Winter of Our Discontent
“Americans’ Economic Pessimism Reaches Record High.” That’s the headline on a recent Gallup report, which shows a nation deeply unhappy with the state of the economy. Right now, “27% of Americans rate current economic conditions as either ‘excellent’ or ‘good,’ while 44% say they are ‘only fair’ and 28% say they are poor.” Moreover, “an extraordinary 78% of Americans now say the economy is getting worse, while a scant 13% say it is getting better.”
What’s really remarkable about this dismal outlook is that the economy isn’t (yet?) in recession, and consumers haven’t yet felt the full effects of $98 oil (wait until they see this winter’s heating bills) or the plunging dollar, which will raise the prices of imported goods.
The response of those who support the Bush administration’s economic policies is to complain about the unfairness of it all. They rattle off statistics that supposedly show how wonderful the economy really is. Many of these statistics are misleading or irrelevant, but it’s true that the official unemployment rate is fairly low by historical standards. So why are people so unhappy?
The answer from Bush supporters - who are, on this and other matters, a strikingly whiny bunch - is to blame the “liberal media” for failing to report the good news. But the real explanation for the public’s pessimism is that whatever good economic news there is hasn’t translated into gains for most working Americans.
One way to drive this point home is to compare the situation for workers today with that in the late 1990s, when the country’s economic optimism was almost as remarkable as its pessimism today. For example, in the fall of 1998 almost two-thirds of Americans thought the economy was excellent or good.
The unemployment rate in 1998 was only slightly lower than the unemployment rate today. But for working Americans, everything else was different. Wages were rising, yet inflation was low, so the purchasing power of workers’ take-home pay was steadily improving. So, too, were job benefits, including the availability of health insurance. And homeownership was rising steadily.
It was, in other words, a time when Americans felt they were sharing in the country’s prosperity.
Today, by contrast, wage gains for most workers are being swallowed by inflation. In fact, the reality for lower- and middle-income workers may be worse than the official statistics say, because the prices of necessities like food, transportation and medical care are rising considerably faster than the Consumer Price Index as a whole. One striking statistic: the cost of a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner was 11 percent higher this year than last year.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans receiving health insurance from their employers, which began to decline in 2001, is continuing its downward trend. And homeownership, after rising for several years on a tide of subprime mortgages - well, you know how that’s going.
In short, working Americans have very good reason to feel unhappy about the state of the economy. But what will it take to make their situation better?
The leading Republican candidates for president don’t even seem to realize that there’s a problem. A few months ago Rudy Giuliani, denouncing Hillary Clinton’s economic proposals, declared that “she wants to go back to the 1990s” - as if that would be a bad thing.
In fact, memories of how much better the economy was under Bill Clinton will be a potent political advantage for the Democrats next year.
But simply putting another Clinton, or any Democrat, in the White House won’t ensure that the good times will roll again. President Clinton was a good economic manager, but much of the good news during the 1990s reflected events that won’t be repeated, including low oil prices and the great medical cost pause - the temporary leveling off of health care spending as a percentage of G.D.P. that took place in the 1990s despite his failure to pass health care reform.
And there are good reasons to think that the negative effects of globalization on the wages of some Americans are larger than they were in the ’90s. That’s a hugely contentious issue within the progressive movement, with no easy resolution. I’ll write more about it in the months ahead.
Despite these caveats, Democrats have every right to make a political issue out of the failure of the Bush economy to deliver gains to working Americans - especially because conservatives continue to insist that tax cuts for the affluent are the answer to all problems.
But Democrats shouldn’t kid themselves into believing that this will be easy. The next president won’t be able to deliver another era of good times unless he or she manages to tackle the longer-term trends that underlie today’s economic disappointment: a collapsing health care system and inexorably rising inequality.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
This redistribution of wealth began under Reagan and it’s chugged happily along ever since, including under Clinton. Remember the “New Economy”?
