Author: A.T.

“America’s wealthy used to pay taxes to support the nation,” writes former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. “Now, they lend it money and collect interest from the rest of us.”

It is, he says . . .

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The Biggest Story You’ve Never Heard About Today’s Federal Debt

It’s always the same when Republicans take over a chamber of Congress or the presidency. Horrors! The debt is out of control! Federal spending must be cut!

Not only is the story false, but it leaves out the bigger and more important story behind today’s federal debt: the switch by America’s wealthy over the last half century from paying taxes to the government to lending the government money.

This back story needs to be told if Americans are to understand what’s really happened and what needs to be done about it. Republicans won’t tell it, so Democrats (starting with Joe Biden) must.

A half century ago, American’s wealthy financed the federal government mainly through their tax payments. Tax rates on the wealthy were high: Under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, they were over 90 percent. Even after all tax deductions, the wealthy typically paid half of their incomes in taxes.

Since then — courtesy of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump — the effective tax rate on wealthy Americans has plummeted. Even as they’ve accumulated unprecedented wealth, today’s rich are now paying a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans.

(The 400 richest American families paid a tax rate of just 3.4 percent between 2014 and 2018, while the rest of us paid an average tax rate of 13.3 percent.)

One of the biggest reasons the federal debt has exploded is that tax cuts on wealthier Americans have reduced government revenue. . . .

The wealthy used to pay higher taxes to the government. Now the government pays the wealthy interest on their loans to finance a swelling debt that’s been caused largely by lower taxes on the wealthy.

This means that a growing portion of your taxes are going to the wealthy in the form of interest payments, rather than paying for government services everyone needs.

So, the real problem isn’t America’s growing federal budget deficit. It’s the decline in tax revenue from America’s wealthy combined with growing interest payments to them.

Both are worsening America’s already horrific inequalities of income and wealth.

What should be done? Reduce the debt by raising taxes on the wealthy.

This back story needs to be told. Please spread the word.

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Jury selection in the first of two ParkerVision trials against Intel begins tomorrow.

Here is how the trial is set to proceed:

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS WACO DIVISION

PARKERVISION, INC.,
Plaintiff,

-vs-

INTEL CORPORATION,
Defendant.

§                             6:20-CV-00108-ADA

NOTICE OF TRIAL PROCEDURES

In anticipation of the upcoming jury trial, the Court notifies the parties of the following trial procedures.

I.    GENERAL TRIAL PROCEDURES
A.     Jury Selection
Jury Selection will begin at 9:00AM, February 2, 2023, in Courtroom #3 in the United States District Court, 800 Franklin, Waco, Texas 76701. Judge Manske will conduct voir dire and hold a pre-voir dire conference as indicated in a separate order.

Seven jurors will be selected for this trial. Each party will have four peremptory strikes. The Court will provide the parties an opportunity to do a general and individual voir dire at the Court’s discretion. The Court will provide the parties with a diagram of the room that identifies the jurors and their seat assignments.

B.     Trial
Trial will begin at 9:00AM, February 6, 2023, in Courtroom #1 in the United States District Court, 800 Franklin, Waco, Texas 76701. The parties shall jointly provide notebooks to the jurors on the first day of trial before the trial begins. The notebooks shall be provided to a Court staff, who will deliver the notebooks to the jurors.

Each party will have 12 hours of trial time. Each party’s first 30 minutes of opening arguments and first 30 minutes of closing arguments will not be counted towards the party’s allocated trial time. A party may not reserve trial time for closing—30 minutes is the limit. Trial should be complete on Friday (four days) and may require earlier start and later end times each day, as the Court deems necessary.

There will be no bench conferences in the presence of the jury during trial. If necessary, the Court may take a short recess from the trial to conduct any bench conferences and resolve any issues in the absence of the jury. If a party raises a dispute for the Court to resolve outside the presence of the jury, that time will count towards the party against whom the Court resolves such issue.

