SACRIFICE DELAYED IS FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY LOST

Politicians in Washington and citizens around the country are breathing a sigh of relief today as word of a compromise between the President and the GOP has been reached regarding an across-the-board extension of the Bush era tax cuts for Americans at every income level. Republicans demanded an extension of tax cuts for even the wealthiest Americans as the price for capitulating to an extension of unemployment benefits and a roll-back of payroll taxes for one year.

Compromise is a necessary component of our country's government structure, but the "deal" reached yesterday does not begin to address our burgeoning federal deficit or the unstable state of our social security system. In fact, the cost of the tax cut for high earners alone will cost the government several hundred billion dollars, which will simply be added to the federal debt.

The GOP has revealed that all their pre-election talk about fiscal responsibility was just a puff of smoke and attested to their own hypocrisy by abandoning that notion in favor of refusing to ask their own constituency (big business & the wealthy) to make sacrifices necessary to bring this country back to a level of economic stability. Middle class taxpayers are hurting, but the GOP held relief for wage-earners hostage to their demand to further enrich the wealthy. In the process, another opportunity to address this nation's economic woes has been lost.

At the end of the day, no American was asked to sacrifice, and our leaders chose to bury their heads in the sand for two more years. When will we ever learn?

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

I am a staunch believer in American Exceptionalism. Americans are exceptionally arrogant, hypocritical and lacking in a sense of humility. Americans are exceptionally disdainful of the poor, the oppressed and anybody with opposing viewpoints. Americans are exceptionally wasteful and unwilling to sacrifice for the good of mankind. So much for American Exceptionalism.

MANNING - A TRAITOR IN OUR MIDST

As outrage continues to grow over the recent Wikileaks release of secret U.S. State Department cables from U.S. diplomats abroad and foreign leaders, the call for bringing to justice those responsible for the release of the top-secret information contained in the cables is sure to increase. Currently, only Army intelligence analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning has been arrested and charged in connection with the leaking of top-secret information, and I for one hope that a charge of treason is added to the list of criminal charges Manning faces. There is no justification for his actions.

CITIZEN TO F.B.I. - Thank you!

A major debt of gratitude is owed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for foiling the terrorist plot of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19 year-old living in Corvallis, Oregon who tried to detonate what he believed was a van full of explosives during yesterday's Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Oregon. His efforts failed because he was unknowingly working with F.B.I. agents who had previously uncovered his plans and were allowing Mohamud to think they were rendering him assistance. In reality, the F.B.I. was building its case against the young terrorist and taking steps to insure that Mohamud's sinister plan would never come to fruition.

Mohamud was arrested seconds after using his cell phone to try to detonate the fake device the F.B.I. had built for him, and contrary to Mohamud's wishes, the Portland Christmas tree lighting ceremony was held as planned and no loss of life or mayhem occurred.

While this foiled terrorist plot must serve as a reminder that the danger of terrorism is very real and constant, it also underscores the effectiveness of people in the security sector simply doing their job. People remaining vigilant and alert are the most effective weapons we have in combating the destructive plans of terrorists and we should never cease our efforts to remain aware of our surroundings.

Thanks F.B.I. – well done!

BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPERS BEWARE

Macroeconomics is the study of national, regional and global economies. It examines the structure, behaviors and decision-making processes of those economies and studies the relationships between national income, product output, consumer consumption, savings, investment, inflation, unemployment, trade and banking. Its counterpart, microeconomics, examines the factors involved in the smaller-scale buying and selling of goods and services. Microeconomic study dissects the laws of supply and demand and examines the economic decision-making processes of individual households and businesses.

On this day after Thanksgiving, commonly known as "Black Friday" here in the United States, shoppers historically begin their Christmas shopping. For many businesses, Black Friday is the day they have the highest volume of sales each year.

I noted the facts listed above because Black Friday provides an excellent example of how something can be great for macroeconomics, but bad for microeconomics.

The U.S. economy will get a shot in the arm if consumer consumption (spending) is high on Black Friday, because economic activity (the buying and selling of goods) generally boosts an economy. However, if consumers overspend on Black Friday, their individual household economies will suffer if their incomes are not sufficient to sustain their level of spending. The larger economy will benefit, but the individual economy will suffer.

That is essentially what happened during the middle to late part of this decade. Consumers were encouraged to spend, spend, spend…which was great for the larger economy, but all that overspending sent vast numbers of individual economies (the economy of an individual household) into a tailspin, and ultimately they collapsed. As the number of collapsed individual economies reached into the millions here in the United States, the collective impact of those collapsed individual economies exerted a substantial negative impact on our nation's economy, forcing the U.S. into a deep recession.

The moral of this economic lesson is clear: In the long run, while additional consumer spending is beneficial for our national economy; massive overspending is not. Shoppers, be careful out there!

GIVING THANKS FOR PILGRIM HYPOCRISY

Today, we celebrate Thanksgiving and pay tribute to our grave-robbing (*) ancestors, the Pilgrims. They came to America to escape European religious persecution and then promptly started persecuting the non-Anabaptists (**) in their midst. Thus, we owe a debt of gratitude to Pilgrims for introducing the concept of hypocrisy to America. Without the product of their pioneering spirit, many a columnist would now be unemployed!

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(*) The Massasoit native tribe that inhabited the coast of Massachusetts stored food in mounds with their deceased kin. The Massasoit believed that their deceased kin would watch over the stored food until the tribe returned to the site in early spring. When the pilgrims dug into the mounds, they discovered the food and promptly raided all the burial mounds in the area, causing much consternation with the native Massasoit. The rift was eventually settled with the help of Squanto, a Massasoit native who had learned English from early English fishermen visiting the coast of New England, and befriended the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims gave the Massasoit several rifles as retribution and assisted the Massasoit in fending off an attack by a militant neighboring native tribe. That Pilgrim assistance cemented a critical relationship between the Pilgrims and the Massasoit, which allowed the Pilgrims to survive those early harsh years in Massachusetts. You probably never learned about that in school.

(**) The Pilgrims were actually in the minority on the Mayflower. In addition to the Mayflower's crew, 44 Pilgrims made the voyage to America along with 66 "strangers" (the religious Pilgrim's word for non-believers). There were so many conflicts between the Pilgrims and the "strangers" during the voyage across the Atlantic, that once land was sighted, the two groups had to negotiate a truce (called The Mayflower Compact) to guarantee equality for both groups under a single governor who would rule the colony. Eventually, some of the "strangers" returned to Europe when the Mayflower departed, some died, and some left the colony to trap and hunt on their own. Once the Pilgrims were in the majority, they began shunning the non-believing "strangers" and ostracized them from the Pilgrim community. So much for religious tolerance!

EARMARK IRONY

Just days after winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives on a campaign platform to end the Congressional practice of "earmark spending", the GOP has gone back on its pledge and inserted $200 million in earmark spending in a bill currently under consideration in the House. I'm not surprised that they reneged on their pledge. After all, all that talk about fiscal responsibility was just campaign bullshit. Nevertheless, I expected that the GOP would wait until at least February of 2011 before reneging on their word. I guess I was wrong!