The whole point is to crush the middle class, kill Labor, keep ever increasing profits among the wealthiest in the US and drive as many jobs as possible overseas where corporations are as free to exploit the workers as possible.
I’d say Mission Accomplished.
Dust off your Coriolanus kids,
1. Cit. Before we proceed any further, here me speak.
All. Speak, speak.
1. Cit. You are all resolv’d rather to die than to famish?
All. Resolv’d, resolv’d.
I can see it now:
They will blame it all on Hillary.
And some think what they put Bill Clinton through was bad.
Problem with the Clintons is they are ill-equipted to actually seek alternatives, since their strategy is to tread water through triangulating on the dismal failures of the Right.
DLC era Democrats help to hold up the NeoCon sky.
How many of us out there become queasy at even the thought of the next election? Is it really a reality?
Chances are if our favorite hero actually got the majority of the votes we’d be appointed some more desperate thug to teach us what we really want and how we should act and think.
Look at other nations and how the US elite force them to accept a way of thinking and living. Is it reasonable to think that here it would be otherwise?
It’s time to examine the effects of the last generation’s conservative ascendancy. And yes, it goes all the way back to Carter.
The problem with the “opposition” is it talks about the problem of the Management of things. For example, the top tier candidates (and some of the 2nd tier) criticize Bush for mis-managing the Iraq war. That is certainly true but the war was wrong to begin with. There is ample evidence that the whole conservative agenda is wrong, wrong, wrong as well. Why not attack the very foundations of it?
If I were running for office in 2008 I would make the following points:
1) It’s time to just admit the war was a mistake and bring the troops home.
2) We cannot (and should not) police the world.
3) National Defense has been captured and used as a welfare program for people who don’t need the money.
4) Government should protect the public from crooks, shysters, con-men, hucksters etc, and should not be run by crooks, shysters, con-men, hucksters, etc.
5) Close foreign bases (see #2 and #3)
6) Change the labor laws to protect working people and encourage the right to organize.
7) Government officials and Corporate Officers are Not above the law and should do hard time if convicted of crimes.
9) Get the government out of our private lives and quit it listening to our phonecalls and reading our (e-)mail.
10) Restore the Constitutional guarantees we have. The Bill of Rights is to protect the People from the Government, not the Government from the People.
Every one of these points directly arises from conservative malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance over the last 30 years (with help from the Vichycrats).
There are other points as well but these 10 alone would make an excellent platform to run on. I came up with this list all by myself with no help from consultants, inside-the-beltway pundits, party hacks, focus groups, polls or conventional wisdom.
Thoreau was right: Simplify, simplify, simplify!
McDee for President!!!
here here,
McDee stands about as much chance as any other human being still left - does.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans now favor an economic system that is excellent for those who already have wealth and power, and horrible for those who don’t. Both parties are funded by people who are already wealthy and who want more wealth. Both parties favor policies that screw the people who have to work for a salary by creating a ‘race to the bottom’ where companies can find the lowest wages in the world. This is of great benefit to the people who already have money and can therefore invest in these companies. But if you work for a paycheck, it means your job is either gone by being outsourced to China or India, or you are barely hanging on and not getting any raises. If you complain, you are told you are lucky to have a job.
A thing to take very close note of is that you won’t see the Democrats doing anything other than tinkering around the edges of the system. They don’t object to the basic premises of the system. So you don’t see the Bush tax cuts being massively overhauled, or you don’t see the Clinton trade deals like WTO and NAFTA being repealed. And you don’t see the Clinton era tax codes where the costs of moving your job overseas is a tax-deductable expense for American corporations being changed.
The Democrats and Clinton got lucky on the economy in their times. They created the first ‘jobless recovery’ where wages stayed stagnant. The economic boom of their times had more to do with cheap oil from places like the North Sea oilfields keeping energy prices near historic lows, and the temporary growth of a new sector of the economy in personal computing devices. Neither had much to do with Democratic economic policies. Clinton and the Democrats just got lucky and went along for the ride.
