Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
How Austerity Is Ushering in a Global Recession
Not only is the United States slouching toward a double dip, but so is Europe. New data out today show even Europe’s strongest core economies – Germany, France, and the Netherlands – slowing to a crawl. 
Policy makers be warned: Austerity is the wrong medicine.
We’re on the cusp of a global recession.
Policy makers be warned: Austerity is the wrong medicine.
We all know about the weaknesses in Europe’s “periphery” – Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. But the drop in Europe’s core is dizzying.
Germany grew at an annualized rate of just half a percent last quarter, down from 5.5 percent in the first quarter of the year. France didn’t grow at all.
What’s going on in Europe’s core? Partly it’s a loss of confidence due to debt crises in the periphery. But that’s hardly all.
Europe depends on exports – especially to Asia, India, Latin America, and the United States. But exports to China and other emerging markets have been dropping. China, worried about inflation, has pulled in the reins on its sizzling economy. Brazil has been pulling back as well.
And as the United States economy sputters, exports to America have been slowing.
But chalk up a big part of Europe’s slowdown to the politics and economics of austerity. Europe – including Britain – have turned John Maynard Keynes on his head. They’ve been cutting public spending just when they should be spending more to counteract slowing private spending.
The United States has been moving in the same bizarre direction. Cutbacks by state and local governments have all but negated the federal government’s original stimulus, and no one in Washington is talking seriously about a second. The pitiful showdown over increasing the debt limit has produced the opposite: a Rube-Goldberg-like process for capping spending rather than increasing it, and a public that’s being sold the Republican lie that less government spending means more jobs.
Yes, governments on both sides of the Atlantic are deeply in debt. But policy makers on both sides seem to have forgotten that economic growth is the most important tonic.
Public debt has meaning only in relation to a nation’s GDP. When more people are working, more companies are profiting, and economies are expanding, revenues pour into national treasuries.
When economies stop growing or contract, the opposite occurs. Economies can fall into vicious cycles of slower growth, lower tax revenues, spending cuts, and even slower growth.
That’s what we’re seeing now.
What’s worse, nations are so intertwined that when every major economy is slowing the cumulative effect is larger.
With anemic growth in America and Europe, the Japanese economy comatose, and emerging markets (including China) pulling in their reins, the vicious cycle could become worldwide. If global demand for goods and services continues to fall behind the potential supply we’ll see unemployment rise further and growth slow even more — especially in Europe and the U.S.
Central banks may try to reverse this course. Ben Bernanke and company at the Fed have committed themselves to near-zero interest rates for the next two years (not exactly a rousing endorsement of America’s economic prospects in the near term). Given the sharp slowdown in Germany, the European Central Bank might now feel some pressure to lower interest rates there – or at least delay the next increase.
But when growth is slowing so dramatically and unemployment is already high, monetary policy can’t possibly do it alone.
Without an expansionary fiscal policy, low interest rates have little effect. Companies won’t borrow in order to expand and hire more workers unless they have reasonable certainty they’ll have customers for what they produce. And consumers won’t borrow money to spend on goods and services unless they’re reasonably confident they’ll have jobs.
Fiscal austerity is the wrong medicine at the wrong time.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
85 Comments so far
Show AllLet me fix that title for Mr. Reich;
How Austerity Is Ushering in a Global Depression
I go further, NC-Tom and call it neither recession or depression...it is a paradigm change that will result in more nations becoming third world, feudal societies, just as the global capitalists (who have been buying up politicians around the globe for decades) planned it.
Recessions and depressions have historically played out and ended within the lifetime of one generation. Everybody who believes they will live to see a return of a strong middle class in the US, please raise your hand.
Plan now for the revolution, class warfare, market crash, economic collapse, plan for another depression. - Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tax-the-super-rich-or-revolution-will-rage-in-2012-2011-08-16?link=MW_popular
ROLL OUT THE TUMBRELS! Superb article. Thanks.
i concur. this is not simply another "dip" in the global economy, soon to be followed by a resurgance, like a graph with an endless series of rising and falling. "Oh, the economy will go up again, jobs will become available, everything will be fine again. Always is - up and down, that's the way the cycles work."
