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The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn’t Telling It
Quiz: What's responsible for the lousy economy most Americans continue to wallow in?
A. Big government, bureaucrats, and the cultural and intellectual elites who back them.
B. Big business, Wall Street, and the powerful and privileged who represent them.
These are the two competing stories Americans are telling one another.
Yes, I know: It's more complicated than this. In reality, the lousy economy is due to insufficient demand - the result of the nation's almost unprecedented concentration of income at the top. The very rich don't spend as much of their income as the middle. And since the housing bubble burst, the middle class hasn't had the buying power to keep the economy going. That concentration of income, in turn, is due to globalization and technological change - along with unprecedented campaign contributions and lobbying designed to make the rich even richer and do nothing to help average Americans, insider trading, and political bribery.
So B is closer to the truth.
But A is the story Republicans and right-wingers tell. It's a dangerous story because it deflects attention from the real problem and makes it harder for America to focus on the real solution - which is more widely shared prosperity. (I get into how we might do this in my new book, Aftershock.)
A is also the story President Obama is telling, indirectly, through his deficit commission, his freeze on federal pay, his freeze on discretionary spending, and his waivering on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
Most other Washington Democrats are falling into the same trap.
If Obama and the Democrats were serious about story B they'd at least mention it. They'd tell the nation that income and wealth haven't been this concentrated at the top since 1928, the year before the Great Crash. They'd be indignant about the secret money funneled into midterm campaigns. They'd demand Congress pass the Disclose Act so the public would know where the money comes from.
They'd introduce legislation to curb Wall Street bonuses - exactly what European leaders are doing with their financial firms. They'd demand that the big banks, now profitable after taxpayer bailouts, reorganize the mortgage debt of distressed homeowners. They'd call for a new WPA to put the unemployed back to work, and pay for it with a tax surcharge on incomes over $1 million.
They'd insist on extended unemployment benefits for long-term jobless who are now exhausting their benefits. And they'd hang tough on the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy - daring Republicans to vote against extending the cuts for everyone else.
But Obama is doing none of this. Instead, he's telling story A.
Making a big deal out of the deficit - appointing a deficit commission and letting them grandstand with a plan to cut $4 trillion out of the projected deficit over the next ten years - $3 of government spending for every $1 of tax increase - is telling story A.
What the public hears is that our economic problems stem from too much government and that if we reduce government spending we'll be fine.
Announcing a two-year freeze on federal salaries - explaining that "I did not reach this decision easily... these are people's lives" - is also telling story A.
What the public hears is government bureaucrats are being paid too much, and that if we get the federal payroll under control we'll all be better off.
Proposing a freeze on discretionary (non-defense) spending is telling story A. So is signaling a willingness to extend the Bush tax cuts to the top. So is appointing his top economic advisor from Wall Street (as apparently he's about to do).
In fact, the unwillingness of the President and Washinton Democrats to tell story B itself promotes story A, because in the absence of an alternative narrative the Republican story is the only one the public hears.
Obama's advisors explain the President's moves are designed to "preempt" the resurgent Republicans - just like Bill Clinton preempted the Gingrich crowd by announcing "the era of big government is over" and then tacking right.
They're wrong. By telling story A and burying story B, the President legitimizes everything the right has been saying. He doesn't preempt them; he fuels them. He gives them more grounds for voting against raising the debt ceiling in a few weeks. He strengthens their argument against additional spending for extended unemployment benefits. He legitimizes their argument against additional stimulus spending.
Bill Clinton had a rapidly expanding economy to fall back on, so his appeasement of Republicans didn't legitimize the Republican world view. Obama doesn't have that luxury. The American public is still hurting and they want to know why.
Unless the President and Democrats explain why the economy still stinks for most Americans and offer a plan to fix it, the Republican explanation and solution - it's big government's fault, and all we need do is shrink it - will prevail.
That will mean more hardship for tens of millions of Americans. It will make it harder to remedy the bad economy. And it will set Republicans up for bigger wins in the future.
