Trump Republicans attack Covid-19 with...Tax Cut? Isn't it the answer to everything?

Like the help Republicans offered dairy farmers to stay in business, revive rural communities and health care clinics, fix roads, connect high speed broadband statewide, solve drinking water pollution etc., tax cuts fix everything (and look sound good on the campaign trail).

Now the Trump White House plans to fight the coronavirus, COVID-19 specifically, with a tax cut? Yup.

Who thought of The Shock Doctrine, the Rise of "Disaster Capitalism" right away?

I used the term “shock doctrine” to describe the brutal tactic of using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock – wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes or natural disasters – to push through radical pro-corporate measures, often called “shock therapy”.

It's the obvious reason a drooling swamp filled government of corporate special interest would ever spring into action.

Trump administration officials are holding preliminary conversations about economic responses to the coronavirus … the options being considered are pursuing a targeted tax cut package … These ideas would not be designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but they would seek to arrest the economic fears spreading through the economy.

Riiightttt. In other words, "Buy More, Save the Economy!!! Four more Years!"

The spread of Covid-19 is now turning up without any known contacts with possibly infected people. Sadly, its taken a turn for the worse:

Washington state public health officials said two additional confirmed cases of the virus — including a health care worker — are associated with a long-term care facility in the state. Officials said 27 patients and 25 staff members at the nursing home had reported symptoms similar to the coronavirus.

Trump botches Condolences: Trump faked sadness for "a wonderful woman":

The patient who died was identified as a man in his 50s. While President Trump, speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., initially identified the patient as a woman, state and King County officials during a news conference hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention insisted that the patient was a man. Trump called the victim a "wonderful woman" and said she died overnight. Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the new coronavirus task force, expressed his condolences to the woman's family.

So 52 patients and staff members at the nursing home in Washington state have reported similar symptoms to Covid-19. Trump is having none of that...

Trump said there are 22 patients in the U.S. who have been confirmed as having the virus. He said 15 of them are either recovered fully "or well on their way."

Trump prepared US to Fail: Government is bad, right?

Here's the story:

(Trump administration) wiped out its “entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure” and shutting down both the National Security Council’s global health security team and its counterpart at the Department of Homeland Security.

Having realized that maybe it looks bad to not even ask Congress for some money to deal with the crisis, on Monday (Feb. 26) the White House requested $2.5 billion to address the outbreak, funds that would go toward vaccines, treatment, and protective equipment.

so this happened...

Census??? No ones asking; how will this effect Census, and those enumerators visiting to peoples homes? Sadly, I couldn't find one story about this looming problem which is one month away:

Notices and forms will start arriving in the mail in March 2020. For households that don’t respond to the census, nonresponse follow-up begins in April 2020 and wraps up at the end of July 2020.

Scott Walker's localized version of Disaster-like Capitalism continues to payoff.

This is just a quick post about something I'm still trying to sort through... 

Writer Naomi Klien calls it "disaster capitalism," the free market exploitation of a disaster or problem. Trump and Scott Walker are relentlessly pushing this idea in big ways. Here's a past example under Bush:

Hurricane Katrina and other catastrophic events: The exploitation of crises for corporate gain, often under the guise of relief or reconstruction efforts. A list of "Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas Prices," by Vice President Mike Pence; "make the entire affected area a flat tax free-enterprise zone," "give school-choice vouchers for displaced children," and "make the entire region an economic competitiveness zone (comprehensive tax incentives and waiving of regulations)."

Public Education Disaster? Scott Walker's use of disaster capitalism plays off his own major ideologically driven policy disasters, like education. Walker first drummed up support by making things worse with Act 10...vilifying teachers as union thugs who indoctrinate kids with their liberal agendas:

Walker cut $782 million from public schools.  

Even though Wisconsin is in the top 12 for overall state grades and 9th in K-12 Achievement, Republicans have convinced their voting base our public schools have been a failure. Walker purged the system of costly experienced teachers, introduced free-market bidding wars for instructors, ignored school funding reform, expanded voucher and charter schools, and forced school districts to pass funding referendums. Running again for governor, he's now increased spending on schools, after creating educational shortfalls:

...state aid is the highest ever in raw dollars, but adjusted for inflation remains below levels more than a decade ago. 

