the fist salvo back, so the damage estimates were not high, but it did open eyes of many who had been on the sidelines of all educational issues, making them also become vocal in fighting Common Core. His blog Transparent Christina has channelled a lot of detailed information into the Delaware market, and had made Common Core an apprehension, instead of the savior it was supposed to be….

Kilroy: Kilroy has always been haranguing over education. In fact he was doing such a good job I left that issue alone for years, because other issues for me, like the economy and elimination of guns from the hands of the mentally ill, were more important. But as the issue has shifted back into the limelight, Kilroy’s hard hitting is making its mark… Kilroy is blunt, and right now, that is the language that needs to happen. Blunt descriptions of what takes place in the stratosphere of he academic field…. Kilroy often breaks stories before the News Journal, especially ones embarrassing to the Murphy/Markell cartel of education. If you have read Kilroy over the past couple of years, you would already know that Common Core is not the panacea we have been promised. It is a power grab for taxpayer dollars, financed by Wall Street itself…. If you think otherwise, you haven’t been reading a balanced reading list….
That is what I have so far. In retrospect I am surprised that education has played so much, as even I have only come to that topic lately… But if one looks over the News Journal op eds, education really did dominate the discussion in the 2nd smallest state this year….

I may have forgotten some big ones. To reiterate, that is why I am posting this early, to catch those big mistakes as they get brought to my attention….

248 Megawatts!!!

That familiar moment to most of us, when the official amount of power needed simply shocks us all.

Newark will have the largest single boiler in the state, just 200 feet from private homes. The distance of a long field goal attempt….

In a tone bordering on haughtiness, Cassandra of Delaware Liberal, implies that she is not going to apologize to Chip Flowers. Nor should anyone else she insists.

Her retort implies some serious issues with objectivity.

“How about we get an apology from Chip for this stupidly belligerent performance and for the serious incompetence he isn’t doing a good job of hiding?”

Chip Flowers took a trip and couldn’t find a receipt or two when he returned. One would assume from the tone taken, one has ever lost a receipt before. This accident was further complicated because these meetings were top secret encounters with principals of interest, held primarily to determine how Delaware could use the banking industry to one up every other state. Were details ever leaked, or were the guest list ever know, Delaware might be facing 49 separate high cost law suits; all cast mind you not because Delaware did anything wrong, but because it did something very clever, and did it first. The same way Microsoft sues Apple, and Apple in turn sues Samsung, who then turns around and sues Microsoft. Anything to keep lawyers busy and well paid.

Although not asked, it is clear that Cassandra is in no mood to apologize. All must wonder why. Does she feel jilted. After all, it is a known fact after high school, that when people feel jilted they either overly demand, or refuse to apologize.

One must assume that particular human trait is playing out here, barring any other evidence to the contrary. The next question is whether Trey Paradee is involved. Precluding this refusal to apologize, her co-conspirator El Sonambulo of Delaware Liberal posted a hit piece on Trey Paradee as well, calling him by the ugly “C” word and implying he was to “conservative” for his district. Two hits in less than 24 hours by the same publication in the world of Dick Cheney, is called a conspiracy. Since many of Dick’s values live on today, a conspiracy it is…

One must puzzle as to why Cassandra would not apologize? What is her motive? What are her means? What is she hiding? What does she have in for Chip Flowers? Why is she against the Treasury Department? Is she a follower of Ron Paul?

That would make sense. Ron Paul boasted a huge army of supporters who failed to turn up at the polls. One could now quietly be working for Delaware Liberal or simply be Anthophobic. In any regards, all should demand that Cassandra apologize quickly so Delaware’s news can move on to more important things….

Finally, and almost as an addendum, it should be noted that if one is going to make a parody, one is best to use someone squeaky clean to ensure that parody does not go beyond it’s original intention. Cassandra is squeaky clean. So, unless you have the brain of a horse, by now you should know something was up…

This is simply a copy of a hit piece that is being proffered by the main stream media every day. It’s sickening actually. Almost every story by any of the big 4 television networks, is slanted just like this. If Republicans look good, it is because serious effort was put to make it so. You can indeed put lipstick on a pig (Sarah Palin as an example). (You can also put lipstick on Joe Biden, but he looks funny when you do; Palin at least looks hot)

So thanks for Cassandra for being an unwilling accomplice to this plot. If you even believed it for a minute, then my skills are still intact… Imagine… asking her to apologize to Chip Flowers… Lol. 🙂

Point is: dont’ trust anything from CBS, ABC, NBC, or Fox. (Notice I used a lot of their tactics, like imaginary experts who don’t exist, lavished the term common sense which isn’t common, talked more about other people talking about what other people were saying, over what really actually happened, utilized mock outrage, used one big word that everyone will have to look up, etc.)