Dead wrong. This time, it's different. There will be no "resurgence" of employment, no large drop in unemployment, no rebounding of rising wages in Amereicha's future. This is the NEW NORM. Austerity, cuts to anything and everything involving "social," and the economy will continue to retract, retract, and retract again.
I agree with the above posters. Get ready for Hell as this ridiculous, insane government does the exact opposite of what is needed to avoid collapse, and the other large governments of the world do the same ridiculous, insane things. Global depression, global economic collapse, and a permanent end to the Middle Class. Get ready to be poor if you aren't already, and get a gun for the coming war between the tens of millions of fellow serfs and the 1% uber-rich Plutocrats who put us there.
I just wanted to commend you on your very astute observation. The world is returning to its historical mean of great wealth for the few, poverty for the vast majority. What we saw after the Great Depression was a historical outlier and since all trends are mean reverting, we are seeing a mean reversion. I think what is most surprising to many people is the pace of transformation. However, they should not be surprised, it is much a like a snow ball rolling down a hill, the growth is exponential. So when a critical mass is reached the growth in inequality is explosive.
"Everybody who believes they will live to see a return of a strong middle class in the US, please raise your hand."
I do not expect a return to a strong middle class in my lifetime to be sure. I would probably be more optimistic that a real middle class would return at some point, we did end the last Guilded Age after all, but I think other things like peak resources, especially peak oil, will never allow one to return again. Think of the Earth as a very large Easter Island, most of the trees are already gone, and the Oligarchs are lusting after the few that remain.
One interesting article I ran across the other day was that the Pentagram, I mean Pentagon is talking about cutting military Pensions. So now the ultra rich in their all their uncontrollable greed is now going after the muscle, the enforcers of their financial rackets. This is probably not a good idea, but these "people", (and I use that term very loosely) are just out of control now. They are like a cancer that will eventually consume the host it depends on for its survival.
Batten down the hatches folks. Get yourselves out of debt, and become as self reliant as possible, because there is one heck of a rocky road ahead.
I think you mean a Gilded Age. A Guilded Age would at least hold out some meager hope of modest prosperity for various kinds of craftsmen!
My bad...
"So now the ultra rich in their all their uncontrollable greed is now going after the muscle, the enforcers of their financial rackets. This is probably not a good idea..."
_______________
It's NOT a good idea, Tom-- but it's not a new idea, either.
The tragic irony of military service is that service persons-- especially discharged or otherwise separated ex-service persons-- have traditionally been screwed, blued, and tattooed by their governments.
As you probably know, I'm a lily-livered egghead type whose infatuation with warriors and the military evaporated only a few years after "Combat" and "The Gallant Men" went off the air.
I still miss that Sergeant Saunders, though. Vic Morrow, God rest his soul. When I was ten years old, I would've killed for-- and with-- one of those super-cool Tommy guns Saunders carried*.
But in my own version of "I may hate the sin, but never the sinner", I've always sympathized with veterans who either buy into, or are dragged kicking and screaming into, life-altering service only to be victimized by their governments despite all the high-minded idealism and jingo patriotism kept boiling on the Home Front-- or should that be the Homeland Front?
Of course, there are surely thousands, even millions, of active and former servicepersons who will aver that the military is or was bera, bera good to them. But throughout history, governments have readily resorted to screwing over veterans who risked, or gave, life, limb, and peace of mind to serve the military beast.
And Amerika has been doing it since the War of Independence. One would hope that the general public would wise up and realize that Uncle Sam is an abusive master. Still, the military persists because it somehow can always make an offer fresh meat can't refuse.
_______________
* See: http://www.keropiansculpture.com/sgtsaunders.html
"Our" government is in the control of the people in this nation who are in the top 1% of the ratings on wealth. These folk are doing very well. These people have purchased our elected officials to do their bidding. This has been a profitable arrangement for both the corrupt politician and the wealthy individuals---but it sure a hell is screwing the working people of the nation. We need to wrest our government back into a democratic position where the voice of the people is heard and heeded.
Those that control things now will not leave power willingly. The people must rise up in rebellion to the killing of our democracy. Your vote doesn't count. The government doesn't even bother to count them. The rebellion is scheduled to begin on October 6, 2011. Look it up on the internet and plan to participate.
