That Voo Doo That You Do So Well.

    When George Herbert Walker Bush campaigned against Ronald Reagan in 1980, he described Reagan's economic proposals as "Voo Doo Economics".  He was right but he could never really explain why because, as became obvious later, he had no real grasp of what was going on around him.
    It has always disappointed me to have to differentiate between presidents Bush. The idea someone was dumb enough to create a second one just kills me.
    Later, much later, Cheney famously said,  Reagan proved deficits don't matter.  He didn't mean incurring debt didn't matter in the long run.  He meant deficits didn't matter politically because the average person just didn't understand.  Lucky for him, he was right.  It was unfortunate for us.
    If you factor out Social Security and Medicare outlays, debt service on national borrowing is the second largest budget item behind Defense. In a very few years, it will e our primary expense. Social Security and Medicare can be ignored because they collect as much as we spend as a general rule.  It can't be said often enough:  It's our money whether you're 80 or 18.
    In that vein; here's another lie they love to tell.  There has been no "raid" on Social Security.  Over the years the government has borrowed from itself at no interest from the Social Security Trust Fund. The "no interest" part of that formulation is very important as, hopefully, I can explain.
    Social Security has been described as a Ponzi Scheme.  Maybe so.  But there's no denying it's been an economic boon and benefit to us all, 18 to 80.
    Deficits do matter and they matter much more than anyone has seemed to notice or admit.  The truth is,  unbridled spending unsupported by taxation has contributed to a skyrocketing of expense and taxation since the middle 1970's.  That's when the lie,  lower taxes would lead to greater revenue started to be told. You can call it  Voo Doo or trickle down or some sort of Laffer Curve.  Common sense first and then cold hard experience makes any iteration of the idea nothing but an outright lie. G W's tax cuts did not create anything but exploding debt.  2.5 trillion put on a credit card over 10 years.  Imagine what it is now when you consider the effects of compound interest.
    This is the part everyone seems to miss.  All these tax cuts since 1981, have been aimed at the famous 1%.  They pay such a great preponderance of all income taxes they actually pay about 24% of all Federal Revenue.  Frankly, if they don't have additional access to government you'd have to wonder why not.  They pay the damned bills.  So, why don't they see that every one of these debt growing proposals that reduce their tax bill this year grows their tax bill next year?  Why can't they see how much lower everyone's taxes would be if we weren't paying three hundred billion a year in debt service on the money that's been borrowed?  Not only that, at the present rate, it's projected to be six hundred billion by 2020.  Now there is a proposal to make that even worse.  I'm at a loss to imagine why the 1 percent isn't just enraged by these deficit growing proposals.  I thought rich people were supposed to be smart.
    Let's be honest here.  Elected officials are never going to cut Social Security or Medicare.  You can bribe them, err, I mean contribute to them all you want but they not just want to be re-elected they have to be re-elected to do anything for you.  So, that's out.  There are 324 million Americans, all wanting and needing goods and services only the government can provide.  The services we provide to the less fortunate don't really amount to a hill of beans compared to what we've just outright handed the rich in the form of bailouts and we're just not gonna stop doing it.  We're too nice for that.
    So, what's that leave us?  The only thing left is to make an effort to reduce what we pay in debt service.  That means we pay our damned bills as they come due.  That means responsible taxation.
    I have to say it again.  I thought rich people were supposed to be smart.
    Let's have a show of hands.  How many families have sat around the kitchen table and realized they wouldn't have the financial problems they faced if they didn't have consumer ( read credit card) debt? Now think about the fact the government borrows money at terms resembling the predatory practices of the worst credit cards.
    Geez, pay the damned bills and just laugh at the politicians who suggest otherwise.

The Performance Enhancing Drug Scandal

    When someone says performance enhancing drugs we think of Sosa, McGuire, Canseco, Barry Bonds. Asterisks in sports record books.  That's the tip of the iceberg.  Bonds probably typifies the problem in his motivations. They are common to what so many face.
    Bonds was a phenomenal baseball player though he was not well liked.  He came into the National League with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was part of the foundation of a very good team that was blocked by the Atlanta Braves from true record book greatness.  Old fan's memories die hard.  Hope springs eternal, as they say.
    Barry had an entitled, resentful side to him.  He, one time, said he thought people in Pittsburgh didn't like him much because he was black.  The city with heroes such as Roberto "Bobby" Clemente,  Joe Green,  Lynn Swann,  Willie "Cool Pappa" Stargel said,  no, we don't like you because you're an asshole and he went to San Francisco without so much as a wave good-bye.
    Once in San Francisco he continued to build on an unquestioned Hall of Fame career.  Then the juiced bats and juiced arms of the Sosas and McGuires came along.  He began to fear he was being eclipsed by inferior talents artificially enhanced.  Fear.  Just fear.
    He began taking performance enhancing drugs and his asterisk was insured.
    Abuse of these drugs didn't stop there and it was never confined to sports.  Since, at least, the late 1970's, police have been abusing these drugs for the very same reason: Fear.  Just fear.
    In my personal experience I have known 3 officers who abused these drugs and can think of at least 3 others I've come in contact with but don't know personally.  In forty years it has created a dangerous ethos we see and read the consequences of on a regular basis.  Police agencies from small towns to big cities have paid literally millions over the years for the misbehavior associated with roid rage.  But it's worse than that.
    These people because of their perceived toughness and false aggression have moved into training and doctrine positions and passed  their arbitrary aggression into policy.  The most innocent of statements from the most innocent of citizens can and commonly does immediately escalate into a violent incident for no reason other than very poor training driven by the effects of performance enhancing drugs.  How else do you explain some of these incidents?   How do you explain some of these frenzies of unwarranted violence?  It's become so pervasive it's hard to not notice and it's hard to pick any given one incident as an example.
    The answer, that won't be implemented for some long time,  is universal  PED testing of law enforcement personnel from command on down.  This problem has had forty years to fester and it sure is gonna take some fixing.  There is a conspiracy of silence and it will take quite some time to penetrate but it is the real PED scandal in the U S.