State Parks Funding Disaster: Walker did the same to our state parks, by first cutting taxpayer funding, and then coming to the rescue with free-market user fees that aren't keeping up with maintenance, pricing lower to middle income Wisconsinites out. And fees are going up. Trump is doing the same thing with our national parks with even bigger increases. Can you afford to see and enjoy your own country? Now that's freedom:

In the 10 months since Ryan Zinke took the reins at the U.S. Department of Interior, he has proposed more than doubling summer entrance fees at Yellowstone, Glacier and other popular national parks to $70 per carload. Lest the thrifty or those on a tight budget try to plan around such a price increase, under Zinke’s leadership, the National Park Service reduced the number of free park admission days to four for 2018 — down from 16 free days in 2016 and 10 in 2017.

Lincoln Hills Disaster: Walker decided to close the states budget deficit by consolidating the juvenile prison system, cutting 292 full-time jobs.

Then-Racine County Circuit Judge Richard Kreul sent a memo directly to Walker on Feb. 10, 2012, said he had been shocked when the state closed a separate youth facility, Ethan Allen School in Wales, in 2011 and instead sent all young offenders to a single institution, Lincoln Hills. "My experience with the administration at Wales was 100% better than my experience with the administration at Lincoln Hills," he said. 

We have yet to see how Walker will turn this into another money making opportunity. Still, what Walker is proposing is just another hail mary his legislature most likely won't approve of or have the money for. It's just an idea that may not panned out:

Walker unveiled an $80 million plan to turn Lincoln Hills School for Boys in northern Wisconsin into an adult facility and transfer the population at the embattled detention center to five regional teen prisons, three in southeastern Wisconsin, in 2019. But it will still take years — and political skill — to pass the legislation, acquire the land, build these new prisons and create programming for them that gets better results for inmates and the public. In the meantime, Walker will still face questions about past problems at Lincoln Hills — and potentially new ones that might develop in the meantime.

State Rep. Cindi Duchow has said Ethan Allen, the 140-acre former correctional facility, off Highway 83 just north of Wales, is so contaminated with asbestos, lead paint and mold that it is unsafe and cannot be economically repaired.

Republicans sow anger, frustration and desperation just to get elected.

The Republican frame on issues continues to dominate media coverage in the presidential race and of politics in general. Forget about the barrage of fabricated outrages, lies and myths that for the most part have been exposed as absolute nonsense.

The Fiscal Times article below is the prevailing thought process on the right. Voters assume all the confident declarations made by their candidates and politicians must be true, even just a little bit. 

Let’s briefly dissect the articles list below, starting with the right wing authoritarian Republican agenda; ramming their austere fiscal policies down our throats, borrowing, the “not-so-small government” takeover of local governments, overall privatization, vilification of the poor/teachers, and wild west gun laws. Republicans will say the Democrats “rammed” through “ObamaCare,” but is getting a super majority of 60 votes really considered ramming? 

Most of the whining below was intentionally created by Republicans to impose their one party dream on everyone else by frustrating and angering people:

6 years of Obama forcing unpopular policies down Americans’ throats.

Six years of lies and misdeeds by unaccountable bureaucrats (projection including total fabrications).

Six years of lame growth and resulting wage suppression (Republican oppose minimum wages).

Six years of appeasing our enemies and facing down our friends (endless wars/lost American lives).

Mainstream Americans feel marginalized, pushed to the back of the pack, while the plight of transgenders in the military or imprisoned blacks takes center stage (blatant bigotry and racism from the right wing, continuing into the next point…)

Under President Obama, Americans have become more polarized on race relations and immigration, and nearly every other issue as well. Obama has hinted that white Christian Americans are racist, indifferent to the travails of blacks and Hispanics and unreasonably hostile to Muslims (Republicans have rationalized away racism by blaming Obama for this polarization).  

Republicans have been so successful with their narrative of lies, that polls now reflect their agenda:

This is uncontestable. A poll this past spring showed that 61 percent of Americans think race relations are “bad,” the highest reading since 1992 … In the summer of 2008, before Obama’s election, 53 percent of the country considered race relations good and only 37 percent considered them bad. That’s quite a turnabout. 

