PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

This page consists of recent posts ending with Oct. 17, 2011. The purpose in keeping older posts is to allow anyone who might be interested to consider these issues and to judge the consistency and value of The TerryReport over time. If anyone cares to look back on some major issues covered, you’ll find that The TerryReport has been ahead of the news on a number of occasions.

OBAMA MAKES A DIFFERENCE

The TerryReport does not consider itself a highly partisan source of analysis and news. In fact, hyper-partisanship is part of what is very wrong in our country right now. The idea that “our side” is right and everything “your side” does is wrong is what creates divisions that cannot be bridged. Further, when everything is viewed through a partisan lens, then there is no brake on what is done in the name of that point of view. So, these words are written without the intention of making Qaddafi’s fall from power into a partisan debate (it will be that anyway, but that does not concern me here). Besides, there has been plenty of criticism of Obama on these pages.

Where would Libya be today if Obama were not in the White House? It is clear that Qaddafi would still be in power if we had a Republican president. This does not require a partisan interpretation of events to confirm. Indeed, the Republicans on Capitol Hill attacked Obama for allowing NATO to take the lead in Libya and some prominent Republicans criticized him for pushing for Mubarak to leave his position of power in Egypt.

The United States, Democrats and Republicans alike, long supported autocratic regimes in the middle-east. We made a deal. They would not turn communist, they would sell us their oil and we would make peace with some ugly realities, like the fact that most of him sat on top of their people, sucking money and power, while the dictators’ kids and the oil rich partied in London and around the world. It was not a pretty deal and, to keep in going, the US help to prop up these dictatorships.

Obama should get a lot of credit for realizing, even if a bit slowly, that the tide of history was changing. Indeed, he spoke of freedom in Egypt long before Mubarak fell. We can certainly think, perhaps, that his speech and his election had something to do with the coming of the Arab spring: people in the region probably thought they had less to fear in terms of American intervention and, if they thought that, they were right. 

No one knows the ultimate future for the middle east. The wonderful throwing off of oppressive power could yet turn around and create more of the same thing and, in the process, lots of trouble for the world. Yet, as Americans, we can all be glad that we had someone in the White House who decided to take a turn in the right direction, with history instead of against it. This will not be forgotten in the middle east for a hundred or two hundred years.

It is a sad commentary on our times that, even at this moment, there are Republican operatives working overtime trying to come up with ways to label this as a defeat for Obama and America. By this time tomorrow, the Internet, the airwaves and major media will be filled without whatever distortion they can devise. As American citizens, however, we need to understand that the person for whom we vote can make a real difference in the world and this is one of those times.

Doug Terry, 10.17.11

IS 9/9/9 DUMB, DUMBER AND DUMBERER? YES

We would all like it if there were some simple solution to America’s problems. What would be wonderful beyond belief would be something that not only removed unfairness and complications in taxation, but also helped boost the economy into max overdrive. Wouldn’t that be grand?

Howard Cain’s idea for throwing out the tax code and falling to a 9 per cent tax rate across the board for everyone seems like one of those ideas, if you disregard for a moment that a millionaire would be paying 9 percent, as would someone making 22 thousand working at a hamburger place. One of the other real problems this idea would introduce, however, would be the 9 percent national sales tax.

First, most states rely on sales taxes as their primary revenue source beyond property taxes. Next, many cities get a portion of the sales tax collected in their jurisdictions. Would those taxes just go away? What would replace them?

If state and local sales taxes would remain, then we would wind up paying a huge amount of tax to buy anything. In Maryland, for example, the sales tax is 6%. You wanna put another 9% on top of that? That would mean paying 15% on every purchase. Something that cost 100 dollars would go to 115. Something that cost 1 ,000 would jump to 1,115. Pretty soon, you’d be talking about real money.

The other thing about sales taxes is that they are irritating. You’ve always got to be carrying a little more money just to buy something and pay the tax. The success of our payroll taxes is that they have become an accepted part of American life; we don’t like them, we might even resent them, but we pay them and move on. Point of sale taxes would be a constant reminder than your Uncle Sam has his hand in your pocket, reminding you that you don’t like to pay, pay, pay. Income taxes have become almost invisible to us because they are taken out before we get our paychecks. A new national sales tax could be like the Value Added Tax in Europe: its big, its bad and it hurts you every time you try to buy and sell.

Another problem: we are in the long, slow tail of a recession and sales taxes hit at consumption. The government, all the kings horses and men, are trying to encourage a return to spending by consumers to boost the economy. Oh, let’s then add a big sales tax? It would obviously slow any recovery and perhaps put us more deeply back into one than we are at this point.

Flat or standard rate taxes have great appeal for their simplicity, but not much else, once you start looking at the potential impact. A 9 percent income tax would obviously be a regressive tax on the poor, the near poor and the barely middle class, because it would take a larger part of their income than it would the wealthy and those who make less need the money more for basic necessities, not luxuries.

