PSAs

Learn more about John Fetterman here.

1.) Frank Bruni is starting to worry that Donald Trump is unstoppable, UNSTOPPABLE! Oh, what can he do to prevent Creamsicle from becoming president? I mean other than stop acting like a mean girl and forcing himself to report on Hillary accurately? It must be so frustrating for Frank and MoDo to have to come to terms with the damage that 23 years of relentless repetition of petty sniping, and not so petty innuendos of dishonesty, obfuscation, conspiracies, did I say lying (?), have wrecked on Hillary’s reputation. They probably don’t even realize they’re doing it. After all, all of their friends hate Hillary. There *must* be a reason, right?

But if Frank is really worried that a nationalistic, policy-less, torture and violence loving narcissist might make it to the White House, Frank could change his ways. If this year’s zeitgeist is that voters want to back an anti-establishment Winner!, maybe Frank and his friends could ease up on saying she has an honesty problem all the time. Maybe they could review their own performance back in 2008 and say, “Jeez, we were rough on her for no reason, wouldja look at that! She won every big Democratic state in the primaries except for Georgia and Illinois! How is it she didn’t get nominated?? Did we have anything to do with that?” Maybe they could turn that Junior High spirit on Trump, his harem and the disrespectful way he treats women, including {{gag}} Megyn Kelly. Maybe they can get their Heathers to yumiliate him. You know how it’s done.

Or maybe Frank and his editors could stop insisting that Hillary refrains from criticizing Obama’s policies in any way, shape or form, and start acting like she’s got a great chance at, you know, winning.

Because it looks like it’s going to be either Trump or Hillary. Just think about that, Frank. Do you want President Hillary or President The Donald picking the next supreme court justice and decorating the Oval Office? Think Trump Tower, Frank, and acres of pink toned marble. I know, the horror, the horror.

2.) This is not an anti-Bernie zone. Some of my favorite people are feeling the Bern this year, including our own Katiebird. And I have at least one kid who is a Berniephile for very good reasons- student loans. Plus, Bernie isn’t using scorched earth, party ripping, exiling inducing tactics like Obama did in 2008. If there are people on Bernie’s team that are acting like fraternity assholes, I haven’t seen any evidence that Bernie endorses it. It’s not like his speechwriters are groping the breasts on Hillary Clinton paper cutouts, nor is the candidate “brushing dirt off his shoulders” after debates where he is trounced. So, you know, let’s let the power of their proposals get criticized and lay off each others supporters. I’m a Clintonista but I could easily see myself voting for Bernie without regret.

3.) There’s a very good youtube video I followed from Twitter on current economics and what’s to come. This is by Bruce Greenwald.

I’m not an economist so some of the data analysis and vocabulary was over my head. To me, a Minsky Moment is what happens just before the place is raided. But what did stand out were these two points at about minute mark 20:00 ish: 1.) the savings rate has been dropping in recent years and 2.) Americans in the bottom 80% economically need to spend 110% of their income to stay where they are in the socio-economic strata.

Watching this video gave me the same feeling I had back in the mid 2000’s when people were buying houses for crazy prices and then didn’t have money to furnish them. They felt they had to get in on the property ladder because the house prices kept going up and up without end and it was making the prospect of owning a house look more and more remote. Then the housing bubble crashed, in part because so many people were over extended.

We’re facing the same thing now. Too many people are over extended. Income is unstable. You could lose your job at any time through no fault of your own. You need to save for that. But you can’t save too much because the price of everything seems to be stuck on high. Major appliances are designed to last for 5-7 years. (I got this directly from the mouth of a major appliance manufacturer sales rep) Food is outrageously expensive. Have you bought beef lately? I feel like I’m becoming an involuntary vegetarian. The price of gas has come down but come summer, it will go up again. Then there is the price of health insurance, deductibles, etc. If you’re young, you’re saddled with massive student debt that can never be discharged. And you need to sock away some of your income for that 401K that other people gamble with because there are no pensions anymore.

One of two things has to happen: 1.) Wages have to go up or 2.) Prices are going to come down. Deflation looks like the scarier option on the scale of the global economy. But we can’t have our corporate overlords continue to capture portions of shrinking incomes and say, “Well, you know, they’re responsible for their own health, savings, education, etc. To be good citizens, they have to pay for this stuff themselves out of their own pockets. We just want our cut.”

There is a limit and we are already over it. Income instability leads to societal instability.

We’ve become crops to be harvested. A crop’s purpose is to provide money for others to take. If a crop starts saving money, that is not good for the harvesters. Future President Hillary needs to start talking about this problem very seriously because we can’t go on like this for much longer. The world’s economy is at stake.