Romney: Public Virtue for Sale

Is Mitt Romney America’s fair weather fan? In off years, do you hedge your bet on your home team? Do you wear rival colors? Bet against the horse you entered in the race? Even Pete Rose swore he never bet against the Reds. But Romney spreads bets against the home team. He put on rival colors. His loyalty was thinner than a torn ticket stub. He betrayed a value that cannot exist offshore. He ran down the flag.

Would China’s Jen Jiabao put a large portion of his personal fortune in an American fund? Merkel, Cameron, the new leaders of France, Italy, or Greece? Would these leaders guiding countries in dire trouble place their own personal funds in out of country accounts–and win the trust and support of their citizens as national elected leaders?

Once, America’s leaders had to be enthusiastic, loyal, cheerleaders. Their faith and commitment didn’t waver. They were homers, not sell outs. But Romney, who slams the President at every turn for abandoning American values, sold his loyalty and public virtue for a few dollars more. Sure, it’s “legal,” but do those we elect as our best turn their backs and snub us for profit?

Think of Romney walking into a meeting of the G-8, or G-20. Each leader is silently chortling about how he doesn’t even have his money in the country whose strength and values he touts. He looks like a undeveloped world slease ball, a man without integrity or love for anything but wealth. Tell me who in that room of international leaders will give him respect?

Comments:
~”… sold his loyalty and public virtue for a few dollars more.” So well said!

~He will become America’s Berlusconi (former Italian prime minister). He was also a billionaire populist who embraced grandiose sounding slogans while pandering to a small wealthy elite and sending Italy on the path to stagnation and financial insolvency.
Berlusconi was widely derided and not respected at all as a statesman in international circles.

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My favorite WNBA player and television analyst, followed from her first big win at Tennessee! Now an evolving sports nutritionist who puts into practice the lessons for better performance, health, and life thru improved eating tips and techniques.

Laws On Wellness

Ingredients

yeilds: 1 big serving or 2 small side salads

• 2 big stalks of kale
• Sea salt
• Red pepper salad dressing (see recipe below)
• 1/2 avocado, cubed
• 1/2 pear chopped
• 1 tablespoon red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2  teaspoon sesame seeds

1. Pull the kale leaves off  the stems, and break into small, bite sized pieces. Sprinkle with sea salt and massage the leaves for a couple of minutes, scrunching handfuls of kale in your hands.  Repeat until the kale becomes darker in color and more fragrant.
2. Put kale into a bowl, drizzle in desired amount of salad dressing. Toss Kale until fully coated.
3. Add the avocado, carrots, pear and red onion.
4. Top with a big sprinkle of sesame seeds. Enjoy!

Red Pepper Dressing:

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 red pepper, seeded and chopped into big pieces
• 1/2 lime, juiced
• 1 tablespoons agave nectar
• 1/8 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tablespoons red…

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The Red Herrings of False Comparisons

To those who raise the issue of transcripts, et al: laundry slips are not bank books; grades (incidentally, Harvard does not disclose MBA grades and companies can be banned from recruiting if they pursue records of grades!) are certified by a diploma. Who/what authority certifies the Romney accounts?

Grades are false equivalency to the major issue of being an elected leader with offshore accounts. Only if a leader graduated from a offshore college diploma mill would the principle of equivalency apply–and the huge differences in ethics, national and international impact, credibility remain when comparing transcripts to bank accounts. It’s one thing to cheer for the home team, no matter your grades, it’s entirely another to bet on the opponents with a bookie who conceals the transactions when you say you want to be president of the class. That’s a failure of values, a default more abject than the ones Romney accuses Obama of.

From Shore to Shore: Reader’s Comments About Offshore Romney

~Mr. Romney is using complex offshoring tax schemes to evade his federal tax responsibilities. Whether or not those schemes are technically legal, they are immoral and reprehensible, and certainly unfitting for someone running for president of the United States.

~Gee, you mean to tell me that Mr. Job Creator is parking his money in Geneva and not investing in the good ole U.S.? What a shock!

~One of the most valuable pieces of advice I was given about investing came from an older, successful CEO who knew my father. His comment applies to this Romney situation. “Before looking at the numbers, find out as much as you can about the person who leads the organization. Then study the numbers with that in mind.”
    Romney may be depending on unthinking, inflamed emotions to garner the GOP votes but that won’t be the case for the independents.
    Already, by waving off calls to explain how he’ll create the flood of jobs because he’s a businessman, he’s created doubt about himself. That doubt increases when he waves off repeated requests for details.
    Now he waves off his dubious, and apparently relentless, tax avoidance schemes. If he has nothing to hide, all he need tell us is that yes, he’s immensely wealthy and explain his plans to roll back the growing global recession caused by conservative tax increases on workers and middle class, (but not the wealthy), and cutbacks in government spending.
    The public also needs to know how he went from well-paid executive to quarter billionaire in a period of only several years. Romney was no businessman but an investment manager responsible for laying off thousands of workers, making unemployed thousands of families all to enrich himself and his investors, and indifferent to the harm he caused.
    His tax returns aren’t decorations. They’re important insights into what sort of person seeks to orchestrate our futures for four years.

~I too say “Show us your papers.” There is a higher standard for President than “I didn’t break the law.”

