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Inequality Has Rigged Our Economy and It Is Time to Change the Rules
The economic crisis is built on the country’s long history of racial discrimination.
President
Obama’s recent announcement to reappoint Federal Reserve Chair Ben S.
Bernanke came on the heels of Bernanke’s meeting with world bankers who
declared the global economy to be back on track to normal. But for
most, “normal” is not something to look forward to.
Earlier this year I traveled the country researching race and the
recession. From Detroit to Tucson, Providence to San Antonio, I met
people for whom the recovery could mean very little if it fails to
address the structures of racial inequity in the economy. And just as
these disparities are hazardous to people of color, these structures
are some of the same that helped push us all into recession.
In Detroit, I met Leila* who recently lost her job as a teacher’s
assistant, supporting her four children alone. She was laid off late
last year because of state budget cuts. Her unemployment benefit ran
out and she applied for government cash assistance. A month later, her
welfare checks were also cut off and she was suddenly without any
income.
Leila fell behind on her mortgage payments on the house she had
just moved into. She realizes now she was sold an adjustable rate
subprime loan. Her house went into foreclosure. Without any other
wealth to fall back on, she’s not sure what will happen.
People of color have been hardest hit by the recession. In July,
Blacks experienced rates of unemployment 70 percent higher than whites
and Latinos almost 50 percent higher. Strikingly, even before the
downturn, Black, Latino, Asian and American Indian communities had
faced recession-like levels of unemployment for decades. Moreover,
people of color are paid less, often 60 cents to every dollar of white
family income, and they hold pennies to every dollar of white wealth.
They are segregated into low-wage jobs and face barriers to equal
opportunity including discrimination and lack of workplace protections.
This is the economy of normal; the economy that pushed us into recession.
Meanwhile,
foreclosures are still pummeling American families. And because people
of color were disproportionately saddled with predatory loans, they’ve
been stripped of much of the wealth they had carefully accumulated over
the years. The recession has deepened the racial divide.
That Blacks, Latinos, Asians and American Indians face higher rates
of foreclosure is no coincidence. Until the 1970s, people of color were
broadly excluded from owning homes as a result of practices of racial
redlining and racially restrictive neighborhood agreements. Then
Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to end
discrimination in lending. Suddenly redlining and racial exclusion were
made illegal and people of color slowly began to access prime loans.
But in the late 1990s Congress deregulated the mortgage industry
along with Wall Street, opening the space for industry to circumvent
the CRA. These were the same anti-regulatory maneuvers that made the
subprime securitization possible. As the CRA was weakened and
incentives to sell subprime loans grew, neighborhoods of color provided
fertile ground for the sale of these faulty products. Since
neighborhoods like Leila’s were largely devoid of prime lenders as a
result of the history of redlining, there was little competition and
the credit vacuum created conditions for the predatory sale of
high-cost loans to communities of color.
The streets of central Brooklyn and Detroit filled with predatory
lenders, millions of these mortgages were sold, and they ultimately
burst, flooding the economy with toxic assets and submerging all of us
in an economic storm.
The economic crisis is built on the country’s long history of racial discrimination.
As
we move forward, we must set a new foundation. Only by tackling racial
inequity in the economy can we ensure a stable recovery. This will
require that we emphasize racial justice.
An immediate moratorium on foreclosures and modernization of the
Community Reinvestment Act will help. Rigorous enforcement of
anti-discrimination laws and labor protections for undocumented workers
and people with past criminal records are necessary to ensure everyone
has an opportunity to work. Fixing the broken healthcare system, which
is responsible for more than half of personal bankruptcies, and the
cultivation of a new green workforce that trains people of color in
skills for a better economy should be prioritized.
Recovery will not mean much if we return to the normal economy. Let’s demand an economy that is good for all of us.
*Name changed.
46 Comments so far
Show AllIt is interesting how the US government keeps people down so that the middle to upper middle people do nothing to improve their own lot. Of course, I know this fact has been recognized before.
