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The Great Pendulum of Economic Outrage Is About to Swing Again
The great pendulum of American economic outrage moves back and forth over time between anger at big government and anger at big business. For almost thirty years, big government has been the target -- starting with Ronald Reagan's admonition that government is the problem, not the solution; through Bill Clinton's declaration that the era of big government is over; and George W. Bush's hands-off brand of free market fundamentalism.
We deregulated much of the economy and pretty much allowed corporations to do what they wished. And for the first twenty years the result was largely good -- a buoyant economy, a bullish stock market, a strong dollar.
But now we're experiencing what happens when the pendulum swings too far and big business is given so much leeway that the public is harmed and the economy jeopardized. The corporate looting scandals that began with Enron were a wakeup call. Then came the practice of post-dating executive stock options. And more recently, an epidemic of unsafe products: drugs like Vioxx, tainted foods, Heparin and lead-painted toys imported from China.
We've had defense contractors that don't deliver on their contracts, and insurance companies that won't deliver on their promises. And just this past year, the subprime loan mess, a financial meltdown on Wall Street, out-of-control hedge funds and derivatives. Perhaps manipulation of oil futures markets.
The reality is that neither big government nor big business is the problem. Both are necessary parts of a modern economy. Problems arise when they're out of balance -- as they were by the 1970s, when government had grown so large it was stifling the economy, or as they have become this decade, as big business, including Wall Street, grew so irresponsible as to undermine public trust and threaten the economy.
Now the pendulum of outrage is swinging back against large corporations. America is heading toward another era of regulation. The real question is how smartly we go about it, and whether we can keep the pendulum from swinging too far.
Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers The Future of Success and Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Reich is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine. See his blog at http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
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Show All"We deregulated much of the economy and pretty much allowed corporations to do what they wished. And for the first twenty years the result was largely good — a buoyant economy, a bullish stock market, a strong dollar."
Oh? The result was largely good for the first 20 years? For whom? Chainsaw Al? Many were there when the bloody work was done and millions were thrown under the bus to "rebuild the wealth of our Oligarchy" Where in hell does Reich think the monsters got their billions? Buoyant economy? For whom? The ones with 3 jobs, the ones working 50-60hr weeks? Corporations are the mandibles of the spider I call Oligarchy. They shred our flesh into bite sized gobbets called Profits. Mr. Reich has been on the Dim team to make that happen.
"Keep the pendulum from swinging too far?" HOW MUCH of an Oligarchy do you want to keep? How much Freedom? How much Democracy? Who said we had to have ANY Oligarchy? He was worthless as Secretary of Labor under Klinton and did NOTHING for us. He is a Dim incrementalist who has given this country to Animals and has forgotten the first rule of Oligarchy:
MASTER DOESN'T SHARE.
It is amazing that Professor Reich can still argue that neither Big Government nor Big Corporations are "the problem".
If we had followed the teachings of Thomas Jefferson here in the US instead of Milton Friedman, we might not be in the economic & climatic catastrophe we have helped visit on the entire planet.
Both Big Corporations and Big Government working in concert over the last 100 years are responsible for a long list of crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, few will ever face justice.
Pendulum is one metaphor. Dying of thirst on a raft surrounded by saltwater is another.
We are collectively running out of historical energy sources and turning to coal will kill us as assuredly as drinking saltwater. Anger and jealousy, as often seen on blogs, will not make hay in the sunshine. I hope we can all get past tribal bias and work together for our mutual survival, or the pendulum will stop swinging.
"Now the pendulum of outrage is swinging back against large corporations."
Nah, Mr. Reich. The pendulum is NOT swinging away from Big Government. It's not swinging away from Big Corporations either. It's swinging against Big Bigness: the Corporatacracy that people like Bill Clinton and George Bush represent. Throw in Obama and Hillary too. And the New York Times. And Rupert. And the Federal Reserve. It's you guys; all you guys. All you Big Guys who run the world, the New World Order, the Global Village. Where you guys get to know all our secrets but we're shut out of yours. It's the Prison Planet where every keystroke -- including this One -- is recorded by Her Highness Technology and analyzed in some Big Government-Big Business database by some High Tech worshipping minion who will sell his soul to the highest bidder, be it China, India, or New Landia. Doesn't matter, it's all just Big Business in the GloboMart of the New Age Global Corporatacracy that you and Clinton love so much.