The parties shall use electronic exhibits for any exhibit displayed and/or given to the jury, unless providing or displaying an exhibit electronically is impractical or restricted under the protective order. For the sake of clarity, any witness, counsel, staff, and the Court may each have his or her own set of physical exhibits. However, physical exhibits will not be passed to the jury absent approval by the Court.

C.     Audio Access for the Public
Although seating will remain available to the public in the courtroom, a webinar feed will be made available to the public. The public is permitted to listen to the trial proceedings by telephone. Any individuals who are interested in observing the trial by telephone may use the following information to observe the trial proceeding:

One tap mobile :

US: +16692545252,,1609668354#,,,,*383575#

or +16468287666,,1609668354#,,,,*383575#

Webinar ID: 160 966 8354

Passcode: 383575

Recording of the proceedings in any way is not permitted.

D.     Video Access for Party-Affiliated Individuals
[none of us is such an individual]

E.     Remote Participation Decorum
[but if we were, we should dress and conduct ourselves appropriately, as if we were in court]

IT IS SO ORDERED.
SIGNED this 24th day of January, 2023.

ALAN D ALBRIGHT

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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For PRKR shareholders, it’s show time.

With unemployment at 50-year lows, manufacturing jobs coming back, inflation falling, wages rising, and infrastructure revitalization finally underway, it’s hard to buy into the gloom some people feel.  Or pretend to feel lest they give the President and his party credit for helping not pull us out of the terrible economic mess they inherited (as Obama pulled us out of the financial crisis he inherited).

I’m not one who thinks recession looms.  I think the progress will keep rolling along — unless the new Republican House or the heavily right-wing Court find ways to slam on the brakes.

Which brings me to the analysis Jim Burt found for us (that I’ve trimmed a bit):

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Did Franklin Roosevelt end the Great Depression or did he extend it?
by Paul Donnelly

. . . Hoover presided over the Great Depression — the economy shrank:

1930 -8.61%

1931 -6.48%

1932 -13.06%

FDR took office in March, 1933 — and promptly turned the US economy around.

1934 +10.88%

1935 +8.88%

1936 +13.05%

So it’s simple: FDR ended the Great Depression in his first term.

Period. . . .

UNEMPLOYMENT . . . at the end of his first term was under 15% [down from 25%].

FDR’s first four years in office saw the largest growth in any single term of any President . . . The New Deal had indisputably worked.

Then partisan Republicans on the Supreme Court threw out two pillars of the New Deal that had restored the nation to growth: farm and factory policy.

Economic growth was cut by more than half, from +13% in 1936 to +5% in 1937.

Then in 1938 the Supremes’ attack on the New Deal actually shrank the economy by – 3.44%.

Many folks confuse 1938 with 1932; they’re not the same.

FOUR solid years of economic growth after 1932 indicate that the sudden reversals through 1938 were all on the partisan Republicans of the Lochner Court — Justices who believed that the Constitution protected sending 6-year-olds down to work in coal mines, but prohibited minimum wage laws.

. . . FDR couldn’t have cared less how many Justices were on the Court — there had been more and sometimes fewer. What he cared about is that the New Deal worked and the Court stopped it. So as is a theme, FDR overwhelmed the Supreme obstacles: one anti-New Deal Justice (Devanter) retired, and two more flip-flopped (notably Owen Roberts) — voting the rest of their careers FOR the same policies they had voted AGAINST in 1936 and 1937.

So FDR went back to what had been working — and, guess what? It kept working — the US economy grew by:

+8.07% in 1939, and

+8.77% in 1940.

Both those years are long before the big defense increases of “the arsenal of democracy” . . .

And unemployment? Roosevelt got it under 10% in 1941 — BEFORE Pearl Harbor.

So, yeah: it wasn’t World War Two; it was the New Deal that ended the Great Depression.

. . .

Finally — the New Deal really paid off after WW2. It wasn’t just the emergency measures that took the -13% of Hoover’s 1932 economy and turned it into the +11% of FDR’s launch of the New Deal in 1934 (a 24% upswing in 3 years), it also created a solid and lasting foundation for a healthy economy that hadn’t existed before, plus inventing the tools to avoid boom and bust.