98 Comments so far
Show AllOur economy is organized to generate profits--period. When will Americans learn that the the Republicans (and many Democrats) represent a rapacious system? The dominant class envision society as a heartless capitalist system and pretend it is a "free market" when it is anything but free! It is servitude for most who must toil away at nothing jobs or who become unemployed as surplus labor. Meanwhile, power, wealth, and decision-making become more and more concentrated. Because people are now denied life-saving transplants in Arizona, the veil is lifted on this heartless system and we can see it for what it is--insanity. We need a society that is organized to meet human needs, and if it's called socialism, then so be it!
Dr. Reich and progressives in general are brave to challenge this system, but I think we must become even bolder in our analysis. Let's be clear: Greed-gone-wild is capitalism! We need to critique how this system works to polarize wealth and power--and destroy democracy. Mr. Reich may think that we should advocate for some form of gentler "welfare" capitalism that gives out a few paltry benefits to the unemployed or victims of predatory lending.
I think we should fire our imaginations to demand more. After all, isn't Obama's dismal performance at root a failure of political imagination and vision?
Good comment, camillecat.
There's "Obama's dismal performance..." and there is ours, too, "We must become bolder..."
Every time I read Common Dreams I am encouraged at what I see: writers like Robert Reich and commenters like you. Facebook over 60,000 and Network over 200,000. And these are still small numbers. We gotta start somewhere; might as well be here. Our political imaginations and shared vision can't fail; "We need a society that is organized to meet human needs, and if it's called socialism, then so be it!" Amen to that.
Bill in Dubuque
260,000 people concurring that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are competing for the same pot of corporate money above all else IS a good start.
I live in one of the bluest cities in one of the bluest states and have a hard time finding anybody who is not afflicted with terminal denial syndrome.
"After all, isn't Obama's dismal performance at root a failure of political imagination and vision?"
Yep. And to think, Obama was the brightest thing to come along in decades. And he turned out to be a flaming republican, screwing-up every opportunity he had to set things on a better course.
For the past 46 years the Democratic Party has not let anybody to the left of Obama get past the primaries.
You won't get angry at me for saying, "Give him a bit more time, after all Dubya and the Republican screwed it up for eight years?"
A third party is the only way to change. Anything short of that won't work. On the night of 11/4 there were only two columns on my town ballot. There is no third party in the US. Until there is a third column on every ballot in the US on both on and off years, there will be only two political parties.
And that won't ever happen until there is public financing of ALL elections in this country. Until that changes, there will always be more than enough money to swamp out ANY contender for ANY office, no matter how great of a candidate they might be. A third party would never get out of the gate, much like the greens are finding out. Their ideas are better for the lower 98% of us than ANYTHING the democratic party OR the republicans have done in the last 30 years, but they never get more than 5% in any election. In fact, their ideas NEVER get any airtime at all, and largely because the 5 big businesses that own "American" media don't WANT you to hear about them. If we had open, honest and fair elections, they would get just as fair a shot as anyone else. But they don't, to they?
Until the money is no longer the thing calling the shots in everything, nothing else will even have a chance of changing.
Another triumph for the MSM and corp. America - the belief that nothing is possible without a whole lot of money.
You won't get the money out of politics until you put in folks who want the money out and you won't get those until you support them, it really is that simple ....
I don't think that it's gong to come from ANY politician. I honestly think that this will have to be done by the people, in the form of a constitutional amendment. There is so much money in politics that there is no possibility of honesty at this point. Unless we do it ourselves, I doubt there will EVER be enough integrity in either house of congress to get it passed.
Obama's not telling the story because he's a coward, vicious, or both.
Mr. Reich,
if you are sincere at all,
join force with Sanders, Moore, Amy Goodman, Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson, Lee and other progressive female reps from california on the subsommittee for which stephen colbert testified, etc.,
and start a progressive party, and
initiate a universal single payer non-profit health care / education / energy development / banking,
state by state.
it's doable. it's about time.