The key thing is to create an economy that works for all Americans and not just the wealthy few that can afford a night in the Lincoln bedroom or be a Bush pioneer. And you don’t see much besides a little happy talk in that direction from the Democrats.
I like Krugman on a whole expecially being the one of a few that speaks the truth most of the time.
But two areas he never really talks about is:
1. Unemployment…..Last month the stock market went wild with a new job number of 166,000. If you read deeply you would have found that the largest part of the number was not a count but a guess….yes a guess. Now it shows that 106,000 of the number was untrue……just a lie.
2. The inflation figures or should I say the core inflation figure which EXCLUDES food and energy……you know the turkey dinner that cost 11 percent more this year then last year. And the rising gasoline, fuel oil and transpertation costs. You know $100 a barrel
The NYTimes business (???) writer stated last week that “core inflation” gives us a “fuller” picture of living costs. Fuller, how to hell can it be fuller when you leave out food and energy.
Plain and simple the government changed the way the numbers were figured a few years ago so that they could keep the payment in COLA clauses and Society Security yearly COLA raises lower.
This is America today lie, lie, lie, cheat, cheat, cheat etc., etc.
COMarc is absolutely correct. I would like to add that the expansion through the Clinton years, while the conservatives would say it was just Reagan’s Voodoo economics finally taking shape, was actually due in very large part to the computer revolution. Not just because of increased productivity of each little worker bee, but because of all the goods that were created that people just had to have — new processors, bigger memory, burnable CDs, etc.
Paul Krugman’s new book “The Conscience of a Liberal” is quite good. He offers what can easily be seen as proof of liberal economic policies working, no matter if you want to call it the “welfare society” or however the conservatives want to paint it. Here’s the proof in a nutshell:
Life before the great depression was the result of the guilded age, when almost all wealth was concentrated in the hands of a very few, the robber barons. Eventually this house of cards built on the weak foundation of consumers that could not consume ended in the great depression. Finally Roosevelt (FDR not Teddy) was able to push through his New Deal. This almost required that he add two new supreme court justices, which he threatened to do because the court was standing in the way declaring most of it unconstitutional (activist Judges?). The New Deal created great taxes on those who made an inordinately high income. This revenue was used to create the CCC and other public works projects that employed and put money into the hands of the masses. It worked so well that for years even republican presidents wouldn’t dare roll back these policies. These policies resulted in some 40 years of incredible growth in this country, and the creation of a great middle class. Of course then came Reagan, and his attacks on labor and his fictional creation of “welfare queens in cadillacs cashing their welfare checks.” The new deal policies have been getting gutted more and more ever since, and more and more the wealth is being concentrated. Why do we let this happen? Because marketing works, and the wealthy can market themselves as saviors and so many buy into it.
I laugh at people that say they are conservatives and tell them they are merely puppets of the rich, and because of their vote so am I.
Thank you, Mr. Krugman, for talking about American WORKERS. I get so tired of being referred to as a CONSUMER. Yes, I need to eat to stay alive, and if I go around naked I’ll get arrested. But I am one of those who PRODUCES the wealth in this country, and I get so darn mad when the media refers to me as a CONSUMER.
But my fundamental identity is neither consuming nor even producing.
We are all, fundamentally, children of God. When we allow anyone to go hungry, or to die of curable diseases, while others (who inherited what their fathers stole) have more than they’ll ever need, it ought to be patently abhorrent to anyone who calls themselves Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim, since the Abrahamic religions ostensibly agree that this God they worship is the actual source of all that is).
When people of faith agree to judge the political candidates on the basis of how well their policies will ensure the health and well-being of every child on earth, people may start respecting the political wisdom of Christians (Jews, Muslims….).
I am Episcopalian. I will vote for Kucinich, because his policies take every child on earth into account, and respect the labor of American workers.
Peach McD in Durham NC
MC DEE: Great post, but we need a distinct # 11 to include a more conscious energy conservation/green program.
