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Published on Thursday, August 20, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Searching for the Depression—And Finding It!
Economic Stress Is Hidden, But It’s There in a Recovery That Isn’t.
Last week I was telling a visiting filmmaker from overseas about the financial crisis and how it was getting worse. He looked at me askance. The market had just gone up, he said, and the White House was talking about an emerging recovery.
“I have been in New York before, he said, and it looks the same.”
A lot of the pain is hidden, I told him, hidden behind the deceptive spin in our media or buried in the denial and delusions of many people on the streets who have not taken the trouble to try to understand the nature of the calamity they are living through.
On the elevator, we pass the offices of City Harvest, a charity that collects excess food from restaurants and distributes it to shelters and programs for the hungry. An employee explains that with the restaurant business way off, they have less to donate. What about the demand by the hungry, I ask? With a shrug, he tells me the need is way up. (AP is reporting, “The nation's food banks, struggling to meet demand in hard times, are turning to prison inmates for free labor to help feed the hungry.”)
Out in the street, you soon notice fewer cabs and town cars. More people are walking or using public transportation, even though the fares recently went up. Even that is deceptive because there are still a lot of tourists in Midtown to complicate the picture. New Yorkers have other things on their minds. There are retail vacancies on every block. Other stores are discounting everything. The fast food places have their specials going for $2-5 dollars. Many of the clothing stories look like good will shops. When a JC Penny opened a store in Midtown, 15,000 people applied for 500 jobs.
As we walked downtown, we passed nearly empty bars and restaurants, a sign that the most customers are staying away. Media reports are now confirming what I saw. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Major retailers reported that American consumers are continuing to hunker down, casting a cloud over the durability of the U.S. recovery and underscoring the importance of overseas demand in restoring the world economy to health. Retailers across the spectrum provided foreboding reports.”
Down where I live, you also pass new buildings with empty stores and unsold apartments. The foreclosure crisis is already hitting New York’s condos and co-ops. You just can’t see it from the street the way you can in a suburban tract. When you read the auction notices, you realize its real. A new wave of foreclosures is expected and not just in poor homes. The middle class and commercial real estate is affected.
Almost every block on 8th Avenue in Chelsea has a new bank branch. It’s like ATM heaven except most are not crowded. There was a report last week that banking industry opened 10,000 branches over the last five years. Most were based in shopping areas or concentrated in affluent neighborhoods. Only a small number are in poorer communities, especially those victimized by predatory subprime lending. The New York Times reported this week that 91,100 NY households hide their savings in closets, in pillows — even in brown paper lunch bags, just not at a bank
Meanwhile, every week, more banks are going bust and being taken over and sold by the FDIC. There are reports that the FDIC itself is insolvent.
And as for the markets, cooler heads prevailed when the wisemen realized that consumer demand has fallen up as defaults and delinquencies rise
Inequality is mounting in social and racial terms. Recent statistics: cited in a Times study: "From the first quarter in 2008 to the first quarter in 2009, the national unemployment rates for blacks rose from 8.9 percent to 13.6 percent, compared to a rise for whites of 4.8 percent to 8.2 percent. In NYC, it was even worse: from 5.7 percent to 14.7 percent, compared to 3.0 percent to 3.7 percent for whites.”
Remember these statistics notoriously undercount those not looking for jobs that are not there. Unless you are following the trajectory of this crisis you might not know that economist Nouriel Roubini, who was among the first to predict it, still sees it as far more serious that most of us realize:
“This is the worst US and global recession in 60 years. If the US recession were—as is most likely—to be over at the end of the year, it will have been three times as long and about fives times as deep—in terms of the cumulative decline in output—as the previous two.” Notice he is not quite predicting its end, using the “If” word to mask his own uncertainty. The Financial Times cautions against optimism taking refuge in the term “caution.”
Here in the Big Apple, The City’s top money man, Controller Bill Thompson says, “108,000 jobs evaporating citywide between August, 2008 and May, 2009. Typically, unemployment continues to climb even after the economy bottoms out and begins to recover. I expect the number of unemployed in New York City to reach 400,000 in 2010, for the first time in decades.”
Still invisible are the impact of cutbacks on city services and the educational system.