Nearly two-thirds of the country thinks we are on the wrong track, while only 29 percent think things are going well. 

The article sums up this right wing lunacy with the following list that exposes the failure of the GOP’s austere free market shift:

The frustration at the sorry plght of our public schools (massive GOP cuts), the deterioration of our infrastructure (no money due to tax cuts), the weakening of our military (still believe in the military industrial complex), our bloated and unsustainable entitlements programs (thanks to trade policies), massive cybersecurity breaches (in the private sector) and so on. 

Greece shining example of Disaster Capitalism!!!

Naomi Klien’s book “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of DisasterCapitalism” described early on what is now about to destroy Greece once and for all. I’m sure my conservative friend in Milwaukee, who is always calling me about the similarities between Greece and the U.S. – which is absurd, is happy with the horrific privatization results below.

AP: Work was supposed to begin next year on a 7 billion euros ($7.6 billion) waterfront urban renewal project almost twice the size of New York's Central Park that could have poured nearly a billion euros into Greece's depleted coffers. The plans stalled late last year … both on ideological grounds and because leaders believe rampant corruption must be addressed before any sell-off.

Now, in an attempt to get a third European bailout and prevent the Greek economy from collapsing, the ruling party has done an about-face. It has pledged to fast-track the waterfront project, plus sell government assets and allow for private development of state-owned property, all to generate cash that will help reduce Greece's 320-billion-euro national debt and pay back money lent by European nations to prop up ailing banks.

"There can be absolutely no backpedaling or unwinding with the privatization effort," said Mujtaba Rahman, European director for the Eurasia Group political and business risk consulting firm. "This is about testing the government's appetite to liberalize the economy and move forward with pro-market reforms." 

Big money assets that Greece could sell include state-owned stakes in Athens' new airport, energy company Hellenic Petroleum and electrical utility Public Power Corp., plus offshore oil or natural gas drilling parcels. A Greek company with backing from Chinese and Arab investors would then build a huge park, a shopping center, a marina, 1,000 hotel rooms and a skyscraper apartment building on what's billed as Europe's largest undeveloped waterfront tract. 

Rand Paul Disaster Capitalist!!!

Detroit’s bankruptcy is an opportunist’s wet dream.

And Sen. Rand Paul smells that desperation. He wants to swoop in and install a Friedman-esque conservative utopia. If you've read or seen the movie based on Naomi Klein’s book, “The Shock Doctrine,” you already know such policies don't worked.

   

The crazy just keeps getting more extreme:

Bloomberg News: U.S. Senator Rand Paul, told a business crowd there that cutting taxes and luring immigrants would turn the city’s fortunes. The Kentucky Republican wants federal legislation to create “economic freedom zones” in distressed cities like Detroit … He said he would cut income taxes to a flat 5 percent in areas of the U.S. with unemployment more than 1.5 times higher than the national average. He would cut payroll taxes and eliminate capital-gains taxes.

Cutting payroll taxes anywhere in the U.S. would basically dismantle and defund Social Security and Medicare…he must know that, right? Of course.

But even more insane is Paul’s gauge of public opinion when it comes to his philosophy, after just making his idiotic proposal:

Paul said the Republican Party stands to lose more national elections unless it attracts a broader, more diverse voter base -- especially blacks -- and promotes individual liberty more than it does tax cuts.

Promoting “individual liberty” is a vacuous generality that could mean anything, by design, pushed by extremists too afraid to actually spell out their dystopian plans. 

But just as opportunist is the rotting cancer setting up shop in Detroit:

Speaking today to the Detroit Economic Club at the Motor City Casino, the libertarian-leaning Paul touted the opening of a new Republican Party office in the city. 

Finally, Paul still thinks helping the auto industry was a bad idea. The shocking thing about the Republican belief system is that never thinks it’s wrong, even when it’s painfully obvious to everyone else:

Paul drew applause when he said the government bailout of General Motors Co. (GM) and Chrysler Corp. in 2009 was a bad idea, a view he said is not popular in the city. 

GOP's return to Power hangs on ObamaCare Failure!!! Won't help like Dem's did for Medicare Part D.