There is a glaring absentee factor in Krugman’s article/assessment and it concerns the blatant spiritual bankrupcy of modern times, or the American (courtesy of military-big pharma-prison complex) basis for rating economics… what about the QUALITY of lives, and what about the LIVES plundered to keep this toxic ship afloat? If we only had to measure the madness along economic yardsticks it would be one thing, but let’s not forget that a lot more than $ is being wasted on all the wrong things; and a lot more than $ will be extracted as karmic blowback.
Good citation, Geoff29.
“You are all resolv’d rather to die than to famish?”
It reminded me of that story of the 600-pound man who refused to stop eating, even though doctors told him he’d be dead in a year if he didn’t. He actually didn’t die from over-eating exactly; he died when the bed he was laying on cracked through the floor of his house, the old rotten wood just not able to support his weight anymore. The ceiling falling in from the second floor behind him plunged a beam (stake?) through his heart. Fortunately, his family was out at the time and uninjured in the mishap. It’s not a bad analogy of what the various greedy corporatists and neocons are doing to our economy. I only hope us average Americans are as lucky as the 600-pound man’s family.
Qbaldsmoove says: “Because marketing works, and the wealthy can market themselves as saviors and so many buy into it.”
But think of it: After spending billions of dollars shoving the neocon and corporate agenda down our throats, the majority of America has now rejected it, and its savior Bush. There may be some hope in here yet, especially since our ancestors managed to survive the Great Depression, another era when the situation seemed hopeless and out of the control of the ‘little guy.’
It is very difficult for a normal, sane, compassionate person to recognize a psychopath. I happen to have recently been victimized by one, and have taken some time and some effort to understand that state of being. I submit that this country (in the persons of corporations and many of their minions) are psychopathic in nature— totally amoral, totally without conscience, the very essence of “evil”. I will not say that we have elected a cadre of these psychopaths to govern us, because I do not think they were elected, but in true psychopathic form, simply stole what they wanted and continue to impose that vision on all of us and the world. They must be stopped, or our children have no future.
I am not a learned man, just an old farmer who has watched the country and a society (very imperfect though they were) left in the dust of greed and lust for power.
Psychopathy is ugly.
Impeachment? Go here NOW and watch and listen from New Hampshire:
http://www.kucinichtv.com/
“Keep hope alive” with Dennis J Kucinich for president, the only candidate worthy of your vote and fit to be president and one who could hold the base in a reelection fight as he would do what he says and stand up for the working people of this country. That’s something that’s way overdue!
McDee said:
“And yes, it goes all the way back to Carter.”
Good post McDee, but you must be too young to remember that the conservative ascendancy goes all the way back to Nixon.
keep hope alive, vote for Obama a man who is as popular as JFK was and just about that young and very talented and a compassionate person- that translates as a peacemaker who will not fearmonger.
Dennis is great and gave many good ideas, but he does not have the power to beat Hillary. Obama has the power.
It’s time Mr. Krugman open his eyes fully and accept the facts on the ground: the Dems have no intention of doing anything different, other than talking a lot about doing things differently. But they’re actions scream louder than their lies.
One Dictator. One “Party.” Two subdivisions. Good cop-bad cop 101 - one’s tough, the other’s your friend, but both are working towards the same goal, which is certainly not economic equality or health care for all… or the mass arrest and prosecution of all corporate economic terrorists, or the full restoration of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, or the immediate elimination of all e-voting machines, or the immediate withdraw of American forces from all 700+ bases worldwide, or an all out Moon shot sized effort to deal with the rapidly increasing climate meltdown.
Dems on white horses? Not. Understand, PK?
Hi DONKEY HOTE - Welcome aboard, and please no need to second guess yourself (or apologize), as all inputs are needed for us to build a consensus and surmount the many psychopathic power-crazed government officials, as you are 100% correct in that they perfectly meet the definition.
We’re going to need a lot of good farmers all too soon, when the big corporations rot apart and the trucks stop moving commerce. Your skills and knowledge are likely more significant than most college educated ones, when it comes down to subsistence living. Your time may become extremely valuable to many, and may keep you feeling vital for decades.