I couldn't agree more that now is the time for public figures like those listed above to join together and create a truly progressive party. I believe millions of currently unrepresented progressives would be at their doorstep in a heartbeat.
If not, Obama's policies will destroy whatever remains (and it's not much) of progressives within the Democratic Party. That may, in fact, be his mission.
Incidentally, all this talk about Obama "caving" into the Republican Party is nonsense, including his soon-to-be approval of continued tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The pattern he follows is always the same: 1) I am opposed to tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans: 2) I will consider these tax cuts in the spirit of compromise; 3) I will accept the GOP's position on these tax cuts. (Simply substitute any other previous issue for "tax cuts," and the results will be the same.)
Why? Because he is one of them and always has been.
Public financing first, with NO private or corporate money involved AT ALL. Until you take out the money, it will ALWAYS come out on top. Private money of ANY kind is nothing but legalized bribery. And you can bet that any politician out there will remember the guy who handed him or her the $50,000 check instead of the $20.00 from a real human.
Get rid of that money and you get rid of several things: First, the corruption of the influence of that money. Second, elections will suddenly be about ideas and leadership, not what polish money can buy for some sell out. Thirdly, your senators and congresspeople won't be out whoring themselves to the highest bidder on a daily basis anymore. Fourth, it would be cheaper all the way around. Fifth, it would be easier to get rid of a bad politician if you can actually hear the truth about what they are doing or not doing while in office. I'm sure Boehner's crowd would like to know that he is a drunk, for instance.
It's simple, take the private money out, and everything else CAN change. Leave it in there, and you keep the same corruption that is making life here suck.
Two problems here - "Congress shall make NO law" - that is NONE, even the FEC is pretty questionable. So, a constitutional amendment would be needed. There was a reason for this - allowing the federal government to have any say in electing the people who were going to run it, would quickly result in only the people that it wanted in office getting there. Public financing would make this problem far, FAR worse. Only those interested in growing government would get financing.
Second - campaign financing is a pittance, compared to what is spent on day-to-day lobbying. That's where the really serious money is spent on ensuring that laws get written favorably. Payoffs of thousands to one are not unusual. I.E. spending a few million dollars lobbying has resulted in benefits to various companies and industries of billions.
The solution? As always, shrink government down so its not worth capturing it.
Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, NOT a newspaper!
95% of the people have little money, no alternative choices, no just way of making a living, no time, no energy, no education to make an informed choice.
inequality itself has utterly undermined the concept of electoral democracy as the means for justice, however it may be funded.
Aren't we all getting a little tired of waiting for Obama to do the right thing? How many chances does the guy get? This is stretching "Hope" into the most fanciful kind of wishful thinking.
I like curioussteve's suggestion. The 100 members of the House's Progressive Caucus might be ready to join, and perhaps candidates around the country who are tired of being ignored unless they're Blue Dogs.
Minnesota (my state) also has a single-payer plan in the works. The legislature lost some co-signers to Tea Partiers in this year's election, but that should turn around when folks have a chance to see what right-wing government in the person of a Republican majority is all about. We will have a Democratic governor, however, which will help, and will also be broadening our educational efforts so that people realize how many problems it would solve.
President Obama UNFORTUNATELY has retained a bunch of neocon advisors who seem to get his ear with no trouble. Especially the financial guys like Geithner and Summers and Zoellick and people in the foreign service.
I hope that after conservatives succeed in destroying the planet, any survivors will start a new society without money, the root of all evil.
I'm getting a little tired of this silliness. It was utterly refuted over half a century ago, in 1957. Here's a quote:
"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?"
That's the start of Francisco d' Anconia's Money Speech - http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=1826
There are only two ways to deal with people - free trade and force. Free trade is impractical without money.
Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, NOT a newspaper!
Embedded in free trade, under class-based syatem, is plenty of force. The powerful and comfortable tell the worker: "Take this meager pay for you labor or freeze and starve!"