Can you ever imagine a time when it was alright for a political party to hope a major piece of public policy would fail, and get media support for their efforts with the following amazing headline?

The subhead "Glitches could become the failure the party has been waiting to pin on the president," is breathtaking in its cruelty, and an open window into a party's cold calculation to exact power in every way possible.

Detroit Bankruptcy a product of Reaganomics, Republican policies, not black population or unions.

I found it fascinating how Republicans in Michigan, with their democracy killing “emergency managers,” weren't taking the blame for failing to save the city. This bankruptcy is under their watch. Yet they're able to easily get tons of press blaming everyone else. 

Thisonce-beautiful performing arts center
(The Michigan Theater) is now a parking garage.
Check out the Time Magazine article

What took 40 years of job killing outsourcing that lead to the decline of manufacturing is now being blamed on the “black population” and unions. Letter writers in the local paper blame "selfish" laborers for destroying Detroit. 

Thom Hartman summed it up best in his daily email, finally bringing up the gorilla in the room, disaster capitalism.

"Republicans are thrilled that Detroit has filed for bankruptcy. Because - for the GOP - the fall of Detroit is a talking point goldmine. Conservatives like Neil Munro and Sean Higgins hope that maybe - just maybe - if they can convince the American people that big bad unions and Democrats are to blame for the death of Detroit, then they can get them to forget that conservatives have destroyed this country with 30-plus years of Reaganomics and voodoo economics. Union-bashing is bad enough - but there's another, even uglier dimension to the GOP's Detroit meme. The Motor City is eighty-five percent African-American. In fact, it has the highest black population - percentage wise - of any major city in the United States. So when Republican pundits and politicians talk about "mismanagement" and "bad governance", what they are actually saying is that black-people aren't capable of running a city.

Blaming minorities for social problems is a tried and true Republican tactic. Reagan had "welfare queens" and the air-traffic controllers. The modern GOP has Detroit. However, it wasn't unions or black people that bankrupted Detroit - it was decades of pro-corporate and anti-middle class free-trade policies that gutted the city of its industrial core. Over the next few weeks, you'll hear a lot of hand-wringing from conservatives in the media about how Detroit is a sign of things to come and how this is what happens when you give Democrats, workers and "disorganized people" (that's right-wing doublespeak for African-Americans ) control of a big city. But remember, the Republican solution for Detroit is just more of the same: gutting social services.

This is disaster capitalism. It's an opportunity for wealthy white speculators to experiment with all of their austerity dreams. And if that comes with a chance to demonize poor people, black people, and unionized workers - well - that's just the icing on the cake."

Here’s another view, from racist Ted Nugent:

Ted Nugent is “shattered but not at all surprised” and he already knows just who to blame: the left.

“Liberal democrats took hold of the greatest, most productive city on earth and turned it into a bloodsucker excuse-making hell,” Nugent told TMZ. “If allowed to continue, our president will do the same to the whole country,” added Nugent, who currently lives on an estate in Concord, MI. “Heartbreaking and tragic.”

It’s that black guy in the White House, isn't it, not Bush's Great Recession or Republican outsourcing and deregulation?

Sequester slows America's Future. Welcome to our Minority Controlled America.

Sequester Austerity hits Wisconsin:

jsonline: The Medical College of Wisconsin estimates that it will lose $5 million to $9 million in federal funding for research due to automatic budget cuts that took effect last week. The school also will lose an estimated $1.5 million in revenue a year from a 2% reduction in what Medicare pays physicians. And Froedtert Hospital, its academic medical center, projects that it will lose about $7.5 million. These are just a few examples of the reductions in federal spending on health care from sequestration, and they could be a preview of what's ahead.

It didn't have to be like this.

Disaster Capitalism: The Republicans set us up for austerity, by spending like “drunken sailors” and creating an economic/deficit crisis during the Bush years. Sure Clinton left them with projected budget surpluses, but do you think Democrats will bring that up…ever?

Republicans now control the dialog about a supposed “spending problem,” when it’s really a revenue problem made worse by the Great Recession. And they control the dialog thanks to the Democratic Party’s reluctance to advance their own agenda and force conservatives to fight against populist ideas.

