Senate Moves Obama Tax Cuts Forward/Lards Up Spending Bill With 'Thousands of Earmarks'

The U.S. Congress seem like drug addicts with a need to spend. Screw the budget, screw the public debt-those seem to be the sentiments of the U.S. Senate today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121405271.html thousands of earmarks in Senate spending bill

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/tax-cut-extension-deal-passes-first-senate-test/

U.S. public debt is nearly 14 billion dollars, and probably will double in seven years the way the lunatics are legislating.

The Democrats are disingenuous on the Obama tax cuts; they can let the cuts expire and get the Republicans to sign off on tax cuts for those earning less than $100,000 annually next year-how could the Republicans flunk on giving tax credits to anyone?

Select Parameters for Reforming the U.S. Economy (philosophically considered)

I've given the concept of how to rectify the American democracy thought enough to be aware of the problem that too large of social organization pose to society. A democracy does have a lot of power theoretically and they must to be really sovereign. A democracy must not allow any kind of social organization to form that rivals the government for real political power. It also must delete from existence disproportionate influence upon the government by elites.
One can consider Sparta and it's egalitarian social power and disdain for the accumulation of wealth. One can also consider the Athenian democracy and its battle with the elitists such as Socrates who wished to restore an oligarchy-Socrates was put to death for inciting three rebellions by youth. A democracy is in a perennial battle with elites that seek to subdue the people and hitch them as draft donkeys to pull their special field for nothing.

America today has basically lost the battle for liberty too corporatism and globalists. President Obama's tax cuts and Chinese outsourcing of jobs seems a Harvard marketing strategy Presidency. The President next may advocate small business in America produce authentic candy excrement that Americans will love to bite-in order to stimulate business...imagine the possibilities 'eat s... and be happy in a corporatist yoke America!

Then the Griswald-Palin administration may entertain the nation four years as social benefits are cut and the national debt reaches toward 30 trillion dollars from the 20 trillion the President plans on.

I believe it may be too late to repair the U.S.A. and that the tax cuts may become permanent because Republicans will take the Senate in 2012 as well as the Presidency I guess. Toynbean fin de sicle circumstances may evolve as the sea level rises globally.

I would have used a few remedies to radically transform the United States into an ecological economic, low-entropy nationalist economy featuring trade of serious international comparative advantage. I would limit the number of companies any citizen could own shares in to three. The maximum number of employees any business could have would be 5000. All citizens would have a minimum income in today's dollars of 6000 annually. Every citizen would own a small home with 1% interest at age 24 and the total cost would be no more than $30,000. There would be a zero net loss of biota on any land construction project.

II believe that II would secure the Mexican border against illegal immigration by making a field of berms and a canal to carry-evaporate-condense salt water to produce fresh water from Phoenix to the Gulf of Mexico. With water produced from siphoning saltwater from the higher Pacific than Gulf of Mexico and releasing it near Deming N.M. into the canal, providing a little extra solar power to makeup for the water removed, it might be possible to refill ancient Lake Bonneville than covered much of Utah until 10 or 15 thousand years ago. A fresh water lake 1000 feet higher in depth than today's Great Salt Lake, I would use the water to trickle out through spillways in Arizona and California for irrigation. Salt Lake City residents would be moved to lakefront property farther away. Perhaps the extra evaporation in the Rockies will help relieve future draughts caused by global warming.

I suppose the cost of ecologically recovering the United States into a new high tech insinuation of human benign occupational relationship would be about 150 trillion dollars. At least full employment could result from all the scientific research funded by society and of taxing the rich at a rate commensurate with U.S. history until the Regan administration. President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to tax the rich at a 100% rate during W.W. II and got just 93%. The tax rate in 1980 on the rich was 71%. The networks of ownership of the rich reduce social liberty to transform society reactively as a democracy must to challenging circumstances to a minimal level. One may see the resistance of corporate media today to global warming-a peer reviewed phenomenon and discern that corporatist influence is really quite a devastating influence on politics and ecological reform as well as full employment.

