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The Tea Party Downgrade: Gambling America’s Future on Wall Street
Securing our future means looking for real solutions to our economic woes, not looking to Wall Street.
The downgrading of the U.S. economy by Standard & Poor's exposes a grim reality: that the economic recovery from the 2008 Wall Street debacle was fiction. That fiction is becoming more evident every day as mothers and fathers try to feed their children while the economic crisis kicks them out of their homes. Millions of babies are born without real healthcare. Families are left homeless and thrown off of welfare.
The manipulation by S&P to downgrade the U.S. government’s credit rating not only demonstrates how dysfunctional our economy has become, it reflects S&P’s own mischievous behavior as a credit rating agency. The downgrade reflects nothing new about the creditworthiness of the U.S. government. And it’s a little too late. It is important to remember that S&P rated the toxic home mortgages of the 2007-2008 housing bubble as triple-A. So we should judge their ratings with a grain of salt.
Without considering the option of making the super rich and the large corporations pay their fair share in taxes, there seems to be no real relief in sight for the vulnerable, the unemployed, and those who have lost their homes. With the country facing deep austerity measures and cuts to essential programs, America’s future seems desolate. The lack of a new economic vision in government, and the resulting Wall Street dip, confirms that the United States, and especially its poor and working class, face long-lasting economic turmoil.
For many families in America, there is a constant struggle to make payments — working to make car payments, pay phone bills, make rent, or pay a mortgage, wondering where the day went. While corporate executives come home after a day at the office with wads of cash in their pockets, so many more are failing at raising a family on minimum wage. It is easy to see that there are two worlds in America — one of the well-to-do and the other of the struggling.
If there ever were an absence of economic security in this country it is seen in the grassroots movements in Wisconsin earlier this year, and in social movements like US Uncut, and Rebuild the Dream. It is seen in the civil disobedience that arises from a generation that feels, rightly so, that they have been deceived by those who have come before them, that they are at best tolerated in schools, ushered onto the streets, and almost inescapably fated for the hellholes of unemployment. They grew up feeling hungry, hated, and unloved, and this is the fire that spawns a seemingly-pervasive anger in America. Many feel very little hope that they can climb above the pit of poverty.
While a generation of young people arrives in a world without options, wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few — and now the wealthy are scrambling to deal with the Tea Party Downgrade. Their very opulence and relative wealth makes them vulnerable. “The Debt Crisis” is a tea party phrase that is about as crazy as saying “military intelligence” or “the U.S. Department of Justice.” They’re just words and they have very little relationship to reality. Do you think cutting taxes and government budgets will make our economy secure? Do you feel economically secure? Do you think you will anytime soon?
This crisis could have been averted by eliminating our overall dependence on Wall Street. The solution to the current crisis requires not only a reorganizing of priorities, which puts the necessities of the most vulnerable before those of the powerful, but also economic democracy.
As we have witnessed, the U.S. government and our global economy are largely controlled by Wall Street. This sadistic relationship must end if there is to be any consequential restructuring of our economy — and change is possible, as demonstrated by a recent report from the New Economy Working Group entitled "How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule."
We must lower our dependence on Wall Street, says the report. It proposes bold policies to support community banks which operate cooperatively and are controlled by nonprofit organizations, to greatly increase transparency in agencies that exercise great economic power such as the Federal Reserve, to create partnership banks in every state to fund local projects, and to institute stringent regulation on financial institutions, including the breaking up of big banks. These simple policy recommendations, if implemented, would unfetter America from Wall Street’s bondage and allow America to create a new economy.
As Wall Street ignores the suffering of a generation of Americans, we must all call for the changes needed to ensure a better future for our country. That means looking for real solutions to our economic woes, not looking to Wall Street.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllOpen Letter To President Obama
Dear Mr. President,
A massive kill-off of the citizens of the United States is taking place and Billionaire Buffett is right when he declares that he and his Fellow Buffetteers are winning.
Is he also correct when he states that we aren't seeing this?
The truth at the door is in the house, Mr. President.
Yours Cordially,
Leland Mellott
So is everyone ready for the next Great Depression. I hope you are because it is pretty much guarantee to happen. Why? Because pretty much no one in power now experienced the last one it first hand. Most of the Tea Bagger Reps that were elected were born in the 60s/70s and most likely became politically aware under Ronnie Ray-gun. Overall a pretty cushy time to live in compared to the 1930s. It is also a time when US politics completely disassociated with reality. I think these turd-blossums honestly believe in Voodoo economics.