I am sorry to read of your mix up with such wasteful and emotionless drecks of humanity, but perhaps it is part of their role in this odd world to stretch our compassion, or maybe prepare us for many more (but worse). Kind of like when the Dr. gives us a shot, to prevent a disease, just a little bit of evil at a time — until we can get stronger and fight back.
They will be stopped, and I glad to have had a chance to meet with you in this virtual existence on the web, and you’re not so un-learned to have forgone the internet, over TV. Thank you very much for coming on-line, and I’m certain that you have much to teach us youngsters.
We are a community without walls, and luckily for us mostly only the best make here, out of our compassion to save our children’s future. We are aligned, and building further collaboration every day.
Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi
You, DONKEY HOTE, have said it aloud. I was reading your post and I had a conversation with my oldest daughter from L.A., this afternoon and was telling her that the only conclusion I have come to is they are truly insane. Horrifically and truly insane. Psycopaths, indeed. Psychopathic sadists with borderline personality disorders. The pack of them.
A sense of history keeps us from repeating past mistakes. Vision & forethought guide us toward a better future. After reading Krugman for years, on a variety of topics other than just his forte of economics, it will be a sad day indeed if a future democratic or independent president doesn’t give him the nod for a cabinet post. Commerce or Treasury seem logical, but State is not out of the question.
Keep telling it like it is, Paul, and sticking up for the ‘little people’ like us.
Krugman mentions working class Americans, but we who were briefly allowed to live middle class lives during the 3-4 decades after WWII remain invisible to the Murderous Shit Media and to the putrescepunditocracy. La Clintonessa was stnading in front of those idiot screens that repeat endless The Message Of The Day on a blue backdrop — it was Rebuilding The Road to the Middle Class, because if appealling to workers would make it seem like, oh, we create wealth rather than business school graduates and investment bankers and fat excrement sacks in think tanks or Rupert Murderoch “creating wealth”.
As for Damoncratic Leaders, there was Gore standing shoulder to shoulder with his warcriminal pal George in the Whore House today, sunny and cheery as if the criminal enterprise had never stolen two elections. Ah, but there was a “cordial and substantive discussion”! which revealed the actual substance — something like cardboard or papiermaché — of Gore and those marvellous not-as-bad-as-Repuklicans . . .
This and the Stiglitz article, which is more of a long view, summarize the international human travesty that is the Bush administration. Amazingly, not one Republican candidate for president will put any daylight between himself and Mr. Bush on any issue–the economy, the war, the national debt, torture, terrorism–who in their right mind would vote for any of those clowns? Someone in their “Right” mind would; i.e., demonstrably insane.
You know, this is a really right-wing country to tolerate such overbearing stupidity in government, and even entertain proposals for more of the same in ‘09; but let anyone propose even one sensible idea that would help this country, and they would be jumped on with both feet for being a socialistic America-hater.
Siouxrose
I agree with Siouxrose, that Krugman overlooks “the blatant spiritual bankrupcy of modern times”. I wish to add, Krugman and almost all Americans.
Our Amerrican materialistic culture, namely corporate consumer capitalism, is the destroyer of democracy and spirituality. It has deadened our souls. It has taken away the higher angels of our nature. As spiritualy deprived Americans, we prefer not to think, so we simply choose not to know.
The practice of true particiapory democracy is a distinct act of the human spirit, far greater and more just than in the practice of religion. That is why the destruction of democracy can be such a national tragedy. Our leaders then are no longer free, free from corporate rule, to think great thoughts.
Also I might add, a capitalistic and corporate loving fundamentalist religious movement, knee deep in wealth and religious hypocracy, is attempting to partner with the power of corporate and militant America.
So sadly, American democracy has been replaced by a corporate oligarchy, enhanced and fueled by Madison avenue witchcraft.
These, I suggest, are the root causes of the spiritual bankrupcy of our times.