We need more co-operative arrangments in housing, food supply, medicine, and education to overcome the actions that are meant to rig the economy for those who have and indebt those who feel they need more.
Personally, I have learned that I have little or no stake in the state. But, the state is like a narcissitic parent who demands the attention of his children. Could that be the reason we are all called to "protect the Homeland?"
Why should we follow a media created dream of wealth and happiness? Let's start deciding it for ourselves!
Now let me get this process down...
Step 1: Bernanke's Federal Reserve monetary policy and failure to regulate cause the greatest financial meltdown since 1929.
Step 2: Bernanke and the Treasury Dept. arrange for nearly a trillion dollars in TARP money to be given to the banks (that conspired with the Fed to create the crisis) with minimal conditions.
Step 3: Bernanke unconditionally obligates untold trillions of US taxpayer dollars to the same banks.
Step 4: Obama praises Bernanke and appoints him to another term.
How many of us could fail on such a grand scale in our jobs and not be fired ???
What makes you think he failed?
As with Hurricane Katrina, the aftermath of the collapse of the housing bubble may prove to be worse than the event itself.
A compassionate stimulus policy would have pumped liquidity into the economy by passing it through the hands of those facing foreclosure; the banks would have ended up with it anyway, but those "toxic assets" would have been cleared from their books and people would still be in their homes.
As to the CRA, a favorite whipping boy for the McMurdoch crowd, most of the predatory loans were made by non-bank institutions, notoriously Contrywide, that were never subject to CRA regs to begin with.
Is the consclusion to be drawn from this article that if Obama continues to pander to and enable the people and organizations that perpetuate discrimination, he is promoting racism?
Not long ago I saw the Katrina trailers in Hope, Arkansas.....it was staggering. I had seen pictures, but you cannot appreciate the vastness of Fema's incompetence or dishonesty without seeing them in person.
Row on row, mile after mile of them....and we have people losing their homes and homeless while these units literally rot in the fields.
"A compassionate stimulus policy would have pumped liquidity into the economy by passing it through the hands of those facing foreclosure; the banks would have ended up with it anyway, but those "toxic assets" would have been cleared from their books and people would still be in their homes."
Instead we have the wonderful program to help people renegotiate their loans to 31% of their income under the "stimulas" plan. Only problem is....its not working, peoople getting the run around, papers getting lost....and BA is all the way up to 4% of their bad loans! Wells Fargo at 5%! Citibank is arouund 10% I believe. Oh-boy!!
Henry8 September 1st, 2009 12:14 pm...Any pics of those trailers??
We didn't have our camera, but I had seen these pics. Believe me, in person its something more!
http://www.pbase.com/steeleumc/fema_trailers_in_hope_arkansas
I had the opportunity to go into one of them and not only do they look bad,sitting in a row on the hillside, but they are the size of thimbals inside (sleeping 6 comfortably?) and reek of a bizzare chemical oder. I wouldnt last a weekend in one....alone!
the so-called "stimulus plan" is really designed to "stimulate" the BANKERS - and corporation ZOMBIES to walk around as if they are still alive....
and to KEEP the CAPTIVE american PROLETARIAT - let us call it what it really IS - CAPTIVE SLAVES.
that's what "renegotiation" is about.
whether it is in mortgages, in credit cards and all sort of "compound interest" "repayments".
it is SLAVERY based on NOTHING but CLAIMS of "wealth" and "authority" by the bankers who are actuallY PARASITES - who "contribute" NOTHING to an economy but
PAPER printed with pictures and words and numbers - MONEY.
can you believe an ENTIRE economy and the globe is "instructed" - led by the USA and capitalism to function like THIS?
enslaved by BANKERS and PRINTING SHOPS of money?
off with their heads!
Immediate moratorium on foreclosures? Yippee! I can stop paying my mortgage, and I get to keep my house anyway. Where do I sign?