@ mcsandberg1 December 4th, 2010 7:13 pm: The exact quote, from Timothy 6:10 of the King James Version of the New Testament is:
"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
It's not money itself, it's those who lust after it who are the problem, and Timothy is saying that those that passionately pursue money will end in sorrow, a theme he took from comments attributed to Jesus.
But there is not much leeway for ardent capitalists in this quote:
"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.; And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
-- Matthew 19:23-24
As to Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged,' perhaps he was shrugging over this notion:
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
-- Matthew 6:24
I'm not religious, but I have seen that you cannot serve yourself, as in loving money and amassing a fortune, and fully serve anything else as well. 'Christian businessman' remains an oxymoron. Speaking of morons, I wonder if anyone has told multi-millionaire Sarah Palin about this? Jesus also had quite a bit to say about hypocrites.
"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"
-- Matthew 6:25
Yes, that IS the true quote, but this mantra that money ITSELF is evil is probably the more common meaning now. Therefor, Ayn Rand debunked what was actually said.
The Fed just printed 0.6 trillion dollars and sent it to Wall Street. Where does your banker get the money (most of it) to extend you a home loan? Like the Fed, he invents it out of thin air. "Free trade is impractical without money" Unfree trade that supports the investor-class against the working-class certainly appears unable to function without it either. Given practices like the above, it certainly appears that the working class would be better off without money, bartering their labor for goods directly.
Ask yourself just one question: in a 'free trade' world like you people pretend to live in, why is it impossible to get yourself paid in anything but dollar bills? If a banker can choose whatever refrigerator repairman he wants to fix his refrigerator, why can't a refrigerator repairman take his pay in something other than dollars, which tend to get gamed by DC, WallStreet, and the Fed?
Maybe its not the 'free trade' world you think it is. I get the fact that you're against 'socialism'. You just don't understand that the socialists are the guys you're rooting for.
Barter is simply impractical for the reason that its not likely the butcher will need what I'm producing. A complex series of transactions would have to be set up to trade my flowers to the baker, who would then trade his bread to the cobbler who would trade his shoes to the butcher and so on and so forth. Money, a medium of exchange, was invented thousands of years ago to solve this problem. It was then realized it could be a store of value as well.
Governments were not much involved in the creation of money for a long time and even at the time of this countries founding there were many banks issuing their own currencies. The founders were well aware of the dangers of fiat currencies and equally aware of the difficulties that had arisen from having so many competing currencies. Therefor, when the gave the government the power to create legal tender, they restrained that power by only giving the government the power to coin money. Its really hard to print gold! Most of what you're complaining about is unconstitutional and indeed, makes business planning more difficult - inflation is a royal pain to deal with and makes long range planning almost impossible. If you'll read Atlas Shrugged, you'll see that in Galt's gulch, money was gold.
You seem unaware of who owns the government and causes it to act as unconstitutionally as it does. It's those enriched by the 'free market' ethos that has gripped this nation for 30 years. They were never about a 'free market' but about age-old conquest of a nation, and they used Ayn Rand's fiction to get there. I'm sure Galt's gulch is a pleasant enough place, but here on earth what has been done using it as an example has been horrific, considering the 50 years America had before the 'free market' ethos took hold.
Monopolization of the basis of trade and value turned money into a public utility, like clean air and water. Insisting that, unlike these other public utilities, it be allowed to function without strict government oversight (that gov't in turn overseen by the public), was fanciful nonsense. Without such oversight, the free market has offered the purveyors of that monopoly carte blanche to define the worth of everyone else. Not surprisingly, the rest of us come up short. The finance sector made most of corporate profits last year, just two years they had to be pulled, by the public, out of insolvency. That should tell you something about who owns the government.
The 'free market' is what did this to us: allowed those who operate this money-monopoly to buy the government charged with overseeing their government-granted monopoly. I mean, come on, how does a banker have the right to pull 29 dollars out of thin air, match it to the one dollar he actually has, and loan it to you for a home? He can only do that as part of a government granted monopoly, the same monopoly that decides what currency you will get paid in, and how much your labor is worth. Hence, the 'free market' ethos has created a system in which we are all free to compete against each other to offer our services in the market, while the finance sector that values those services in money, using its government-granted monopoly position, continually finds ITS OWN SERVICE OF VALUATION the most valuable of services rendered in that market. And the government agrees with it, being one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries.