Big Business? Big Government? Give me a break. The real question is, "What's the diff?" It's all the same people in the Global Technocracy. You might call it Liberal; you might call it Conservative. You might call it Democrat, or you might call it Republican. And don't forget The Moderates. Throw them in too. You all serve the Technocracy, the Corporatacracy, the consolidation of power by the Scientific Dictatorship on a global basis. It's no longer Left verses Right, Communist verses Free World, or Women verses Men. It's the Insiders verses the Outsiders. And you guys, all you Big Guys, are the Insiders and the rest of us are out. Soon to be Down and Out once you Insiders decide to drop the hammer on Iran and raise the price of oil to $400 a barrel and drive the final stake through the heart of the USA. Then you can rule with no more opposition...
Rule, that is, until all Hell breaks loose on earth. And then we'll see who's really in charge. And I can guarantee you this: It won't be you Big Guys. You will be brought down by powers far greater than Her Highness Technology whom you worship and trust as your Savior. She will betray you, Mr. Reich. Meanwhile, dream on...while you still can. See the rest of you at www.sillyConValley.net.
wow I read that luckylefty diatribe. evil companies, evil profits in flesh sized bites, Chainsaw Al and the Oligarchs, drivel, drivel, slobber, slobber. I don't even want to ask what ll thinks the solution is.
fruitcake ...
'Neither nor' sort of nonsense. Can't CD come up with better economic commentary than this to republish? I can see why Clinton has him around.
Big government, big buisiness, big bigness. I think in his memory we need to stop and consider George Carlins view on war(conflict). A bunch of guys trying to prove who has the bigger prick. Kind of sums up all our problems.
"We deregulated much of the economy and pretty much allowed corporations to do what they wished. And for the first twenty years the result was largely good — a buoyant economy, a bullish stock market, a strong dollar."
Twenty years would be 1980-2000, or the end of time Reich was in Clinton Administration. Self-serving twaddle.
Clinton/Reich attacks on middle class were masked by rising productivity (from Bill Gates finally releasing a relatively bug-free version of his horseshit Windows operating system.)
"...And for the first twenty years the result was largely good..."
Are you kidding? For whom? This economic predation was a problem right from the start! One of the first signs was the sudden explosion in the numbers of street people. The wealthy 80's, hmph!
Reich is clearly still not looking in the right places. Not only that, as long as he continues to frame the issue as a "government-vs-corporations" struggle, he is deliberately missing the true form and extent of this shift in wealth to the top. As long as government and corporations are the same people, as they currently are, no improvement in the middle and working classes can occur.
Reich is a mere courtier - he is one of the professional fibbers that have driven America into the ground. Like T.L.Friedman, he also needs us to keep believing the earth is flat.
"We deregulated much of the economy and pretty much allowed corporations to do what they wished. And for the first twenty years the result was largely good — a buoyant economy, a bullish stock market, a strong dollar."
Corporations love regulation. Who do you think controls the regulating agencies and bodies? Answer - the corporations themselves. They regulate to reduce competition and to increase the cost of smaller businesses from entering their markets. Most of the New Deal regulation did nothing more than grant monopoly power (despite Roosevelt's rhetoric against monopolies).
Licensing restrictions are increasing while union membership is declining.
See also Upjohn Paper on Regulation
This site is being buggy! I get an error when I edit.
Also see Regulating Professions: Quality or Monopoly
Humbug. I thought this was going to be about the GREAT pendulum, not the fair-sized one that swings over a few years. 400 years ago, the wealth-of-the-white-man in North America was but a dream. 50 years ago, far from being a dream, the wealth was the greatest in the world, possibly in the history of the world. Now, we owe more than we own, and we owe more than we'll ever be able to repay. We have to debauch our currencies, or go bankrupt. Centuries of wealth accumulation, wiped out in decades, and the author looks at the fashions shifting from one political administration to the next. Step back from the trees, have a look at the forest, if you wanna see what we're really up against.
We avoided war. We got rich. Then we sought out war. Now we're getting poor. But that's just too complicated for the average voter to grasp.
1) about bloody time
2) and now the charter of corporate America needs to be rewritten to outline a new purpose -- not to solely make more money than God and give it to CEOs, but to do a halfway decent job and not crap out the planet in the process.
Robert Reich needs to hook into the reality that most of us, 1970s onward, got nowt but the shaft.
Robert Reich sucks. This article is only so much fluff, wind, and centrist bombast.
Maybe we're swinging away from Big Business and toward reregulation. But the 'knife in the back' by those who espoused deregulation was what they did to our national debt.
If Republicans believed in 'small government' then it seems to me they were obligated to actually make the government smaller via spending (not just tax) cuts. For 30 years Republicans have essentially been promising Americans that they could have their cake and eat it too, and now an entire generation of Americans, just coming of age, is going to have to pay for that fantasy.