It is a fallacy that high taxation rates on the rich must somehow develop a socialist economy. A free enterprise founded democracy with a limit on capitalization of any individual or business is reasonable and consistent with democratic defense against oligarchy, tyranny and aristocracy. One cannot find the pro football player who can shovel 300 times more dirt in a day than an ordinary laborer. The social inheritance of inventing machines for mass production should not be used to give credit to individuals that leverage investment advantages to own everything as if they 'worked' for such wealth. A Warren Buffet or Bill Gates may be fair enough individuals in today's economy, yet no such capital accumulation serves the nationalist, ecological or environmental cause substantially. Neither does the accumulation of wealth beyond a certain percent of that of the average individual in a modern economy liberate society and free enterprise competition so much as repress it.

Never in the history of the present U.S. democracy has a rectification of fundamental economic parameters occurred. The founders existed in a mostly agrarian an exploratory society with increasing against in the under populated wilderness. It was not a full society without naturally occurring opportunity to own land. The founders did not by apricots from Turkey and hay for horses from Saudi Arabia. Without a direct reconstruction of the American economy to concentrate upon making a more human, personable, full-employment, ecologically recovering nationalist free enterprise society (one that lets pro football teams pay for their own sports stadia) things ahead politically may become very Orwellian I might guess.

Obama Tax Cuts, Large Science and Environmentalism Philosophically Considered

Hegelian dialects and Darwinian evolution may be abstracted synthetically by Marx towards a general millenarian idea of progress. Obviously homo faber is a theme of hierarchical advance. The reasons for dialectical or tri-electical neuro-technique invention by homo sapiens are fairly well understood now. It is possible to create cultures of synthetic reasoning for technical and scientifically founded innovation. These do not oppose empiricism or environmental sciences obviously; neither does large or small science presuppose or validate a given political-social epistemological theory such as Marxism. I like C.S. Pierce's tri-electical theory of mind's synthetic promulgation of new concepts as well an others of the 19th century. neuro-cognitive epistemological nominalism is a more existential introspection field than physical as is possible today.

In reading Dr. Henry Pollack's 2009 book; 'A World Without Ice' I found that Pollack mentioned the peer reviewed screening of the generally validated scientific finding of global warming. He compared that to the anti-global warming polemics distributed by the corporatist broadcast media outlets. That point is fascinating and an example of how science is while objective simultaneously non-political so far as it is scientific.

A question about the world being made a better place through knowledge and scientific method rightly should also consider if it isn't politics and democracy in particular that should select what of science should be applied broadly to the world. I mention this because the world assuredly is at several simultaneously challenging empirical-environmental crossroads from which to choose political directions.

We find the Obama tax cuts and January meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao an abnegation of democracy and surrender to global corporatism. In U.S. history high taxes on the wealthy was an effective and essential way to pay for war and recession especially concurrently. Abe Lincoln started income taxes on the rich (those making more than $800 a year) during the civil war. Roosevelt wanted a 100% tax on the rich during the Second World War and got 93%. President Eisenhower benefited the U.S.with a tax rate higher than 70% on the rich-not until President Reagan's 1981 tax cuts did the rate on the rich in the most of the 20th century fall below 70%. With a 14 billion dollar public debt-scheduled to reach 20 billion or so in four years, and likely to triple in 20 years without tax increases and more effective publics pending in the United States the role of science will continue to increasingly be selected by elite corporate leadership and concentrated powers of wealth.

I believe that politics rather than science determines the social well-being of the public and affect of science on the public. A selection criterion of greed rather than empirical good for mankind tends to produce a bad environment patched up a little post hoc by government action against substantial media-corporate opposition. Instead of blaming science or knowledge for the mal-adaptations of technology to the environment and society it is more accurate to give politics the credit for destroying the health of the world environment.

I have no difficulty in imagining a 70% tax rate on those earning more than $250,000.annually in the United States with the excess, after the public debt is paid off, being invested in environmental restoration. I believe the restoration of the environment such as filtering out unnatural pollutants from watersheds would cost at least 150 trillion dollars. That would create a lot of jobs as well as new scientific research.

Democracy must be able to take the bull by the horns and rope it down. The rich and corporate concentrations of wealth allowed to increase unchecked can entirely subvert the free market and the freedom of then people of the United States through networking ownership and universal effective power. Democracy can adapt to a modern world being wary of corporations taking over government as Jefferson anticipated.