Re dwatkins9 September 1st, 2009 9:56 am, who asks,
"Immediate moratorium on foreclosures? Yippee! I can stop paying my mortgage, and I get to keep my house anyway. Where do I sign?"
How about this?
"Immediate free money? Yippee! I can borrow $1 billion from the Fed, loan out $10 billion at interest, and get the taxpayers to pay me back when it all goes to smash? Where do I sign up?"
The only way to achieve a moratorium on foreclosures is to enact a moratorium on construction.
The market for all types of buildings is oversaturated. As long as Obama and Congress enable new construction to proceed, more foreclosures will result as the supply increases concurrent with the demand dropping for new buildings.
Halting new construction until the existing inventory drops will result in an end to foreclosures since people will be able to sell their buildings prior to the foreclosure date.
Problem with that is, you just put millions more out of work. Resulting in further economic decline, the loss of more jobs and more foreclosures.
At least thats my opinion. I don't believe it will work.
Re raydelcamino September 1st, 2009 2:00 pm, who posits,
"The only way to achieve a moratorium on foreclosures is to enact a moratorium on construction."
Plausible in theory, but where is the legal authority for such a move? I don't see where Congress and/or O'Bummer are "enabl(ing) new construction." I had thought that to be a function of lending institutions.
Then consider the increase in unemployment, from mortgage clerks to sheetrock tapers, and the drain on the economy they'll represent.
Sounds like a non-starter, even though I can't argue with your premise. But there's still time to inject capital through those borrowers on the brink.
"The economic crisis is built on the country’s long history of racial discrimination."
That may be partially true but there is another minority called "po whites" who, for whatever reasons are in the same sinking ship with the "people of color". (I think that, if you dissect it, that is actually a racist phrase in itself!)
It goes beyond race and into the Capitalist Corporatocracy that has slowly pulled a coup on the American government, long gone into the annals of history and memory. IT'S THE MONEY, STUPID!
It is time for a peaceful "class warfare" if the gap between wealthy and poor is ever going to begin to close. We can't get it under this Capitalist-pigs-at-the-trough system because they want MORE! I posit that a tax resistance effort is a starting point. Also, a boycott on using your credit card.
Furthermore, how can an "alleged" christian nation support war, death, destruction, TAKE-instead-of-give, and the demoralizing of a large segment of the population? Oh, that's right. I forgot...IT'S THE MONEY, STUPID!
"Let's demand an economy that is good for all of us."
What a weaselly meaningless statement. Capitalism is in another huge crisis, the biggest one since the Depression, and these writers want to keep the same system in place while "hoping" that somehow the elitists and capital owners will throw us a few bones to keep us happy and continuing in their servitude. Yes, let's just keep "re-regulating" an unstable, inequitable, and violent vindictive system - Amerikan capitalism is worth saving!
We can't sustain a capitalist economy, it was never possible, all we do is lurch from crisis to crisis while writers like this give us the overview of what's happening without specific solutions.
THE SOLUTION IS SOCIALISM. Nothing short of a revolutionary reworking of our society and government is going to get us out of this mess.
http://www.marxist.com/unfolding-capitalist-crisis-nightmare-for-workers.htm
The Unfolding Capitalist Crisis – a nightmare for workers everywhere
Written by Rob Sewell Monday, 31 August 2009
The capitalist system is passing through its deepest crisis since the
1930s and the Great Depression. The apologists of capitalism – including
those in the labour movement – had completely ruled out such a scenario.
After all, they explained, capitalism has changed and governments are
now able to over-come any deficiencies experienced by the markets. They
have learned the lessons of the 1930s.
Marx was right against the apologists of capitalism when he claimed the
crises would return. Now these people are being forced to eat their words. “Today, they are
struggling with the deepest recession since the 1930s, a banking system
on government life-support and the danger of deflation. How can it have
gone so wrong?” These are the words of Martin Wolf, economic strategist
at the ‘Financial Times’. “Most of us – I was one – thought we had at
last found the Holy Grail. Now we know it was a mirage.”