Cutting taxes without also cutting spending is placing a bet on private enterprise with public funds. Unlike private investing, YOU personally are under no obligation to actually pay that loan back if the bet goes sour: just roll it over and get the kids or grandkids to pay it. And, without that kind of pressure being applied, when would such a bet EVER pay off? NO investment maturity is being enforced, its just 'hey, free money, lets have a party!'. And party the Republicans did. THEY said they were investing in the economy, and its growth would pay that loan back. But, there being no pressure to invest wisely, they blew the money and the loan has gotten bigger. What Bush has done to it is more than just stupid, however. Its criminal.
That explains how we can be here, 20 years after Reagan left office, and NONE of his debt has been paid yet. People who weren't even BORN when he was in office are going to have to pay, essentially, for his administration, and in particular for his re-election campaign. In between that payment, and the debts creation, ordinary Americans will have paid $1 trillion out of pocket just paying the INTEREST on the debt Reagan left the country. That $1 trillion is as useless an investment as the $3 trillion we are burning in Iraq.
Republicans always preach about the 'time value of money'. Borrowing from their grandchildren sure must have seemed 'timely' at the time. If I were young, NO WONDER I'd want the pendulum swinging back the other way.
Robert Reich used to be pretty good. Clinton even kicked him off his cabinet for being too left-wing. He sounds like has hopped on the sold-out Obama bandwagon in this piece. Go tell the people from Gary Indiana, to Flint MI, to Scranton, PA the meatpacking plants in Iowa, to the textile mills in the Carolinas, how good the first 20 years of Reganomics were.
His (and a while back, Obama's) tatment of how "large government" was "stifling the economy" in the 1970's is preposterous! First of all it's absolutely not true. "Big government", and particularly deficit spending - exploded under Reagan/Bush. The Military-Industrial complex grew enormously while every single thing decent that government could do was deeply slashed.
But, even if it were true, Has Prof. Reich thrown his Keynesian economics under the bus too? What about Europe? - they have big socialistic governments that make any "excess" of the US government look like Milton Friedman's wet-dream? Yet, the economy of the EU is doing comparatively pretty good.
One more joins the sell-out list...
I simply want to reduce each and every corporation to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in my bathtub.
NO, Mr. Reich.
This swinging of the pendulum is NOT the cause of the problems you cite. What's more, I can't help but wonder if this mis-analysis is just carelessness on your part, or if it is deliberately misleading and dumbed down. Either way, this kind of drivel is, itself, an enormous part of the problem.
The Great Cause of the problems you cite, and of most of the frightening realities we face today, is the accumulation of far too much power in the hands of far too few. It does not matter whether those hands are in government or in business -- power is an equal-opportunity breeder of corruption. And when when Big Corporate Power is allowed to combine unchecked with Big Government Power (by definition, an essential component of fascism), the rights of the citizen are just so much dust under your over-polished heels.
Even setting aside today's brazenly incestuous relationship between business and government, do you really expect us to look at our government today -- with it's gluttonous fiscal irresponsibility, and it's rampant criminal-level abuses of all things legal, ethical, moral and HUMAN -- and noting the deregulation, you somehow expect us to believe that the pendulum has swung AWAY from Big Government, simply because the corruption has accelerated at the hands of people who call themselves Republicans? You expect us not to notice that, since 2006, the acceleration of corruption has not only continued, but worsened, at the hands of people who call themselves Democrats?
Take a break from jeering a Bush's approval ratings, and take a look at those of Congress. Now ask yourself: when the act of seizing power, blatantly, for its own sake, and by any means necessary, is the only guiding "ethic" that has any teeth inside the Beltway -- do you really expect us to keep believing that it makes one whit of difference whether that truncheon is wielded by "Democrats" or by "Republicans"? By "liberals" or by "conservatives"? By "the left" or by "the right"?
Think again.
And keep your fallacy -- your false-choice fantasy -- to yourself. The only thing that can save this country now is a near-lethal dose of reality. And reality is something that, whether due to negligence or to deceit, you are clearly not offering.
"With all due respect, Sir."
There's a lot of regulating being done - to us. We're so regulated now we can hardly move because of our regulations.
Wow. Nobody bought it! Well done! The Reagan Bush years seemed good in some ways because the government borrowed billions and handed it out. In those days everyone had a party with borrowed money and set up the situation we have today. Reagan's massive deficits began the economic decline of the US. Now, the dollar is falling and the debt is massive. If I went out and borrowed without limit I'd have a good time too, for a while. Then what?
I don't buy it either.
USan said it for me.
Robert Reich was part of the team that baby sat the current plight
of the working people as it grew. He was the Secrretary of Labor as
NAFTA and globalization decimated the jobs of workers in this
country. I think his main worry right now is not to re-regulate
big business to what in his opinion is "too much". Oh Ya.
