#Red4Ed

It all started here in WV.

It's been great to see the huge masses of teachers and their allies filling the streets in Raleigh, North Carolina today. I hope the ball that started rolling in West Virginia keeps moving on. And that the victories keep coming.

Like the WV strike, the protests in North Carolina highlight the damage done by passing irresponsible and unproductive tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy at the expense of things like education, health and infrastructure.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that tax cuts enacted in NC since 2013, which haven't even gone into full effect yet, have included:

*Across-the-board cuts to personal income tax rates that disproportionately benefit the wealthy by replacing the state’s graduated system (with rates of 6, 7, and 7.75 percent) with a flat rate, currently 5.499 percent.

*A cut of more than half to the corporate income tax rate, which has fallen from 6.9 percent in 2013 to 3 percent today.

*An end to the state’s estate tax, which will only benefit heirs of estates worth over $5.25 million — under 1 percent of estates.

I guess you could say you get what you don't pay for.

In case you were thinking this is just a coincidence, which anyone reading this probably isn't, check out this piece on how billionaires and corporations have been pushing this kind of agenda for years.
It gets pretty specific.

Then there's this Bloomberg story on how tax cuts pushed the the Kochs and their ilk have driven teachers to the streets. I particularly like this line:

"The wave of strikes in the past three months is just the latest sign that Tea Party-style austerity is losing favor."

May it be so.

One liner of the day

Whenever I hear politicians talk about the need to make tough choices, what I hear is this: "It's time to really stick it to poor people." Which come to think of it isn't a tough choice at all but rather a cowardly one. Paul Krugman struck at that theme today in his op-ed about the need for demand-side economics. Here's his version:

"Economics is supposed to be about making hard choices (at other people's expense, naturally)."

SAD NEWS. Here's an op-ed by a friend of mine on sad days for public libraries.

KINDER, GENTLER? On the bright side, E.J. Dionne argues that Americans seem to be getting less punitive, partially because of dropping crime rates.

HEALTH CARE. Here's a reminder of why we needed reform to start with.

MORE FUN AND GAMES with West Virginia's drug lobbyist in chief attorney general here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Overdetermined

Here's an interesting post from the Washington Posts's Wonkblog about why Central Appalachia's coal industry is declining. The conventional "wisdom" offered by the ruling class of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia is that all problems of the industry are caused by a black guy with an African name, but this article points out other factors, including competition from gas and cheap Western coal.

To be fair, some of the proposed new regulations on energy will impact mining, and with it tax revenues and jobs. But the biggest factor by far is the market, which the same ruling class tends to worship as a god when it's convenient to do so.

It's not going to be pretty here. I do wish the federal government would step up with plans and programs to assist mining regions hard hit by these changes.

AUSTERITY BLUES. Here's Krugman on our failure to address long term unemployment.

IT'S NOT ALL BAD. Here's just one of many examples of how West Virginians are trying to promote health and wellness. For more on that, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Short load

West Virginia was the subject of a long and gloomy article in the Washington Post recently. Some other reflections on changes in the state over time can be found in this Gazette editorial.

Meanwhile, here's a good one by E.J. Dionne about why Congress has been trying to fix the wrong problem for the last few years and one more by Krugman about how ideology can sabotage government services.

I'm in so much trouble

Over the years,the Spousal Unit and I have had a disagreement or too. No, really. One of these is about guinea hens. I think they're so ugly they're cute. She thinks they are loud, messy and obnoxious.

But last night when a friend emailed saying he had some baby guineas and asked if I wanted any, I replied with a profanity-laced affirmative. I was mostly kidding. He was serious. Before I really thought it through I was on my way to my buddy's farm.

I wound up coming home with 11 babies who are now residing in a box in the house with a heat lamp shining above.

They are kind of cute at this point but they are already LOUD. The only consolation is that one guinea peeping is almost as loud as all of them peeping together so there's really not much difference, really, between having three or four and having eleven. That's my story anyway.

They do seem to quiet down a bit when I sing "Mule Skinner Blues" to them, but that's not something once can do 24/7

So while guineas are in the house, El Cabrero is in the doghouse.

YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS: austerity is a bad idea.

IN THE CROSSHAIRS. House Republicans are targeting food stamps (aka SNAP). Here's the lowdown.

ALSO A TARGET, of course, is the Affordable Care Act. Here's some interesting public opinion research on that topic.