Income disparities are growing, according to a new study but how do I show that to my visitor since people with credit cards can still charge it even as credit limits are being cut back and interest rates rise. At the same time, A Bank of America Merrill study shows the Middle class is being hit hardest.
The LA Times reports, “The consumer debt problem in the economy really is a debt problem for the middle class. The need to work off a chunk of that debt will sap middle-class family spending power for perhaps years to come. By contrast, the upper 10% of income earners face a much smaller debt burden relative to income and net worth. Those people should have ample spending power to help fuel an economic recovery.”
And don’t think the end of the recession will bring back many of the jobs that are gone. Economists are now getting us used to a new term: “jobless recovery.”
Already employers are introducing compulsory furloughs, as the Christian Science Monitor reveals: “For millions of Americans, this might be the year of the furlough. Over the course of a month or so, workers—both white-collar and blue—may have to take several days off whether they want to or not. Call it a temporary pay cut—an action that is sold by management as a way to help save some jobs.”
Another new study finds, “Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers "truly amazing."
It's all amazing, all devastating to our lives and futures, and yet you can’t necessarily see it if you don’t look, or know what to look for. No one is talking about our economic pain—not the right or the left, perhaps because it is not an “event” that you can cover live at a town hall.
It’s there but, for many, it’s invisible and seen as a personal problem, not a social issue. This crisis didn’t just happen; it was caused. Will those responsible ever be held accountable? Out of sight is out of mind. The hope is that if we ignore it, it will go away.
If you think that, think again.
“I have been in New York before, he said, and it looks the same.”
A lot of the pain is hidden, I told him, hidden behind the deceptive spin in our media or buried in the denial and delusions of many people on the streets who have not taken the trouble to try to understand the nature of the calamity they are living through.
On the elevator, we pass the offices of City Harvest, a charity that collects excess food from restaurants and distributes it to shelters and programs for the hungry. An employee explains that with the restaurant business way off, they have less to donate. What about the demand by the hungry, I ask? With a shrug, he tells me the need is way up. (AP is reporting, “The nation's food banks, struggling to meet demand in hard times, are turning to prison inmates for free labor to help feed the hungry.”)
Out in the street, you soon notice fewer cabs and town cars. More people are walking or using public transportation, even though the fares recently went up. Even that is deceptive because there are still a lot of tourists in Midtown to complicate the picture. New Yorkers have other things on their minds. There are retail vacancies on every block. Other stores are discounting everything. The fast food places have their specials going for $2-5 dollars. Many of the clothing stories look like good will shops. When a JC Penny opened a store in Midtown, 15,000 people applied for 500 jobs.
As we walked downtown, we passed nearly empty bars and restaurants, a sign that the most customers are staying away. Media reports are now confirming what I saw. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Major retailers reported that American consumers are continuing to hunker down, casting a cloud over the durability of the U.S. recovery and underscoring the importance of overseas demand in restoring the world economy to health. Retailers across the spectrum provided foreboding reports.”
Down where I live, you also pass new buildings with empty stores and unsold apartments. The foreclosure crisis is already hitting New York’s condos and co-ops. You just can’t see it from the street the way you can in a suburban tract. When you read the auction notices, you realize its real. A new wave of foreclosures is expected and not just in poor homes. The middle class and commercial real estate is affected.
Almost every block on 8th Avenue in Chelsea has a new bank branch. It’s like ATM heaven except most are not crowded. There was a report last week that banking industry opened 10,000 branches over the last five years. Most were based in shopping areas or concentrated in affluent neighborhoods. Only a small number are in poorer communities, especially those victimized by predatory subprime lending. The New York Times reported this week that 91,100 NY households hide their savings in closets, in pillows — even in brown paper lunch bags, just not at a bank
Meanwhile, every week, more banks are going bust and being taken over and sold by the FDIC. There are reports that the FDIC itself is insolvent.
And as for the markets, cooler heads prevailed when the wisemen realized that consumer demand has fallen up as defaults and delinquencies rise
Inequality is mounting in social and racial terms. Recent statistics: cited in a Times study: "From the first quarter in 2008 to the first quarter in 2009, the national unemployment rates for blacks rose from 8.9 percent to 13.6 percent, compared to a rise for whites of 4.8 percent to 8.2 percent. In NYC, it was even worse: from 5.7 percent to 14.7 percent, compared to 3.0 percent to 3.7 percent for whites.”
