"We were dwarves under Mubarak," said a protester. "Now we are giants." There are moments in history, in the histories of nations and sometimes moments over much of the world, when people feel like that. The day Mubarak was forced to resign, on February 11, 2011, did feel like that, and not just for Egyptians.
I could go on about how Mubarak's fall is a blow against empire, but it really isn't about that. No matter what happens in Egypt, and that's still up in the air, the revolution peacefully accomplished by millions of people against a repressive and rapacious regime is astounding--and inspiring. But it makes me humble, to realize how many people it took, and with what persistence, and against what odds--and with 300+ dead--heroes of the revolution, perhaps.
I don't know if I'd have had the guts to go to Tahrir Square on one of those early days, nor to persist for 18 days; I know I loathe committees and crowds, and yet I hope I would have been there.
What comes afterward is still open to speculation. The army is now, again, in control, as it has been at each turning point in Egypt since it overthrew King Farouk in 1952. Some speculate that Egypt's senior officers might be more inclined to reconstitute the regime without Mubarak and Suleiman, than to institute true democracy. They have too much to lose: luxurious villas, lucrative industries and power.
But in those 18 days, the Army played a sophisticated game. It appears that the conservative high command knew they had to be careful, since they lead a conscript army, whose lower ranks often seemed to sympathize with the protesters. On the other hand, they want to protect their accustomed and expected perks, so there is a tension between the demands of the protesters and the generals' interests.
If I were an Egyptian general, I would have argued not for repression, but for flexibility. I would have said that the Army could give way over Mubarak and then people won't notice that we still have the same system that rewards us so handsomely.
This may be why some say more protests will be necessary, and they're ready to continue to protest in Tahrir Square. They should if the army simply re-establishes its Mubarak era.
However, given the mass turmoil all over the Middle East, it's hard to see the Egyptian Army turning its back on the popular demands. Old guys like General Tantawi may want to, but even the younger generals know they could have a bloody revolution on their hands if they tried to re-establish the status quo.
As for the American role, if it doesn't adapt to the emerging order, its influence in the Middle East will shrink even faster, and there's goes the Empire!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Palin and the Brothers (Muslim)
Egyptian VP, Suleiman, suggested unspecified “other people” and “an Islamic current” were pushing the young people forward. “It’s not their idea,” he said. “It comes from abroad” (NYT 2/6/11). Rashid Mohammed Rashid, a former minister went further. He said of Americans, "There was so much interference. They shouldn’t actually get involved in this.”
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin claims that, "...surely they know more than the rest of us know, who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak." (ABC 2/6/11) She doesn't like that very much. 'They' clearly refers to Obama/Clinton/Biden.
So, it looks like a consensus between the Egyptian regime and Palin, that Americans are running the show, behind the scenes--or the Muslim Brotherhood is, but we can't support them, because they're Muslim extremists.
A Muslim extremist is not the same as a fundamentalist. The Saudi regime is fundamentalist, and although extremists have spawned there, the monarchy is fighting them as hard as we are. Apparently, the Brotherhood is more moderate than the Saudis; it does not favor extremism.
The Brotherhood is clearly not behind the revolt in Egypt; it is a participant after the fact, and most of the revolutionary activists in Tahrir Square appear to be young, secular and un-supportive of fundamentalists taking power. The Brotherhood has appeared reluctant to take a prominent role in the uprising, even stating that they won't run candidates in the coming elections, either in September or later. They may end up with some power, since they are the best-organized opposition grouping, but that doesn't mean they'll be in a position to order attacks on Israel, or the Coptic Church.
Mubarak has held on to power so long, by cozening his country and the world with the 'extremist threat' and predicting 'chaos' après moi. Palin still buys it. Now, Mubarak's regime is trying to blame all the unrest on 'foreigners,' and Palin assumes Obama is calling the shots. Both sell paranoia. And they feed on each other. Both promote only one American interest--the sale of more American war toys.
In Tahrir Square, today, Muslims kept guard while Coptic Christians had a service, and Coptic Christians, earlier kept guard while Muslims prayed. Where are those extremists?