 Yet, sooner or later, someone could break through we an idea to throw out or greatly simplify the tax code. If that were to happen, it could represent a step toward greater fairness, in general, because right now those who have to chance avoid taxes (legally) do so as much as possible and those who don’t pay a lot more than their share. Fairness and balance should be the goal. 9/9/9 doesn’t come close to either. Cain will get a lot of mileage out of throwing this around, but putting it in place is not practical and could wreck the nation.

Doug Terry, 10. 12.11

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Bank of America's CEO defended his bank's new $5 fee on debit cards on Wednesday, saying that customers and shareholders understand the bank has a "right to make a profit."

 Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan defended the move, which the bank announced last week in response to new caps on debit card swipe fees that the banks charge retailers.

AMERICA’S ANSWER TO BANK OF AMERICA:

“We have a right not to help you.”

BANK OF AMERICA: THE LEADER IN MAKING US A RIPPED OFF NATION

It has been several days since Bank of America announced its new five dollar a month fee for using an ATM card for purchases, but the anger and frustration hasn’t died down much at all. Why are they charging just to have a card when they get fees from merchants each time you use it? Because they want more money following the Congressional action of lowering the amount of transaction fees they get and they figure millions of people will put up with the new charge.  Well, five bucks isn’t that much, is it? It is 60 dollars a year and you can bet your last dime that the amount will go up over the years. This is just the start.

When ATM cards were first introduced in the 1970s, there was no charge to use them at all. Then, a small charge of 50 or 75 cents was added, which quickly went up to a dollar. Now, it can cost you 3.50 or more to get money out of an ATM that is not operated by your own bank. BILLIONS of dollars are being taken by the banks from your money in this way. Why spend so much time protesting and worrying about taxes when corporations and banks have their hands in your pockets almost every hour of every day?

Some people say they don’t mind the new fee. One woman was quoted in the NY Times as saying it is worth that much not to have to carry checks. If you keep more than 20,000 dollars in various deposits at BofA, they won’t charge you the fee. (Aren’t they nice?) This bank, and many others like it, is counting on richer customers who can afford to pay 60 dollars a year forcing the poorer customers, who can’t afford it, to go along. Most people are too busy, too distracted to worry about this and other fees. They make enough money that it doesn’t seem to matter, but, before long, a major portion of their income is going to fees added on top of fees.

My outrage about this kind of thing is wearing a little thin. It seems like those who believe that businesses should treat the customers more fairly are, these days, in a small minority. The impact on the poor and the near poor is huge and many are pushed out of the banking system entirely and into check cashing places, that take even bigger fees. It doesn’t matter to the big banks, because they loan money to the dirt bank check cashing places and make even more money that way. The poor, the near poor and the barely hanging on middle class always get hit the hardest. Always.

Doug Terry, 10.1.11

READ THE NY TIMES NEWS ANALYSIS OF THE BANK FEE MESS HERE.

THE NY TIMES ARTICLE RAISES THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:

 Why is anyone still doing business with banks like these?

 Just after noon on Friday, Elvita Dominique, who lives in Harlem, was trying to answer that question for herself. She had just left a Bank of  America branch on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan having made an appointment with a bank employee who could help her review her options. “I want to  know if they are going to make exceptions,â€� she said. (Later in the day, the branch employee said no.)

 She had already heard that Citibank did not plan to add monthly debit card fees, so she will investigate that possibility. She is also considering joining a credit union.

 Bank of America’s move is part of a broader effort to overhaul its  checking account lineup. As of sometime early next year, it will have four basic accounts, only one of which will waive the $5 monthly fee for debit card users who want to use the card for purchases.  A.T.M. use will not incur the monthly fee, but charging recurring bills like gym  memberships or mobile phone plans to your debit card will.

NEW TERRORISM PLOT AMAZINGLY DUMB

This is hard to believe. A guy wants to blow up the Capitol dome and “destroy” the Pentagon and his chosen weapons are model airplanes carrying explosives? And, the guy arrested has a physics degree? Well, yeah. The airplanes in questions, described as “drones” in some major media news accounts, could carry, at most, 50 pounds. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that something close to 50 pounds of explosives could do considerable damage, but not all that much. A good size model airplane hitting the Capitol dome would be more likely to bounce off than blow it up.

The most potentially deadly part of the planned attack that the government says it uncovered was the idea of using two teams of gunmen to then attack these locations. There could have been dozens of people killed in this phase of the  plan, even if the deaths came mainly from those trying to stop the gunmen.

This latest terrorist plot is no joke, but it certainly reflects planning by someone not fully anchored in reality. Whatever might have followed, in comparison to 9-11.2001, it would have been more like falling down and getting a broken bone. The attacks of ten years ago worked better than the planners could have imagined. The fuel on the jet aircraft, along with the impact, removed the fire proofing from the steel structure of the World Trade Center, which then allowed the fuel to super heat the metal, causing a cascading collapse of the buildings. These planned attacks might have killed a few people in offices or tourists nearby the Capitol. Direct, armed attacks can always be deadly, but there is no evidence, so far, that this accused terrorist had the means for the second phase of his apparent plan.