If voting could change anything, they would have made it illegal by now.
i would like to see warren buffet use the citizens united ruling to spend billions to counteract the republicans "friends"who spend so much to ruin our world, including all those foreign investors and companies who are controlling our political process
I would like to see Warren Buffet finance A campaign to primary A contender that would knock Obama's lieing ass out of office...There are plenty of good men out there that could still rescue this runaway train of A Government...How about it Warren????
"Cutbacks by state and local governments have all but negated the federal government’s original stimulus, and no one in Washington is talking seriously about a second. The pitiful showdown over increasing the debt limit has produced the opposite: a Rube-Goldberg-like process for capping spending rather than increasing it, and a public that’s being sold the Republican lie that less government spending means more jobs."
You don't get this vital message from the MSM or the elected officials now controlling this country. However, Reich and others who think like him aren't making much of a difference. Mere talk isn't going to change things. The more Obama caves, the deeper the problem gets. What a pity we who see what's happening can't organize ourselves to persuade and enable someone like Reich to actually make decisions instead of just talking about it.
Reich does not hold a position in government.
Although Reich tells us that recent local and state government cutbacks negated the value of the stimulus, I contend that the tax cuts that comprised 50% of the stimulus negated the value of the other 50% of the stimulus.
Also, Reich implies that the Fed keeping interest rates low of two more years is a good thing when, historically, low interest rates have worked to stimulate economies in the short term, but have exacerbated economic problems when applied in the long term.
Keeping interest rates low, combined with a barely regulated commodities market in the US will feed inflation while further slowing economic growth.
How would high interest rates help the economy? About the commodities market: Is it short selling that causes commodities to rise, thereby raising inflation?
Here's an extremely short bit on interest rates and inflation, which may be worth a scan.
http://money.howstuffworks.com/interest-rate4.htm
Not mentioned under the "cost-push" category of inflation-causers is a rise in the price of oil (a glaring omission, for me).
Of course you can google "interest rates and inflation", etc., for more.
...and Reich gave us NAFTA and we all know what happened. He's the enemy insofar as I'm concerned. Republicans and democrats have finally spent and borrowed us to death. Its over. Let the collapse do its job. To interfere is to postpone the inevitable. We can't spend our way out of it this time.
And its not a recession, nor a second one. It's a contraction. A big one. Look around and you'll see an empty storefront where there wasn't one yesterday. The lack of consumer spending isn't just all about the economy, it includes a pervading toxic atmosphere of criminality generated by government and commerce at the top.
Locally you can smell desperation and deceit everywhere. People see what this government has done. Lies and more lies – about everything. The wars. Endless and Forever wars that they say have to be fought for Them by You, your children, their children and on down through the coming generations. Breaking infrastructure. Breaking banks. Breaking businesses. A complicit Press. A multi-trillion dollar military that was thought to be invincible –incompetent and alseep on the job a decade ago. Now they're still starting, fighting and losing wars while draining our treasury. Killing and maiming innocent men, women and children as well as themselves. It madness. The people see it. They are terrified. They won't spend for This.
And finally, the soon to be 10 year culmination of the horror of 9-11 and every monkey-on-our-backs that go with it tagging along. TARP, Patriot Act, more war & death, and finally, a president who lied and was the most deviously deceptive president of all time. Who likely took the last rays of hope from millions who had faith in him and in the system. May God damn him and his party for that.
All of it coming back into focus next month. If you think people aren't spending now, just wait a few weeks. There is nothing about the current system that needs to be save. Quite the contrary, it needs to go. If what we have now, if this is what is required to have iPods, cool cars, trendy clothes, homes and rock & roll, then count me out.
One of the very best posts I've read, hands down. Right on the money.
Batten down your hatches, folks. It's gonna be a nasty, nasty ride in the very near future.
Reich had nothing to do with NAFTA. He was secretary of labor in the Clinton admin and as such was not involved in economic policy.
From wikipedia:
In The Work of Nations he [Reich] argued that a nation's competitiveness depends on the education and skills of its people and on the infrastructure connecting them with one another, rather than on the profitability of companies headquartered within it. Private capital, he said, was increasingly global and footloose, while a nation's people—its human capital—constituted the one resource on which the future standard of living of a nation uniquely depended. He urged policy makers to make such public investments the cornerstone of economic policy.