There is no invisible hand. People have to think and act about their thinking and acting, to create a fair AND free society. If you leave it up to the rich and powerful, you'll get the system we have. In which the 'socialists' own WallStreet and D.C. and operate its financial system to their own enrichment, and MainStreet can pound sand. The richest 1% made 75% of all income growth in the last 10 years. Thats what they got. What YOU got, was Galt's Gulch.
You say it yourself - it was crony capitalism, NOT the free market. This is what happens when government gets big. It becomes very much worthwhile to capture it. Thus the importance of a very limited federal government. From the founding to FDR, the federal government tended to be about 2-3% of gdp, increasing in times of war, but shrinking afterword. Even at that size, you still had the occasional Teapot Dome scandal and such, but it really wasn't worth while to lobby the government, it simply couldn't grant the incredible boons that it can now.
The only solution is to vastly reduce the size and scope of the federal government. Repealing the 17th amendment, so the States would have direct representation, instead of being mere wards of the federal government would be a good start. Eliminating the departments of education, energy, and so on are also necessary steps. Remember that Davy Crockett opposed the government giving welfare to a widow! Being an honorable man, he then provided it out of his own pocket. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/ellis1.html)
"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have...." (not from Jefferson at all, Gerald Ford said it).
MC SANDBERG: So, you're a libertarian?
What would reducing the federal government do for the following:
1. Rope in big polluters like BP and Massey coal/energy?
2. Maintain public education so that all children have a chance to learn?
3. Keep big business interests in check so that all human rights don't get flushed down the toilet?
One can make an argument that big government is utterly and entirely corrupted, and that is true. However, it has come to "enjoy" this status largely due to the amount of money that's poured in through campaign contributions, lobbying firms, and a media sold-out to a handful of high stakes bidders, now positioned to charge egregious sums to permit the public the scantest awareness of issues and candidates' platforms. Call it the premium cost of access.
That both are presently acting in collusion (if not bound by shared evils) hardly lends itself to the conclusion that getting rid of one will somehow warrant improved conditions through the other!
We've seen the collapse of our Founders' intended system of governmental checks and balances.
We've seen the Supreme Court rule erroneously in allotting exceptional rights (the latest, free speech = money) to corporations.
We've seen the Supreme court effectively lend its imprimatur to a coup... by placing Bush, The Lesser, into office.
We've witnessed a full-out loss of accountability, and far too much swept under the rubric of "State Secrets/Security."
Plus today's media works as servant to the MIC (in addition to dangerous, corporate predators) leaving the public purposely ill-informed.
Because so much is out of balance, and integrity gone missing, the fabric that held the nation together is fraying, and we're witnessing collapse in slow, painful motion.
Corruption is present, and has been carefully nurtured, in both government and big business. Each force, added to an informed citizenry, is needed to maintain the balance of interests that allows a society to flourish.
UBREW: Excellent post! I am still reeling from the fact that my Citibank Visa charges 22.9% interest, while banks are paying less than 1% on savings/CD. I can't even comprehend the math here...
The level of usury surpasses that of Mafia's return rate on loans!
It's "just business" is the dead ethos of the day!
"Money is made possible only by the men who produce."
The problem is we have too many influential people who "produce" nothing. The financial sector (FIRE) is what, 30-40% of GDP?
Not only did they not "produce", they FAILED!
What is it you were saying about "tears" and "looters"?
No, there is nothing inherently wrong with money; perhaps you could supply a parable about "honest pay for honest work".
Now, what is that story about the temple and the money-changers.....?
It's not money that is the problem. It's also not said in the Bible that money is the problem. It's THE LOVE of money that is the problem. Money is just a tool. It's also well put by whoever it was that said "We have enough for every man's need, but not nearly enough for one man's greed". I think that pretty much says it.