The sequester cuts spending, sure, but it also slows progress by taking away from what made the U.S. great in the first place, research and development.  We won’t be so quick to create new industries and/or save money by improving current inefficient technologies.

With no push back or promise of restoring societal advances, Democrats are helping to usher in the new austere America. And there is still no clear Democratic alternative.

People will settle into, and adjust to, life made a little harder, even though it really doesn't have to be like this. With all the difficult life changing curve balls reality tosses at us, do we need to start spinning our wheels needlessly to fulfill some minority groups fringe concept of what it means to be truly free?  

Sadly the answer is yes. 

Selling off our country one piece of "commons" at a time.

Here's another editorial from Thom Hartmann  pointing out how governmental privatization looks, and how the profiteers are using disaster capitalism to take ownership of our countries. Always remember, the banks caused the economic disaster, not working people or their safety nets.

Corporations are eating our commons: So-called Emergency Financial Managers in Michigan are selling off public schools to private charter school corporations - and laying off hundreds of public school teachers in the process. The "mini-dictators" who - appointed by Republican Governors - have unprecedented power to fire local elected officials, break union contracts, and sell off our commons to corporate interests have decided to eat alive the public school system in West Michigan and around the Detroit area. Study after study has shown that private, charter schools don't produce any better education results, but they do pay teachers less, have higher teacher turnovers, and - making Republicans happy - are union-free.

Meanwhile, across the pond in Greece, the rich are devouring the commons at a record rate. Greece's new coalition government is trying to speed up the sale of state-owned assets including utility companies, airports and railways, and 28 other state properties. Far left SYRIZA Party leader - Alexis Tsipras - who was left out of the coalition government, blasted the privatization plans, arguing that the move was like putting a giant "for sale sign" on his country and that the, "government will have to account for its actions, the looting of public goods."

It doesn't matter where in the world you are, the Libertarian one-world ideology of billionaires running nations into the ground while impoverishing the working class is on the move.

Here's Naomi Klein with a little more on disaster capitalism:

Walker's Jobs Special Session: Large Piers, Deregulate, Build on Wetlands and pay Big Businesses Energy Bills.

"Back to Work Wisconsin." that's what Scott Walker is calling it. But who's kidding who?

I hope you're sitting down; mom and pop, working sister and brother, you are about to help lower and pay for large manufactures utility bills!!!!

jsonline: one bill would require families and small businesses to subsidize lower power rates for large manufacturers, other bills were still just drafts, and some - which would loosen regulations on everything from piers to wetlands - wouldn't necessarily create any jobs.

Another big job creator, "LIMIT LAWSUITS." I wish I were kidding.

But the fact that Wisconsinites would end up subsidizing energy used by large manufacturers, is just jaw dropping, and maybe illegal.

Charlie Higley, executive director of the ratepayers group Citizens' Utility Board, objected … the proposed lower rates for certain large manufacturers would end up being paid for by what is essentially a hidden fee on other consumers. "That's been prohibited for over 100 years because it's simply unfair to make ratepayers pay for discounts that go to other ratepayers," Higley said.

Joining us in our outrage, is WE Energies, believe it or not:

We Energies and the Municipal Electric Utilities of Wisconsin joined CUB in raising concerns about the impact the utility rate legislation would have on small businesses, which would be funding discounts for larger ones.

And this is how our state Republicans are creating more jobs. Not. This is disaster capitalism.

Kimberly-Clark CEO not shy about using Disaster Capitalism for more Corporate Welfare.

We the people have already lost the battle against the corporate takeover of our country. I wrote about it here. The battle now, is how much farther down the ladder do we want to be in society, and in the workplace. With the help of the GOP and Tea Party movement, pushing for the freedom to fight the battles against our business hierarchy alone, wages, unions, health care, safety nets and tort law are all on the endangered species list. We've already been told, and many believe, that Medicare and Social Security won't be there for us. A total fabrication.

Disaster capitalism is a simple concept explained by Naomi Klein in the book "The Shock Doctrine." Klein's description precedes the Great Recession, but that event could easily be included:

“Countries are shocked — by wars, terror attacks, coups d’état and natural disasters.” Then “they are shocked again — by corporations and politicians who exploit the fear and disorientation of this first shock to push through economic shock therapy.” People who “dare to resist” are shocked for a third time, “by police, soldiers and prison interrogators.”