Bill Clinton incorporated Reich's thinking into his 1992 campaign platform, "Putting People First," and after being elected invited Reich to head his economic transition team. Reich later joined the administration as Secretary of Labor. During his tenure, he implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), successfully promoted increasing the minimum wage, successfully lobbied to pass the School-to-Work Jobs Act, and launched a number of job training programs. At the same time, he lobbied Clinton to address bigger societal issues, countered Robert Rubin and others in the administration who wanted Clinton to pare his investment agenda, and pushed for improvement of conditions for those in poverty.[citation needed]
In addition, Reich used the office as a platform for focusing the nation's attention on the need for American workers to adapt to the new economy. He advocated that the country provide more opportunities for workers to learn more technology, and predicted the shrinkage of the middle class due to a gap between unskilled and highly skilled workers.
Robert Reich had nothing to do with FORMULATING NAFTA. He had plenty to do with PROMOTING and DEFENDING it. Hell, he was still promoting and defending it in 2008!: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/robert-reich-on-nafta-and-trade.html
Robert Reich had nothing to do with FORMULATING NAFTA. He had plenty to do with PROMOTING and DEFENDING it. Hell, he was still promoting and defending it in 2008!: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/robert-reich-on-nafta-and-trade.html
All the stimulus packages since 2009 have succeeded in doing is kicking the can down the road for a little longer. The underlying economic problems resurface and all we succeeded in doing was dig a deeper hole for ourselves in the form of more debt. In the past 3 years US debt has grown from $10 trillion to $15 trillion and for what? The $5 trillion just bought us some time, but we are no better off than before it was spent. In fact we are worse off because of the interest that has to be paid to finance it.
I agree that the growing income inequality gap is a huge problem and that the top 1% and 10% get a disproportionate amount of the wealth in this country, but surely the solution is not to give a blank check to corporate dominated, lobbyist controlled Washington and expect it to dole out this money (raised by further debasing the dollar) in such a way that will reignite the economy. Just like in the past, their cronies will walk off with all the money and the country as a whole will be further in debt.
The breakdown of the U.S. economy is the inevitable result of not prosecuting the war criminals and wall street bank robbers of the past five administrations.
Illegal trillion dollar wars are now little more than sport for presidents from both pseudo-factions of the Uniparty.
Likewise, Bush and Barack are both willing drivers of the getaway car as their wall street pimps continue their bank robbing spree.
Thus, the primary problem is not one of deficits or slow growth (those are secondary) but an unchecked crime wave.
Reinstate the rule of law and fill the prisons with billionaires, two to a bunk if necessary.
When the power returns to the people, and away from corrupt kleptocratic capital, prosperity may once again ring.
VERY well said. You summed up the underlying causes of our fascist Plutocracy nicely. The rule of law being applied to ALL - 1% plutocrats, and 99% working Amereichans - would ensure that the filthy corporate whores in Washington had to actually be held accountable for launching illegal invasions that drain our treasury and are in reality nothing more than free $$$ for their corporate masters. The massive foreclosure fraud that the big banks have been participating in over the last 9 years (forging signatures, not having original documents required by law, etc.) would actually be punished instead of ignored. Wall Street companies that gambled away trillions and caused the economy to collapse would start to be regulated finally, instead of being given even more freedom to collapse the economy again. Etc, etc, etc.
Unrestrained, unregulated, uncontrolled capitalist greed by the ruling Plutocracy is at the root of all our economic woes.
When Obama declared that his position regarding the war criminals in the Bush administration was to "Look Forward, Not Backward" (I still haven't found this anywhere in the Constitution) it was easy to predict more trillion dollar illegal wars and thus continued economic carnage.
This was also a silent signal to Wall Street that they would be given a free pass for their crimes. Predictably, their global looting not only continued but accelerated (though you'll never see video of it on your evening news).
With cover from all the pseudo-factions of the Uniparty, the Justice Department and the corporate controlled propaganda outlets the public has been outmaneuvered and outwitted and thus rendered impotent to stop (or even truly understand) what is happening.
These are all symptoms of a underlying disease, capitalism.
How can it not be seen that there is afoot an upper-class plan to depopulate the planet?
The elitists have control of everything. They are creating economic chaos in order to disrupt the quality of life for the masses.