You are so being raked over the coals right now… What to do? News at noon and 4-7 on WDEL.

Tommywonk's First Blog Post

People arbitrarily have their milestones.  Some may be grateful when they cross a hundred, a thousand, a million.  But for me, I have chosen one of Delaware’s great bloggers who retired at post 1850 as my personal marker of achievement…

Tommywonk used dry humor, and a crisp mind to make his points.  We were involved in facing down the four horsemen of the Delaware Legislature running through 2007-2008 leading to the first offshore wind agreement made in the United States.  Unfortunately the Republican Depression wiped out a multitude of global hedge funds, and the backers of ours, were included.  Currently the rights to Blue Water Wind are owned by one of the biggest opponents of it when we first pushed it forward.  Dave Burris and Jason Scott, complimented OUR team of four horsemen….

Anyways, most readers will have no idea of what I’m talking about and that is how it should be.  Time marches on, and those who look too much backwards upon the past, run right into a tree.

But I was always far behind him in posts since he started out.  I marked my catching up to him here….

Today’s blogging is rather boring compared to what used to take place on these pages. It is as if everyone tries to spout off what they know, and of course, that makes for rather dull personalities. Today we are dry. We used to be wet. We did silly things back then. We laughed a lot. When one of us hit a vein, we all jumped in to open it wide. The News Journal lost editorial control over its state.

Oh Well, I see it took me 553 days to better him up 1000… Seems so much shorter, like it just happened yesterday… lol.

As Rebecca Young used to say…. “Onward.”

The now famous high stepping Wal*Mart video  mentions that point….

Now, the meme of bashing Wal*mart  and fast foods has gotten a little blaze and to be honest, when I first saw the flash mob at Walmart on the national sites, as a person with little time, I passed.

But on Delaware Liberal, I opened it in another tab, and was listening to it as background and all of a sudden…..  it stopped for a half second and then…

“Hold It! Did You Know? It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”

The answer in my head was … “no, i didn’t…”

The second answer was… “of course I did.” which made me more intrigued by my original answer.  Why on earth did I think it was bad for these people to interrupt business as usual to demonstrate for something affecting I think, one person?

As this “wow moment” started to dawn on me, I realized I’d been brainwashed’… Over time.  it had really happened.  My gut, had been  over-ruling my head….  it’s a business. They should call the police. They should fire everyone involved…   Demonstrations are really ineffective blowing off of steam…


How many others out there would say “no” … How many others out there really don’t know it is their right to form a union?  That anyone can form a union?  It is legally protected.

Oh, they can threaten to fire you if you join… And they can fire you….

But if they do… you can sue… and even better, under current law, you can sue them and win.  Win big!

You can make them pay you for all back wages you lost.  So finacially it is just like you were working but having the entire time off.

You can make them pay all your damages, including late fees on bills you couldn’t pay because the illegally fired you. You can make them pay interest on all loans you took out to live on, even if they came from family.  If you Dad gives you a loan at 1000% interest, they have to pay that… and to your Mom, your brothers, your sisters, your aunts, and uncles…  Your whole family and friends can get rich off them because they fired you for forming a union!


The business may respond to the legal judgment ,  “Screw you , we are closing”.  But if they close they will still have to pay you for all the damage they cause you because they fired you for forming a union… You still win! And win BIG!


How is it that our newspapers don’t remind us of this.  How is it that Unions are painted to be the bad guys, because they make a business lose money?  Why isn’t the business painted as the bad guy, for stealing potential earnings out of each and every employee working for them…

Some may think forcing a union on a business is unfair.  Racist states often use this argument.  Why should White owned businesses pay more for black people’s labor?   That is why ALEC (in Delaware associated with Patty Blevins) was invented:  to protect White Businesses’ interests.   And still unfortunately, in some states, there were enough white people still agreeing that black people as well as to  those whites who associate with them, should be paid inferior wages,so much so that with ALEC’s help, enough votes were mustered to pass state anti-union laws..

But historically there were laws that once said: slavery was legal. Despite bad law, morally it was still everyone’s right to be free….


It is your right to form a union.  Existing law is crystal clear.   Why was this decided?  What is the moral argument behind it?

Simple.  You have to eat.  Bottom line.  If someone says  I have to pay you $6.00 an hour because I’m not making enough money, and you can’t get money anywhere else, you work for $6.00 and hour.  If he counters that he can only pay $5.00 an hour, and you can’t make money anywhere else, you will  do his bidding for $5.00 an hour.  Why not $4 then?  Why not $3 then?  Why not $2 then?  Why not $1 then?  Why not .25 cents then?

You have to eat.

There is no bargaining chip in your favor…  Your employer if legally allowed, would pay the lowest rate possible to still have employees. When there are more employees than positions,  wages could drop very low…. because you have to eat.