Rural electrification (which was done under FDR’s direction by Leland Olds, over the opposition of Republicans AND public utilities) created a huge demand for electric stoves, refrigerators, washers and driers — durable goods — which were made in American factories, shipped on American railroads and trucks on American rails and American roads. (All heavily unionized industries, btw.)

The secondary mortgage market created by FDR, juiced by government incentives provided by the VA and FHA, generated the 30 year fixed rate mortgage (which did not exist before the New Deal) that pretty much created the American middle class, in itself formed by the education made possible by the GI bill.

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Have I mentioned that we should depoliticize the Court?  That’s what FDR tried to do.

And not try to balance the budget?

Rather, we should aim to grow our National Debt more slowly than the economy as a whole most years and thereby shrink it.  This is what we did with great success from 1945 to 1980 as described again yesterday.

To fight inflation, we shouldn’t be tamping down demand so much as increasing supply.  E.g., automating millions of jobs that can now be automated to free up talent and energy to fill the ones that can’t.

The other side is so good at confusing people.

After 35 years of its shrinking relative to the economy as a whole — from 122% in 1945 back down to 30% in 1980 — that iconic Republican president, Ronald Reagan, sent the National Debt back up with tax cuts for the rich that were amplified by George W. Bush and then Trump . . . leaving Joe Biden a Debt that is, once again, around 122% of GDP.

Since 1980, only Clinton and Obama — Democratic presidents — handed off a Debt that was shrinking relative to GDP when they left office.

Yet the Republicans have managed to misguide many good people into thinking they are the party of fiscal responsibility.

Likewise, though the murder rate is consistently higher in red states than blue — and though Biden calls for more police funding (as do almost all Democratic mayors) — the right has persuaded much of America that they alone care about crime.  Which is ridiculous.

(The only side that truly wants to cripple law enforcement is the G.O.P. which officially favors defunding IRS audits of the uber-wealthy and large corporations.)

There is common sense middle ground to be found on so many of the issues that confront us — including gun safety and immigration — but more and more Republicans in the House and Senate reject compromise.  It was bad ten years ago — “People don’t fully appreciate how committed the Tea Party is to not compromising” — and it just keeps getting worse.  The Tea Party looks tame compared to the election deniers (and even Q-Anon adherents) who now make up a majority of Congressional Republicans.

So the struggle to right the ship and empower the sensible center continues.

(The combination of open primaries and ranked-choice voting would go a long way to empower moderates.)

Three upcoming races for your consideration:

In Missouri, Lucas Kunce is running to retake from Josh Hawley the seat Missouri Claire McCaskill once held.  His ad is so good, I offer it here again.  The 2024 Senate map is very tough for the Dems, but we can absolutely pull it off.  Lucas Kunce is one of the reasons why.

In California, Adam Schiff is running for Dianne Feinstein‘s seat.  But so is everybody else, including the wonderful Katie Porter.  Either would be great.  The tragedy would be if, with a multitude of good Dems running, the blue vote split such that the two top open-primary candidates who made it to the general were both Republicans — and we lost the seat.

That’s unlikely; but the lesser-but-certain tragedy, if one of them doesn’t drop out of the race, is that we will lose at least one of these two great members of Congress (and possibly both, if a different Democrat wins).

My hope is that everyone will rally around Schiff, now, early, and somehow persuade Porter that — having just spent more than $20 million to narrowly defeat a poorly-funded Republican in a tough district — she will not abandon that district.  Because her winning the Senate race would definitely mean losing Schiff AND very possibly flipping her own House seat red.  (Schiff’s district went more than two-to-one for Biden; we would not lose it.)

Both are too good for us to lose either one!

In Wisconsin, more immediately, April 4, the replacement will be chosen for a retiring conservative judge on their current 4-3 supreme court. As one expert summarizes: “The court’s partisan majority is at stake, and for that reason this single seat will likely determine the future of voting rights, redistricting, union power, and other giant questions in Wisconsin for the better part of a decade. Recent court history tells us that the fate of Wisconsin’s ten Electoral College votes in the 2024 presidential election may also be in the balance.”