Corporations could be limited in size of employees and financial endowment as a percentage of the national wealth. Individuals too could be limited on capital concentration too a percent of the national wealth. Stock ownership by an individual might be restricted to just three corporations.

It is unlikely that any sort of social reformation returning to a realistic democratic environment without vast corporate networks owning and corrupting democracy nationally and internationally will occur. That fact seems to doom social evolution away from ecological restoration and toward a number of dystopian futures not so far off. it is a challenge to envision how a rectification toward a real democracy and free enterprise individualism might be actualized.

One wonders how erroneous apostles of Adam Smith as Karl Marx evolving through capitalism's trial, error and invisible hand of multilateral dialectic evolutionary utilitarianism can be distracted from such metaphysical rubbish when technological engines pay so well in material output providing comfort and power beyond necessity. Such security in comfort redundantly recurring along with the glory of scientifically and socially ignorant acquisitivness make the prospects for large science goading public politics into working for the public good in a more effective and efficient manner, unlikely.

Alaska Blogging Misc. Dec. 2010

Finally the temperatures are reaching below zero farhenheit in Anchorage. Up the hill in East Anchorage it is generally colder than toward the water, and a thousand feet higher in elevation.

Frost on the inside of a tent at this temperature can become a problem. It builds up on the inside and clogs up vents as well. If one has a propane bottle it is possible to warm the inside enough to melt the frost, yet it is possible to cold camp for several months evidently.

If camping at such temperatures goose down car coats are nice if not walking far enough to work up a sweat-they tend to freeze wet then and become ineffective. it is better to layer clothes such as a wool sweater and gore-tex parka shell to stay dry and warm simultaneously. If in Anchorage it is a good idea to have a coat that covers up the groin because the wind may blow 20 m.p.h. when its just ten or fifteen degrees f. making it possible to freeze skin below pants. Keep your notebook computer in the sleeping bag with you to prevent the battery from freezing solid and expanding.

I probably will reduce the quantity of posting here at gather for a while as winter issues and other concerns present.

'A World Without Ice' by Henry Pollack Phd is quite a good read. Published in 2009 it is an eye-opener. Its much warmer in Anchorage now than it was in the 1960s. The North Slope permafrost driving season has reduced from seven months to 3 or 4 months as the surface doesn't freeze hard enough due to global warming reportedly. In the future getting access to onshore oil drilling sites for maint. may be quite a problem when the driving season drops to a month or less.

U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller has been given until Tuesday to fill suit with the Alaska Supreme Court to keep his investigation of voter ballot irregularities and election hopes alive. it is possible that some cheating could have occurred in the election-its happened elsewhere and the vote is reasonably close.

Obama Tax Cuts; Followed by Outsourcing Jobs tete-a-tete With Chinese President Hu Jintao

President Obama seems the role model for young republicans for homosexuality and corporatism today:if the Obama tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires go through in the final collapse of the democratic majority in congress they are unlikely to be repealed before 2021. The national public debt by then might be 30-40 trillion dollars. President Obama has scheduled the Chinese president to visit Washington D.C. in January to consult on outsourcing more U.S. jobs to China.

Ambassador John Negroponte comments on the Hu Jintao visit...

http://www.amchamchina.org/event/740

The Obama administration turns out to be the Harvard global corporate marketing strategy p.r. team. President Hu Jintao will find a friendly face in Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, the first generation born in America former Governor of Washington of Chinese ancestry. With the Harvard global marketing team wrapping up the supremacy of billionaire and millionaire networks driving the final nail in the ongoing crucifixion of democracy in the U.S.A., the prospect of a Republican Grisvald –Palin administration in 2012 seems likely, if not that of Mitt ‘Knute’ Romney asking Americans to ‘go out and win one for the billionaire’.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sc-dc-senate-tax-vote-20101213,0,251901.story

A Sino-American Corporatist-Socialist elite management axis of power has developed so far as to undermine democracy in the United States. Democracy must reign in corporate and individual concentration of wealth in order that all citizens may have an equal opportunity for freedom and quality of life. It may be an onerous taxation task, yet someone has to do it. Failing to tax the wealthy at a 70% rate allows the beneath the surface concentration of power and influence to grow quite counterproductively to the interests of a democracy. If citizens of a democracy do not have the intestinal; fortitude to control the concentration of wealth and power they will give up their right to be free as well. It is notable that the Spartans-an historically free and self-reliant although morally extreme people, disdained individual wealth.