“We have gone to the edge of an abyss that few thought was ever
possible”, stated Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. “If
the world pulls together, we can avoid the Armageddon endgame.”
According to Bernie Sucher, head of Moscow operations at Merrill Lynch,
“Our world is broken – and I honestly don't know what is going to
replace it. The compass by which we steered as Americans has gone.”
World capitalism is experiencing a deep slump - indeed in many ways the
present crisis is potentially even more serious than that of 1929-33.
Its scope is much wider than the thirties and its impact has been far
swifter.
What we are experiencing is a fundamental crisis of capitalism, with
collapsing markets and over-production, leading to mass unemployment and
cuts in living standards across the world. Apologists of capitalism
today talk glibly of the crisis being caused by various things, such as
“de-regulation”, speculation (‘short-term’ selling), lack of credit, bad
luck and so forth. We would say that these are nothing more than the
appearances of crisis as opposed to the real causes of the crisis. While
there are many secondary causes of capitalist crisis inherent in “the
real movement of capitalist production, competition and credit”,
Marxists have always explained that in the final analysis real
capitalist crisis is always a crisis of over-production. This means
general over-production, both of consumer and capital goods for the
purposes of capitalist production. This in turn, is caused by the market
economy, and the division of society into mutually conflicting classes.
Such a phenomenon is peculiar to capitalist society alone.
This is directly linked to the collapse of markets and the emergence of
over-capacity and over-production. As Marx explained, “It [capitalism]
comes to a standstill at a point fixed by the production and realisation
of profit, and not the satisfaction of requirements.”
This is the real meaning of capitalist crisis for millions of workers.
But despite the difficulties workers are not simply accepting these
attacks lying down. Workers in Royal Mail, London Underground, Visteon,
Vestas, the construction industry and many other sectors, have taken
industrial action, and even occupied their workplaces, in defence of
their livelihoods. There is enormous anger in the ranks of the working
class that is threatening to explode. Even the capitalists are very
worried about this increasing anger.
“There are many questions hanging over global financial markets,
but none more pertinent, perhaps, than the following: will the global
economy rebound in time to quell rising discontent among the millions of
workers who have turned – violently in some cases – against capitalism?”
asks Joe Quinian, a strategist at the Bank of America.
“The capitalist global order was under attack even before the
current crisis began, but the virulence against free enterprise has
become more intense in the last year. And with the global economy in the
midst of the deepest declines since the Great Depression, the backlash
is bound to intensify.” (Financial Times, 12/5/09)
As a result, the capitalists are desperately looking for an economic
recovery. But they are concerned that the present green shoots may well
be no more than a false dawn. However, even when the recovery comes, as
is inevitable, it will be very slow, painful and shallow. There is a
dread that the world economy will go the way of Japan in the 1990s, with
weak growth punctuated by periods of contraction. “Empirical evidence of
the effect of past crises shows … that the economy will not return to
its pre-crisis expansion path but will shift to a lower one. In other
words, the crisis will entail a permanent loss in the level of political
output”, states the recent European Commission report (FT, 3/7/09).
The capitalist system has now become an enormous fetter on human
society. The re-emergence of this organic crisis has enormous
implications for the working class: a socio-economic system which proves
incapable of developing the productive forces enters into steep decline.
A new era of social revolution has opened up on a world scale, an era of
revolution, counter-revolution and profound instability at all levels.
Such a period will repeatedly propel the working class internationally
to look for a way out of the crisis. It will place the socialist
reconstruction of society on the order of the day as the only answer to
capitalist crisis and the ills that go with it.
Right on!
The capitalist class and its state through anti-communism has been very successful in confusing working people as to what is really happening to them and why. They've done this to keep working people from having an ideology of their own. An ideology that explains how the system works, what class struggle is all about, how as workers they are exploited and through this exploitation, the capitalists realize profits and the workers are continually driven into deeper and deeper poverty.