It's true that Obama/Hillary/Biden/Wisner are pressing Mubarak and the opposition to follow their script for a "peaceful transition," but neither side is listening. The inchoate, but determined and persistent opposition/revolution wants Mubarak out now, and they have good reasons. Mubarak seems determined to stay, even though he won't run again. By staying, he could control the succession, which is precisely why the protesters want him out now.
But if America isn't in control, then the Emperor has no clothes. That's not a bad thing, but most Americans still assume the opposite, and think conspiracy when events prove otherwise. The right wing battens on this paranoia, as they hasten the American Empire's decline.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin claims that, "...surely they know more than the rest of us know, who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak." (ABC 2/6/11) She doesn't like that very much. 'They' clearly refers to Obama/Clinton/Biden.
So, it looks like a consensus between the Egyptian regime and Palin, that Americans are running the show, behind the scenes--or the Muslim Brotherhood is, but we can't support them, because they're Muslim extremists.
A Muslim extremist is not the same as a fundamentalist. The Saudi regime is fundamentalist, and although extremists have spawned there, the monarchy is fighting them as hard as we are. Apparently, the Brotherhood is more moderate than the Saudis; it does not favor extremism.
The Brotherhood is clearly not behind the revolt in Egypt; it is a participant after the fact, and most of the revolutionary activists in Tahrir Square appear to be young, secular and un-supportive of fundamentalists taking power. The Brotherhood has appeared reluctant to take a prominent role in the uprising, even stating that they won't run candidates in the coming elections, either in September or later. They may end up with some power, since they are the best-organized opposition grouping, but that doesn't mean they'll be in a position to order attacks on Israel, or the Coptic Church.
Mubarak has held on to power so long, by cozening his country and the world with the 'extremist threat' and predicting 'chaos' après moi. Palin still buys it. Now, Mubarak's regime is trying to blame all the unrest on 'foreigners,' and Palin assumes Obama is calling the shots. Both sell paranoia. And they feed on each other. Both promote only one American interest--the sale of more American war toys.
In Tahrir Square, today, Muslims kept guard while Coptic Christians had a service, and Coptic Christians, earlier kept guard while Muslims prayed. Where are those extremists?
It's true that Obama/Hillary/Biden/Wisner are pressing Mubarak and the opposition to follow their script for a "peaceful transition," but neither side is listening. The inchoate, but determined and persistent opposition/revolution wants Mubarak out now, and they have good reasons. Mubarak seems determined to stay, even though he won't run again. By staying, he could control the succession, which is precisely why the protesters want him out now.
But if America isn't in control, then the Emperor has no clothes. That's not a bad thing, but most Americans still assume the opposite, and think conspiracy when events prove otherwise. The right wing battens on this paranoia, as they hasten the American Empire's decline.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
My Personal History Collides with Egypt
When Mubarak's supporters attacked Egyptian protesters with sticks and knives, I felt an unwelcome kinship. Most of the pro-government demonstrators are probably goons from the security services; my mother's family was high up in similar institutions in Venezuela when Juan Vicente Gomez was military dictator (1908 to 1935). When Gomez died in 1935 (of natural causes), my Great Uncle Velasco, Governor of Caracas, delayed news of Gomez's death by 24 hours. He needed time to load a gunboat with all his valuables, so he could flee to Costa Rica.
My grandfather was not so foresighted. When he was Gomez's governor in Estado Falcon, he invested in land; when Gomez died, he lost it all.
Velasco was known for a particular form of torture, so it's likely that his appointees' main job was regime security. My mother's father, and almost all his brothers, worked for Velasco. My uncles were probably counterparts to the Cairenes deploying the police goons in mufti, today--not the men wielding sticks and knives, or riding horses and camels into Tahrir Square, but the ones who sent them.
My sympathies go out to the anti-government protesters, who defended themselves with stones.
Deploying the pro-government goons would be something Gomez might have done, but Gomez was always careful to tightly control his military. It was not a conscript army. In Egypt it is, dividing the army into elite officers and civilian soldiers.
The chaos and violence precipitated by Mubarak's followers is probably a tactic for bringing the army over to the President's side. The officers revere order, and order is now being visibly disrupted--by the President's men.