WANT TO REDUCE PRISON ADMISSIONS? Try reducing the dropout rate.

CAT YOGA. You knew they did it. Here are some outstanding examples.

FINANCIAL ADVICE on a 4x6 index card.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Just mean

Top billing today goes once again to Paul Krugman for an op-ed on the spitefulness of those governors and legislatures who refuse to expand Medicaid for low income people in their respective states, which I think of as states that hate their poor people. He points out that this makes no economic sense and will in fact negatively impact those states in terms of jobs, money and the cost of health care.

He then adds:

...Medicaid rejectionism will deny health coverage to roughly 3.6 million Americans, with essentially all of the victims living near or below the poverty line. And since past experience shows that Medicaid expansion is associated with significant declines in mortality, this would mean a lot of avoidable deaths: about 19,000 a year, the study estimated.

Just think about this for a minute. It’s one thing when politicians refuse to spend money helping the poor and vulnerable; that’s just business as usual. But here we have a case in which politicians are, in effect, spending large sums, in the form of rejected aid, not to help the poor but to hurt them.

And as I said, it doesn't even make sense as cynical politics. If Obamacare works (which it will), millions of middle-income voters — the kind of people who might support either party in future elections — will see major benefits, even in rejectionist states. So rejectionism won’t discredit health reform. What it might do, however, is drive home to lower-income voters — many of them nonwhite — just how little the G.O.P. cares about their well-being, and reinforce the already strong Democratic advantage among Latinos, in particular.

MEANWHILE, here's an info-graphic about what Medicaid expansion will mean to West Virginians in each county. Thanks again to WV Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin for doing the righteous thing.

IT'S NOT ALL BAD. Read more about how the local food movement is reaching WV here and here.


LAST WORD goes to Krugman again for this blog post.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

An idea whose time has gone

Austerity was all the rage and still is in some circles, especially those that favor government by artificially created crisis, like the fiscal cliff, debt ceiling blackmail and the idiotic sequester.

Here are several looks a why austerity in a weak economy is a bad idea and why more people are walking away from it. Note: some of these are wonky but you'll have that some days.

First, it isn't doing that great in Europe.

Second, groups like the Center for American Progress are walking away from the idea of a "grand bargain"/bad deal, something they had previously supported.

Third, here's why they're calling for a reset to the fiscal debate.

Fourth, it makes more sense these days to be an infrastructure hawk than a deficit hawk.

WILL HE LISTEN? Here's E.J. Dionne's advice to the president.

IT'S NOT ALL BAD. WV's high school graduation rate is improving and has now caught up to the national average.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Signal or noise?

Like many people in WV and elsewhere, I've been eagerly following the federal investigation of Massey Energy's 2010 Upper Big Branch disaster which killed 29 coal miners. The latest development is a delay in sentencing for a former company official, David Hughart, who pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiring to violate safety standards and to covering up for them.Part of it may be due to summer scheduling, but it looks like ongoing cooperation between Hughart and federal prosecutors, who have signaled that charges may move up the corporate chain.

Would that it were so.

BAKER'S DUO. Economist Dean Baker takes another whack at austerity here and comments on the Affordable Care Act here.

URGENT WOOLLY MAMMOTH UPDATE here.

SOON TO BE A TWEET. On a road trip to WV's eastern panhandle, I had a WV town insight: Milton is the Anti-Shepherdstown.

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This n that

I try to make it a policy to take whacks at deserving targets whenever possible. One such target is austerity economics. Here's a good whack from Dissent and another from the NY Review of Books.

ROCK ON, FRANCIS! How about that new pope?

MORE ON MEDICAID. Finally, here's a good op-ed by an ally on why expanding Medicaid in WV is a good idea.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A bitter disappointment

El Cabrero has recently listened to and enjoyed a series of lectures on the Vikings by Michael Drout. I must admit, however, that I was bitterly disappointed to learn a couple of things.

First, it turns out that they may not have had horns on their helmets. That was kind of a downer. But I was positively crushed to learn that they didn't really drink from the skulls of their enemies. I mean, heck, the only reason I started doing that was to be more like them. Guess I'll revert to ordinary drinking vessels...

More musings on the Norse to come. Unless Ragnarok happens, in which case we'll all be kind of busy

SPEAKING OF VIKINGS, here's a great NY Times op-ed on why austerity kills. It turns out that the descendants of the Vikings in Iceland managed to deal with their economic crisis without inflicting wholesale misery on ordinary people.