Well, the working class does have its own ideology and is called "Marxism-Leninism" or what Marx called "Scientific Socialism". It is a fully defined and deep ideology that when understood by working people will cause them to effectively bring down the capitalist system. No other tool is more important for the working class to both overcome their exploitation and to save this planet from environmental destruction.
The capitalist ideology presents the view that society cannot change. That society has reached the height of development and it is what they call "the end of history". Marxism challenges this viewpoint and scientifically exposes why this is wrong. Society will continue to evolve beyond the capitalist paradigm to a bold new future called communism. It is only when we have a classless society can we overcome a world where the rich get richer while the rest get poorer, where production of goods is based on people's needs as opposed to personal profit and where a sustainable system in step with the environmental needs of our planet is possible.
You can be sure that everything that spews forth from the capitalist class, its think tanks, classical economists, clergy, educational system and mass media is there to present only the capitalist ideology and contains not one ounce of solutions to the inherent contradictions of capitalism. Solutions lie elsewhere and the working class had better start seeking them out and understanding them to save this planet for their children and grandchildren.
I am sorry to have to say it. Marxist-Leninism is a bankrupt ideology. It does not matter if you call your version stalinism, trotskyism, shachtmanism, or whatever.
Everytime a marxist begins speaking it makes me want to become a conservative. I have no respect for political arguments based on authoritative texts of political or economic theory. All forms of communism takes the dynamic impluse from human beings. It is an immoral concept because it is designed to quash human minds and human beings. Show me working models that do not destroy human beings for the good of the system.
I am in favor of experiments in living in ways that can reduce taxable income and promote peace without making a static life.
Leaderless
Give us a break.
"All forms of communism takes (sic) the dynamic impluse (sic) from human beings. It is an immoral concept because it is designed to quash human minds and human beings. Show me working models that do not destroy human beings for the good of the system."
You just described capitalism.
"The economic crisis was built on the country's long history of racial discrimination."
Absolutely true. This lady took out a a loan without knowing it was an adjustable rate loan?
No wonder there is money for everything but health care and education. It's not just racial discrimination that is the problem. As long as the ruling class can keep us ignorant they can get away with anything.
We have to rely on them to tell us the truth and they are liars.
The military recruitment office is full of liars.
I would rather hear the truth about myself (unpleasant as that might be) than hear one more lie.
Oops.....I fear you are going to hear a lot more lies before the year is out.
It is infuriating when I see articles like this. The poor people of color can't cut it by themselves is what this says. They need (us) to look out for them because they are inferior is what it implies. Inferior my a.., they just lack information and they trusted the wrong people.
It wasn't long ago that this lady and many like her were being encouraged by the same leaders condemning these loans now to take these loans.
There are plenty of whites, Asians and Latinos caught in these same loans. Its not racist....its simply economic sharks pushing predatory loans to anyone that is ignorant enough to sign something without understanding it. This is a failure of our educational system if anything....combined with Congressmen and Senators that were bought by the Banks and Financial community to remove safeguards that would make these loans illegal and look the other way in oversight.
Henry8,
You along with many others here are in denial.
Discrimination in jobs, education and housing, and law enforcement is is still widespread. Please do some research. No anecdotes please - statistics tell the story.
In one of the few pieces of good news to come out of the Obama White House, atty. General Holder announced that they will be stepping up antidiscrimination lw enforcement.
Please allow me to disagree.
I'm quite pleased that that section of the Justice dept. will actually be doing its job again.
"Discrimination in jobs, education and housing, and law enforcement is is still widespread. Please do some research. No anecdotes please - statistics tell the story."
I agree. Where do you find this widespread discrimination? There is certainly discrimination left, but its marginal as far as I can tell. Especially in education. Where are you finding this widespread discrimination in education? I keep hearing these charges but there is never any proof of it except a specific instance here or there.
But I stand by what I said....I doubt that these Slimeballs got up each day and said "I can't wait to foist one of these bad loans on a "Black" which is the inference in this article. If you or I or anyone else would put our signatures on that mortgage they would gladly have taken it.