To help effectively, click here.

Have a great week!

Conspiracy theories have become stunningly powerful — but here’s a simple plan to deprogram America

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America is becoming an idiocracy — assuming it isn’t fully one already.

On a widely viewed cable TV network there is a new show called “Power Slap: Road to the Title,” and the title is a perfect description of the show. In this “sport” two adults slap one another as hard as they can until one of them is knocked out, cannot continue, or the “judges” stop the “competition.” The “slap-fighters” are not allowed to put up their hands to defend themselves or flinch. The participants in this human zoo have been knocked head over heels (literally) and appear to have suffered severe concussions as well as bloody and swollen faces that could result in permanent disfigurement. The crowd in the studio cheers as the competitors slap each other into oblivion.

It is all one more example of how American society is “amusing itself to death” as a culture that is infantile and broken — both socially and politically. Today’s America is extremely anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-rational, unreflective, impulsive, narcissistic and juvenile. Such a dynamic breeds fascism, authoritarianism, fake populism, white supremacy, misogyny, violence, and a larger culture of cruelty and debasement that does not value or elevate human dignity and human respect.

What can be done to lessen the power and appeal of conspiracy theories in American politics and society? . . .

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→ The author’s three-part plan to address this is simple, for sure (e.g., educate people better); but much easier offered than executed.

Still, we have to try.

I’m off in a foreign land sampling salsa.  If this bald eagle were smart, she’d have flown South, too.

Don’t blame me if she happens to be off flying somewhere when you click.

(Apparently, if you’d been watching two weeks ago, you’d have seen her lay an egg.)

It’s been five years since I first wrote about PRKR (at $1.10 a share) . . . and four since I bought more at a dime.

The pre-trial conference I referenced Monday took place as planned.  Jury selection is now set for a week from today; the trial itself, the following Monday.

And no one knows what will happen.

Who says this stuff isn’t interesting?

We have hot water!

We have broadband!  (Remember 1200-baud modems?)

And most who don’t soon will!

We have GPS!

We have chauffeurs!  (Mine’s name is “Uber.”)

We have electricity and flight and antibiotics and vaccines and . . .

. . . huge problems.

Pain, suffering, and despair abound.

(Not least here in the U.S. because of the economic inequality we’ve allowed to get so wildly out of hand.  Join the Patriotic Millionaires if you are one.)

It’s easy to see how, as a species, we could hurtle off the rails.

Yet  technology races along with the potential to solve almost anything; and when people cooperate and see the best in each other, what isn’t possible?  It’s that last piece, not splitting the atom or reaching Mars, that seems hardest.

Two random bright spots caught my attention this past week:

GREECE

Remember what a basket case it was just a few years ago, and how we thought it could tank the financial system?

It’s doing great. 

THE REST OF THE WORLD

From the Tony Blair Institute:

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While the number of populists in power was near an all-time high of 19 at the beginning of 2020, by the beginning of 2022 there were only 13, the lowest number since 2004. Donald Trump was out of office and while he has continued to proclaim that he won the 2020 presidential election, we found that in 2021, several populist leaders left office peacefully and without contesting the election results. The wave of left-wing populists in Latin America from the early 2000s peaked and then almost completely subsided, with the remaining examples of populism around the world – ten out of 13 – almost entirely comprising right-wing cultural populists.

. . .

The number of populists in power is down largely because the number of populist leaders in Latin America, historically a hotbed of left-wing populism, is near a 30-year low. This is because of the success of progressive, centre-left leaders. . . .

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There’s much more to the report, and “populism” is one of those nebulous terms that means different things to different people.

As the Institute sees it:

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Populists are united by two claims: first, that a country’s “true people” are locked into a moral conflict with “outsiders”, and second, that nothing should constrain the will of the “true people”. Rather than seeing politics as a contest between different policy positions, populists argue that the political arena is a moral battleground between right and wrong – between a country’s true people and the elites or other groups that populists deem to be outsiders, like ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants or criminals. Because of the absolute nature of political conflict, there can be little room for compromise on most issues. Anti-elitism always features prominently in populist rhetoric, and the moral conflict between the “good people” and the “corrupt elite” is one of the most important threads running through populist narratives.