Bolsa Familia: It Works!

I agree with the Times’ assessment but less so with its conventions. Global models for addressing poverty are found in all corners, but two of the most successful, which now drive the conversation, are silent in the American discussion. One, the Bolsa Familia, began in Brasil, expanded in Mexico, is a simple but powerful formula for lifting families out of poverty. It breaks the cycle and prepares a new generation to enter the self-supporting middle class.

So effective, Brasil moved 31 million out of $2 a day poverty in a decade. Into a middle class defined as being able to own a car, rent or buy housing, and cover utility, food, and living costs. How is it done? In Brasil, it provides monthly cash payments to families, continued based on one criteria: the educational progress of the family’s children. Each year, for their family to be eligible, the children must advance in school.

This resets the family’s mission strengthens the family, and invests strongly in the future. The program teaches taking responsibility for outcomes, not handouts. It prepares young adults to enter the work force. It works!

Isn’t it time we discussed an approach with proven success, that will consolidate assistance in one package based on a criteria that breaks the poverty cycle and strengthens the value and skills of the next generation? [2/177/173]

II.

Adapt the idea for the middle class! Simply keep the principle. I point out the history and basic principle as a starting point to move forward.

Let’s use creative thinking for how services to the middle class can be extended–food, mortgage aid, etc. outside of the current income-based, product distribution models. Low or high, the model of separated services is being abandoned. World food aid is moving toward a debit card purchase model to stimulate local economies and solve long distance (and dangerous!) supply and distribution models which are woefully inefficient and ineffective.

Can the idea–the principle of tying aid not to income but to educational achievement–be adapted for middle class America–rather than the network of frustrating services we have now?

I think so. It’s time for a rethink. I don”t have the answers, but I call for the conversation: Should a revival of Great Depression programs be tied to educational achievement, to advance families and progress?

Can we set a range for children, rather than payment for each individual child? I’m sure Brasil and Mexico have a solution for this one!

In this space limit, I’m pointing out a model getting huge results and attention. We need to research the details and discussions of issues that have come up. Help, yes. But we need to get out of the sand and look beyond more of the same.

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Devalue the Dollar

As an exercise, I’m going to take the position of a radical conservative and offer an alternative to tax cuts, one firmly in conservative tradition and ideas, going back to England’s James Burke.

First, devalue the dollar, and as Nixon did, establish wage and price controls to prevent hyper-inflation and profiteering. This will reset the economy without any action on taxes in three ways: the price of American goods will be lowered and therefore more competitive and cost effective in global markets, stimulatingsemand for both exports and imports (tourism, services) seeking a value-added opportunity. Job growth would immediately skyrocket as labor costs are lowered and demand increased. Third, market regulation would be done at the price point, avoiding acrance regulations and lobbying for exemptions.

We have done this before. It worked. Most recently, Iceland devalued its currency. Brasil did, a decade earlier. It worked there, too.

Why is it outside conservative orthodoxy? The orthodoxy has become a special interest that ignores its tradition, abandons evidence to uphold the demands (and lies!) of greed and power.

Althought radical, this position is the mirror opposite of Paul Krugman’s position of introducing a floating inflationary target into monetary policy (esp, in Europe!). Currency devaluation allows for more precise control, and when combined with price regulation, dampens the effects on the lower income workers by protecting against price increasesTo all, thanks! At least we got beyond the la-la, no-no, tsk-tsk, repeatedly warmed over, narrow gruel that passes for the daily menu of debate. More of my “radical conservative” personna to come, drawing not from Corbert or O’Reilly, but ideas and experiences that were actually a part of the political life and acts of our history and world.

II.

Since the LIBOR rate was jerry-rigged, I wonder why the multi-nationals haven’t thought to revalue the world’s default currency to their advantage? What’s the pros and cons?

A “weaker” dollar improves exports and rights the deficits of the balance of trade. We don’t really need cheaper imports! We need to sell, not buy!

In my “RC personna,” I see a new market for the renewable resource of alder switches, taken to the flanks of all those whose heads are still in the sand!It’s not outside general REPUBLICAN orthodoxy, Walter; but it’s decidedly outside CONSERVATIVE orthodoxy. This is why Nixon embraced a similar approach, because he really headed up the solid majority of the Republican Party, until he self-destructed and took us with him for so many years.

Comments:
I think it’s a GREAT idea; and I think it’s an idea for our times. Among other advantages, it has the added appeal of kicking the Chinese while they’re down, and implying that if they were to devalue the Yuan to keep their under-valued advantage, why, we’d just devalue the dollar again — and nobody but the U.S. would win THAT race to the bottom. It would also make Krugman happy, since he’s been arguing for years that the way we rationalize our debt is to inflate it away — this has the same effect, and all at once, by lowering the value of our dollar-debt relative to other currencies.

Conservatives are quite prickly about this. Their argument is that a strong dollar makes imports cheaper, which ultimately keeps inflation low. It also makes it easier for us to pay off foreign debts that are denominated in foreign currencies. But, then, the rational counter-arguments are that inflation doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, and sensible companies hedge currencies on-going, to protect themselves from fluctuations on the OTHER end — they’d just need to be aggressive on THIS end, as well.

With conservatives, it’s more a religion than anything else. And I’m not a religious man.

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