So imagine my surprise when a corporate fat cat like Kimberly-Clark's CEO and Chairman Thomas Falk, unaware of Klein's book, offers up disaster capitalism at a Senate finance hearing, as a solution to tax reform. Not one eye brow was raised:

Corpublican Party!

I know, I hate it when someone "cleverly" reforms a party name too, but I couldn’t help it this time.

After reading the following article from NY Times’ Charles Blow, I felt inspired and angry. The media has allowed the GOP to get away with telling Americans a complete lie about taxes.

4 on the Bullshit Scale

Republicans have decided to play chicken with the nation’s credit — insisting on spending cuts while steadfastly resisting tax increases.

This is part of the modern doctrine of a compassion-free conservatism that’s using the fog of the fiscal crisis to push a program of perverse wealth inequality as sound economic policy: The only way to jump-start the economy is to slash taxes on the wealthy and on companies; the only way to compensate for the deficits that those tax cuts exacerbate is to slash benefits to the poor and vulnerable. It would be comical if it weren’t so callous.

Not only is this faulty logic, it’s a false choice. We’ll need sensible tax increases and sensible spending cuts to address the deficit, and both can be offset to some degree by stronger economic growth. It’s not an either-or proposition.

The full stealing from the plates of the starving simply isn’t an American ideal.

This might be in the weeds info, but Blow provides proof:

Quarterly earnings at luxury retailers like Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Movado and Tiffany all beat expectations, signaling that the rich can still splurge … the tax burden of American companies is lower than that of other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, as economist Bruce Bartlett pointed out this week. Also, a report issued on Wednesday by Citizens for Tax Justice looked at 12 Fortune 500 companies from 2008-10 and found that on $171 billion in profits earned, their effective tax rate was negative-1.5 percent because of corporate loopholes, shelters and special tax breaks … And, as Time magazine reported in its June 6 issue, “In the 18 months since the Great Recession, which ended in June 2009, U.S. annualized corporate profits rose 42 percent, to a record $1.68 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010.” Corporations aren’t hurting. They’re hoarding.

Federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950, according to the OMB. Yet if one listens to Republicans, one would think that taxes have never been higher … One would not know from the Republicans … that corporate taxes are expected to raise just 1.3 percent of G.D.P. in revenue this year, about a third of what it was in the 1950s. The G.O.P. says global competitiveness requires the United States to reduce its corporate tax rate. But the United States actually has the lowest corporate tax burden of any of the member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The average federal income tax rate on the 400 richest people in America was 18.11 percent in 2008, according to the IRS, down from 26.38 percent when these data were first calculated in 1992. Among the top 400, 7.5 percent had an average tax rate of less than 10 percent, 25 percent paid between 10 and 15 percent, and 28 percent paid between 15 and 20 percent. 

Firedoglake.com on the GOP's Platform of Disaster Capitalism

While we have been frantically playing defense against relentless assaults on multiple fronts, from anti-union legislation to draconian anti-choice laws to the attempted privatization of Medicare, the selling off of public assets to the private sector has received little attention.

As states face a budget shortfall of $125 billion dollars for fiscal year 2012, leaders are searching for creative ways to fill budget gaps, while refusing to consider the one legitimate solution: forcing tax-dodging corporations and the rich to pay their fair share in taxes … politicians of all stripes prefer to cut pensions, close schools, slash child nutrition programs, and most importantly privatize, privatize, privatize!

The most insidious privatization scheme so far this year was in Wisconsin, the center of the state budget battles.  A provision in Republican Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill would have empowered politicians to sell any state-owned heating, cooling, or power plant, including those located in prisons and the University of Wisconsin campuses, to anyone for any price at any time, without public approval or a call for bids … the provision was ultimately removed from the budget bill … it is expected to be taken up again later this year.