He and his ilk are the source of too much suffering for the working poeple and enough is enough. He should shup up and go away.
Robert Reich sold out years ago. I was about to say what Atexan June 25th, 2008 7:07 pm said just before me.
Sold out the American worker and set up latinos for exploitation! Thanks Bob and the Mexican farmers really owe you one.
Bullshit! The pendulum can never swing too far towards economic justice. If it could, we would have it. Both big government and big business must disappear for humans to be given true justice and a true democracy. How much do you make Mr. Reich? What's the national average? Do you really think you out-produce the rest of those people? Rethink your formal training sir.
Fuck the pendulum. Act for yourselves and don't listen to elves (intellectual/political/actual) like Reich.
DKMNOW & JAVA RUNNER: Excellent posts.
You were right about one thing, Mr. Reich. A great pendulum has, in fact, begun to swing. Unfortunately for you, however, it is not the same pendulum to which you refer. Rather, as you might be able to discern from the recurring theme running through most of the commentaries that have been appended to your statement, people begin to see through the haze, and they are speaking to their new found truths. It is YOUR haze, Mr. Reich, of which I speak, and the haze perpetrated by some of your most infamous, smoke-and-mirror colleagues, such as Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, and the "Shrub". In fact, one might reasonably call all of you shrubs--being that you are so substantially short on credibility!
The center will hold; the ramparts will not fall. Corporate America has a new face to sell its agenda to continue its control of the American mind and pocket book: Barack Obama.
Sorry folks but the vast majority of the American people are idiots. They are going to keep buying the corporate line long after we start to freeze by the thousands and stand in miles long lines for bread and jobs that aren't there.
Both McCain and Obama are going to run on the free-pony ticket one last time as mother nature kicks our collective ass to the gutter. From now to November you will be promised that there is a free pony waiting for you if only you purchase the secret map to the big rock candy mountain from the candidate of your favorite skin color.
It's not true. The great free ride that the US inherited with Texas oil has run out of quarters and we are trying to pay the boatman with wooden nickels when all he will take is good silver.
Your money is worthless and your jobs are mostly exercises in make-work. The oil to run your giant SUV's is gone and there are no more Prii at the lot.
Look to month after month of people being freaking baffled as fire on one side and flood on another destroy what they took lifetimes to buy on credit.
Nature, up to bat. Seventh inning, swinging for the water.
I believe that the pendulum is really a
___ W R E C K I N G __ B A L L ___
I know that my spiritual perspective …
… is nominally seen by most as 'out-of-this-world', but that is my point -- the swing is moving away from the outside dimension of superficial materialism - and now moving toward the inner PEACE of eternal spiritualism.
¿ __ W H E R E __ A R E __ W E __ G O I N G __ ?
WE are on the threshold of a common dream of immense proportion, where OUR living and actions in the physical world will become imbued with the deepest of spiritual enlightenment, that we've previously only known from the very few of our highest regarded masters of spiritual presence ( Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tsu, Mohammad, … ).
There is no back movement to more materialism, as that path has peaked and never has delivered upon the Earthly rewards promised, as those rewards are quintessentially insignificant to enlightened consciousness.
¿ __ W H A T __ D O __ W E __ G A I N __ ?
The awakening that we're posed on the brink of, is in part the termination of useless aspects of competition - forcing us to shallowly become ( too few ) winners and ( too many ) losers.
We need a new world view that is inclusive, builds growth with win/win, no longer creates divisiveness, and where commonalities trump what appears to separate us from each other ( needs are essentially common ).
¿ __ W H A T __ D O __ W E __ L O S E __ ?
Yes the inward pendulums swing is going to be a destructive WRECKING of "what is" from the point of view of hierarchy and power structure -- although well compensated for with increased HEALTH, LIFE, satisfaction, ABUNDANCE, purpose, JOY, PEACE, beauty, appreciation, excitement, and meeting all of humankind's deepest needs ( w/o cruelty or suffering ).
Greed is not really a need, it is more like a mental disease out of the illusion of scarcity, while attempting to force control and manipulate others -- and that is always destined to ultimately fail.
¿ __ W H A T __ W I L L __ I T __ B E __ L I K E __ ?
I know not what society will "look" like, but much of what is already good in meeting people's true wants that will increasingly take center stage, while that which hinders our growth and values will eventually decline to vestigial non-existence.
There is no other, than the ONE.
Know thyself, and the UNIVERSE is to BE yours
Namaste
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King
How does an idiot like Reich get a job? By slavishly stating the obvious as though it were an original idea. What a putz.