Remember these statistics notoriously undercount those not looking for jobs that are not there. Unless you are following the trajectory of this crisis you might not know that economist Nouriel Roubini, who was among the first to predict it, still sees it as far more serious that most of us realize:
“This is the worst US and global recession in 60 years. If the US recession were—as is most likely—to be over at the end of the year, it will have been three times as long and about fives times as deep—in terms of the cumulative decline in output—as the previous two.” Notice he is not quite predicting its end, using the “If” word to mask his own uncertainty. The Financial Times cautions against optimism taking refuge in the term “caution.”
Here in the Big Apple, The City’s top money man, Controller Bill Thompson says, “108,000 jobs evaporating citywide between August, 2008 and May, 2009. Typically, unemployment continues to climb even after the economy bottoms out and begins to recover. I expect the number of unemployed in New York City to reach 400,000 in 2010, for the first time in decades.”
Still invisible are the impact of cutbacks on city services and the educational system.
Income disparities are growing, according to a new study but how do I show that to my visitor since people with credit cards can still charge it even as credit limits are being cut back and interest rates rise. At the same time, A Bank of America Merrill study shows the Middle class is being hit hardest.
The LA Times reports, “The consumer debt problem in the economy really is a debt problem for the middle class. The need to work off a chunk of that debt will sap middle-class family spending power for perhaps years to come. By contrast, the upper 10% of income earners face a much smaller debt burden relative to income and net worth. Those people should have ample spending power to help fuel an economic recovery.”
And don’t think the end of the recession will bring back many of the jobs that are gone. Economists are now getting us used to a new term: “jobless recovery.”
Already employers are introducing compulsory furloughs, as the Christian Science Monitor reveals: “For millions of Americans, this might be the year of the furlough. Over the course of a month or so, workers—both white-collar and blue—may have to take several days off whether they want to or not. Call it a temporary pay cut—an action that is sold by management as a way to help save some jobs.”
Another new study finds, “Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers "truly amazing."
It's all amazing, all devastating to our lives and futures, and yet you can’t necessarily see it if you don’t look, or know what to look for. No one is talking about our economic pain—not the right or the left, perhaps because it is not an “event” that you can cover live at a town hall.
It’s there but, for many, it’s invisible and seen as a personal problem, not a social issue. This crisis didn’t just happen; it was caused. Will those responsible ever be held accountable? Out of sight is out of mind. The hope is that if we ignore it, it will go away.
If you think that, think again.
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62 Comments so far
Show AllEat the rich!
Until the 1980s Raygun Revolution the US Government calculated unemployment, inflation and other "economic indicators" pretty objectively. When things got bad the resulting statistics made politicians look bad and forced business and government to give workers larger pay increases. During past 30 years the US Government has revised the way it calculates "economic indicators" to create results that make politicians look better and reduce the pay increases for workers.
For example: The Gov. is telling us that energy prices went down during July 2009 even though the price of regular unleaded in my area increased more than 10%. This statistic was compiled by including a steep drop in natural gas prices driven by low demand due to seasonal and slow business factors.
Combine the statistical revisons with Obama's economic policies prioritizing the salavation of Wall Street while letting Main Street deteriorate, and of course stock values are going to increase.
Governmnets in Both Canada and the USA leave Housing costs, energy Costs and food costs out of official inflation measurements because they are considered "too volatile".
Yet for the mast majority of people these are the three largest expenditures in their households.
yet when WAGES increase too rapidly by the Governments reckoning then "Inflation" becomes something that has to be tackled.
The theory that "if a person can not afford a steak, he will buy Hamburger thus we should substitute hamburger where we once had steak in the cost of a "basket of goods" is to be blunt IDIOTIC yet it was adopted as official policy.
If one reframes this theory using the same logic "if a person can not afford HOUSING because rents too high then they will sleep in the streets so we should not measure the costs to live in an apartment but the cost to live in the street.
Lets turn thier own stupd logic against them and point out how there not even WAGE inflation...
"If a company finds the wages of its workers rise too rapidly they will stop hiring workers thus the Inflation measured for wages should be under the assumption that no one is hired.