MORE AYN RAND WHACKING here.

STRANGE HUMAN/ANIMAL INTERACTIONS here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A little Viking advice

What better way to make it over the hump of the week than by cracking open a little Viking wisdom. Below, please enjoy some of these old Norse proverbs:

It is better to be a living man than a dead one. The living man can have a cow.

Brawl with a pig and you go away with his stink.

The slumbering wolf does not get the ham.

It is the still and silent sea that drowns a man.

Everybody got that?

MORE AUSTERITY BASHING here.

WORDS. Some are really old.

COMING TO A COUNTY NEAR YOU. As a result of an amendment to WV Governor Tomblin's prison overcrowding bill, drug courts have been mandated for all counties by 2016.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Wishing for the end of a bad idea...

...the bad idea in question being the embrace of austerity as an economic cure-all. I'm a day or two behind, but Nobel economics laureate and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman lays things out nicely in his latest op-ed. Here's the punch line:

...the drive for austerity has lost its intellectual fig leaf, and stands exposed as the expression of prejudice, opportunism and class interest it always was. And maybe, just maybe, that sudden exposure will give us a chance to start doing something about the depression we’re in.

MORE ON THAT here.

RANDOM BUT GOOD. Here are some rambling thoughts by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano on books, life, and such. My favorite line is this one:

If nature were a bank, they would have already rescued it.

SPEAKING OF NATURE, some animals have its oppositite, i.e. culture.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Click, watch, laugh, learn

I have often heard it said that ideas have consequences. These days, that is true even when the ideas are wrong, as was the case when two Harvard economists published research recommending austerity measures as a way to promote economic growth. You may have heard that a graduate student from MIT found basic errors in their data which invalidate their claim. Their ideas have been used as justification for cutbacks and other austerity measures around the world.

I've been trying to think of a way to write about this that isn't too wonky. However, thanks to Stephen Colbert, that effort is no longer necessary. All you have to do is click here and here.

An ugly little spud. Loud too.

If anyone was worrying that we had a shortage of critters at Goat Rope Farm, allow me to assure you that you can cross that one off your worry list. A case in point is little Cedro, a baby chimney swift that fell or was exiled from his home nest and was rescued by the Spousal Unit. Little Cedro apparently didn't get the memo that little creatures should be cute in order to ensure survival. He seems to rely on loudness instead when he calls out for food at very short intervals.  

And what, you may ask, do you feed such a creature? In his case, freeze dried mealworms seem to be a hit.

(But I wonder who on earth came up with the idea of freeze drying mealworms?)

JOB GROWTH is slow, thanks largely due to austerity imposed by the majority in Congress. But if there was a political will, there are plenty of ways to improve the employment situation.

TWO WV ISSUES that are in the news these days include bad cuts to child care for working people by the Tomblin administration and prison overcrowding.

SPEAKING OF CHILD CARE CUTS, click here to do something about it.

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I SOOO thought I was done with zombies for a while

...but a friend sent me this link.

Here's a thought. What if zombies, due to bad oral health,which is endemic in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, didn't have teeth? Would they just gum people? That would be a disgusting nuisance but something short of an apocalypse.

Just saying.

IN CASE YOU MISSED KRUGMAN, click here.

SIGN OF THE TIMES. Obesity is the new malnutrition.

ARE YOU GLAD THERE AREN'T MANY GIANT BUGS? Thank a bird.

NOTE: El Cabrero has to be everywhere all the time this week so posts may be irregular.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

This and that

OK, I've gotten a little bit of zombie fever out of my system. No--I wasn't bitten by one, thank
God,  but I did manage to wolf down, visually speaking, Season 1 of The Walking Dead while the Spousal Unit, an otherwise remarkable woman who doesn't happen to be all that cool about zombies, was out of town.

But zombies aren't just for TV anymore, as this AP story explains.

CALLING BS. Here's America's best coal reporter Ken Ward dispensing an all too rare dose of reason and reality in a state of denial.

GASLAND. What's in it for us? Here's a call to to even things out a bit where Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling is concerned.