Tax Cuts for the New World Order

Economist Larry Summers-President Obama's double dip adviser (he advised the other lawyer-President Bill Clinton too), has enfiladed himself as a puppeteer of the President by suggesting that a double dip recession will follow failure to give tax cut extensions to the rich. President Obama may be more concerned about getting tax cuts for Oprah,or he could be like the corrupt steward that gave price breaks on everything debtors owed to his master (the people in our case) because he knew he was being fired (not re-elected) and wanted friends with money for when he would be out of office.

chart credit-U.S. Treasury

Malenkovitch cycles or Kondratieff waves make little difference to those of us that are not economists; we must follow common historical precedence to discern that the rich already paying historically low taxes are building up capital and network infrastructure for their enfeofment as royals in a new world order. We look at the history of the United States and believe that a failure to raise taxes during a recession and protracted war will create an economic crash ahead rather than economic growth.

The United States is a kind of wild child that is a little bit nationally obsessive-compulsive in its political attention. Without some foe to be 'them' the nation and market investors tend to spin off into the wild and crazy schemes leading to crashes such as in 1929-30.

Following the first world war the nations grew and entered the roaring 20's-akin to the 90's following the end of the cold war. Flimsy investment schemes and swingy raving arrogant ignorance abounded, then came 9-11 and a protracted 'new cold war' to replace the other one than ended in 1989.

Except for the 1930s the United States was in a protracted war until 1990. With peace the unyoked nation immediately dove into the construction of a new world order and existential financial growth globally that under the Clinton construction advice of Larry Summers outsourced industry and investments abroad, flooded the U.S.A. with illegal alien construction workers and doomed the U.S.A. to a future economic crash. Larry Summers is back double dipping with President Obama pulling his chain to enrich the Harvard crowd that created the President in an affirmative action yes-man cloning tank.

Until 1981 the lowest tax rate the rich had was 70% during the 20th century. The nation never had much public debt and the standard of living continuously improved. Though the Regan tax cuts as a one-time phenomena were able to help lift the U.S.A. past Soviet economic competition with good timing as the Soviet Army was mired with Afghanistan issues, it was a non-sustainable economic policy except as it would concentrate wealth and create vast U.S. public debt reversing the rational long term national economic progress.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/

There comes a time when brainwashing and inertia make political changes seem unthinkable or even treason. Such thought has grown around low taxes for the rich. Even the middle class in former generations has shouldered the nation's economic burden with tax increases to keep the ship of state afloat. Aristotle wrote that democracy collapses into tyranny because the people do not care enough to keep it alive, and such a circumstance seems to have befallen the Congress. Just letting the tax cuts expire would be the right thing to do though the economic leverage of the rich might raise unemployment and require a showdown between them and us. A quick draw is better than a late, half-hearted minimal compliance on self-defense issues.

The interest on the national public debt is nearly as large a portion of the federal budget as the inflated military budget. For Congress to extend unusually low tax cuts not only allows the top 1% to control most of the nation's economy and directly own about 15 or 20%, it also immediately deepens the U.S. debt that was already scheduled to be 19.6 trillion dollars in four more years.

The effects of the crisis level public debt will be to cut social service spending. Welfare spending is presently just 15% of the federal budget. The Democratic Party by keeping the tax on the rich low will sign away the nation's future to rule by the rich with fewer democratic investments in the majority.

In an ideal corporatist state democracy is effectively dead. Tax rates for the rich are low and the rich control virtually all business through networks and inter-corporation shareholding; no independent business efforts are allowed and society stagnates.