The answer in America is a revised democracy, a new spiritual awakening. The evolutionary destiny of humankind is really dependant upon the transformational power of spirituality, a higher global consciousness, working for a more just, sustainable and compassionate world.
In the event you are looking for the social, political, economic and environmental architecture for such a movement, Google The Earth Chater.
The unemployment stats are totally irrelevant.,all you have to do is look at how these stats are accumulated. If you are finished with your unemployment insurance even though you are still with out employment The agency collecting the data of unemployed removes you from their ranks of the unemployed
If you apply for these benefits and are denied, you are not a stat. If you are required to take any job by the bureau even though it only pays minimum wage, is seasonal, or temporary, you miss the unemployment stat.
All this plus the ones that are underemployed add up to a different picture entirely
Someone said, we really are a right wing country…so very true. For example, in 2008, it will be 40 years since Nixon became president…40 years that included 5 Republican presidents, and only 2 Dems. Those two Democrats, Carter and Clinton, are pretty amazing human beings…all those Republicans, just odious. And yet the nation keeps on electing these degenerates.
I am a longtime, highly appreciative Paul Krugman reader, and concur with PaulMagillSmith´s earlier post — Krugman for a cabinet post in the next Administration. With Krugman in, Gore designing energy policy, and a near certain larger Democratic majority in both house and Senate…we could lurch out way out of this nightmare yet.
RE: David in Manhattan November 27th, 2007
“And yet the nation keeps on electing these degenerates….With Krugman in, Gore designing energy policy, and a near certain larger Democratic majority in both house and Senate…we could lurch out way out of this nightmare yet.”
Sorry to be a wet blanket, David, but the more research I do the more I’m coming to believe the coup overthrowing our representative Republic is a fait accompli. I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to just lay down and give up, however. I think it is self delusional to think the problems we now face can be solved within the existing system.
Shortly there will be a serious crash of our economic system driving millions into financial ruin, all planned of course, so the ‘haves’ can swoop in like vultures and buy up (or just take) for a song what little the ‘have nots’ possess. Only at the height of misery will a true revolution be possible. Before that can occur people must be educated beforehand about what is about to happen, as it happens why it is happening, and (most important) who is making it happen.
Saying we are fighting corporations is not enough. We must put definite names & faces with the ogres instead of just letting them be the mythical ‘they’. Here is a good link about who some of the ‘theys’ are:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Spingola/deanna41.htm
ezeflyer and mcdee
you wrote:
““And yes, it goes all the way back to Carter.”
Good post McDee, but you must be too young to remember that the conservative ascendancy goes all the way back to Nixon.”
BOTH of you must be too young to recall that it was Truman who called troops out to stop workers from striking and got the anti-labor Taft-Hartley bill passed, thus effectively taking away from workers the hard earned legal right to strike passed by the FDR admin. (Wagner Act)
The Dems have been riding on the mythical FDR years as a “people´s party” and while the last real progressive Dem was a war hawk (Johnson) and the last real “liberal” Pres. was a criminal (Nixon)both parties want to keep the status quo regarding Taft-Hartley, single payer health care, and an imperial strategy overseas. (It was under Pres Clinton that single payer was taken OUT of the Dem party platform.)
As for Kucinich, take the blinders off people, he remains a Dem and won´t leave that party and as such he knows his party won´t advocate an end to Taft-Hartley or put a single payer system in place, or expand democracy by ending the Electoral College, instituting proportional representation or IRV, etc., etc. And we all know realistically that an advocate for a Dept of PEace and a vegan will not be elected Pres. of the US any time soon. If ever. It just won´t happen. Leave the fantasies behind, and leave the Dems.
Oh, for the pre-9/11 days of blind infatuation…weren’t it cool?
I usually enjoy Krugman’s articles but this is just… astonishing.
Is he cheering for “democratic” party? Are we talking hillary here? Isn’t she the one who got most corporate money so far? Is he serious?