Here’s a great explanation as to why we call it the Shock Doctrine, and why Dick Cheney’s “deficits don’t matter” comment betrays the GOP intention all along:

In the Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein thoroughly documents how wealthy elites often use times of crisis and chaos to impose unpopular policies that restructure economies and political systems to further advance their interests.  She calls these orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities, “disaster capitalism.” On its face, this theory seems conspiratorial, however a brief review of recent history demonstrates a trend of intentional crisis generation.

Paul Krugman understood this concept in 2003, during the implementation of the Bush era tax cuts:

“the gimmicks used to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry an official price tag of only $320 billion are a joke, yet the cost without the gimmicks is so large that the nation can’t possibly afford it while keeping its other promises … but that’s the point. The Financial Times suggests that ”more extreme Republicans” actually want a fiscal train wreck: ”Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs, is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door … they reaffirm the perception that the government is inefficient and incapable of providing what they believe private enterprise can do better.

The fact of the matter is that those now shrieking about big government debts and deficits have spent the last decade maximizing government spending with unaffordable wars, financial deregulation, and tax cuts for the wealthy … Today, the consequences of their actions, which they were warned about, are the ploy these very same people are using to justify the accelerated demise of welfare programs, and the incremental destruction of the meager social safety net that guarantees Americans won’t starve in their old age.

Only a Republican can get away with not giving aid to tornado victims and not be accountable!!

Here's Keith Olbermann on one of the most startling money saving decisions yet come out of the Republican House:

Recessionomics proving to be a foolish, bad and unnecessary economic power grab by Republicans!

Disaster capitalism is alive…and now public policy. But will voters ever know they’ve been taken?  

Right now the media is portraying the recovery as, believe it or not, an unexpected “windfall.”

But that was the plan…wasn’t it?  

NY Times: From stronger-than-expected tax collections in deficit-ridden California to projected surpluses in struggling states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, a growing number of recession-weary states are finally announcing a bit of good budget news for the first time since the downturn began. So what to make of the better-than-expected tax collections?

Disaster capitalism depends on fabricating an impending crisis, so…

In some states, they are as much a sign that the expectations were too low as they are a sign of vibrant economic growth.

The idea that expectations were too low was ON PURPOSE. We’re in a god damn recovery for Pete’s sake. But the recovery and better times threatens disaster capitalisms reason to shock the country with more draconian cuts.

In some states, the better-than-expected tax collections are complicating the efforts by governors to muscle through politically difficult spending cuts. Michigan. When the state announced that it would probably take in $429 million more than expected this year, some lawmakers suggested that they might not have to make all the deep cuts that Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, has proposed for the state’s schools and local governments. But administration officials note that Michigan’s fiscal challenges remain severe — 

Right, of course it's severe, or else Snyder wouldn't be able to keep up the charade. 

Tea Party/Republican "Shock Doctrine" on Debt Ceiling: Phony Crisis Unfolding.

Does the following sound familiar? It's from a play-book by those debt crisis Republican tax cutters:

You think we have a debt crisis now? You should have seen the one Canada had in 1993!!! And just like this one, it was phony, designed to scare people into cutting and privatizing government so the rich can get even richer. The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein, Pages 324-326. Published before the financial collapse and subsequent "debt crisis."
In February 1993, Canada was in the midst of financial catastrophe, or so one would have concluded by reading the newspapers and watching TV. “Debt Crisis Looms,” screamed a banner front-page headline in … the Globe and Mail. The only solution was to radically cut spending on such programs as unemployment insurance and health care. The governing Liberal Party did just that. 

Two years after the deficit hysteria peaked, the investigative journalist Linda McQuaig definitively exposed that a sense of crisis had been carefully stoked and manipulated by a handful of think tanks funded by the largest banks and corporations in Canada; C. D. Howe Institute and the Fraser Institute (which Milton Friedman strongly supported). Canada did have a deficit problem, but it wasn’t caused by spending on unemployment insurance and other social programs … it was caused by high interest rates, which exploded the worth of the debt.

McQuaig went to Moody’s Wall Street head office and spoke with Vincent Truglia, the senior analyst in charge of issuing Canada’s credit rating. He told her something remarkable: that he had come under constant pressure from Canadian corporate executives and bankers to issue damning reports about the country’s finances, something he refused to do because he considered Canada an excellent, stable investment … for the Canadian financial community, the “deficit crisis” was a critical weapon in a pitched political battle … a major campaign was afoot to push the government to lower taxes by cutting spending on social programs such as health and education. Since these programs are supported by an overwhelming majority of Canadians, the only way the cuts could be justified was if the alternative was national economic collapse – a full blown crisis. 

