The unemployment rate in the U.S., currently at 6.7%, is serious, but it is lower than the peak unemployment rates for the last three major recessions. In the recession of the early 1990s the unemployment rate exceeded 7.5%. In the recession of the early 1980s the rate reached above 10%. Finally, in the recession of the mid 1970s the rate got above 8.5% (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

I'm not saying we should be happy about 6.7% unemployment, nor am I saying that the number is moving in the right direction. What I am saying is that this is NOT the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The government is throwing money around faster than the 15-year-old child of a billionaire, and perhaps more foolishly. In just a few months we have seen almost $1 trillion appropriated for bailouts mostly to the banks that got us into this mess. All of this goes on the national debt. That's roughly $50 billion extra PER YEAR just to pay the interest on that additional debt. That means higher taxes or lower spending later when we grow up and balance our budgets, and that's going to hurt.

Macroeconomics is really streaky. When we think things are getting worse, we tend to act in a panicked way that makes the situation even tougher than it has to be. Don't be fooled.

I'm against bailouts on principle for a lot of reasons in general: companies should pay the price of their own mistakes, we have limited resources that could be better spent directly paying down the national debt, putting people to work, etc.

But in the case of the Big 3 I've got another reason: they symbolize the utter contempt the auto industry has for the environment. It's not just the H2 limo I have in the picture. GM, Ford, and especially Chrysler are all low performers on fuel economy compared to their chief rivals: Toyota and Honda. It didn't have to be this way. In the late '90s American companies were making pure electric cars thanks to CA's zero emission vehicle mandate, but that got shelved.

Let's compare the most fuel efficient model each company has. That really says it all:

Toyota - Prius - 48/45 MPG
Honda - Civic Hybrid - 40/45 MPG
Ford - Escape Hybrid - 34/30
GM - Cobalt XFE - 25/36
Chrysler - Sebring - 21/30

We're getting our butts kicked and it shows in each company's profitability. Bailing out these clowns only rewards their mediocre product lineups.

I decided to estimate the interest payments on our $10 trillion national debt. Let's say our creditors are charging us 5% (which is a pretty good rate). That means that every year our national debt grows by . . .

$500 billion! Just from interest!
That's $1,667 for every man woman and child in America per year (all 300 million of us)!

The recent bank bailout will add $35 billion per year to our interest payments! ($117 per person per year).

So, whoever says the national debt doesn't affect us should think twice. In 2009 about $535 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars will go towards paying down the interest on the debt (we aren't even touching the principal) instead of buying us health care, education, and green technology. All to pay for war, and corporate welfare, on the installment plan . . .

When you're in a hole, stop digging.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is a shameful policy that should be eliminated immediately. The military must be open to all who want to fight regardless of sexual orientation. If people are willing to risk their lives for the military, the least the military can do for them is allow them to openly be who they are.

After 9/11 it became clear that the policy actually resulted in gay Arabic translators being fired, RIGHT WHEN WE NEEDED THEM THE MOST!

It all goes back to the fact that we bash gays as a society. We need to get over that and give them equality, respect, and an apology.

What if CA passed a law banning heterosexual marriage?

People would be rioting in the streets because that would be a stupid, discriminatory idea that nobody would stand for.

People might realize how ridiculous it is to take a minority group, like gays, and ban them from getting married. It's the same thing, except gays are a historically persecuted minority group. Multiple religions and secular bigots owe gays an apology for bashing them into closets.

So, when can gays vote on your marriage?

"General, a man is quite expendable.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think."

-Bertolt Brecht


They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So why has Obama promised to imitate George W. Bush's surge strategy in Afghanistan? I thought they were supposed to be totally different. So, we've been over there for seven years and we're still not done eh? When do we get a timetable for withdrawal from that war?

I wouldn't mention it except that in war, people die. And in humanity's recent wars civilians do most of the dying. Also, I thought we were supposed to be better than terrorists. Terrorists have no regard for civilians, they think everybody in America is guilty. Guilt by association. We wouldn't stoop to that would we?

Oops, we already did . . .

You're probably used to hearing about "free trade" and "fair trade". I don't like the first term because it has too many positive connotations. What it really means is that companies have an incentive to produce services wherever the cheapest labor and and weakest environmental protections are. This race to the bottom should be called what it is, "tariffless trade", or trade without import taxes. I also have problems with the term "fair trade" because it is too vague.

We need trade that is fair and environmentally sustainable: "fair-sustainable trade". By fair I mean trade that doesn't give an advantage to countries with cheap labor. By environmentally sustainable I mean trade that doesn't give an advantage to countries with weak environmental protections.

We could do this by giving each country a score, like in school: A, B, C, D, or F on both labor standards and environmental protection. The countries that score As on both would be able to trade with us with no tariffs. The countries that scored the lowest would face the highest tariffs when they export to us.

We could start ourselves and then spread this idea around by negotiations and better trade treaties. It's a good approach because it protects American products from imports made in countries with cheaper labor and weak environmental protections while allowing free competition among products that were made under roughly equal conditions.

To sum up, we need fair-sustainable trade, not tariffless trade.

We're living in a time of massive, panicky, unfair, ineffective corporate welfare bailouts. People are scared and they want to help the economy, but we can and must do better than dumping money into a hole.

Let's take just $150 billion and instead of spending it on the banks that got us where we are today, lets start to transform our nation's power plants to solar, wind, and other clean-renewable, home-produced energy. This will create MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF NEW JOBS that will lift us out of the current troubles. Furthermore, it will put us well on the path to CONFRONTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS. This will benefit everyone.

If we spent half of that $150 billion on wages that would come to 1.5 million workers making $50,000 per year for one year. Talk about stimulus!

I say $150 billion because that is the sum Obama has said he wants to spend in 10 years to confront our environmental problems. I say, if we're going to do it anyway, let's speed that up to one or two years and start spending it now when we need the stimulus. This would address two problems at once (jobs and the environment) and contribute less to the national debt, which has to be paid back by us.