Aaah… god old Bill Clinton days. Tech bubble, stock market speculations that sucked trillions from the newly opened markets, NAFTA, beginning of the housing bubble, couple of swift wars/bombings. If we could only have that back… sigh…
Admittedly, average Joe got 1% increase in real wages in that period. If you take into account the convergence of “lucky” events, that’s nothing. Krugman himself admits that this was one-time deal. If you just take into account the opening of eastern block and the resulting surge in global trade the resulting increase in employment and that 1% was probably on account of increased need for call-girls & money-counters for the rich. All this while blue-collar jobs were exported to China and white-collar ones to India.
republicans = two steps back
democrats = one step back
Now, imagine somebody coming to you before the game and telling you that your options are to lose or to lose big. After all, those are the rules.
Would you play that game or smack him over the head with that rule book?
Donkey Hote, I had a personal experience with a psychopath, which makes it very easy to recognize the signs in our current crop of ‘leaders’ in Washington. Like Bush and Cheney, she could be charming and convincing in her lies but, eventually, she couldn’t maintain the ‘mask of sanity’ and her true cold madness was obvious, just as it is now obvious to most that the Executive Branch is being run by madmen who care for nothing but profit and power. The psychopath I knew also ran her games for profit and her own personal sense of power.
Whatever may be said of the Democrats running for president, none of them impress me as the same kind of cold-hearted liars as Bush and Cheney, et al. All politicians lie and spin, of course, but BushCo lies about everything and has no one’s interest at heart but their own.
As far as a resurgence of spirituality — the real kind, not that abomination practiced by theocrats — I think that is already happening and will be spurred by the economic collapse that is just around the corner.
It might be useful, and mentally healthy, to recall that 200 years ago slavery was accepted in most of the world; today it is banned, even if third-world nations still suffer from its after-effects, as imposed by corporations chaining people to work tables for low wages. (At least they try to hide this miserable practice.) The notion of jettisoning war and corporate power currently seems as crazy as the elimination of slavery did two centuries ago — yet it happened.
PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) is conducting this straw poll to determine which of the currently declared Democratic Candidates our membership is supporting for President.
Polling is open until 3pm Eastern time on December 4.)
https://www.pdamerica.org/polls/poll-pres-2008-1.php
I believe Bush, Cheney and a number of their cohorts could better be described as sociopaths. Here’s a brief list of the characteristics of those without conscience:
- demonstrates shallow emotions
- glib and superficial
- secretive / monopolistic
- grandiose sense of self
- pathological liar
- sees others as target & opponents
- poor behavioral impulse control
- irresponsibility / unaccountable for actions
- parasitic
- authoritative / exercise despotic control over others
- does not perceive anything wrong with self
- Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
Sound like anyone you know??
McDee and Siouxrose–good points but I have to say first to McDee that actually it goes all the way back to Nixon and not jujst Carter–Isn’t that true about almost everyting wrong with this country? :<))? 1973 was the last year that th eaverage american workers wages increased in spending power and not just dollar amount.
Another key problem to add to Siouxrose’s #11 that has gotten us to where we are today economically are the treasonous trade agreements we have negotiated with the nations of the Far East (since Nixon) where we sold our birthright for a mess of UN and other votes and gave them our manufacturing jobs and a near monopoly on the manufacture of what we buy.
Regrettably, Paul Krugman has thrown his lot in with the internationalists and refuses to acknowledge the folly of NAFTA/CAFTA/GATT/WTO in the same stupid way that Democratic war critics refuse to acknowledge the folly of that whole enterprise and argue over “it’s better management”.
Poet, while I agree with a few of your points, we certainly didn’t send our jobs over to Asia as some kind of deal with the UN. That was entirely the function of the WTO, global corporations, and international trade treaties having nothing to do with the United Nations.
Also, you have to factor in HMOs and for-profit managed health care that started under Nixon and have driven up the medical costs in this country, as well as the GOP deregulation binge and the decimation of unions, which has allowed corporate power to reduce wages and benefits in the US with little reprisal, and created the housing/mortgage mess we’re currently seeing come to fruition.