There have been extraordinary stories in both Tunisia and Cairo of the demonstrators/protesters policing themselves; there were even TV scenes of young men cleaning up the trash in Tahrir Square. Other stories told of young men protecting neighborhoods from looting, and of the elaborate but self-deputized efforts of the protesters to screen newcomers, preventing them from bringing weapons into Tahrir Square.
And then on Wednesday, the army let in the pro-Mubarak demonstrators with knives, clubs, and even a few guns.
Either the army still feels constrained when faced by security forces, or it prefers a passive role: letting the protesters protest, and letting the counter-protesters into the square--until it tries to separate them with armored cars. Maybe the army sees itself as Egypt's arbitrator.
The people recruited for the pro-Mubarak demonstrations are like the people who worked for my mother's family. Now, in Venezuela, my cousins are united in their disgust for Chavez.
But it was the people who won for Chavez in Venezuela, after he was toppled in a coup. The Egyptian people can win, too; I hope they have better luck in leaders.
Their triumph will mark another important step in the decline of the American Empire.
My grandfather was not so foresighted. When he was Gomez's governor in Estado Falcon, he invested in land; when Gomez died, he lost it all.
Velasco was known for a particular form of torture, so it's likely that his appointees' main job was regime security. My mother's father, and almost all his brothers, worked for Velasco. My uncles were probably counterparts to the Cairenes deploying the police goons in mufti, today--not the men wielding sticks and knives, or riding horses and camels into Tahrir Square, but the ones who sent them.
My sympathies go out to the anti-government protesters, who defended themselves with stones.
Deploying the pro-government goons would be something Gomez might have done, but Gomez was always careful to tightly control his military. It was not a conscript army. In Egypt it is, dividing the army into elite officers and civilian soldiers.
The chaos and violence precipitated by Mubarak's followers is probably a tactic for bringing the army over to the President's side. The officers revere order, and order is now being visibly disrupted--by the President's men.
There have been extraordinary stories in both Tunisia and Cairo of the demonstrators/protesters policing themselves; there were even TV scenes of young men cleaning up the trash in Tahrir Square. Other stories told of young men protecting neighborhoods from looting, and of the elaborate but self-deputized efforts of the protesters to screen newcomers, preventing them from bringing weapons into Tahrir Square.
And then on Wednesday, the army let in the pro-Mubarak demonstrators with knives, clubs, and even a few guns.
Either the army still feels constrained when faced by security forces, or it prefers a passive role: letting the protesters protest, and letting the counter-protesters into the square--until it tries to separate them with armored cars. Maybe the army sees itself as Egypt's arbitrator.
The people recruited for the pro-Mubarak demonstrations are like the people who worked for my mother's family. Now, in Venezuela, my cousins are united in their disgust for Chavez.
But it was the people who won for Chavez in Venezuela, after he was toppled in a coup. The Egyptian people can win, too; I hope they have better luck in leaders.
Their triumph will mark another important step in the decline of the American Empire.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Revolution in Egypt
There aren't quite as many people in Tahrir (Liberation) Square as there are particles of snow falling from NY's sky, but the numbers are overwhelming. Al Jazeera estimated that there were at least two million people there on Tuesday (2/1/11), and many were determined to stay the night, insuring ownership of the square.
What is important for Egypt's apparent revolution is that the Army is not blocking it; in fact, it appears to be helping the protesters maintain order. There is an important reason for this, relevant to us: Egypt has a draft, so the army is filled not with professionals, or poverty recruits, as is ours, but with a cross-section of the young men of the nation. Given such a make-up, it would be risky and dangerous for the army to order its soldiers to shoot to kill their fellow Egyptians. The generals could face a general mutiny, an element that helped precipitate the Soviet revolution in Russia.
The question on everyone's mind, from Obama and Hillary to Joe Blow, is what does the likely overthrow of the US's ally of 30 years, President Mubarak, mean for American interests?
First of all, the worst thing the US could do, would be to support Mubarak and drive out the protesters. Second, what the US does short of a misguided intervention is less important; the Egyptian people have clearly made up their minds: Mubarak has to go. What comes next is still up in the air.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been repressed in Egypt since the 1950's, but it seems to be the most organized opposition force. However, the people interviewed in Liberation Square, and in Alexandria, appear to have a more secular bent, so no one knows who will prevail. Further, Mohammed El Baradei, probably an interim figure, is also secular, not an "Islamist."