The methods also also fixed in that they take unfair advantage of technological improvements. For example, twenty years ago, cell phone hardware was much more expensive to build than it is today. Therefore the cost of living has gone down so that we can depress wages. Nevermind that only the very rich used to be able to afford a cell phone.
sierra7
An easy way to figure if cost of living has increased officially or unofficially is when you go to the grocery store....I find I'm spending $20 bills faster than I spent $5 bills ten years ago.
The COL (Cost of Living) stats always "exclude food and energy"! What damned fool lives without "food and energy"?
"Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high..." It's time to begin reversing this trend. The numbers work out something like this: From the 1940s through the 1970s, the top 20,000 wage earners took in about 100 times more money than the average worker. Now that figure is up to 600 times more money than the average. Unfortunately in today's world of easy capital movement, we cannot return to those low figures of yesteryear, but we can reverse the trend with somewhat higher taxes on upper income earners and estate taxation policy.
The LA Times reports, “The consumer debt problem in the economy really is a debt problem for the middle class. The need to work off a chunk of that debt will sap middle-class family spending power for perhaps years to come. By contrast, the upper 10% of income earners face a much smaller debt burden relative to income and net worth. Those people should have ample spending power to help fuel an economic recovery.”
Interesting 10% of the population will be able to spend enough to help an economic recovery. The LA times is saying those people are going to buy an awful lot of crap.
I would expect that wont happen because if you have had that kind of money you have already purchased most of the crap you want/need because you are... well... RICH!
And anyway how much stuff can 10% of the population possibly buy anyway?
'And don’t think the end of the recession will bring back many of the jobs that are gone. Economists are now getting us used to a new term: “jobless recovery.” '
If the average person has any doubt that the US economy has absolutely no interest in their fate, then the phrase "jobless recovery" is the final nail in that coffin.
If the economy "recovers" and people who lost their jobs can't get them back what's the point of the recovery for them? How many of these "jobless recoveries" can american workers take before the real economy finally collapses?
NC-Tom,
I agree! I am always amazed at the assumptions and ideas that some journalists and TV pundits attempt to pawn off onto us. These journalists and pundits always seem so surprised that the economy isn't recovering, that consumers aren't already back to spending, unemployment is still rising, etc.
They don't seem to be able to connect the dots, do they?
And, I agree, "a jobless recovery" is not a recovery. Who are they trying to kid? Themselves? Or, are they really that stupid?
they are trying to ease the potential anxieties of those on the upper decks of the titanic since a profit can still be made not only redecorating the dining room but also reupholstering the deck chairs.
my favorite line from 'american beauty':
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF DENIAL.
The term "jobless recovery" is one of thos oxymoronic expressions guaranteed to trigger mental paralysis through cognitive dissonance. The underlying message is that "The peole that count are recovering but you shits out there don't have a job so die already." When this subliminal message of total rejection and callousness hits the poor and middle class, they become more depressed and dispirited. And that's what the elite and their presstitutes want.
Message to the editors and press whores that come here to CD to see how the leftys live. We know your game and we aren't swallowing your snake oil. We are letting everyone know you are full of shit. Go kiss some more elite ass for money, you cheap whores.
Presstitutes, AGG I wish that were funny. Clever turn of phrase ;)
Don't make me sick--they are a tainted food source--I'ed sooner eat a pig!
Mr. Schechter, great piece of expose writing, coming from where great journalism always comes, from the streets and the work places and the homes of real people, not out of the "statistics" of recovery that pundits and politicos like to use in talking about things like economic "recovery." I've picked more than one bone with you about your attitude toward the Obama administration in relation to such situations of human misery, but on the level of pure reporting, I admire and salute you as a journalist. We just need to get a "few more of you" into the streets of Gaza or among the protesters of Honduras. (the kind you find on Narco News or Electronic Intifada)
Capitalist models of the economy generally assume there are infinities everywhere -- unbounded numbers of consumers, of producers, of types of goods, generally of raw materials or other alternative resources, and of choices for all the players and a free and virtually infinite flow of information. In any actual system, there are bottlenecks everywhere, allowing a few to control the flow of goods, dollars, and information and thus economic activity, creating great wealth for themselves and disruptions and extra burdens for the general economy. As wealth becomes more polarized and the society more stratified, the bottlenecks only tend to increase in size, importance, and number, unless and until some powerful force, e.g. government, intervenes.