Truglia got so fed up he issu(ed) a “special commentary” clarifying that Canada’s spending was “not out of control,” … when he put out the commentary, “one Canadian… from a very large financial institution in Canada called me up literally screaming at me. That was unique.” By the time Canadians learned that the “deficit crisis” had been grossly manipulated by the corporate-funded think tanks, it hardly mattered – the budget cuts had already been made and locked in. As a direct result, social programs for the country’s unemployed were radically eroded and have never recovered, despite many subsequent surplus budgets. 

In September 1995, a video was leaked to the Canadian press of John Snobelen, Ontario’s minister of education, telling a closed-door meeting of civil servants that before cuts to education and other unpopular reforms could be announced, a climate of panic needed to be created by leaking information that painted a more dire picture than he “would be inclined to talk about”. He called it “creating a useful crisis.”

From Seeingtheforest:

Democrats fail to call out state Republicans for Disaster Capitalism Agenda. Striking Vulnerable during a Recession.

You knew something was wrong when one of the "tools" to repair the economy was taken off the table; tax the rich. Never a tax increase, even after the deficit commission and most economists admitted that the combination of spending cuts and tax increases is the only way to balance the budget.

Jobs, jobs, jobs!! Remember that chant. Democrats tried and succeeded in preventing much greater job losses, even creating jobs, which are now paying off in tax revenues. That was the plan. Did you miss the memo?

Amazing; the recovery all along was based on jobs; income; tax revenues from that income; which in turn pours money back into the general operating fund. Da da! The economic recovery.

Walker's Republicans could not have sold their plan without quickly pushing through their wish list cuts before revenues came back.

Call it what it is, disaster capitalism. Get used to the term, it's here to stay.

Shock Doctrine, Gov. Walker Style. Author Naomi Klein's message to Wisconsin.

There are two parts here: Rachel Maddow sets up the premise of the Shock Doctrine, disaster capitalism, with examples from Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan. Part 2 features author Naomi Klein's breakdown and suggested offense to the attack by big business and government authoritarian conservatives taking advantage of our dire economic times.



Part 2:

Disaster Capitalism and our new "Tin Cup Decade;" States plead, "we're open for business, please give us a job."

Disaster capitalism is an easy concept to understand; the disaster stems from the Great Recession and jobless recovery. This Wall Street disaster oddly shifted more power to those who created the recession. These corporate profiteers saw a demoralized powerless workforce. This desperate jobless public was ripe for exploitation. What a time to lower wages and benefits they thought. What a time to convince people they were lucky to have a job. On the other side, liberals and swing voters saw a rising shift of power, and a threat to fair wages and benefits that guard against families slipping into poverty.

And that’s disaster capitalism. The conservative paranoia, that someone somewhere is getting something they’re not, is a powerful force that corporate power loves to exploit. Thomas Frank’s book “What’s the Matter with Kansas” was all about Americans voting against their own best interest.  Example:

“Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: to the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land, and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO, and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed (unions, antitrust, public ownership), and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower.”

Which brings me to this question in today’s Capital Times: Do you agree with Gov. Scott Walker’s move to eliminate most bargaining rights for public employee unions? Conservatives answered this way:

“Things are bad everywhere and they should be glad to have a job. I feel bad for those losing their rights but there’s a lot of people who don’t have a job.” 

“I own my own business and I hate unions so this is fine with me. There are a lot of people out of work but the protesters are sitting here bitching about insurance. They shouldn’t be complaining about their union rights when they have jobs and lots of people don’t.”

Did you see the theme? “They should be glad to have a job.” “They have jobs and lots of people don’t.”

Wouldn't it be nice if we could bring everybody down to the level of jobless Americans? Even more surreal is the phony conservative compassion for those who don’t have jobs; They would deny them unemployment insurance. Is your head hurting yet?

The other culprit is the now excepted meme; we're suffering from business uncertainty.

Isn't it really...job uncertainty?