Reich may be a professor at UC Berkeley, but that doesn't mean that he's not "bought and paid for" by the govt and ruling elites; and, after all, he is a professor of 'Public Policy', which definitely relates to govt policies, and at 'The Goldman School', which is not favourable in terms of perceiving him as a truly honest and reality-based individual. And a lot of university professors are in the category labeled 'PHB', for 'pointy-headed boss', which was very commonly used by computer professionals about employers when not working in the hi-tech industry, where employers, managers anyway, really [knew] much about tech. and our actual work, while not finding that but seldomly when working in other industries.
Maybe PHB doesn't really apply to him, but he's lying, and the only question is whether it's done deliberately and deceptively, or due to being very negligent and or ignorant.
After all, he only allows for the past 30 years, while there's far longer history to what the article's about, besides what his secret intention may very likely be and which is to [deceive]. He perhaps is right that there may or will be more regulation, but it's clearly not going to likely be in terms that are seriously favourable to [most] Americans, and to residents who just haven't obtained citizenship status yet; and that's besides the many millions of poor and low income people in countries that have very serious business ties with big business and big govt in the USA.
Piece of junk his article really is, and there's far, far better, including considerably or very exhaustive (in terms of coverage), articles at www.globalresearch.ca , which make Reich's article definitely seem far more of the order of bs, propaganda, intended to deceive. He's lying using half-truths and that half that bears truth is MINOR, LITTLE, quite WORTHLESS. He evidently wrote this only to try to deceptively generate [appeasement] among the U.S. population, because the ruling elites don't want outraged and ever more strongly acting or active masses; needing to keep them nicely quieted, calmed, ..., tranquilized with the mind-dope they try to get us to "consume" or swallow, or absorb.
pangolin June 26th, 2008 12:51 am
Sorry folks but the vast majority of the American people are idiots.
Sorry, don't think so. It just takes them years to reach consensus. Though I believe the Internet is beginning to make serious inroads on this time frame.
Berekely is one of the biggest pigs at the trough of the public purse and big business. Don't be fooled by that bunch.
JavaRunner: "It's no longer Left verses Right, Communist verses Free World, or Women verses Men. It's the Insiders verses the Outsiders. And you guys, all you Big Guys, are the Insiders and the rest of us are out."
Good observation and good post. As much as anyone hates to admit it, that is the bottom line, you're an insider or outsider, and MOST of us are OUT. The only thing that will change this equation is constant imbalance and constant injustice. When enough of us "outsiders" get tired of getting fucked over by the "insiders", that is when and only when things will change. A vote for Obama is a vote for McCain, which is a vote for coorporate insiders, which is no vote at all.
1) Wealth has been over-concentrating around the richest one-tenth of one percent of Americans since the advent of Reaganomics. 28 years now.
2) One of the first things Reagan did was slash federal subsidies to the States for mental health care. The result was thousands of mentally ill people (schizophrenics, mildly retarded, etc.) incapable of providing homes for themselves being summarily tossed out of mental facilities and into the street. I'm 46 and never laid eyes on a homeless person in my life until the year after Reagan took office. Homelessness used to shock Americans. Now it's business as usual. The irony is that we are supposed to be a more religious nation compared to Europe.
3) Worker productivity in the U.S. soared when computers revolutionized the workplace in the late 1980s and throughout the '90s with no commensurate gains in real average income and gradual losses in workers' benefits. The wealth all concentrated at the top. That continues to this day.
4) The "free trade" regime, GATT, NAFTA and the WTO were all sold to the American public and U.S. labor unions with the lie that they would create more and better paying jobs in the U.S. than they lost. Within 3 years of its signing, NAFTA was losing so many more better paying jobs than it was creating in the U.S., President Bill Clinton ordered his Secretary of Labor to stop keeping statistics on the job losses caused by NAFTA. Bush II never resumed gathering that data and that is why there are no sector-by-sector analyses for NAFTA job losses ever intelligently discussed in what passes for American "news."
5) Social Security and Medicare aside (because even the rich qualify for both at some point in their lives), the U.S. NEVER spent more than $45 Billion dollars a year on Welfare State programs like General Assistance, Food Stamps, Women with Infant vouchers, etc. Throughout the period from 1989 to now the annual taxpayer subsidies, kick-backs, protectionism, etc., for the super-rich known as CORPORATE WELFARE have never fallen below $300 billion dollars and are now, including our bloated, incompetent Bush-crony energy and war contractors, considerably higher.