In any case, Egypt will go in whatever direction it goes, whether through popular pressure or military decision. If the latter, it might be cautiously pro-western. However, if Egypt does have regime change (likely), then there could be a domino effect, and that could affect "our oil." After all, Egypt is the most populous Arab nation, and has been the center of learning in the Middle East for millennia, so the popular overthrow of a pro-western dictator there could have manifold consequences.
One conservative commentator is shrilly warning against $120 oil: even that is possible. It is almost guaranteed, however, that US sponsorship of conservative dictators in the region will no longer insure US regional control.
The Egyptian and Tunisian popular revolutions signal the beginning of the end of the US's current Mideast strategy and tactics. Either, the US adapts to the new facts on the ground, or the popular outpouring will cause a significant weakening of the US Empire. It is one more movement towards a multi-polar world.
What is important for Egypt's apparent revolution is that the Army is not blocking it; in fact, it appears to be helping the protesters maintain order. There is an important reason for this, relevant to us: Egypt has a draft, so the army is filled not with professionals, or poverty recruits, as is ours, but with a cross-section of the young men of the nation. Given such a make-up, it would be risky and dangerous for the army to order its soldiers to shoot to kill their fellow Egyptians. The generals could face a general mutiny, an element that helped precipitate the Soviet revolution in Russia.
The question on everyone's mind, from Obama and Hillary to Joe Blow, is what does the likely overthrow of the US's ally of 30 years, President Mubarak, mean for American interests?
First of all, the worst thing the US could do, would be to support Mubarak and drive out the protesters. Second, what the US does short of a misguided intervention is less important; the Egyptian people have clearly made up their minds: Mubarak has to go. What comes next is still up in the air.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been repressed in Egypt since the 1950's, but it seems to be the most organized opposition force. However, the people interviewed in Liberation Square, and in Alexandria, appear to have a more secular bent, so no one knows who will prevail. Further, Mohammed El Baradei, probably an interim figure, is also secular, not an "Islamist."
In any case, Egypt will go in whatever direction it goes, whether through popular pressure or military decision. If the latter, it might be cautiously pro-western. However, if Egypt does have regime change (likely), then there could be a domino effect, and that could affect "our oil." After all, Egypt is the most populous Arab nation, and has been the center of learning in the Middle East for millennia, so the popular overthrow of a pro-western dictator there could have manifold consequences.
One conservative commentator is shrilly warning against $120 oil: even that is possible. It is almost guaranteed, however, that US sponsorship of conservative dictators in the region will no longer insure US regional control.
The Egyptian and Tunisian popular revolutions signal the beginning of the end of the US's current Mideast strategy and tactics. Either, the US adapts to the new facts on the ground, or the popular outpouring will cause a significant weakening of the US Empire. It is one more movement towards a multi-polar world.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Obama-Vision
Obama has called for cutting the deficit, freezing government salaries, and even, cutting corporate taxes (most large corporations don't pay any), joining a throng of right-wingers, and also the Conservatives who took power in the UK not so long ago. But look what's happening in the UK in the wake of huge cuts to the UK government budget.
"It's not enough just to slam on the spending brakes. Measures that cut spending but killed demand would actually make matters worse," said Sir Richard Lambert, outgoing director-general of the Confederation of British Industry. NYT 01/25/11. In the wake of the Conservative/Lib-Dem budget cuts, the UK suffered a decline in GDP in the fourth quarter, after several rising quarters.
The UK made cuts very much like the ones Rep. Ryan proposed in his Republican response to Obama's State of the Union address. How do you stimulate an economy by cutting the government's budget? Market fundamentalists claim government spending crowds out private spending, so if you cut the government, corporate energy will be "unleashed."
This doesn't make much sense right now. In a boom, excess government spending will crowd out private investment. We are not in a boom. While corporations are realizing fair profits--from overseas sales--and the banks are pocketing huge returns, few are hiring, even when there is increasing demand for their products or services; they are demanding more of their current employees, instead--overtime usually, mandatory unless a union is involved, and at regular, not overtime wages unless a union contract requires otherwise.
That's why we still have over 9.5% unemployment officially; it's estimated to be as high as 19% when discouraged workers and involuntary part-time workers are counted.