Once again, Robert Reich proves he is not a social psychologist.
Every day another fucking shoe drops that reinforces the opinion or belief of untold millions of Americans that we have reached the beginning of the End Times. Each night we go to bed thinking =there couldn't be news any worse than what we learned TODAY= but we wake up to the breaking news President Obama keeps black and white female sheep in a large closet upstairs at the White House. Bah!
The only person in Washington DC we are almost sure is NOT a complete crook is Elizabeth Warren. But - some day, hired detectives may burst through a bedroom door and fire flash bulbs at a naked Elizabeth being taken by both Koch brothers. I would not sit in a hot wired electric chair on the total confidence this will =not= happen, and I'm a big fan of hers.
The only thing predictable from day to day is absolute unpredictability. And the axiom of Lily Tomlin applies more and more: "No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up."
The average American this week is a spotlighted deer, frozen in fear of whatever new hell is next - and about to have perhaps the worst Christmas in their lives.
Robert, you can count the number of Americans who are NOT to-some-degree depressed and anxious on one hand. Forget the monitoring of Economic stats. Keep your eye on Suicide stats.
Trylon
True, Trylon, and, at the moment, Elizabeth Warren unfortunately doesn't officially have the power to change anything -- she's just an 'Obama advisor' -- and may be a cynical ploy: the White House will never give her any real power and they'll only trot her out to keep progressives in line for 2012. Some have even said Van Jones was not forced to resign due to Glenn Beck's crazed ranting -- they were looking for an excuse to get rid of him before that -- in his job as 'Green Jobs Czar' he displeased the corporate oligarchy.
As far as Christmas this year, it will indeed be dismal for many people who have jobs in retail: big-box stores, rather than hiring on holiday temps as was the custom, are going to compel their workers to pull double shifts, reminding them that they can 'always find someone else to do their job' in today's depressed economy. It's a preview of the future unless vast changes are made.
My prediction is that 2011 suicide rates are going to increase by orders of magnitude.
Trylon
This is a repeat post from several days ago. The point Prof Reich, intentionally or not, doesn't get is that A and B, government and business, are fused like glass, as are the Republican and Democratic Parties. Whatever narrative is staged in Washington or by the media of a real contest is merely scripted drama for a credulous audience. A few writers and analysts understand that the cronly capitalist's coup is a fait accompli, and Mr. Reich is sadly not among them.
Reich's "Super-Capitalism" has now established true fascism, and until people get beyond their denial and accept this fundamental reality, then we can't move toward real, revolutionary change. Key to this is a clear understanding that the liberal elite and the Democratic Party have become key obstacles, and at least we can thank Obama for finally revealing that fact so starkly --- in spite of Robert Reich and others of the "professional left" who try to maintain the illusion.
Did he say one word about the trillions spent on wars?
Trask, no, not that I noticed. Nothing about wars, nor deep cuts to defense spending (we can do without most of our foreign bases, aircraft carrier battle groups, boomer subs, and F-35 all-service 'Joint Strike' fighter jets), and he never mentioned universal single-payer health care, which would also eliminate a considerable portion of the debt. Reich is trying, but his head is still 'Inside the Beltway' to a great extent.
You've got it, trask. It's the wars--and the weird way we've appropriated the money for them. The next war will be on the rich. They've got too much of what the rest of us need. And there are way more of us than them.
Opposite of Cicero: Slavery is exclusion from power.
One of my readers recently asked me "Was the Fed bailout to the corporations paid back?"
That's one of many questions being covered up from any real scrutiny by the government, big banks (including the Fed) and corporate media. They allege the TARP bailout to the banks was fully paid back by the banks and "even made a profit" as Obysmal said. I heard an ABC News "reporter" this week say that the corporate bailouts "broke even" whatever the hell that means. Until this last week the Amurkan sheeple were only told about the $2.3 Trillion dollar TARP handout to the banks--not the additional $1 Trillion dollars that went to multinational corporations (many of whom have substantially offshored manufacturing plants using foreign labor). My question is: If all this money was "paid back," then why are the States still being hit so hard that nationwide government sector job layoffs are once again ramping up? Military spending plus Bush II's war-time tax cuts for the super-rich don't explain all of this.
