Podcast 418

Live From The Kitchen. The last few days in podcasting have been busy. Back in the bunker, and pleasantly exhausted from the weekend at Agorafest 2015, time for a podcast live from the kitchen. After a great dinner, sipping back coffee going over the day’s and the week’s news in the wake of a weekend discussing political and social concepts. It seems the news is more and more a rehash rather than focused on what really matters. It was said this weekend that the GOP has probably created more anarchists than anything else. That might be amended to suggest both mainline political parties are creating frustrated and angry people, and apparently not listening to them. It isn’t that congress can’t get anything done, it’s what congress, and the president actually does that’s creating the frustration, anger, discord and angst. We’re back to calling anyone who can’t be categorized a ‘populist’, including Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump the UK’s labor leader Jeremy Corbin and oddly enough, Pope Francis. The populist movement in the United States was primarily a movement that served the interests of midwestern farmers against the Republican and Democrat parties, and bears little resemblance to rhetoricians, marxists, and socialists. Yet the media continues to throw out the term, as though people actually understand what it means. As the Republican Speaker of the House resigns amid the ‘planned parenthood shut down fight’, people naively wonder whether the next speaker will be more ‘conservative’. Emphatically yes, they are all conservative in the sense that they serve the interests of big government against all the people. That makes them conservative statists (in my view conservative socialists) regardless of whether they have a D or an R after their name. This is the problem in American politics, not whether the Federal Government funds Planned Parenthood. Shut it down! Yes! Shut it down. Pull the fuel lines and plugs and batteries and let it rot in the wheat field! Don’t waste your breath on distractions, shut the government down because it is out of control, and all our so called representatives are part of the problem, they are certainly not the solution. We need new ideas, new concepts and these are not the people who will find them, develop them, and support them. Two stories to watch right now. One is economic, and the other is Russia in Syria. As debt levels increase to dangerous levels, the world’s central banks don’t know what to do. The danger of a meltdown is increasing. Putin has Obama checkmated in Syria. First the administration denied the Russians were going into Syria, then they minimized it. Now they’re actually negotiating with Putin. Russia is now fighting against ISIS, allied with Assad and Iran and Iraq. Where’s the US? Testing the idea of ‘non-interventionist’ foreign policy while Putin practices Realpolitik and Realist Foreign Policy brilliantly. Clearly it is necessary to point out yet again that we have exceeded all the political, social and economic constructs of the last thirty years and something new is coming. Are we ready for it? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Trucks. 

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Podcast 415

Republican Nightmare. With the suspension of Governor Scott Walker’s Presidential campaign comes an opportunity to critique Republican politics, specifically the leadership and Republican rank and file. Aside from the snark, the media has reported that the Wisconsin Governor lamented the absence of ‘Reagan Style Optimism’ in Republican politics so far in the 2016 cycle. Thing is, Republicans themselves aren’t optimistic. In fact Republicans these days are so pessimistic one wonders if they would recognize Ronald Reagan if he were resurrected, or even vote for him. It sure seems like most Republicans think the President is a secret muslim, hell bent on destroying the country, that China took all our jobs, that Jesus is coming back (as soon as the election is over) and all sorts of other rather negative ideas, even if you think they’re true. Can the Republicans win a national election with this kind of negative view of the present situation and the future? Can you win a national election with no real economic plan, save for tax cuts, no foreign policy plan, no real domestic plan and nothing but a list of debatable complaints? The solution appears to be Donald Trump, a reality TV star with a penchant for one liners, and the absence of something called ‘a plan’. As Trump’s popularity increases, preference for the so called Republican Brand decreases. And yet, because of GOP rule changes in 2012, if Donald Trump can translate poll numbers into wins in five states, he may have enough delegates to win the Republican nomination. Who will stop him? Jeb Bush? Chris Christie? Rand Paul? Mike Huckabee? Marco Rubio? Ted Cruz? Lindsay Graham? Which of these candidates can win five states? Or, even one? Scott Walker is suggesting the party unite around someone, anyone other than Trump. Who’s fault IS Trump anyway? Have the moderates — interested only in holding onto their power — screwed the pooch? The moderates are the ones who wanted the debates, and they’re responsible for the monolithically stupid rule changes in 2012, and the rules that allowed the debates to be stacked toward candidates who did well in hack polls. Because of this, you might be saying hello to Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump in the future. This is why 2016 may turn out to be a terrible sequel of 2008, and 2012 for the GOP. We are getting close to Halloween, after all. Sponsored by Autonomous Cad, and Pride of Homes. 

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Podcast 407

Killing The Golden Goose. We’ve all heard the parable; The greedy farmer and his wife with the goose that lays the golden egg. As ‘back to school’ looms, the beginning of reengaging in the political process begins with a look at what the real issue might be in our economy and by extension, our politics in the United States. The question is, which is the goose and greedy farmer? Think of the economy – the sum total of all we consume and produce —  as a force of nature, like a hurricane rather than as some kind of Rube Goldberg device with dials and switches and levers. Or, as a golden goose. If the government takes more and more to sustain its operations and debt, where does that money come from? It comes from the individual. Can the government spend too much, and so require too much from the proverbial golden goose? You don’t hear this question discussed too much in the political arena these days. What you hear is a lot of nonsense about individual tax plans for the middle class, or taxing the so called ‘rich’. The fact is, the government takes your income — your wealth if you will — and uses it for its own aims. We’re supposed to have a conversation with our politicians regarding what those aims are, but we usually don’t. If government spending now, without calculating perpetual obligations like social security and other entitlements including medicaid, medicare and the so called Affordable Care Act is almost 40 percent of the country’s total economy, maybe this is the reason why our economy isn’t growing fast enough. Is it possible the greedy farmer is in the process of killing the golden goose? And if so, what do the perfumed princes on the campaign trail intend to do about it? The grey area between what is a public good, and greedy government is the crossroads where we are stuck. If we don’t figure out how to talk about it and to solve the problem, our goose is cooked. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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