The working class will effectively become disempowered and the broadcast media will be owned by the rich to propagandize and intimidate dissident opinion. Politicians will have little option to raise taxes on the rich as they will be entirely controlled by the corporatist state. Individual opinion will be stifled when the corporatist state control the opportunity to work. Illegal alien workers will be imported to keep down the value of all non-corporate controlled improvisational independent work opportunities

The Psychology of Immediate Political Gratification (extended tax cuts)

Immediate versus deferred gratification is a well known characteristic of human and political psychology. Getting tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits now and letting the future worry about paying off public debt is a contrapositive example of that trait.

The present Congressional descent in public debt about 14 trilllion dollars and increasing is perhaps the best historical example of the unwillingness to pay up front what will cost a lot more if deferred. People prefer immediate rather than deferred gratification even when the immediate reward is of significantly less value.

Letting the Bush II era tax cuts would cost more now, yet historically such tax increases are used to recover from recession, depression or finance war. Presently the United States has war and a recession like economy and should raise taxes. The deferred gratification is a healthy economy later on rather than one possibly moving toward the brink of cascading insolvency, social service cuts and depression.

Paul Glimcher and Joseph Cable published an article on the phenomena of human psychological preference for immediate gratification rather than a better financial gratification in the future when given a choice. (ref. December 2007 Nature Neuroscience).

In reading this 2010 book 'Wisdom' by Stephen Hall one may encounter several concepts that can be applied to the current bad federal national economic legislation.

Historically Tax Rates Have Been Raised in the U.S.A. to Escape Recession, Depression and Finance War

In U.S. history income taxes have been raised to finance war or escape depression. Taxes were raised to 63% on the rich in 1932 to get out of the depression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States

Income taxes began during the civil war with the prosperous paying 3 to 5 percent. During world war two the tax rate for the rich was raised to 92%.

The 16th amendment ratified in 1913 allowed a return of substantial federal income taxes. In 1918 the tax on the rich was raised to 77%.

All the way to 1981 the tax rate for the rich was still 70% and the nation never had substantial public debt.

The Obama-GOP plan to extend tax cuts during a war and recession go against all historical precedent. High taxation has worked before during U.S. history. The Eisenhower years were good years and taxes on the rich were high.

Perhaps an ecological economic national full employment and border security policy should be made to counter the offshore drift, and higher taxes on those earning more than $100,000 restored.

Invasive Airport Security Screening Offers Medical Screening Business Opportunity

In former eras the U.S. Government may have sought efficiency in taxpayer dollars getting what President Harry S. Truman called "more bang for the buck". Today the U.S. Government searches for extreme negative return expenditures, and the T.S.A. security screening becoming ridiculously invasive are a case in point.

The negative social psychology impacts upon many by the Federal search procedures could be readily converted into a positive reinforcement strategy with some creative thinking. Elizabeth Edwards died today of advanced breast cancer; how many people pass through T.S.A. portals at airports to worldly destinations with undiagnosed cancers and other illnesses that might have been captured during high-tech imaging procedures?

With some technical determination comercial ariport screening venuess might be made with advanced computer intelligence screened health imaging that exist alongside the invasiive T.S.A. procedures. If the high tech screening could be made a useful medical diagnostic tool many passengers passing through would be grateful rather than unhappy that their body was given a thorough once over by a computer. Those passengers found to have anamolous health problems would be given a print-out of their examination, while those passengers found to have nitro-glycerin breast implants (if that is possible) might be referred to an ordinance disposal room.

With very low cost airport medical diagnostic security screening competition, perhaps the three best diagnostic security-medical screening imaging technology bidders would win coveted space at all of the nation's airports alongside the T.S.A. The U.S. Government should determine to advance quality of U.S. airport screening to a really high tech level that does the public some good rather than making them feel violated by the heavy hand of oppressive government.

Neuro-Scientific Moral Psychology; The Emotive Moral Judgment Boundaries to Evaluations of Collective Behavior

Hanover wrote-"Epistimological questions dealing with what do we "know," preceded our dependence upon the scientific method as a means to obtain knowledge. That is, we claimed to "know" things for 1000s of years before we employed "science" as it's known today. Even today, when we say we know something, we don't always mean that our knowledge is based upon scientific reasoning.

Whether various langauges once used the word "science" and "know" interchangeably, is an interesting artifact, but I don't think it's relevant to the OP's use of the term "science," as I suspect he was using a contemporary meaning."