America went through the Great Depression primarily because of this… Even business leaders realized from that experience that by making their employees so poor, no one was buying the products they were making…

And so they agreed: “If we make our employers have disposable income, they can buy our products and we can again make money”.  So the legal basis was almost unanimously approved  by both businesses and labor, to make the right to strike just that.  a basic human right protected by the full force of the law…   Simply because paying workers higher wages is good for increasing overall demand. and that is what drives economies forward.


Basically, a union is the answer to this counter argument:   “why should you, the investors, get all the money off our labor, and we get none?” Admittedly both of us should get something decent from our arrangement….

And there you go.  America did do very well… that is, until our media became influenced by investors (who now own them btw) and started painting unions as a scourage…  Missing from all press coverage, was the simple fact that one has to act scouragingly when bargaining with fellow scourages…  Sort of like not realizing that your hero prize fighter has to hurt people.  It’s necessary to stay in the ring…

So I encourage all reading this to now begin talking up unions in your workplace… Because if you get fired for any reason afterwards, you can blame it on the legal right to form a union….  it is like a wonderful vacation in which you still will get paid, probably even more than if you’d put up with the bosses crap the whole damn time….!

Now… you know!   It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”


It really is your “right.” and it is protected by law.  Now, go get them tigers!

Venice in Winter is like Dewey Beach In Summer
Photo Courtesy of the

Fact. The deck of the Rusty Rudder, is lower in elevation than St. Marks Square…..

Globial Warming …. (Despite the Caesar Rodney Institute)

It’s coming.

Originally published on the Office of Management and Budget blog and picked up here off the Treasury Blog… the magic number of deficit reduced is $737 billion.

Put into perspective.

That total is for the entire span ranging from 2013 to 2022, covering this presidential term and the next two.

This is compared to the $4 Trillion Grand deal that was agreed to by everyone back in August 2011, then scuttled by Paul Ryan (Romney’s VP pick), who walked out of the agreement taking the Tea Party Republicans with him… The agreement was there, it was right there on the table; Obama had signed on. Democrats in the Senate had signed on. Republicans in the Senate had signed on. Democrats in the House had signed on. And the Republicans in the House had signed on… But then, to everyone’s surprise! Paul Ryan, said no, it raised taxes, so he and his Tea Party couldn’t vote on it… The deal was scuttled. And we got sequestration, a new debt ceiling, and the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts all at once… . .

Last Monday, Paul Ryan voted to raise taxes. So what was the Big Deal?

This table shows the relief from last years policy. This year, we will cut the proposed deficit by 4 billion. That is in jeopardy, because the Hurricane Sandy relief which has been promised to be passed by the new House of Representatives sworn in yesterday, is already 60 billion over what was previously budgeted…. Next year we may get some of that back; this bill drops our deficit $42 billion.

The point I’m making is that this bill although a victory, actually saves very little…. Obama originally said we’d go with $1.6 Trillion in new revenue. $2.4 Trillion of cuts would be on top of that. Now, including both revenue and cuts, we have not even half of that. Over 12 years, we save $737 billion with $329 billion coming from the last three years of the second term of whomever gets elected after President Obama!

What we got …. was a deal. That says something. America should be grateful for small wonders. America also got time to debate the cuts. They would have happened immediately without debate had we done nothing. SURPRISE!!! 500,000 ARE UNEMPLOYED AS OF TODAY!! America got unemployment insurance extended. America got the wind credit tax extended, very necessary right now. America got higher taxes on the top half of the 1%.… As they scramble to bury their money into our economy, we could see job growth come out of it… And that is really what was important. That the 2$ Trillion sitting outside the economy, get taxed so it becomes now cheaper to invest in our nation’s infrastructure and not in the stock market…. That was the whole idea for high taxes. Force investment into the economy…. Those 400 people who own the top 1/10th of the top one percent of the wealth, now… have to do something with it.. or lose it…

But as for affecting the deficit, it could actually help if the economy takes off and 12 million new jobs open up as anticipated. Those new jobs will pay tax money too, more than making up what the incomes between $250,000 and $400,000 got to keep.

But Delaware’s Senator Tom Carper is correct here. This bill he voted no for, simply kicks the can down the road, where had it not been passed at all, the laws on the books would have begun to eat up the deficit like bacteria in a sewage tank… Like taking an antibiotic, which makes you initially get sick the first day, then you begin getting better almost immediately, this deal against which Carper voted “no” would have caused a recessionary blip, then pulled us into prosperity.

This flashing, daring, last minute grand compromise, as Carper rightfully states, is the equivalent to opting NOT TO TAKE THE ANTIBIOTIC BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU A LITTLE SICK THE FIRST DAY…..