There will be 'intervention', but the powerful force will be not governmental because we do not have government anymore.
We have GOVERNANCE which has the core destination to maintain and develop the SYSTEM.
Capitalist models of the economy generally assume there is infinity in the stupefaction of people(s). However, they have underestimated or simply not fathomed the dynamic of reducing resources complicated by their parasitic greed.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, and that is sufficient to turn a democracy into a corporatocracy. The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool most of the people all of the time.
Times are changing.
Portraying "recovery" as a gain for Wall Street and not as a significant reduction in unemployment or forecosures tells it all.
shach: I totally agree; could get network news anchors to share that view?
RichM precisely sums it up. Redefine "the economy" to mean exclusively how the plutocracy is getting along, and you don't have to worry anymore about boring crap like jobs, wages, unemployment, middle class insecurity, poverty, destitution. This is exactly what corporate media has done, systematically, for 30 years, and now it's their ruling meme. Obama predictably parrots the official "recovery" talking points, since he also can't see past corporate/Wall Street interests, so if we're having personal problems, in spite of the miraculous recovery, it can only be our own fault. Something genetic or chemical must be imbalanced. Maybe those of us not experiencing this marvellous recovery should be on antidepressants, since our problems can only be purely personal.
RichM,
I agree with everything you wrote, and your point about the redefinition of "the economy", "jobless recovery", etc., and how these terms have been seriously distorted by MSM, et.al., is spot on. Your concluding paragraph says it all! I still remember reading the quote in 2002. I knew, immediately, what Mr. Suskind meant and that he was telling the truth, as incredulous as the statement seemed.
“I have been in New York before, he said, and it looks the same.” -- Unknown Filmmaker
"A lot of the pain is hidden, I told him, hidden behind the deceptive spin in our media or buried in the denial and delusions of many people on the streets who have not taken the trouble to try to understand the nature of the calamity they are living through." -- Danny Schechter
I disagree with Mr. Schechter that the pain is hidden. The signs are quite VISIBLE in Manhattan that something is not going well, despite their efforts to say otherwise! I live in East Harlem, in Manhattan, and I walk all over this city due to my financial situation, which is NOT good. Since the holiday season, January 2009, commercial spaces have been emptying out at a very fast clip! There are small spaces, large spaces, and even entire blocks that are now empty of businesses. And, there is no neighborhood in Manhattan that is not effected, including Madison Avenue. These empty spaces are starkly visible because they are located at street level. You can't miss the crisis that is about to hit this city!
At the same time, in the article, Mr. Schechter does point to some of these facts, but, for the most part, only talks about his neighborhood. He needs to get out and walk! "We the People" of NYC, are already paying higher city sales taxes, and public transportation costs more, too. NO doubt, Bloomberg and the City Council are attempting to make up for what they aren't receiving from the now defunct businesses. Quite clearly, this is a mess! And, it's not getting any better.
In my neighborhood, in East Harlem, over the past few short years, developers, probably with tax incentives and subsidies, have built countless luxury apartments and condos that are currently sitting empty. Again, failing "we the people," who desperately need REAL affordable housing. A friend of mine, who lives on First Ave., and 72nd Street, told me that they also built luxury apartments in her neighhood, most of which are also sitting empty. The elected officials who make the decisions are, in my opinion, "bubble-brains." They have no concept of reality. Bloomberg thinks because he rides the subway to work in the morning, somehow he is connected to "we the people.' I laughed when I read that!
What I find amazing -- instead of filling all of these empty spaces, developers are building new spaces. We have a new Whole Foods store about to open at 808 Columbus Ave., at about 100th Steet -- in fact, it's a complex called Columbus Square. T.J. Max is also part of the complex. Whole Foods is scheduled to open on August 27, 2009. In addition, I think the complex includes more apartments -- or condos -- probably luxury apartments. At least, that's my guess.
In addition, more banks are popping up around the city! Bank of America is expanding at any number of locations -- with new slogans: New Locations, New Relationships, New Ideas. Do we need more banks in Manhattan? Not to mention the fact that, very recently, "we the people" bailed them out at a high cost to us. So, who, really, is funding these new banks?