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Plus, I repeat (with the correct link this time): Putin is losing.

But first:  I had the wrong link for Putin yesterday.

Seeing Putin fail so miserably — despite being smart (and more trustworthy than the FBI) — makes me really happy, too.

Oops.  Sorry.

And now:  Republican Chief Justice Warren Burger.

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The Gun Lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies – the militia – would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.

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How much of that did he actually say?

All of it, as it turns out.

It is insane that Republicans in the House and Senate insist 18-year-olds (or anyone, for that matter, except in very special circumstances) be allowed to buy assault weapons.

Or any deadly weapon without licensing requirements and an adequate background check.

Likewise, cop-killing bullets.

It’s not practical to confiscate the hundreds of millions of weapons Americans already own — almost all of them, responsibly.  No one is proposing that.

It is practical to sensibly regulate future sales of both guns and ammunition.

And, as I’ve said before, to empower local communities to impose the same kind of safety measures that Wyatt Earp, et al,  imposed in the wild West.

What could be more red-blooded American than that?

Sing it with me!

Seeing Nancy Pelosi happy — “Nancy Pelosi: Liberated, And Loving It” — makes me really happy.

So well deserved.

Seeing Putin fail so miserably — despite being smart (and more trustworthy than the FBI) — makes me really happy, too.

Will PRKR make me happy?

The first of ParkerVision’s two patent suits against Intel is set to begin to go trial two weeks from today.

The pre-trial conference was held in person before the judge Thursday, took the full day, and is expected to wrap up via Zoom Tuesday.

Yet more delays are always possible, as is the possibility the jury will find for Intel.

I’m prepared to lose every dime.

But it’s also possible the jury will award PRKR a couple of hundred million dollars and that the judge will use his authority to as much as treble the damages.

Intel, seeing this — and knowing that the second case will be coming before the same judge later in the year — might offer an acceptable settlement.  Or else PRKR might buy judgement preservation insurance to lock in the result (albeit at a steep premium).  Either way, they would have the funds to do two things:

> Continue their appeal of the huge Qualcomm case (which a Florida judge wrongly decided not to let a jury hear).

> Get back into the business of licensing amazing wireless technology.

Closing at 37 cents Friday, the company was valued at around $35 million.   Could it one day be valued ten times higher?  Or even higher still?

I’m having fun imaging that, while counting not even a single chicken.

Have a great week!

And hats off to Nancy Pelosi.

Let’s start with two relatively small differences:

1. All politicians stretch the truth — but Trump made six times as many false or misleading statements in his first 10 months as Obama did in all eight years.  Different — no?

2. Classified documents were found at both residences — but Biden’s relative handful (there by mistake; none in his desk drawer) were returned the minute his people found them.  Biden never lied about them or fought their return.  Different — no?

Now here’s the giant, glaring, gaping one:

3. Both parties have extremists — but those on the left are less extreme, relatively few, and none of them in key leadership roles.  On the right, they are the majority (well over half voting not to certify the 2020 election) and set the agenda.

Their party is controlled by extremists.

(Bring back the good old days when it was controlled by the wealthy and corporations!  Or even the good old days of Barry Goldwater.)

Yet they’ve been highly effective at portraying the views of a tiny few as “the Democratic agenda.”

For example:  Only a tiny few Democrats actually want to “defund the police.” In reality, Biden and Congressional Democrats and Democratic mayors and governors are all about increasing police funding . . . while making needed reforms.  (Can anyone favor instances of police brutality?  Favor killing unarmed men as they are running away?  Favor sending police, unassisted, to handle mental health issues?)