At least Obama proposed only a modest freeze to government, and insisted that it should invest in clean energy, etc. He could have made a strong case for the government as employer of last resort to invest in workers, and in addressing our sliding housing crisis, but he didn't: maybe not "centrist" enough.
One of his signature issues is education, which is logical, when talking about the future, but if the US is going to "win" the future, Race to the Top won't do it. Our children are not successfully competing with the rest of the world, but if we are to "win," they have to, not on standardized tests, but in skills and creative thinking: penalizing teachers won't accomplish that. Encouraging good teaching and supporting teachers would have a better chance--in colleges, too.
Obama's proposals, however, won't "win the future." The US must face its decline, withdraw from empire, and focus on its long-term deficits, not only of government, but of infrastructure, education, skills and trade.
That won't happen as long as the elite hold on to the status quo that enriched them. What the US needs is a democratic uprising like the one in Tunisia.
"It's not enough just to slam on the spending brakes. Measures that cut spending but killed demand would actually make matters worse," said Sir Richard Lambert, outgoing director-general of the Confederation of British Industry. NYT 01/25/11. In the wake of the Conservative/Lib-Dem budget cuts, the UK suffered a decline in GDP in the fourth quarter, after several rising quarters.
The UK made cuts very much like the ones Rep. Ryan proposed in his Republican response to Obama's State of the Union address. How do you stimulate an economy by cutting the government's budget? Market fundamentalists claim government spending crowds out private spending, so if you cut the government, corporate energy will be "unleashed."
This doesn't make much sense right now. In a boom, excess government spending will crowd out private investment. We are not in a boom. While corporations are realizing fair profits--from overseas sales--and the banks are pocketing huge returns, few are hiring, even when there is increasing demand for their products or services; they are demanding more of their current employees, instead--overtime usually, mandatory unless a union is involved, and at regular, not overtime wages unless a union contract requires otherwise.
That's why we still have over 9.5% unemployment officially; it's estimated to be as high as 19% when discouraged workers and involuntary part-time workers are counted.
At least Obama proposed only a modest freeze to government, and insisted that it should invest in clean energy, etc. He could have made a strong case for the government as employer of last resort to invest in workers, and in addressing our sliding housing crisis, but he didn't: maybe not "centrist" enough.
One of his signature issues is education, which is logical, when talking about the future, but if the US is going to "win" the future, Race to the Top won't do it. Our children are not successfully competing with the rest of the world, but if we are to "win," they have to, not on standardized tests, but in skills and creative thinking: penalizing teachers won't accomplish that. Encouraging good teaching and supporting teachers would have a better chance--in colleges, too.
Obama's proposals, however, won't "win the future." The US must face its decline, withdraw from empire, and focus on its long-term deficits, not only of government, but of infrastructure, education, skills and trade.
That won't happen as long as the elite hold on to the status quo that enriched them. What the US needs is a democratic uprising like the one in Tunisia.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Anarchy Right and Left
I read a right-wing paean for anarchy in a libertarian newsletter; it was mirrored by a left-wing article expressing disgust--at corporate anarchy!
The pro-anarchist rhapsodizes about how 'mates' helped each other in the Australian floods, volunteering by the thousands--and then the government comes in, hunts for looters, restores law and order, and worst of all, collects taxes: end of paradise, the renewal of theft.
The leftist describes how the corporations are running Washington, and do the same thing--siphon off the people's wealth--with government collusion, bought and paid for.
So, is it the government, or is it corporations?
Conservative anarchists assume that all taxation is theft. Government service, to them, is an oxymoron. Nothing government does has any economic value. They assume that everything should be provided by 'business.' So, private roads and military would be more efficient? Would every road be a toll road?
What anarchists ignore, are the 300 pound gorillas on the loose, all over the world--the global corporations. Wouldn't they mind if corporations ruled everyone's lives without any government oversight, or intervention? Wouldn't they mind the toxic pharmaceuticals, dangerous toys, dangerous roads, dangerous cars, and above all, dangerous banks?