The November nationwide jobs report came out this last week and all the Establishment (read: neo-liberal) economists (who've been consistently wrong since Reagan) had predicted a holiday seasonal job creation of 120,000 minimum. Some were laughably predicting as high as 150,000. Only 39,000 jobs were created. According to most of these same ilk, we need 120,000 new jobs created each month just to keep pace with the number of people newly entering the workforce. I think that number is much higher. But we haven't created anywhere near a monthly net number like that but two or three months in the first Bush II term and the 2008 Housing Bubble implosion eliminated all the already piss poor Bush II job gains. This means we long-term unemployed are SCREWED. For us, getting a job is now like winning the lottery.
Planet of the Apes has little on 21st century Amurka.
METAL: You raise a very significant question/issue. Remember how huge sums disappeared into Iraq? And there's no sunshine law describing how much of this "bailout" went to European bankers. Or how much is being placed aside (think: Iran/contra, or planned operations in Central America) for future, covert military programs. It seems to me that the PRINTING of dollars, added to their dissemination globally, will dilute the buying power of each one. We have all been defrauded in a MAJOR way.
Aggressive war, THE supreme crime according to The Geneva Conventions, has been executed without any sort of accountability.
The Wall St/banksters' bailout is the financial equivalent.
IF history survives to maintain a record, the opening act to America's 21st century will be regarded as a phase of corruption on so vast a scale as to make it look like The Carpetbaggers reincarnated and decided against the use of actual Nazi uniforms, while managing to efficiently execute brutally similar agendas.
DOUG T & LIB WING: Good posts.
Answer to the quiz is C: The politicians who constitute the governing class are the front men for the corporate interests who put them there. Big government and big business are really the same. Government elites are merely a shield, a distraction so that we don't pay attention to the ones who really pull the levers. They are happy to play the role because they know how well they will be rewarded. But they will be the lambs at the slaughter if the public ever wakes up from its mass media slumber. And they should be getting nervous because I think the public is just now catching on and starting to look behind the curtain. If they ever get a clear view, this Republic will not stand.
You're "right on" Tammons. And the IDIOTS IN CONGRESS, INCLUDING OBAMA, think that we're all too stupid to not to recognize the actual truth. People fool themselves so easily!!!
They're so married to their wealth and self-importance that they fail to recognize there are millions of everyday Americans who have spent their working years actually helping others for payment of a fair recompense instead of ripping them off to enrich themselves. Sometimes I have to change the channel on TV when I hear these shills rattling off their tripe about what they're doing to "help" Americans!
I had a career as a Ph.D. in psychology during which I helped hundreds of people learn to live a more enriched, meaningful, and productive life. It was rewarding beyond description.
I have friends who are engaged in everything from homebuilding to teaching and all the livlihoods in between. We all go to bed at night knowing that we're contributing our share to the building up of America.
Meanwhile, we watch on TV the phony drama being played out in the halls of our government, which has only one purpose: the enrichment of the few. We're not stupid and our day will come - when we will vote all of the money-mongering, useless shills out of our government!!! There's a reason why the word "politician" brings a look of repulsion to people's faces when they hear it.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Simply voting "all of the money-mongering, useless shills out of our government" isn't enough. You've got to have a better system with better candidates with which to replace them. What would your new system look like? What types of candidates would you support? What would be their policy platform planks?
I would think that if we continued to vote all the shills out of Congress, others who are sincerely interested in our political future and actually "serving" our country would become more interested and step forward.
I don't have the political background or savvy to "design" a new "system," but I am intelligent enough to recognize honesty and truthfulness by looking at candidates' lives and behavior. They're the types who would get my vote. I do believe our congress has a great deal of corruption in it that we have to strive to eliminate as well as ardently pursuing a reversal of the "Citizens United" decision.