SHOULD HAVE POSTED THIS LAST WEEK. Here's a really good item about austerity from Arianna Huffington. I hope she's right.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Un-American Europeans

It looks like this weekend's elections in France and Greece threw a monkey wrench into the austerity machine. I wonder whether American politicians will get the message. Here' s more on that from Krugman.

MORE FALLACIES FROM THE ONE PERCENT, specifically about taxes, discussed here.

TRAMPS LIKE US, maybe we were born to run.

ANTS  are badass.

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Target practice

I admit it. There are few things in the world that I love whacking more than the bull****... I mean ideology of Ayn Rand. By chance last week, I stumbled upon this article from the Parthenon, campus paper at my alma mater Marshall University, about the controversy still surrounding its acceptance a few years ago of a million or so dollars from the big bank BB&T to teach an economics class in Randian garbage.

I couldn't help but respond in the following letter to the editor:

 I read with interest the Parthenon article discussing the controversy of Marshall’s acceptance of BB&T money to indoctrinate students in Ayn Rand’s “philosophy.”

There are any number of ironies here. First, Rand didn’t believe that places like Marshall should exist at all. In a 1964 Playboy interview, she stated that “My position is fully consistent. Not only the post office, but streets, roads, and above all, schools, should all be privately owned and privately run.” She also would have opposed the several kinds of publicly provided financial aid that Marshall students receive.

It also establishes a disturbing precedent. Suppose some other billionaire or corporation wants to plop down another million or two to establish a chair to advocate for, say, white supremacy or female circumcision or any other loopy ideology. Is money the only thing that matters? Should Marshall cave every time somebody waves some cash? If so, there’s a word for that and it isn’t education.

I wish I could have been a little nastier in the letter, but 20+ years of working for a Quaker organization kind of ruined me.

AUSTERITY is overrated.

UNEMPLOYMENT, its costs and possible remedies are discussed here.

SITTING  is bad for your health.

WAY TO GO, BOB. Dylan is a winner of the presidential medal of freedom.

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There's a switch

For the record, I have never said that I wasn't an idiot. The following incident is yet another reason that I forgo making that claim...

I have this laptop for work that I use when I'm on the road. A while back I noticed that the wireless didn't work on it anymore. I figured it must be a virus or something. Anyhow, I finally got around to calling the AFSC computer help desk.

I explained my problem and gave the model number. Then, with great delicacy and patience, the person told me politely that there was a switch on the side of the computer that turned it on and off. Sure nuff, there was. I flipped it and it worked.

I felt like Gilda Radner's Emily Litella character on the old Saturday Night Live. "Never mind!"

Would that all problems could be solved that easily. And that we didn't wait so long to ask for help.

AUSTERITY isn't much of a hit in Europe these days.

CEO PAY info here.

THE DREADED BRAIN FREEZE explained here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Diversity of bad ideas

Overwhelmingly but with some exceptions, participants in the Occupy movement have adopted, often explicitly, nonviolence as a method of action. However, in some places there are those who argue for "a diversity of tactics," which basically seems to consist of throwing things at cops.

Presumably such people believe that this is the best way to win over the hearts and minds of the 99 percent they claim to represent.

Sorry, but the most charitable thing I can say about that approach is that it is, in one of the Spousal Unit's favorite phrases, "dumber than dog ****." I say that not only as someone who works for a Quaker organization that promotes nonviolence, but also as a gun owning Gandhi-allergic Scotch Irish hillbilly with a black belt.

This has nothing to do with any belief on my part regarding the moral arc of the universe, the evidence for which is underwhelming to me most days. It comes down to this: as much as some seem to like throwing stuff as a method of change, the rulers generally have way more stuff to throw. And they can throw it harder. Second, most people are not all that turned on by the sight of people throwing stuff.

It seems to me but simple prudence to avoid giving one's opponent the excuse and/or ability to crush and/or totally discredit and isolate you unless there is a compelling reason to do so and I don't imagine that happens very often.

As a friend of mine once said about ultra "left" groups that engage in provocative action, "If they're not getting paid by the other side, they're getting ripped off."

IT'S MONDAY so it's gotta be Krugman bashing austerity.

HISTORY IS MESSY, so the Tennessee Tea Party wants to clean it up--by keeping slavery and such unsavory matters of American history out of the textbooks.

WHAT IS 24 MILLION GENERATIONS? If we were playing Jeopardy, that would be the number required for mouse sized mammals to evolve to elephant proportions assuming natural selection was favorable.

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