The unfortunate truth is a lack of education about financial affairs and a lack of protection by her government to protect her from these bastards.
And she was being encouraged by Congessmen and Senators to buy a home at this very time.
Remember when Alan Greenspan encouraged people to take out adjustable rate mortgages? That was stupid.....but people listened.
I'm no fool,there will always be some level of racism present, but the days of institutionalized racism are past. Long past at this point.
Unfortunately, institutionalized racism is alive and well. It has been recently reported by a former loan officer of Wells Fargo who "filed a sworn affidavit with a federal court in support of the city of Baltimore’s lawsuit against Wells Fargo for pushing high-interest, subprime loans onto African Americans in Baltimore and the Maryland suburbs, leading hundreds into foreclosure." (democracynow.org)
You can find the story on Democracy Now!'s website. The show was aired August 28, 2009.
I think you're quite right there, Henry. Discrimination, if you want to call it that, is more of a rich/poor thing than black/white. However, the elites love to have us focus on it because it distracts us from apprehending the bigger picture; namely, that when it comes to 'oppression' and 'discrimination' we are more alike that different (if we fall into a certain income level).
I'm one of the "po' whites. 5 years ago, I had a great job, netting over $30,000/yr. The job went out of state, and I was unemployed for 20 months. Unemployment ran out, and I began to raid an annuity that was actually making money. That's gone, too. The job I have now nets under $14,000/yr. I have a regular, good old mortgage, but LaSalle Bank was bought by ABN AMRO, and they split, sending my loan to CitiMortgage. As my annuity vaporized, I had to start choosing whether to pay the mortgage, or keep the gas, electricity, and water turned on. After unsuccessfully juggling those chainsaws, I got served with a foreclosure. While I may be able to get something worked out, thousands of others will likely hit the streets, or move in with relatives. Previous posters are right - direct bailouts to endangered mortgage holders would have been the best way to boost the economy and "save" the banks. The economy was, is, and will continue to be stacked against anyone not already rich. I'm 55, and unless I win the lottery, I'll be a wage slave until I die. America. The beautiful.
it really makes me weep reading things like that smypr...it is so WRONG that this happens to people everywhere. it is just WRONG and Cruel. i am poor too . but i am certain that stories like yours and many others' make my own problems small in comparison.
You are a good person Sir.
Remember they must have the original loan papers to foreclose.
Maybe this government will come to its senses and turn to rebuilding our economy and bringing real jobs bak.....but I doubt it.
I hope you get something worked out and you are right about the best "bail out"
I feel for your situation. I was in a similar situation a few years ago. I became seriously ill and ended up losing my job and health insurance. I used up the pittance that was my 401k to pay my remaining bills and expenses. I fully expected to die in my parents basement but I recovered on my own and it only took about 18 months of hell with no outside professional support. The medical industry could not have cared less. I have been an advocate of the environment and social justice my entire adult life. I knew this could happen, I did everything I could to avoid it but there I was, jobless and broke. There are so many people out there that are in a much more precarious position than I was and they are in TOTAL denial. I tried to impress upon them how this situation could befall anyone they knew. Always the same response, eyes glaze over and they go into Homer Simpson mode. I now have a good paying job, for now, but I still live in daily fear that one bad turn of luck and poof! I am out in the street or worse. What saddens me the most is the Amerikan sheeple have no desire to remove the curtain that would uncover the seething fiends that are preying on us. I am really about to give up on the masses, they are lost already. No longer citizens but stultified, bloated, consumers, it sickens me. Most people have no problem with harsh corporate or social policies until it befalls them. I am not saying this is the case with smipypr but it is hard to not become cynical and burned out from constant battles with the idiots who think they know something because they saw it on Faux Noise or heard it on hate-wing radio. We truly desreve every moment of suffering that is on the horizon. In fact, we Amerikans have demanded it!