These pre-homo sapien evolutionary dead enders, have no first hand experience in how bad things can get, appear to have no real understanding of history, economics, and in some cases reality itself. So this Yugo clown car full of idiots are now in place to make all the same mistakes that were made before and during the last great depression.
You know what is even scarier? Pretty much no one in power now experienced first hand a world war either. I'll let you ponder that thought for a bit on your own...
Tom I think of these things all the time. Right now I have HS students much more passionate about their history,economics and social studies than the 2 teachers. Both ex military, coach TeaBag types. One is early 50's like me and the other 35. They have had it too good and apparently never had or listened to Grandma and Grampa hash it up over the Bad Ol Days of WWII and the Soon-to-be-Lesser-Depression.
I believe the downgrade of the country was just one more rightwing ploy to make Obama look bad. He already looks bad for buddying up to the right and giving them everything they ask for, forget who's hurt the worst by it; but not for any of the trumped up reasons of the rightwing.
"Rightwing ploy to make Obama look bad." Obama doesn't need a right wing ploy to look bad, his policies are already doing a great job of making him look terrible.
Why would the banks and wall st want to make Oblahblah look bad? The should be giving him the employee of the decade award.
I have to agree with scott kn, shadre.
Within the superficial, fake national hologram that presents politics as an ideological struggle between two opposing parties, it's true that the Republican wingnuts always seek to discredit and demonize a Democratic president. (And vice-versa.)
But the irony is that, considered apart from this popular delusional social fantasy, "making Obama look bad" amounts to demonizing Dracula.
My act of solidarity with all my fellow defrauded Americans is to not pay a single penny of my ridiculously extortionate student loans. Just doing what little I can in order to bring the whole putrescent economic system to the breaking point.
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Every little bit helps, but calling for "our representatives" to do somethign about wall street and the banks is about as worthwhile as believing in Oblahblah's brand of hope n' change.
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"We must lower our dependence on Wall Street, says the report."
We're actually moving in the opposite direction as even more retirement is "privatized", and driven into Wall Street. Once that happens, the nest egg holders all start to scream for more protection for Wall Street in every market tumble, as we saw in 2008 (I was also guilty then, partly from ignorance). We become our own enemies in propping up the very structure that bleeds us. Until the small retirement plan has an alternative to Wall Street, resistance is self defeating, and they know that. That's why they push for even more "privatization" ...
Don't worry - Obama will save us.
Those at the top of the economic pyramid probably feel very safe right now. I suppose the folks at the top of the pyramid in 1789 France and 1917 Russia felt the same way, at least until the mobs dragged them out of their palaces and threw them into their own dungeons. Just because any given group of elites feels they are safe doesn't make it so. People will only be ripped off up to a point, and then, feeling they have nothing to lose, they will strike out at the oppressors regardless of personal danger .....
Unfortunately, Germany 1932 is an example that's closer to current American sentiments ...
We need real structural change to our country, Ratify Article the First
http://voltairez.hubpages.com/hub/Stop-Diluting-Democracy
"It is easy to see that there are two worlds in America — one of the well-to-do and the other of the struggling."
It's ALWAYS been like that in the USA--with the Middle ALWAYS "struggling" to become part of the "well-to-do" and siding with it on many political issues, particularly since the 1960s. Even prior to 1776, the economic houses of New York have been in control. When visiting DC, note which buildings are closest to Capitol Hill and the White House--Banks!! Examine the economic situation that drove the advent of the Civil War: The South's primary business was dependent upon Northern banks; yet the Northern banks were dependent upon commercial use of the river systems occupied by the South when they seceded--specifically the Mississippi and its commercial terminus at New Orleans. And so-forth and so-on. The Money Power has always been the primary enemy--a fundamental fact totally missing from post-WW2 political discourse as it was meant to be. Thus the post-WW2 bribes--GI Bills--to bring more people into the Middle so they would join with the already rich to further the "two worlds." The bribes did their work, and The Revolt of the Elites that started under Nixon is busilly throwing their erstwhile Middling allies under the bus as they've served their purpose.
What "will we do" with this Tea Party donwgrade? Is this our Karl Mauldin moment? Damn! Why it's "just terrible!" Who wlll "save" us now? Oh Rick Perry dog what you gonna do? The "Communist loving liberals" are "gonna overrun us." "Oh no!"