6) THIS IS AMERICA'S & THE GOP'S & CORPORATE MEDIA'S DIRTY BIG SECRET: Socialism for the poor is smeared as bad because it is characterized as making the poor dependent on the government and whichever political party panders to it with programs. But Socialism for the rich is business-as-usual, obscenely more substantial in amounts, and not to be discussed by our ruling class or the corporate media arm of our ruling class oligarchs. When laissez-faire capitalist pigs like Grover Norquist are (rarely) asked about the need to reform Corporate Welfare they give lip service to it but NEVER push legislation. This is all an extension of the same con Republicans use to convince small to medium-sized business owners that they actually care about them, but when they get in office they slash money for small business loans the same way they praise the troops and repeatedly try to slash pay increases and benefits for them.
7) By around 1992 or 1993, ABC News ran a "human interest" soundbite proclaiming that economists and historians had figured out that the income disparity at that time in America between entry level workers and the richest one-tenth of one percent of Americans was already wider than between the average peasant and the average landed aristocrat in France shortly before the French revolution. That was when average CEOs earned about 45 times what entry level workers earned--not 400 times (what average CEOs now earn) what entry level workers earn now. A few years after this, Big Media's broadcast news divisions, who had not yet completely sold out, were talking about the fact that the generation of Americans coming of age in the mid- to late 1990s were the first generation in U.S. history a majority of whom would earn less and have an inferior living standard with fewer job benefits than their elders. Wealth was still concentrating at the very top throughout this period and by 1996 the U.S. Department of Treasury announced that wealthy Americans were hiding $300 Billion dollars of taxable income annually in illegal offshore tax havens. No telling what that figure is now. No telling. There's a reason why Halliburton moved to relocate its global headquarters to Dubai.
8) A few years back, pressed on the negative consequences and unpopularity of NAFTA and the WTO, Bill Clinton himself publicly apologized to the screaming silence of the corporate press. Robert Reich, who is to the Left of Clinton, knows this and has mentioned the need for a more modernized version of New Deal type programs to compensate for the now destabilizing income/class disparities in the U.S. I think his article is his way of jockeying for position in hopes of getting a job in an Obama administration by floating a dumbed-down trial balloon on a Leftist site like CommonDreams and letting all the hydrophobic far-Left fringies explode into vitriolic pot-shots at his article so he can say to the Washington Weekers of Big Media: "See, I'm a centrist!"
9) Perhaps the biggest obscenity in the Bush II era--compounded by Big Media's now thoroughly corrupt avoidance or deliberate mischaracterization of it--is Bush II's sustained tax cuts for the richest Americans during self-generated war-time. Not just when America is struggling to pay for one war, but multiple wars in places like Afghanistan, Somalia, briefly in Lebanon, and covert wars in Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but so far as I've been able to discern from world historians, no other leader in ALL of human history has EVER done this prior to George Duhhhbya Bush, and no national press has EVER been so complicit in such fiscal imperial suicide.
Metal,
Very good!
"The reality is that neither big government nor big business is the problem. Both are necessary parts of a modern economy. Problems arise when they're out of balance."
I'm sick of this cliche. No economy run by powerful corporations will ever be "free" and no country run by a concentrated, patriarchal government will ever peaceful. The big government/big business dichotomy myth we hear being spread around is a lie. Neither big government or big business have a role to play in a free and just society. We need to reorganize both our government and economy on local, truly democratic models.
Somewhere between too crass and too subtle must be a way to express and expose the crap in this forum. Many folks do make good points, but what is lost is how the behaviors of governments and the governed (and the self-serving BS of those who would be king) are ages old and completely predictable phenomena innate to basic egoistic human nature.
Where was everybody here during the unfolding of this completely predictable mess? Why couldn't folks have had meaningful, insightful credible discussions about what was happening, or could happen, before it all got screwed up, again?
For decades nobody wanted to think about it, not wanting to disrupt the status quo. Dissenters, contrarians and purists alike are/were willfully mocked as "uncool" and not "with it." Constructive and logical reasoning was/is dismissed as ad homonym and self-serving by those who themselves are unwilling and incapable of being constructive or reasoning beyond doing little more than acting presumptive and/or dismissive toward the issues and others. But, constructive discussion and sound reasoning is probative not dismissive nor presumptive.
Irrespective of the historical record and provable events, or notable wisdom of the ages, everyday folks continually choose to believe in and practice feel-good mindless times, hypnotic work trance states and intoxicating consumerism.
What we are experiencing as a society is completely logical and solvable, given an actual understanding for common attitudes and the common will. Business, government, bigness or whatever has no meaning whatsoever aside from what WE give it. Period. It is not what others do to us. Leaving reality to your fearless and flawed leaders, corporate bosses, greedy shareholders, 5th Avenue style marketers, and appointed "official" authorities speaks volumes to that point.
