Is Janesville Metro Area At Crossroads For Progress?

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Kiplinger's recently issued their latest report on best American cities for every life stage and for your future. As was expected outside of the cost of living, Janesville did not fare very well.

Here's a snapshot of the chart listing a few cities posted at Kiplinger's Personal Finance considered for its list of Best Cities for Every Age, 2012. The Cost of Living Index is based on 100 being the national average. Job growth is the increase in employment from 2006 to 2011. Income growth is the increase in household income from 2006 to 2011.

Because the trends are taken within a five year window, The adverse economic effects from the closing of the General Motors plant are very obvious. As you can see, my town of Janesville is not doing well at all, particularly in the job and wage growth areas. It's in "Flint, MI" mode if I may be so blunt, and in fact has worse wage growth than Flint (2.5% vs 4.1%) over the same period of time.

With a feeling of complete helplessness, I've witnessed Janesville tumble down in slow motion from a solid upstart blue collar middle-class town and wrote about it all at this blog in real time as it happened, not after the fact.

Since 2006, I railed against the partisans and sycophants running the Janesville Gazette media monopoly and their decade long low-wage conservative agenda and war against school teachers, unions, liberals, democrats or anyone else who did not fit their particular brand of social engineering. Since that time I've "outed" the unholy alliance between the area's political action business groups and our local city and county governments. I even recall the dozens of emails I used to get from some Janesville residents telling me how wrong I was regarding my allegations of political activity about Forward Janesville and the Rock County 5.0.

I also remember like it was yesterday writing about the time when Congressman Paul Ryan, after being appointed to House committees, bragged that he would bring home even less of a return on tax dollars (federal aid, etc.) to his hometown and congressional district. These policies acted like a capital drain on the area and the results have been only short of catastrophic. I repeatedly warned readers that Janesville area workers and the people are losing the war many had no idea was being waged upon them, and that the American Dream isn't slipping away by chance, but is being systematically legislated out of our lives by right-wing ideologues. Apparently all to no avail.

All I can say now is let's hope we have bottomed out and the only way from here is up. But that's going to be a tall order to accomplish since most of the same phony people and the machinery that took us down that path are all still behind the wheel. That has to change first - before hope. With the opposition dug in with a divide and conquer mentality and in positions of power, we have a formidable enemy to overcome.

On the flip-side, there is some good news for Wisconsin. Madison, the Liberal Outpost and Unionista Sanctuary as eloquently described by the Democurmudgeon, was ranked No. 1 in the US by Kiplinger’s for young adults. The magazine said Madison was an “educated, tech-savvy city” with many recent college graduates who help foster an “entrepreneurial community” for start-up companies. Thugs. It even ranked high for families. Imagine that. Congratulations Madison!!

For the full report on best cities, click here.

Chart of 361 metro-areas and how they stack up.

Video: Moyer and Hedges On Capitalism's "Sacrifice Zones"

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After exploring parts of America that have been destroyed for quarterly profit, Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges touch on how our voices, particularly those of the doubters and thinkers, have almost no ability to effect change. Hedges fires on all cylinders throughout the interview explaining how truth and news are not the same thing and how we've become accomplices to our own demise.

Although Wisconsin or Scott Walker are not mentioned, my very first thought after watching this video was how Walker's "open for business" has turned Wisconsin into a giant sacrifice zone for the oligarchs of corporate-run government. It's a little long at 51 minutes, but there's a lot of meat to this video. I highly recommend readers experience it through your own eyes:



Read story here.

Why Is It So Difficult To Say That Wall Street Greed Caused Financial Collapse?

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I always get a special kick out of people when they professorially insist that the Community Reinvestment Act or Fannie and Freddie (Frank, Dodd, Democrats, etc.) caused the mortgage meltdown.

Unfortunately for me, it's gotten to the point that if I can't laugh in their face in person, I don't bother to make any attempt to convince them otherwise. But since the latest wave of American social and economic justice in the form of protests against Wall Street, a variety of TV pundits and other ignoramuses have come out of the woodwork and continue to lie to the public mostly out of political and economic expediency.

So, I have to ask. IF the Community Reinvestment Act or Fannie and Freddie "forced" banks and mortgage providers to lend beyond their means to home buyers who could not afford - what is stopping them now from lending? The CRA, Fannie and Freddie are all still in play. Banks have greater cash reserves to lend out now than ever before. Nothing has been repealed. Nothing. Since the financial collapse there has been zero reform legislation passed on Fannie and Freddie. Zero, zip, nada. So, I repeat. What is stopping banks and lenders now from borrowing to potential home buyers? Why are people now having such a difficult time qualifying for mortgages? All of the "arm-twisting" federally enforced laws and provisions are still in place. So what is stopping banks, with their arms all twisted into pretzels and their heads squeezed in vices by big bad government, from lending to people who don't qualify today? I'll tell you what's stopping them. Themselves.

That's how it was before and that's how it is now. Short supply and rampant demand fueled by a glut of employed capital fed their own infectious greed to capitalize any which way they could. They literally made stuff up, bundled mortgages and sold them knowing they had little value. Just like today's over supply and lack of demand fueled by a shortage of employed capital feeds their resistance to capitalize any which way they can. They won't. They are not budging today. Their level of risk has changed - arm twisting Federal government or not.

But they now say we need to knock down regulations to spread the prosperity. It's always been such a phony argument from the beginning.

Let's put into words everyone can understand. The CRA, Democrats, Fannie and Freddie did not cause the mortgage meltdown that led to the near financial collapse of the capital markets. A rigged system of capitalism fostering the infectious greed on Wall Street caused it. To claim anything else is an outright lie.

Republican Congress Signals Shrinkage - S&P Downgrades U.S.

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The handwriting was on the wall.

Some excerpts from the S&P statement:

Think Progress Excerpt:

[...]The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.

[...]It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.

[...]The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.

[...]Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

This is a damning indictment of the ideological calculator Republicans and their Tea Party mutants signed up for when they superceded their oath of office by pledging to nitwit norquist never to raise tax revenues under any circumstances. The message is clear to the S&P. Why can’t others see it?

As long as these sloven miscreants remain uncompromising on tax revenues, the outlook on the long-term rating will remain negative. The more they cut spending, the more they signal shrinkage. Like everything else lacking in government today, we needed a "balanced approach" of cuts and revenue for growth and to get the budget and debt on solid footing.

Michael Moore was right. America is awash in money. Even the S&P knew we had to start pumping it out of areas that are beyond floodstage in order to wet the seeds of job growth laying in drought.