The other day, I was in the Village, and I heard a couple behind me say to each other, perplexed, "There's nothing here." Of course, they were tourists, but they were Americans. I looked around, and they were absolutely correct -- unless you wanted an ATM (three banks within a few steps) or a tattoo (three tattoo parlors, all fairly new), there wasn't anything to explore.
Soon, Manhattan will have little to offer to tourists, and then, what?
On the following statements, I agree with Mr. Schechter:
"This crisis didn’t just happen; it was caused. Will those responsible ever be held accountable? Out of sight is out of mind. The hope is that if we ignore it, it will go away.
"If you think that, think again." -- Danny Schechter
Thank you for that informative and factual account of NYC conditions. Another reason why CommonDreams is the place to find reality and truth.
AGG,
Thank You!
As I walk around the city, I listen to what people are saying, and people notice the empty spaces, the buildings for sale, the apartments for rent, etc., and they are having conversations. Everyone I know is worried!
In my town the stores are doing so well that they have sold everything to the bare walls!
The economy must be doing great!
Yes, and I'm probably stating the obvious, but this is a predictable social and political consequence of unacceptable income inequality. The culture of inequality creates the structure of its own survival as well as the engine for widening the gap further within the context of its "created reality".
When that structure becomes "conventional wisdom", as the propaganda arm of the plutocracy feverishly works at day and night to achieve, it's time to think radically, not conventionally, in terms of countering it.
Exactly. The media is framing the argument and they work for the elite. There is zero chance that we'll get anything but lies and distortion from them.
The bailout bubble will burst and when it does we will learn the real meaning of gravity. Deep depression, war, and revolution are on the horizon. Citizens have ignored the common good and now the common nightmare is upon us.
Maybe the Chinese will save us.
Re shach August 20th, 2009 10:40 am
The corporate newsreaders on TV are happy to tell us that everything's okay now, because the Dow is up.
But they neglect to tell us what the Dow is (an abstract number based on the value of the stock of 30 arbitrarily-selected corporations); how it's gamed to appear as if it's always trending upward (General Motors used to be among the Dow 30, but its numbers started to drag down the average so it was quietly replaced); and what it has to do with the price of TP (not a damn thing).
Our perceptions are being diddled so we'll feel safe to start shopping again. Those newsreaders are smiling so hard, they're starting to look like Jack Nicholson as the Joker.
Shouldn't Mr. Schechter at least have taken his European friend outside of Manhattan to a poor neighborhood in Queens or the Bronx?
Just wanna say thanks for alerting me to "TheRedSquad" stuff on youtube.
I actually wasn't around for the hippy movement though I would like to see a modern equivalent. "Original Fire" is more my style than the folk stuff.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3896970/Meat_Beat_Manifesto
Schechter sez: "Economists are now getting us used to a new term: 'jobless recovery.'”
***
I've been meaning to ask one of these economists ... If it's "jobless", then who the hell is "recovering"? And "recovering" from what?
I'm no genius, but I sense the middle (sic) class would gain precious little comfort from the answers.
Hopefully when the economists start losing their jobs, they may begin to question the "recovery" part of the "jobless recovery".
I'm no economist, but I believe these are the main facts involved with a 'jobless recovery.' First, the working-age population is growing, so even if job creation was neutral, the unemployment rate would go up. Second, in periods of low or negative GDP, productivity tends to rise as fewer workers manage greater output per worker. 1 or 2% GDP growth is not enough to keep the unemployment rate from continuing to rise.
We're in this mess because the liberal tax and spend democrats led the country away from the proven trickle down economics championed by the great President Reagan. If the economy is going to recover, we need the economic stimulus that only the upper class can provide.
I suggest the following:
1. The complete elimination of all taxes for anyone making over a million dollars a year. Since trickle down worked so well with lower taxes on the rich, it will work even better with no taxes on the rich.
2. For anyone making over 50 million a year, an additional 10 percent bonus should be paid so they can stimulate the economy even more. With that extra money, they can trickle down all over us.
3. For big ticket items, like yachts and jets, a reverse sales tax where we pay the rich a percentage of the purchase price so they will have extra money to trickle on us even more.