And the bickering and false faces here prove why "they" can divide and conquer "us." But ours is not to reason why, it is to but do and die. And after all, y'all are just doing your job, right?! You can't unionize and your silly attempts to boycott or protest are ineffective - because you/we just don't have the critical mass. Maybe, if you/we could stay focused? Yea, right! Must be all the chemicals :-)
All the cliches apply, and barely a single person on this forum ever gets to the heart of the matter. Pendulum or no, big or small, us or them, if you're so damn smart, then you shouldn't have any problem furthering the founders' vision for our posterity, right?
Or, have I just missed the real point - that being to make as much chatter as possible, and not to actually delve too deeply into what actually ails us as a race, and nation?
Carlin is right.
To cosmobilly,
You just gave us a long diatribe about how ineffective the people are in
identifying the real reason for society problems and how to solve it.
You did not give us your explanation for why it is that way and did not
suggest any remedy for that situation.
May I remind you that not everybody is as "smart" and "perfect" as
you and any solution should take that into cosideration.
I will be away from the computer for few days due to an operation.
"You just gave us a long diatribe" - dismissive?
"identifying the real reason for society problems and how to solve it.
You did not give us your explanation for why it is that way and did not
suggest any remedy for that situation" -
I repeat:
For decades nobody wanted to think about it, not wanting to disrupt the status quo. Dissenters, contrarians and purists alike are/were willfully mocked as "uncool" and not "with it." [Or dismissed as conspiracy nuts, anti-semites, etc.]
>>>Constructive and logical reasoning was/is dismissed as ad homonym and self-serving by those who themselves are unwilling and incapable of being constructive or reasoning beyond doing little more than acting presumptive and/or dismissive toward the issues and others.
>>>But, constructive discussion and sound reasoning is probative not dismissive nor presumptive.
>>>Irrespective of the historical record and provable events, or notable wisdom of the ages, everyday folks continually choose to believe in and practice feel-good mindless times, hypnotic work trance states and intoxicating consumerism.
>>>Leaving reality to your fearless and flawed leaders, corporate bosses, greedy shareholders, 5th Avenue style marketers, and appointed "official" authorities speaks volumes to that point.
"May I remind you that not everybody is as "smart" and "perfect" as
you and any solution should take that into consideration." - WOW
Henry Ford - "whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you are correct"
>>> Maybe, if you/we could stay focused? - On the issues, not me.
But thank you for demonstrating so perfectly the problem.
The problem goes precisely to the discourse, and to understanding the egoistic aspects of human nature. Which you precisely demonstrated with your attempts to slight my argument and my tact, me. Where is your own probative inquiry to the nature of the beast? Where is your effort to read between the lines, to seek to understand the questions and issues? Your inference that I or anyone should identify the issues and spell it out clearly for you is precisely the hurdle that needs to be overcome. The fact is that the answers are there for those willing to find them. And we can get to the solutions only when we come together to do that rather than to be dismissive of others and egocentric in our characterizations.
I have in other posts been clear on trying to communicate the concerns you express, but the fact is that many folks can or will not relate, which confirms Carlin's observations as of late. Others have also stated in various ways on this forum (in less gracious terms) - by virtue of the American school system - most Americans have lost the ability to think critically, to properly deconstruct argument, and to engage in meaningful discourse - especially respecting politics and posterity. Its all become just a horse race of opinions, not about sound reasoning of principles and high-mindedness.
The best I or anyone can do is lead the proverbial horse to water, nobody can make him drink if he just doesn't want to. The American spirit was never about self-anointed rightness or cocky swagger, but rather about cooperation and ingenuity.
Try demonstrating your cleverness that way. Then and only then will the answers, which have always been here, become visible. When you and others here become genuinely sincere about solving problems more than merely chattering about them, or being sarcastic, then the way will become clear.
Seek and ye shall find...
pangolin June 26th, 2008 12:51 am
Sorry folks but the vast majority of the American people are idiots.
I asked several members of the vast majority - they respectfully disagreed with mr/mrs/ms pangolin but we thought lost, dazed and confused might be a better description. All we really need is a savior to lead us from our dark, oppressive, materialistic, debt ridden, SUV driving pointless existence to Nirvana ! Perhaps mr/mrs/ms pangolin might help us if he/she/it could stop slobbering into his/her/it's keyboard.
Idiots- An easy example. Most of the US populace uses air conditioning in the summer to cool their houses at considerable expense. The most popular roof color: black.
Everyone in the US is complaining about gasoline prices. Since Force=mass X velocity^2 then the easiest way to reduce gasoline consumption is to slow average speeds. An experiment that we tried and survived before. Political support for return to 55 mph speed limit: zero.
George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagun (google: In search of reagans brain)- A nation that tolerates alzheimers patients and dyslexic sociopaths in it's highest office can't be all that bright.