And consider a fourth colossal difference — what the extremes want:  

> On the left, “The Squad” want things like Medicare for all.  You may oppose it, or believe we can’t afford it (somehow, every one of our industrialized allies can); but is it pernicious to want everyone to have access to decent health care?  Or to want workers to be paid a living wage?  Or to want to keep Earth habitable for future generations?

> On the right, those who wrested effective control of the House from Kevin McCarthy favor 18-year-olds’ being allowed to buy assault weapons without universal background checks; oppose a higher minimum for the working poor; favor government control of women’s bodies even in cases of rape or incest; oppose funding IRS enforcement of tax law on billionaires; oppose citizenship for DACA kids; oppose capping the price of Insulin . . . and more.

I think those positions are pernicious.

They have me seeing red — and voting blue.

Have a great weekend.

BONUS

Matt Gaetz, sitting in for Steve Bannon, interviews his colleague George Santos.

Given his pivotal role, this extensive Politico profile may be worth your time.

He’s the right man for the job.

As to yesterday’s pitch for the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax . . .

Peter: “Given all your moonshot speculations (with money you can apparently afford to lose), you will soon be among the world’s ‘uber-wealthy’ (if you aren’t already).  So say the value of your shares goes up by $100 million and you pay a minimum $20 million in tax.  Then the value goes down by $50 million. Do you get a refund? I don’t understand how this works, but it sure looks like outright blatant confiscation of wealth. Is this a good thing for society?”

I am not now, nor will I ever, be uber-wealthy.

But let’s say I were.

Never fear: the legislation — summarized here, full text here — makes allowances for the kind of questions, like that one, that immediately spring to mind.

And, no. It’s no more “blatant confiscation of wealth,” in my view, than is the property tax on homes or the income tax on hard-earned wages.

Basically, it’s just a pay-as-you-go capital gains tax instead of the pay-it-all-at-the-end tax we have now (which many avoid because of the “stepped up basis” loophole).

The reason I think it’s good for society is that inequality has reached what might well be considered an immoral extreme that — whether immoral or not — threatens our economic well-being and civil order.

It’s dangerous.

If signed into law, the Billionaire Minimum Tax Act, affecting just a few thousand families, will lean against this corrosive inequality.

That said, I would make one important tweak that costs nothing.

I would adopt an overall frame in the titling of, and messaging around, the law that congratulates these taxpayers for their success and thanks them for the taxes they pay . . . and for their contributions to the economy and for the many other good works most of them do.

Most of them are great people!

It’s just that we should tax their capital gains on a pay-as-you-go basis instead of all at once at the end.

That’s all we’re talking about.

I have zero problem with billionaires not paying more tax than the law requires.

My problem is with the law not requiring them to pay more.

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“God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

While many of us gather today to study and celebrate Dr. King’s life and legacy of justice, our friends at Oxfam released an explosive new report — “Survival of the Richest” — that reveals the world’s wealthiest 1% accumulated $42 trillion of new wealth since 2020. That’s trillion with a T.

While most Americans are tightening their purse strings and feeling the daily pain of record high inflation, billionaires [are] watching their riches increase and paying almost no taxes. 63% of all wealth gains since 2020 have gone to the top 1%, with just 37% going to the other 99%. Meanwhile at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, and over 820 million people — roughly one in ten people on Earth — are going hungry.

The World Bank says we are likely seeing the biggest increase in global inequality and poverty since World War II.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Last year, President Biden introduced the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax, which will ensure that every household worth over $100 million is paying an effective tax rate of at least 20% on their total income each year.

The BMIT would make the ultra-wealthy pay taxes on the growth in their investments every year, just like the rest of us pay taxes on our wages. It enjoys broad support from the American public with approximately three-quarters of voters — including a majority of Independents and Republicans — supporting the bill.

Excessive billionaire wealth is destabilizing our economy, our politics, and our society.

Click here to send a direct message to Congress telling them to pass the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax now.

Thank you for all you do to defend democracy and fight inequality,

—Erica

Erica Payne
Founder and President, Patriotic Millionaires

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Close loopholes.

Fund IRS enforcement.

Impose an effective minimum tax on the uber-wealthy.

Have a great week.