4. Eliminate any deficits caused by the stimulating tax benefits. This can be done by eliminating the socialist welfare system that provides undeserved giveaways to the arthritic chiselers and bums on social security and medicare (the medicare queens). Likewise we can also eliminate communist income redistribution programs like vaccinations and school breakfast programs for poor children. We can save additional funds by eliminating the Veterans Administration. It's time we stopped these welfare bums from draining our treasury. We shouldn't have to listen to them constantly whine about lost limbs due to roadside bombs caused by lack of armor. We didn't draft them . . . they volunteered! Once the VA is gone, we can be trickled on even more.
As you can see, the problems with the economy can be easily fixed. Republicans and like minded conservatives know that all we need to do is return to the proven Laissez Faire economic policies of the Hoover administration and the Reago-Bush dynasty which which worked so well for average working Americans in the past. With this program, the rich will benefit the average person more than ever. In fact, by providing the wealthy with more gold, the trickle down economic benefits we experienced in the past can be turned into something more than a mere trickle, it will be a golden shower of prosperity for the working class.
Caleb,
Be prepared for angry rebuttals to you proposals... ;)
Alex123 will think it is a stroke of genius (and will not even recognise that it is sarcasm).
Your sarcasm underlines a fact about the right. They are severely delusional. They each focus on two or three situations, people, or organizations they think they hate, and can't seem to get past this. They don't notice that their ranting has not changed or evolved for at least fifty years. My psychopathic John Bircher father would fit rather well with this group. His fanatic "anti-communist" screaming has survived him unchanged, despite none of its predictions ever coming true anywhere, and despite "creeping capitalism" being the actual political shift of the past half century. In fact, I can’t identify ANY delusion of the right that has EVER had the slightest bit of veracity. Perhaps conservatives were sane at one time, but this must have been in some long gone era before 1950. The right seems to be a movement that serves only to concentrate fear and paranoia. Oh, yes, and a huge heap of wealth too.
acemoab sez: "Perhaps conservatives were sane at one time, but this must have been in some long gone era before 1950."
***
Actually, Eisenhower ("...we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence ... by the military-industrial complex" etc, etc.) seemed pretty sane right up to the handoff in 1961.
Eisenhower was considered a conservative at the time, though if he was parachuted into today's political landscape he would be seen as a pinko commie relegated to Kucinich-Bernie Sanders irrelevance.
This comes frighteningly close to effectual actuality.
its nice to read a commonsense and reasoned approach to the ills of society
i would just add that we shouldn't dismiss the kill your granny movement either, those old folks cost a fortune
The US represents only 300 million people out of a world population of nearly 7 billion. The economic well-being of its middle class has little to do with the world's economic health. Maybe it used to, but there are a lot of rich Asians who can carry the "burden" of consumption now.
The rich can feed upon the consumption of newly wealthy Chinese for quite a while. Consider that China has a population of 1.3 billion. Suppose eight percent of Chinese have attained the American middle class standard of living. That is close to 100 million people. It doesn't matter that Americans can't buy much anymore. They are superfluous. We really don't matter much in the overall scheme of things.
The recognition that such was the coming reality in the post-Cold War period drove Reagan's policies and much that came afterwards. The wealthy decided that they no longer needed the US middle class and began to defund it. That continues to this day.
Exactly right. When Nixon closed the gold window and devalued the dollar, I could see the writing on the wall. The IRAs and 401Ks further confirmed my suspicions. Remember those 70s and 80s movies ridiculing the guy retiring and getting his pension and "gold watch". Oh, and the articles about the guy who retires and kicks the bucket the next day! And let's not forget about the media push to disparage any genuine labor complaints about predatory management tactics as "whining".
These crooks plan ahead.
Instead of pillorying and mocking the town hall protestors, it might be better to note that these protestors are also hopping mad about the bank bailouts and the recession.
The limo liberals and the lifestyle left have pretty much “moved on” regarding the bank bailouts. Gay marriage and global warming are much sexier issues and provide better opportunities to demonstrate one's cultural and moral superiority. About half the "progressives" that I encounter are moralizing elitists.The lack of a populist base or philosophy is devastating the left.
The Left needs to spend more time and resources organizing the discontented masses on populist economic issues that the masses already care about and less time on condescending lectures regarding the cultural and lifestyle shortcomings of the workers.
In case you hadn't noticed, the "Leftist" elites don't think much of the "workers".