There are shortages of jobs which means lack of life sustaining necessities for the unemployed. Cutting of Social Security gets rid of the elderly. Cutting of Medicare and Medicaid gets rid of the infirm. Cutting services gets rid of the poor. Medication shortages gets rid of the ill.
The elitists have bled the system of its liquidity, and have hoarded it away.
I don't disagree that there are too many people in the world, but to create a world wide situation where people have to just go away and die in anguish and misery is not the most efficacious way to deal with the problem.
Mark my words, this is a concerted plot to take the population of planet earth down to around two billion people.
And what can be done about it?
MEL
I doubt they have a plan to depopulate the planet. I doubt they have a plan at all. I think they're just so many parasites, eating and eating and eating without much concern for anyone's long-term survival, even their own. Greed and power will do that to an otherwise healthy mind . . . and there are plenty of less-than-healthy minds among them, thanks to poor breeding and upbringing (just ask the Bushes!).
Mel, I think you are right about the plan to depopulate the planet although I expect they are thinking much fewer than two billion would remain once the plan is fulfilled. My local state government cut services to the disabled in the administration before the present one and have only continued to add to the struggle of elderly and infirm since. In case you don't have a 10 year calendar handy, that was well before this last Wall Street debacle and all the "debt" talk. People who can not stay in nursing homes or have some help provided to them in their homes end up dying a slow and tedious death alone in wretched conditions because they are physically unable to take care of their needs on their own. The disabled, elderly, and poor are the first ones Hitler went after to "relieve society of their burden." It was begun here before the current crises and no one gave it that much attention because they were too busy struggling to keep their jobs and pay their bills. But any who are lucky enough to reach old age and need a nursing home from now on without substantial means to pay $5,000.00 + per month required for the "privilege," will have a very personal realization of what happened to these first who were sacrificed for the sake of the great corporate will. There will be many more to follow. God help us!
> Mel, I think you are right about the plan to depopulate the planet
KB, it seems to be the only real solution to the problem.
> although I expect they are thinking much fewer than two billion would remain once the plan is fulfilled.
The Georgia Guidestones (Google that) put the number at half a billion.
> My local state government cut services to the disabled in the administration before the present one and have only continued to add to the struggle of elderly and infirm since. In case you don't have a 10 year calendar handy, that was well before this last Wall Street debacle and all the "debt" talk.
The plan has been in place for some time. It is the reason that the elite have been bleeding the liquidity out of the economy, and that has been going on for quite some time.
> People who can not stay in nursing homes or have some help provided to them in their homes end up dying a slow and tedious death alone in wretched conditions because they are physically unable to take care of their needs on their own.
That happens to be MY situation. As soon as they cut my SS, Medicare, and Medicaid, I plan on drowning my cats and ending my life.
> The disabled, elderly, and poor are the first ones Hitler went after to "relieve society of their burden." It was begun here before the current crises and no one gave it that much attention because they were too busy struggling to keep their jobs and pay their bills. But any who are lucky enough to reach old age and need a nursing home from now on without substantial means to pay $5,000.00 + per month required for the "privilege," will have a very personal realization of what happened to these first who were sacrificed for the sake of the great corporate will.
There will be chaos before the end. But not to worry, the elite will be spared any discomfort or inconvenience.
> There will be many more to follow. God help us!
The powers that be should at least institute The Euthanasia Agency (TEA) to give a quick and painless demise for those who will otherwise suffer a protracted and agonizing death.
MEL
How can it not be seen that there is afoot an upper-class plan to depopulate the planet?
The elitists have control of everything. They are creating economic chaos in order to disrupt the quality of life for the masses.
There are shortages of jobs which means lack of life sustaining necessities for the unemployed. Cutting of Social Security gets rid of the elderly. Cutting of Medicare and Medicaid gets rid of the infirm. Cutting services gets rid of the poor. Medication shortages gets rid of the ill.
The elitists have bled the system of its liquidity, and have hoarded it away.
I don't disagree that there are too many people in the world, but to create a world wide situation where people have to just go away and die in anguish and misery is not the most efficacious way to deal with the problem.
Mark my words, this is a concerted plot to take the population of planet earth down to around two billion people.
And what can be done about it?