po white here too. I don't live the average life and I don't fit in the suit and khaki set. add that to my blue collar family and I've never enjoyed the "white privilege" but at least they let me sit at the little table. I lost the big job but the bills kept coming. There went the savings and when that ran out I used the credit cards to pay the bills. the new little job only covered the rent, the heat, the lights, the phone and food so the creditors sold my debt. It's been sold and resold and the calls keep coming the numbers change every few months. There's no talking to them; I've tried. They want what I don't have. They want me to borrow from friends or family. My credit score is cratered And each day it matters less to me. I'll never be back in the game. My only fortune in all of this was that I never needed medical care. That would have left me living destitute with family since the insurance stayed with the big job. It took this fall for me to realize the game was rigged and I was never going to get a seat at the big table. I live in an apartment, a house was a distant dream even in the heyday and now I'm glad for it; I have no house for them to throw me out of. The truck is paid off so they can't take that. I contract for cash now and soon I hope to be small enough to disappear entirely as far as the paperwork goes.
Wessler sez; "... millions of these mortgages were sold, and they ultimately burst, flooding the economy with toxic assets and submerging all of us in an economic storm."
***
Not quite "all of us". A few yachts bobbed merrily to the surface.
Terrific!!
Capitalism ENSURES inequality. It is how Capitalism is intended to work.
Capitalism REWARDS behaviour that is harmful to the enviroment and the people. Since it rewards "bad behaviour" that type of behaviour becomes the NORM.
In the past we have tried to counter this with Governmnet programs that try to redistribute wealth and or regulate the excesses, but these are merely bandaids. They are like the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike.
The STRUCTURE that is capitalism as the root cause here. Until that entire STRUCTURE rebuilt, all these bandaids do is make each cycle of reckoning worse then the last.
Yes, that's why it's so mind boggling to hear neoliberals and other kinds of cappies talk about the "good cycles" in capitalism.
There is no such thing as a good cycle in capitalism. Billions of people on the planet suffer tremendously under capitalism ALL THE TIME, DAY IN AND DAY OUT. And the U.S. has the largest differential of any Western nation in wage disparity.
It makes me sick to read about or hear people defending capitalism. Christ on a pogo stick, there are people in this thread defending capitalism. And Amerikkan capitalism in particular is a very pernicious, violent, and vindictive form. Other capitalist countries manage to provide their citizens with single payer health care, single payer college, single payer day care, etc. In the U.S., the workers suffer under any legislation that is passed, under any policies that are in place. Those policies are designed to do that. It is what the leaders and capital owners WANT to do. Just because they can.
Sorry, folks, I think crooks will swindle anyone they can: black, white, rich, poor, educated, ignorant--whoever. Classism in my view it the biggest discriminator here. That being said, targeted discrimination against minorities does occur. However, where swindling is concerned, it's the most vulnerable who are sought (i.e., the poor, elderly, very young, etc.) It's what 'sharks' do. Classism, though, is generally about oppression and exploitation, and often far worse that a one-time swindle, because it is chronic and multifaceted.
I'm feeling a bit torn after reading this article. I think that we're all equally hurt from this rigged economy and it's more than race and gender. Yes, those two are another of those divide and conquer but we need to put aside those differences and unite. I know I've gotten into trouble for saying I'm color blind but I'm not a racist. I just have a heart for everyone to give them the skills and opportunities to climb up as far as they feel like it in life. It's ok if you don't want to make a lot of money but want to be happy with what you can make. It's also ok to get rich provided that you not abuse your wealth for destructive purposes such as lobbying for more inequality policies.
The United States today is a nation ruled by swindlers, from Obama on down, from Lloyd Blankfein, Jim Kramer and Bernie Madoff on down. SWINDLERS! I frequently read on CD and other sites articles that report accurately what is really happening in the United States. But then some of them end kind of like this one:
Recovery will not mean much if we return to the normal economy. Let’s demand an economy that is good for all of us.
Exactly how are we going to "demand an economy that is good for all of us?" Vote out the Republicans and the Democrats? Violent revolution? Divine intervention? None of that's ever going to happen, not in this foolish country.