If knowledge and science are synonyms one might take a more contemporary meaning of science as a specialized method of attaining knowledge of the universe and its composition. Theories of knowledge or episteme regarding knowledge about knowledge are subsequent to sentience and direct awareness-knowledge obviously.

I suppose one might regard direct individual sentience as a Sartrist kind of existentialist paradigm and large organizational science such as occurs in making a phoenix lander on the Martian northern polar ice cap margin to discover that the ice is mostly water-ice rather than co2 as is on the southern pole, or M-Theory researches or particle accelerators as collective social phenomena as Sartre described in the critique of dialectical reason-I believe these activities generally are good although they may produce obstructions to science too-an inherent danger of social bureaucratic ossification developing use truths for purposes of social rewards.

Reading in Stephen Hall's 2010 book 'Wisdom', there is a chapter on morality that regards the present elite University philosophical researches into morality as a neuro-cognitive phenomenon. Kantian individualism is classed with the emotional, deep proprietary side of moral judgment and utilitarianism with a more advanced abstract neurological processing capability occurring in the pre-frontal cortex (PFC). Moral judgments are based in organic responses to external stimuli such as food tastes/disgust and threats to personal survival.

I would stipulate that organic stimulus response judgments to the external world and food intake quality and survival may be deeply associated with moral judgments as good or bad, yet primary emotional judgments occurring quickly when not enough time exists for advanced creative reasoning about the values of worldly circumstances and suggested best responses are not necessarily wrong when applied to more abstract circumstances.

Innate moral judgments applied to generally have the potential for being wrong responses as well as fallibility in doing math problems can occur. It Is interesting that innate responses may develop with food readily, though one may also dissociate good taste from high food quality such as in junk food in which PFC thought is required to select the bad tasting Brussel Sprouts (to some) instead of the chocolate pudding. The Congress is presently selecting the chocolate pudding of tax cut extensions.

With a neuro-cognitive moral criterion for deciding the OP it is perhaps somewhat more complicated to find a true rather than a politically correct answer. The epistemological foundation of morality based in brain processing organic history, in which moral decisions of good and bad have a certain grounding in automatic associations to food intake or perhaps survival, present different criteria for deciding the effectiveness of science in advancing planetary interests. If science enables the destruction of life on Earth through innumerable means and even destines the destruction of life on Earth through global warming or biological war it is challenging to claim that knowledge/science is improving the planet.

This irony of eating of the Tree of knowledge is that intelligence arises following willful disobedience to the will of God. With all the knowledge gained in the history of mankind, sin and greed may doom mankind to destroy itself through the wrong use of that knowledge/science rather than ‘improve it.

Hall quotes Marc Hauser in his book ‘Moral Minds’ saying, “moral judgments are mediated by an unconscious process, a hidden moral grammar that evaluates the causes and consequences of our own and others’ actions”. Hall also mentions Leon Kass and his books ‘The Wisdom of Repugnance’ and “The Hungry Soul”.

While there may be simple historical existence challenges that become deeply grounded as recurrent experience of good or bad events, the early childhood learning of things such as fire burns, or the examples that Schopenhaur presented in ‘The Fourfold Roots of Reason’ that depth perception is learned offer some room to differ from complete acceptance of an organic foundation for morality that cannot be easily changed.

That modern neuro-philosophy finds evidence for the existence of a natural law of moral judgments that Cicero would have been happy with, when the external referents change character from bad to good as can happen in a new environment, conditioned quick or emotive responses may also change. In contemporary politics the immediate day to day political satisfaction of income takes prescience over longer range reasoning-in the PFC is set aside for the ‘up close and personal’ processing in emotional areas of the brain.

Neuroscientific moral psychology may be able to map out various brain functions-one would expect such, yet like mapping out a computer is does not map the operating system or conscious development of moral structures for evaluating the manifest world and the manifold of complexity presented in the modern world. There seems to be an implicit bias toward proprietary emotive evaluations of external circumstances including large science and other bureaucratic endeavors, yet one should blame that drift toward inefficient political and social management of scientific activities rather than upon innate emotive psychological determination of allocation of financial resources for funding science.