clarification: "Household-ize" everything

A post below advocated montezing everything.
This wasn't quite right.
$700,000,000,000 is monetized already.

The advice should have been: "household-ize" everything:

Express all U.S. budget figures in terms of median income households (median household income is about $50,000/year).
$700,000,000,000 equates to 14,000,000 households.

This seems a decent metric to help us ordinary folks understand exactly what's involved in a $700,000,000,000 rescue plan.

"you can't put a value on a human life"

Sure you can!!!

It's done every day - it's called "life insurance".

... I'm on a roll - here goes:

Advice to Dems: monetize everything.

That $440,000 the AIG execs spent on a weekend retreat would support more than 8 median-income families for a year!!!

For a weekend!
Let's say it was a 4-day weekend... If we annualize that, it's 803 median-income families for a year!

When every government decision favors big biz, at the expense of every other constituency, something is wrong.

Monetize EVERYTHING.
Express EVERY Republican decision in terms $$$.

What's Iraq cost?
More than $300 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. per year.

What's the $7Bn bailout cost?
More than $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S.

As previously noted, the cost of McCain's mortgage plan would employ 6Mn Americans - perhaps employ them doing something useful, like rebuilding our infrastructure. - Gainfully employ 'em!!! Make 'em useful citizens... which might not be such a bad thing after the economy has shed 750,000 jobs since Jan!!!

Even folks in Kansas ought to understand real $$$.

Stop the madness!!!

$300,000,000,000

McCain tonight proposed to buy up & renegotiate bad mortgages...
The figure cited by pundits is $300,000,000,000.

For $300,000,000,000 we could employ 6,000,000 people at the median income of $50,000.

... maybe to rebuild infrastructure? bridges, highways, refineries, ports (port security?), libraries, schools??? I believe $50,000 is greater than average starting salary for teachers.

The arithmetic is pretty easy:

$300,000,000,000 divided by $50,000 is 6,000,000.
Six million.
Six million employed Americans.

Any takers?

Sort of like FDR's WPA???

Would Republicans support this welfare plan?
(They just voted for $700,000,000,000 "rescue" plan for Wall Street!... this represents 14,000,000 [14 million] Americans employed at median income of $50,000!!!)

this just ain't right!!!

AIG execs' retreat after bailout angers lawmakers
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
7 Oct 2008
WASHINGTON - Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. spent $440,000 on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown.

I've nothing to say.
Not even a snide remark comes to mind.

"Plutocracy", anyone???

Yes, the rich are different than you & me.

Is it time for a real revolution???

"A little revolution now and then is a good thing; the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
[Thomas Jefferson (1787)]

Stop the madness!!!

Our shame

AP Exclusive: Documents say detainee near insanity
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer
7 Oct 2008
WASHINGTON - A U.S. military officer warned Pentagon officials that an American detainee was being driven nearly insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation in a U.S. military brig, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

While the treatment of prisoners at detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Iraq have long been the subject of human rights complaints and court scrutiny, the documents shed new light on how two American citizens and a legal U.S. resident were treated in military jails inside the United States.

The Bush administration ordered the men to be held in military jails as "enemy combatants" for years of interrogations without criminal charges, which would not have been allowed in civilian jails.

"... two American citizens and a legal U.S. resident were treated in military jails inside the United States."

In our name.

We've allowed W and his minions to destroy our country, in our name!

Stop the madness!

returning to the Heinrich campaign...

For a number of reasons, I've been absent from the Heinrich campaign for several weeks.

Today I returned. I assembled campaign buttons.

It was good to see folks again, and I'll be returning more consistently. (I left some database work behind... I'll pick it up eventually.)

Tomorrow? Probably more button assembling... + helping with a mailer in the p.m.

I've been less than thrilled with NM1 TV spots - both Heinrich & White seem concerned less with vision, more with attacks.

My vision? Very simple:

"We the people of the United States, in order to

form a more perfect union,
establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare,

and

secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Again, the only poll that matters is conducted on Tuesday, 4 November.

VOTE!!!

The Debate

I followed form tonight & did not watch the debate.
On the other hand, I've been flipping from PBS to CNN to MSNBC for post-debate commentary.

Big news: the instant polls show Obama won the debate.

So what???

The debate is NOT the election.

The only poll that matters is Tuesday, 4 November.

VOTE!!!