Y'know, a cancellation of all debt, jobs-for-all with a living salary, universal single payer healthcare/education would probably fix a lot of inequity, be it based on race, gender, or class.
Imo, the only people this economy is truly rigged in favor of it the richest 1%. I don't discount the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, urban renweal, exclusion from the New Deal or the fact that certain communities are hit harder than others. However, race and class need to be address alongside each other. When you start putting a color on wealth and poverty, you not only end up ignoring or dismissing a lot of poverty, but you also insinuate that people of different races have no common interests.
I agree.
What we need to stop doing, in my opinion, is arguing for which one of these forms of discrimination is worst or most urgent. They're all bad for the victims involved, and every form perverts society. (I personally see class as the biggest issue.) We cannot build a classless society and maintain discrimination by race/gender, nor could the opposite occur. (Similarly, we couldn't argue to end corporate personhood to empower democracy, but not profits at the cost of people, the environment, and free spirits, nor vice-versa.) We need to stop dividing ourselves.
While we're at it, let's not buy into the idea that racism/sexism doesn't exist anymore (good intentions in racist/sexist systems produce racist results) or use the excuse of human or societal nature to justify inaction against these problems.
Taxes on the rich usually help. This is the traditional liberal way of ameliorating the problem.
Speaking of inequality: the New Deal lowered the poverty rate in America from around 50% to around 20%. The Republicans have never forgiven us for that.
Even a moderate Democrat like Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich. That's why we had the longest sustained period of economic expansion in U.S. history, with higher income at all levels.
(This also proves Bill Clinton did not work for the ruling elite, if you think about it. If Clinton had worked for the ruling elite, he would not have raised their taxes. Logic so simple even a progressive can follow it.)
Obama would obviously never raise taxes on the rich. He's WAY off to the right of Bill Clinton.
But here's our real problem: THE OBAMA PEOPLE HATE DEMOCRATS!
Obama the Prez might as well be flipping his own party the bird. And his fans thought nothing of calling their fellow Democrats racists, for daring to criticize their halfass candidate. Rank misogyny and stealing the primary were other bad signs.
This unbelievable shafting of Democrats, along with the hostile behavior and statements of his fans, suggests that the Obama people hate Democrats more than anybody in the world.
You may well say "Holy sh*t."
This means 1) progressives are too dumb to know a good Democrat from a bad one, and 2) the Democratic Party has been taken over by people who hate Democrats. It doesn't get much worse than that.
Re Perry logan September 2nd, 2009 6:12 am, who proclaims,
"This also proves Bill Clinton did not work for the ruling elite, if you think about it. If Clinton had worked for the ruling elite, he would not have raised their taxes. Logic so simple even a progressive can follow it."
Need I remind you of NAFTA, the "end of welfare as we know it," the disastrous giveaway of the public broadcast spectrum, and various costly and counterproductive military misadventures on three continents? How about the "Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act?" Does any of this ring a bell?
All of this and more was done by Clinton solely to benefit the top 1%, but you'll notice that symbolic increases in the top marginal tax rates had nothing to do with any of it---after all, somebody has to play the part of the "good cop."
I would have thought this so obvious that even a stalwart Democrat Party Apologist (DPA) could follow it. I guess that means DPAs are too dumb to know good cop=bad cop=cop.
I'd say class is a greater deciding factor today when it comes to who will remain locked into poverty, with gender coming in second. Every door is opened for the rich black person, every door is closed for the poor white person. The doors that swing open for the rich woman remain locked against the poor man, but in every workplace, it just happens -- only by chance, of course -- that those jobs that pay the lowest wages are filled by women, and the jobs that pay best are filled by men. If you start out poor, you'll probably remain poor, no matter how hard you work.
If you're an above-average student, you can earn a pile of scholarships to at least reduce your years of student loan debts. Most of us are, by definition, just average, and if we can't afford college today, we will remain locked into a space somewhere between the bottom and almost-middle-class.