The popularity of lotteries and debt financing. Economics for the innumerate.
SUV's.
We could go on and on here. As a group we have the IQ of a bag of sandstone.
"The great pendulum of American economic outrage moves back and forth over time between anger at big government and anger at big business."
Unfortunately, Mr. Reich, "Big Government" and "Big Business" are now the same thing, interchangable. Anger at one no longer equates to a change in either. It's all smoke and mirrors and bread and circuses now. While a misinformed public plays the blame-game, the agenda continues unabated.
gotov, pangolin, MikeBinSC - it is true that priorities are confused, misinformation abounds and way too many make sweeping generalizations with little to nothing to substantiate them.
But, sincerely, how does it change. You can speak the truth, and even provide unequivocal support for your conclusions, and yet for way too many folks it still reduces down to being your mere opinion. Even in blatant denial of realities!
A spiritual or religious person should believe that truth is knowable, yet we've seen how perceptions can be influenced, how people can even be made to doubt even themselves.
How do we pierce the fog, and enjoin the masses in a truly fruitful pursuit for posterity? How do we expose the characteristics, false goals and deceptions that subjugate the common masses in perpetuity?
How do you wait and allow for folks to figure it out for themselves, while in the meantime things go to hell in a handbasket?
The five estates are part of the problem, not the solution.
We need a new vision...
Yes COSMOBILLY !
We do need a new _ V I S I O N _
This is what I was describing above ( as screen name sup.presence, on June 26th, 2008 at 1:41 am ), but no one commented upon the spiritual VISION for change.
What do you think of my VISION ?
Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King
Veracity, I love the vision, but I fear that the journey to it will be fraught with hardship and peril for many who are not prepared to make it, and are afraid to release their stranglehold on the material world. Eventually they will be forced to turn loose, as their grip is killing both them and the world.
Tough audience here, isn't it Mr. Reich?
I think your going to have to dig a little deeper!
M I K E _ B I N _ S C
I had a bit of an epiphany tonight, responding on another thread about what the neoCONs have enthralled clueless Americans to do.
The WEDGE issue here is how Americans are already living a VISION, except it's that insane one propagated through insipid Jacka$$ stream Media channels, of entitlement to being greedy w/o any consequences, attacking other countries while murdering millions, and thieving trillions, building up ULTIMATELY to one world hegemony and destruction of America and all the world's freedoms, being that we are so great and free … … …
"¿ __ So __ ?"
__ W E _ D E S E R V E _ I T _ A L L __!
See my other thread discussing the negative reinforcement side to this creation, for us to decide which "_I T _" we're going to be creating !
What is very hard to believe, is that the pursuit of the neoCON's dream is just one of the many possible dreams that American's can have.
__ W E ___ N E E D ___ T O ___ C H O S E ___
___ T H E ___ B E S T ___ P O S I B L E ____
____________ D _ R _ E _ A _ M ______________
.
____ F O R ___ O U R ___ F U T U R E _____
.
____ F O R ___ O U R ___ C H I L D R E N _____
.
Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King
The answer Mr.Reich, is "WE THE PEOPLE".The problem as always been that both government and the corporate world spend all their time trying to figure out new ways of stealing away the wealth of "WE THE PEOPLES"labor and for the most they part have been successful.
If big government and big business of which you were employed would just stay out of the "WE THE PEOPLES" business, which was what our forefathers orginally intended. This experiment in democracy just might have achance to acheive it true goal.. "The Pursuit of Happiness".
Another words, stay out of our lives, and stop robbing us blind!
Jerome a Paris calls the Anglo Disease – "the highly unequal economy whereby the rich and the financial sector . . . capture most of the income but hide it by providing cheap debt to the middle classes so that they can continue to spend." He calls "finance" the "cannibalistic" sector in today's economy. Writing in The European Tribune this month, he states:
"[O]ne of the more attractive features of the financial world, for its promoters, is its ability to concentrate huge fortunes in a small number of hands, and promote this as a good thing (these people are said to be creating wealth, rather than capturing it). . . . [O]f course, the reality is that such wealth concentration is created by squeezing the rest, as is obvious in the stagnation of incomes for most in the middle and lower rungs of society. This is not so much wealth creation as wealth redistribution, from the many to the few. But what has made this unequality . . . tolerable is that the financial world itself was able to provide a convenient smokescreen, in the form of cheap debt, provided in abundance to all. The wealthy used it to grab real assets in funny money, and the rest were kindly allowed to keep on spending by tapping their future income rather than their insufficient current one; in a nutshell, the debt bubble hid the class warfare waged by the rich against everybody else."1