You might also Google Paul Krugman’s past columns; he has taken a stand against NAFTA and the other trade agreements you cited, and against the Iraq debacle.
RSJ–
Thanks I stand corrected, I had Krugman confused with Norman Solomon who is a free trade appologist despite having many other fine positions on various things.
Once removed from the herd - whether that maybe via Princeton honors and the paved path of privledge or being given a de facto status as a modern day shaman . The reality is - perspicacity, paper and purpos are ALL meaningless - with out context.
How can Paul Krugman - who has never endured the ignomy, indignity and struggle of the middle class struggle –take part in it - even as a commentator. The world is truly MAD- when we listen to strangers who spout rhymes of insight - but are NO WHERE IN SIGHT.
Rhetoric takes precedence to honor, colums of calumnies apparently are more of abadge of honor than a resignation and volitional leadership through a wealth of charcter- obviously every one of our so called ‘prophets’ have chosen a poverty of committment rather than a poverty of wealth.
I was right in my post on Paul Krugman’s last article.
Dubai bailed out Citti Corp. NYT stated that oil rich nations and business interests awash in petrodollars are looking to buy up assets. This means that the taxpayer money and laissez faire legislation circulates wealth up to the government into the pockets of oil contractors and the enabling military industrial players, and then winds up coming back to buy up the assets of the same ruined taxpayers, who have to strain to afford gas for their cars and heating oil for their houses, which are located in deteriorating neighborhoods.
As stated, this is not an economy. It is a war, a rip-off, a massive power grab, based on defrauding the central banking apparatus.
Where US citizens are concerned, we should refer to it as the “Katrina Effect.”
European immigrants first pushed American Indians off the land. Now, the Bush’s republicans and democrat enablers are pushing middle class Americans off the land.
Poverty, violence, crime, war, illiteracy, pollution…these things all originate in corrupted government.
I believe that the attack on the middle class has been in effect since, roughly, 1980. Come Reagan, and things were never the same again. It used to be a high school education, while not making you rich, could earn you a living. Nowadays…forget it. If you don’t have a college degree, you might as well forget it. And even a college degree doesn’t get you very far. The problem is the fight against unions. Unions benefit the common people but all the companies are against them, for obvious reasons. I was in Florida the past week. What a case of haves and have nots. The schools are crap there. So much for Jeb helping all those kiddies. We live and work near DC, where home prices are incredible. Luckily, we bought seven years ago. But what about all the younger home buyers? I feel sorry for them.
STEVEN V RILEY: I Loved your post and every point you made in it. Many thanks for sharing your wise perspective!
EINSTEIN: Totally right on! War profiteering meets The Shock Doctrine meets Barnum, cause millions this time are the suckers!
Rick November 27th, 2007 8:51 a.m. posted this:
“PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) is conducting this straw poll to determine which of the currently declared Democratic Candidates our membership is supporting for President.
Polling is open until 3pm Eastern time on December 4.)
https://www.pdamerica.org/polls/poll-pres-2008-1.php”
You have to be a PDA member to vote in this poll.
RE: iyamwutiam November 28th, 2007 1:08 am
“How can Paul Krugman - who has never endured the ignomy, indignity and struggle of the middle class struggle –take part in it - even as a commentator.”
Need we remind you it is not necessary to step in front of a train to know it will kill you? Even if Krugman has been wealthy all his life (I have no idea nor care) I hope great fortune comes his way for the empathy he has consistantly shared with the less fortunate underdog. Lack of first hand experience can be trumped by possession of a conscience, which he exhibits in his words.
Are you familiar with the large group of millionaires & billionaires who reject doing away with the inheritance tax? Wealth is not always an indication of lack of ethics or morality, or grantor of higher intelligence, nor poverty an indicator of righteousness, or stupidity. For the record, I live (exist) well below the poverty line.