MEL
Why is it so hard for Obama not to understand this reasoning?
It's damn near impossible for a man to see that which he is being paid not to see.
Seems to me I rarely see anyone question the underlying premise here, which is that we MUST feel free to borrow so that we have "more." It's scary to think that the only way the world economy doesn't fail is by continuing to produce more and more stuff we don't need, but borrow money to have. Has that ever done anything beyond putting most of our resources in the hands of the 1%? I think it's time to reconsider the very core of our economic belief system so that we allocate our resources more equitably. To just keep borrowing to get bigger is like feeding a cancer by increasing your cigarette intake.
Ah, the economy that the NAFTA Guy helped create is now coming back to bite us in the a$$.
Reich gets my nomination for the Jeffrey Sachs "Invent the Disease, Then Prescribe the Cure" award for the year.
Sorry, but you can't blame all of the current ills on NAFTA or on Reich.
But, of course, that's what shoot-the-messenger trolls do.
q
What a shame you're so opposed to a little honesty about your heroes. (Nor would I think of blaming all of our current ills on Reich and NAFTA; that's just a product of your imagination . . . but then, hurling bogus accusations is what trolls do.)
What childish nonsense. You post the same crap for every article by Reich that appears on CD (twice on this one) and you never deal with ths substance of his comments.
For all of his faults, Reich makes a far better hero than the object of your worship, Rick Perry.
q
You seem like someone in desperate need of a mirror. :-)
You seem like someone in desperate need of a soul.
jj
As a nonbeliever, I'm quite comfortable in the expectation I neither have nor need one. :-)
corvo,
bravo
Without stirring up any bad blood between the two of you, I would like to see Robert Reich and maybe even Bill Clinton and company admit that NAFTA {and GATT} was A sell out of the American worker, an economic abysmal failure for our economy at best. {Not to mention what it did to Mexico}.They all have A lot of Crow to eat and digest here...
And now Obama is setting up A "Free Trade" TAX HAVEN in Panama...Now I know why he didn't go after all of the existing off shore Tax Haven accounts-He's in on the deal...And UBS Whistle Blower Bradley Birkenfeld rots away in Federal Prison...
Well, exactly! :-) Why trust Reich when he can't admit having made a pretty huge macroeconomic mistake -- and an elementary one too: one that millions of Americans saw right through even back then? Unless, of course, selling out American workers to third-world sweatshops is still part of his agenda.
I still wouldn't have much use for what Reich has to say, because all he's doing is proposing little tweaks to an essentially corrupt and oligarchical system. But at least I could respect him for possessing some integrity if he just admitted he really screwed up on matters such as NAFTA.
Ah, the economy that the NAFTA Guy helped create is now coming back to bite us in the a$$.
Reich gets my nomination for the Jeffrey Sachs "Invent the Disease, Then Prescribe the Cure" award for the year.
The U.S. masses have a tendency to enslave themselves. As long as it's 'the other guy' who is enslaved, the average American will go for it. Examples of this are seen everyday across America as voters elect governments that promise to eliminate decent paying jobs, increase the prison populations and make prisoners work in jail. Meanwhile the very rich and corporate America in general can't believe its good fortune as average Americans vote against their best interests time and time again.
Reich helps perpetuate this return to slavery as he directs all his venom towards Republicans implying that a Democrat is the answer. The American voter, unable to think outside of the two party box, oscillates back and forth between the two corporate candidates. The FCM is so well honed now, that perpetual bondage for the majority of the populace is within reach for the first time in almost a hundred and fifty years as we continue to blame everybody except the true culprits... and ourselves.
I could envision another article entitled, "How Rampant Greed and Consumer Mania Ushered in an Era of Climate Destruction". There are other words for austerity- frugality, simplicity, living within one's means, economy, thrift...etc. YES- the filthy rich will remain filthy rich and are contributing plenty to the climate change problem. Sure makes us all mad. But, there are more of us, and if we figure out how to live well and happily with much less- we might stave off the worst of climate destruction and increase the chances that our children and grandchildren will inherit a liveable planet.
Do I think the majority of us who are not rich will actually accept and embrace frugality- nope. We'll spend our time complaining about whose "fault" it is, while ever straining for the opportunity to make more, buy more, use more, waste more, and climate change be damned.