
My Gedanken Experiments
Sinister Writings (from the left)
Featherbed of Lies
Featherbed of Lies is a quotation from a Scott McKenzie song called “What’s the Difference? I look at what a difference it makes to learn, live by and comfort ones self with the featherbed of lies we are taught by our society from the time we are small. I look at issues that are not often discussed, or in a different perspective. I hope to show that by believing these lies, people are able to push their harmful agenda and sleep comfortably at night. They sleep well in the face of injustice, poverty and discrimination. By pulling these lies out, a feather at a time, I hope to make that featherbed too uncomfortable to sleep well.
The Law of Diminishing Returns – or Why Tax Cuts for Wealthy Corporations Won’t Create Jobs
It seems to me that even the economists, who should have been all over this, have missed the boat about tax cuts for the wealthy and for wealthy corporations will not create more jobs. They have also missed why tax increases on the wealthy will not cost jobs. It is the Law of Diminishing...
Start Believing the Truth About Hillary Clinton, Not the GOP’s Lies
Editor's note: This post was written the week of the 2016 Democratic National Convention but was never published. The 2016 election cycle has been one of the most vicious and frightening in my lifetime. We’re on the precipice of the possibility of real change in this country, and we have a choice...
The Lie of Supply Side
I graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor with honors in Economics in 1975, the year before Tim Kaine enrolled. I majored in Economics for the same reason Tim Kaine did - Professor John Kuhlman. Tim sent a letter to Professor Kuhlman that cited why he changed majors. “You told...
It’s a Lie That Unions Cost us Jobs
Today the feather I pull out of the featherbed is the meme that unions are the reason for our deficits and loss of jobs. The conservatives claim that costs resulting from unions and their activities is the reason our country is in such an economic mess and the only way out is to break the unions....
Bad Circumstance, Bad Choices, Bad People
Today the feather I pull out of the featherbed is the meme that people who are suffering suffer as the result of bad decisions, and that bad decisions are the result of being bad people. The conservatives claim that people who live in difficult circumstances made bad choices. They insist that bad...
“Romance” Novels
Today I will risk the daggers and arrows as I pluck out the feather from the featherbed of lies by looking at how this country demeans women in the way they look at romance. Several years ago, my family faced serious economic problems. I thought that I could make some reasonable money writing...
Where Is the Gold of Toulouse
In this episode, the feather I am removing from the featherbed of lies deals with the tax cuts for the rich. Or, rather, how the rich seem to have this notion that the more they amass at the expense of their fellow citizens the more comfortable they will be and that their wealth will prevent...
Who Pays the Freight?
The argument was made to me the other day, on the way in to work, that we need to cut taxes on the rich because the rich pay most of the taxes. She argued that the rich are paying the freight for all of us. Now, without going in to the fact that this was stated with no attribution other than our...
What’s the Difference
I was looking through YouTube when I found this song by Scott McKenzie. I had not remembered hearing it before, it appears to have been lost in time. However, all of a sudden, I understood some people I get so frustrated with. I get frustrated with those on Wall Street who are oblivious to the...
Those People
Today I pull another feather out of the featherbed as I look at what it means when Conservatives talk about "Those People." Whenever I get into a conversation with Conservatives about programs that help the indigent, I get responses that begin with the phrase "Those People." Whatever the...