Uhh,in case you hadn't noticed, that was my central point.
I would add that their is a populist left that resides primarily in the progressive wing of the union movement
The right wing leadership is even less concerned about the workers. A hefty chunk of left wing leaders serve the workers a diet of patronizing sermons, to which few common people pay any attention. The right wing feeds the workers outright deceptions in order to con them into voting Republican and joining phony pro-corporate astro-turf campaigns.
So, ringo, I hope that you are not trying to say that the workers have concerned leadership on the right?
So yeah, don't follow leaders and watch yer parkin meters.
It's all about the Free Market business model.
The American people are free to be livestock and obey the government.
Corporate oligarchs are free to manage the government and harvest the livestock.
The livestock have *(1)fast food and *(2)fox news so they know everything is OK.
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*(1)Fast food: A high-efficiency nutritional system in which the chickens are fed cow manure and the cows are fed chicken manure - and are conditioned to like it and grow fat.
*(2)fox news: A high-efficiency informational system in which the chickens are fed cow manure and the cows are fed chicken manure - and are conditioned to like it and grow compliant.
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Greatest Nation on Earth, bringin' it on!
(Are we pissed yet?)
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I suggest that people take a close look at the idea known as Participatory Economics, also known as Parecon or Particiety. It has some significant differences from doctrinal socialism. For example, it does not maintain the functional separation of workers from management that has caused some worker owned factories in socialist or socialist influenced regimes to recapitulate into an elite class (constantly developing new skills and influence) vs. expendable workers (trapped at one skill level doing repetitive work with no real input or influence over how the factory operates).
One way in which it does this is to train all workers to do all the jobs in the factory--both assembly line and managerial--with a combination of formal and on the job training. This includes periodic rotation of workers from the factory floor to the offices so that no worker is trapped forever in one repetitive powerless position with no opportunity to gain new skills or to influence operations. It bases pay not on class or formal education per se, but on the degree of difficulty of the work, the number of hours worked, the inherent physical and/or mental dangers associated with the type of work, etc.
I do not agree with its dismissive attitude toward private ownership of factories and many kinds of property, however, I do believe that private ownership could be maintained in most instances under such a system were American corporations stripped of their arbitrarily and nonsensically acquired "equal protection rights" where they are (since the early 1880s) viewed as "artificial persons" equivalent to flesh and blood persons under law. This misapplication of the 14th Amendment removed local town council oversight--with periodic reviews--of the business operating licenses of corporations. Town councils once had the right in this country to determine if corporations were acting in the best interests of the community and if they did not they lost their business licenses to operate in that community.
American corporations have used their falsified power as "artificial persons" above and beyond any meaningful or timely local, State, national or international oversight by the various citizens in whose communities they operate in order to morph into multinational monsters who use former corporate managerial types to secretly adjudicate their labor and environmental predation in the secret tribunals of the World Trade Organization--accountable to no nation or its citizens and, in fact, designed specifically to trump State or national sovereignty on a whole host of laws that impact our workers and our environment.
A combination of Participatory Economics and a four-tiered system of local, State, national and international citizen oversight (including direct online voting referendums regarding specific corporate operations that are anti-community, anti-labor, and anti-environment as well as on periodic operating license renewals) would allow for a citizen/community-centered workplace and economy that is not based solely on the ruthless maximization of profit for its own sake. This would create a world where corporations exist to serve citizens and citizens do not exist to serve, starve, die or be killed by corporations.
sierra7
Too complicated!
Make it simple: Rescind the right of corporations to be "individuals."
(The biggest mistake of the 20th Century, and society has slowly trended fascistic ever since)
They want the right(s) but not the responsibilities!
“I have been in New York before, he said, and it looks the same.”
I've had my backside kicked before by a steel-toed boot and it, too, feels the same.
As my loving uncle would always ask "Are you really happy?" and sometimes we just keep denying until we can no longer stand lying to ourselves and then we let it out. For the unemployed out there, most of them don't even know if they have a future. Even amongst those of us employed same thing but some of us settle for longer working hours, working on the weekends, forfeiting our benefits, etc ... just to keep a pay. It's time to stop worrying about the numbers and look towards the quality of who and what we work for and not give up conquering that lingering unhappiness. When you succeed at that, try helping others do the same.