The greatest on-going danger from terrorism has always been from within our own borders, regardless of the inspiration for the action. Because of the distance between here and the middle-east, and the difficulties of getting a “team” like that one that managed to pull off 9-11 into the country, we are a difficult target from outside the borders. Those coming from the inside have a far greater opportunity, which is why it is so important to keep a balance between our belief in the need for security and our Constitutional rights as citizens.

Sooner or later, one of these plots will go all the way from planning to finish. That is all but a certainty, No matter what security measures are taken, you can’t catch every grain of sand flowing in the water. If and when this does happen, we need to protect against the overreaction that began ten years ago, and continues to this day, prompting massive, uncounted spending on wars and security efforts without apparent end. We need to make certain that our civil liberties survive the next attack and that we realize ahead of time that not everything can be stopped, but that one “success” does not necessarily mean a new wave of terrorism.

We face dangers in our lives every day, when driving, walking and when flying on a business trip or vacation. We don’t demand that these activities be 100% safe, because we know the cost in money and inconvenience would be too high. The same can be said in regard to terrorism.

Doug Terry, 9.29.11

HENRICK HERTZBERG, writing in the New Yorker about the book CONFIDENCE MEN by Ron Suskind, the new book on the Obama White House.

...Suskind, without stanching the flow of his tale, is able to elucidate how it came to pass that the Reagan-through-Bush II reign of financial deregulation, along with cybernetic chicanery, defective and incomprehensible financial “products” and banking greed unmoored from  social, personal, and fiduciary responsibility, created a monstrous  “debt machine” that turbocharged inequality of wealth, inflated bubbles, diverted talent and investment from making things to making bets,  bilked millions on the edge to enrich thousands on the heights, and ended, if it ended, by pushing the poor, the middle class, and the real economy into the abyss.
 

BACHMANN’S CANDIDACY IS GOING NOWHERE BUT DOWN

THE DEATH PENALTY AND THE CASE OF TROY DAVIS

CLASS WARFARE? THE LATEST MANTRA FROM THE REPUBLICANS

The Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to attack Obama’s tax plans by calling them class warfare. This is an indistinct term that can easily cause someone’s blood to boil, lacking full details or careful consideration. To others, it might sound like a reasonable response when it is not. It is, nonetheless, a mean and angry charge that is not part of any dialog, but rather an effort to cut of discussion and discredit Obama.

First, warfare is a heated worded in itself. Warfare implies battles to the death and a clear desire to harm others. Putting class in front of that ups the ante, especially in a nation that, for more than two hundred years, has prided itself on not having any known, rigged class structure, like England and other nations around the world. Oh, now we have classes (other than theoretical ones) and those mean Democrats are waging war on the one class, those with lots of money, who can create jobs? The term should be condemned at the start for injecting into our political life the very notion of class and the very notion that some people want to attack and destroy another economic group. This is deliberate divisiveness being carried out in the name of petty politics.

To ask all Americans to pay a sizable share of the tax burden is not, in any way, class warfare. The question merely revolves around what is a fair and reasonable share of taxation to be borne by economic groups. For the last 70 years, we have had progressive taxation of various degrees in which those who make more money pay more, a high percentage, of taxes than do others. This came about because the idea of fairness was that the wealthy can afford to pay more without being harmed, while the rest of the population would suffer if asked to take on a higher burden.

The Republican line that the wealthy are job creators would, in the end, make the rest of us into little more than vassals of the rich. We’d have to keep making them richer and richer, hoping one day they’d hire us to clean their toilets, because, with most of the money in their hands, any job would count. Whatever they could “give” us, we would be grateful to get, like peasants in Mexico.

 There are plenty of places around the world where you have a top “class” of very, very wealthy people with 90 or more percent of the population living in poverty or near poverty. India, Mexico and most of the middle-eastern nations are such places. Indeed, almost the entire world, outside of North America, Europe and Japan are like this. The wealthy hold almost every asset, the poor have to beg for crumbs from their tables and whatever the wealthy want to do is the first order of business for the whole society. We are seeing repeated revolutions because the “Arab Spring” finally represented a mass awakening of the populations of the middle-east that they might be able to change their circumstances.

There is no class warfare in the United States and it is mean, irresponsible and down right ugly to suggest that as a motive for raising taxes on the very wealthy. Yet, income and wealth inequality have been growing for decades in our country and there is no known force that could rebalance the economy other than that of government or maybe a decade long depression of the economy. Maybe some serious efforts, not warfare, are needed to address why the bosses and owners of WalMart get rich beyond dreams while many of their “full time” employees go on welfare. If this is class warfare, maybe they should, in the immortal words of G.W. Bush,,  “bring it on”.

Doug Terry, 9.20.11

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