Month: April 2014

Okay, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), you are officially a pandering idiot.

Why did the founders want a separation of Church & State? Because under English rule there was a national religion. This led the religious persecution for those who had faiths outside what the ruling class considered the “norm”.

The founding fathers wanted to make sure that everyone had the right to their own beliefs, and that no national religion would ever have the ability to dictate to the masses moral or ethical values.

If the country wanted those values, they could vote in representatives and pass bills to support those values, but the country should not have a single religious foundation dictating blindly what should or should not be allowed.

I guess that is too hard of a concept for a mere congressman to understand…

For the final stop on our crazy train tour we are going to talk about reduced government regulation and what would happen if we really just let big business self regulate. There are a bunch of people out there saying that they want to make government small enough “To drown in a tub,” and other craziness.

What does that really mean? Money, pure and simple. The rich want to be able to mine, drill, and decrease safety for workers and all for a very simple reason, because every dollar they don’t spend on those fronts means money in their pockets.

Are they that cold and calculated? – Yes.

Will they tell you that? – No, they will tell you deregulation helps the economy. That is just code for more money in their pockets.

Let’s take a look at deregulation.

What is the impact on jobs? Not great. When we look at the rail & air regulation that happened in the last three decades what we saw was consolidation of routes (because the regulations specifying levels of service to geographic areas was removed) and what we saw was a net loss of jobs in both industries as they concentrated on making the most money on the most profitable routes. That mean a shrinking work force and more dollars in the owners pockets.

What is the impact on Safety? Let’s take a couple of examples here. In Texas they have strangled workplace safety by controlling the number of inspectors. What was the outcome? I would point to the West Fertilizer Company as the first example. OSHA had not inspected the plan since 1985, at which time they were cited for the improper storage of anhydrous ammonia and fined $30. Fifteen people perished. Because OSHA had no teeth, and didn’t have the mandate in gold old Texas to actually do their job. Because, you know, drown it in a tub.

What is the impact on the economy? All you have to do is look around. See the low housing prices and the slowly recovering economy? It all comes down the the regulation of the Glass-Steagall Act. The act was originally enacted in 1933 during the Great Depression to ensure that banks could operate only as a single type of financial entity. A savings and loans bank could not also be an investment bank. It was done for a simple reason, mixing the commercial and investment banks functions caused banks to take too much risk with depositors’ money.

When the Glass-Steagall Act was removed and banks were allowed to act across multiple financial arenas in 2007 it was argued that deregulation would be allow the banks to be more competitive. What we really saw happen was exactly what the Glass-Steagall Act was designed to prevent. We saw investments banks underwrite bad mortgages, insure themselves, and then double down on the bets to make their profit and loss sheets looks great. The banks took what should have been very “safe” savings and loans funds and gambled them with securities that were very unsafe. We all know the outcome. We are still suffering through its after effects.

In Summary:

Government isn’t a bad thing. It protects us all. It keeps us safe, not just at work, but in our communities, making sure that the chemical plant down the road is storing their products correctly. It makes sure that my bank isn’t betting my savings on risky securities (or used to) and it makes sure that my little out of the way town has basic services. If it weren’t for regulations I might not have cable or electric out in the boonies.

Small government isn’t what we need. We need smart government. We need law makers who are wiling to compromise. Who aren’t blinded by the “Us Versus Them” mentality that we see in congress right now. They mistake denying the other side a win as a victory for themselves, and we all lose.

Write your representatives. Pay attention. Vote for your best interests. And think about why they tell you what they are telling you.

Now every time someone says, “Look at the flowers,” I start freaking out and looking for the gun they are going to put me down with.

The people at my mother’s old folks home think I’m very jumpy. They have a nice garden full of flowers they like to show off.

I live in New Jersey and in the past I’ve lived in the flood zone and paid into the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) as required by law for those living in those regions. I was also very lucky in that I never had to make a claim. But recently Governor Chris Christie has been making statements because of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy that he thinks the federal government should be out of the flood insurance business.

He was surrounded by victims of the storm, and many of them are unhappy that the checks they received were smaller than they hoped – and bashing the NFIP was an easy “out” for him. But did he really think about what this meant?

The NFIP is 24 billion in debt because of flood damages over the last several years. Can you imagine if the NFIP was not subsidized? Flood insurance premiums would sky rocket – there is just no other way to make the math work. And it means that the insurance company would need to make a profit, so add more dollars to your bill. And they would be a commercial company, meaning every dollar they don’t pay out is a dollar in their pocket, so reduce your claim check.

How can anyone hear this and think it was a good idea? I just don’t understand. But I guess angry people just want to hear someone get blamed.

The other option doesn’t seem much better – which is that those areas just won’t be allowed to rebuild. And while that might be the most logical and ecologically sound response, I’ve lived in New Jersey for the last 20 years and it would destroy the economy if the shore towns went away, and the people who would really suffer are the same working class families who cheered Christie on when he commented on the NFIP.

I just don’t get it. So I wrote the Governor a letter via his website. We’ll see what type of response I get:

 

 

Greetings,
I recently heard the Governor talking about flood insurance and he said he thinks the government should not continue the National Flood Insurance Program? I would love to know how the Governor thinks small business and families on the coast are going to survive without the NFIP?

How is a private company going to provide a similar service without raising our costs? The NFIP is 24 billion in debt because of flooding damages.

I see two outcomes. You privatize the NFIP and costs sky rocket, which won’t improve the claims process. Those private companies will have even less reason to pay fair rates. And we will all pay more.

The second is that we don’t allow people to rebuild in the flood zones.

Please tell me how you think removing the NFIP could be a good thing in any way, shape, or form as I’ve been a supporter in the past.

This is short but sweet and thankfully no one appears to have been hurt.

Please be smart when using firearms, you give all the rest of us a bad name when you do stupid stuff like this.