Unfortunately there's no safeguard against a candidate who is disingenuous and I now believe Obama has been guilty of that. He'll never get another vote from me. We learn from our observations.
Policy platforms which are designed to improve the lives of citizens (instead of continuous warfare) are likely to catch my eye and those of other citizens.
Citizens must be constantly on guard to prevent corporations from usurping the rights of the people and fight to oppose that. Unfortunately, I believe corporations now have acquired too much power and influence in Congress through their monetary contributions and all of that must be banned!!
Politicians should be willing to work for an honest day's pay and be satisfied with it. Otherwise to say they're "serving" is to defile the definition of that word.
Actually, they have understood for a long time that enough of us would eventually wake up and they planned ahead. They have militarized and federalized our police forces through the Drug War and then the GWOT. They have detention camps built around the country. They are starting to "arrest and detain" journalists with impunity, at least those journalists of integrity.
There's a couple more stories missing.
C. That the govt and corporations work together. That big govt leads to big corporations and the capitalism that hurts poor people. I'm assuming not all capitalism is bad. I have a small business, so does the restaurant owner down the street, the farmer the next couple towns over, the bicycle shop owner, the health food store. Are we all greedy capitalists? Yet big govt always seems to work against us to help the big corporations. And big corporations always seem to want big govt. Take for example the famous meeting at Jeckyll Island 100 years ago. The big bankers wanted big govt. And now we are supposed to believe the big govt that the big bankers created is supposed to help us?
D. That people are responsible for their own actions. When I am in Canada I see Yarises parked in front of million dollar homes, back here in the US I see Mercedes in front of trailer parks. Maybe the debt crisis is partly the responsibility of the greedy consumerist idiots who took on too much debt.
Wall street's bobble another description; "Bill Clinton had a rapidly expanding economy" - this guy is from Mars
Robert Reich makes me SICK.
He throws away "globalization" as part of the problem and then never comes back to it.
The TRUTH is the concentration of wealth at the top and the destruction of the middle class is largely due to "globalization" and our tax system is only the junior partner in this. Why would Reich, who sound so right on the problems of the junior partner in the gang rape of the Middle Class ignore so much the senior partner?
Well because he is one of the ARCHITECTs of this "globalization," which never was just an unchangeable reality of the world changing but always was the result of intentional POLITICAL decisions like GATT, WTO and NAFTA. Reich continues to be an advocate of so called "free trade." It's only "free" in the sense that the corporations for all intents and purposes get free labor costs and are free of regulation to protect the earth.
If Reich was really on the side of working folk he'd be railing against the Obama Korea Free Trade Agreement.
Progressives! Do not be taken in by Neo-Liberals like Reich who will speak part of our message. If they get in power they'll betray us the same way Obama, who did the same thing, did.
Let the rich have their trillions. Let the middle class go into poverty. Let the demand for "stuff" go to zero. Shut down the factories abroad, and the ships and planes that carry that junk. Stop driving. Stop seeing doctors, lawyers, insurance agents... Move in with family and friends when your money is gone, or let them move in with you.
Walk 5 miles a day, eat healthy as possible, and learn to enjoy a the coming "third world lifestyle". Its what the environment needs. I just hope we don't become so poor we cut down all the trees and eat all the animals!
The truth be told I hear a lot of talking but not a lot of doing. The blame game surely is not the answer. We all have our opinions and that's the great side of this country. However, we don't need the Right, Left, Tea Party, Progressives with all with their Negativity and what we really need to do is end the United States being the World Police. Our militaries job is to protect us from all our enemies and not save some country with American Citizens dying. This is where a drillion dollars is going and why this economy is in the tank plus sending the same amount to countries to prop them up.
This still is the greatest country in the world and we better start spending our resources and brains to bring this country back.
And as far as this president goes he better start listening to us citizens and this last election for good or bad sure woke up us. Job's are the number one priorty and funding the rich with the trickle down scheme is not the answer.