Why do conservatives, more generally, think that less government, or no government is preferable? These aren't the days of Daniel Boone. Now, there are huge, powerful private institutions--as well as a lot of crooks--predators: human and institutional. Will corporations protect you from other corporations? Their only rationale is greater profit. Ultimately, government's motive (in a democracy) is to please enough voters so that its elected leaders get reelected.
The profit motive does make private enterprise efficient, but there are examples of better government-provided outcomes: health care and utilities abroad and in municipalities are only two. But there are many functions that only a government should do: maintain order, maintain means of transportation, i.e. roads, airports, city streets, public health, ensure that the marketplace is not a shark-pit and then, there's also defense. Should we fire the Pentagon and hire Blackwater/Xe?
That I would go for: dismantle the Pentagon, then don't renew Xe's contract. But seriously, there are a lot of issues that the left and right see in tantalizingly parallel ways.
Doesn't everyone get impatient with bureaucracy? But it's both government and corporate, isn't it. The major difference is that government legalese is usually of legible size.
What we're really facing here is the takeover of corporate gangsters, who buy the government, or enough of its members so that they can continue siphoning off Americans' wealth, regardless of the hardship. Raise taxes on the middle class and poor (Sales taxes, real estate taxes) and cut income taxes on the rich, and on the corporations, from which they derive their wealth. License corporations to do everything, and profit handsomely.
I present to you the Selfish Class, the title of a book you'll find on the referenced site.
The pro-anarchist rhapsodizes about how 'mates' helped each other in the Australian floods, volunteering by the thousands--and then the government comes in, hunts for looters, restores law and order, and worst of all, collects taxes: end of paradise, the renewal of theft.
The leftist describes how the corporations are running Washington, and do the same thing--siphon off the people's wealth--with government collusion, bought and paid for.
So, is it the government, or is it corporations?
Conservative anarchists assume that all taxation is theft. Government service, to them, is an oxymoron. Nothing government does has any economic value. They assume that everything should be provided by 'business.' So, private roads and military would be more efficient? Would every road be a toll road?
What anarchists ignore, are the 300 pound gorillas on the loose, all over the world--the global corporations. Wouldn't they mind if corporations ruled everyone's lives without any government oversight, or intervention? Wouldn't they mind the toxic pharmaceuticals, dangerous toys, dangerous roads, dangerous cars, and above all, dangerous banks?
Why do conservatives, more generally, think that less government, or no government is preferable? These aren't the days of Daniel Boone. Now, there are huge, powerful private institutions--as well as a lot of crooks--predators: human and institutional. Will corporations protect you from other corporations? Their only rationale is greater profit. Ultimately, government's motive (in a democracy) is to please enough voters so that its elected leaders get reelected.
The profit motive does make private enterprise efficient, but there are examples of better government-provided outcomes: health care and utilities abroad and in municipalities are only two. But there are many functions that only a government should do: maintain order, maintain means of transportation, i.e. roads, airports, city streets, public health, ensure that the marketplace is not a shark-pit and then, there's also defense. Should we fire the Pentagon and hire Blackwater/Xe?
That I would go for: dismantle the Pentagon, then don't renew Xe's contract. But seriously, there are a lot of issues that the left and right see in tantalizingly parallel ways.
Doesn't everyone get impatient with bureaucracy? But it's both government and corporate, isn't it. The major difference is that government legalese is usually of legible size.
What we're really facing here is the takeover of corporate gangsters, who buy the government, or enough of its members so that they can continue siphoning off Americans' wealth, regardless of the hardship. Raise taxes on the middle class and poor (Sales taxes, real estate taxes) and cut income taxes on the rich, and on the corporations, from which they derive their wealth. License corporations to do everything, and profit handsomely.
I present to you the Selfish Class, the title of a book you'll find on the referenced site.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Deficit-mongering Endangers Dollar
If you scream about the deficit, but then don't do anything about it, or pass tax cuts that increase it, you actually endanger the nation more than the deficit, itself. The Republicans are forcing this to happen. They are shortening the time before the world's nations will jettison the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency, because US fiscal policy will lose credibility even faster, while the nation will be mired in non-recovery. However, the dollar is likely to lose its special status, anyway, sooner more likely than later.
What matters is not the government deficit, but the trade deficit: the two are not necessarily related. Deficit spending that enhances US jobs, productivity and creativity would actually cut the trade deficit and delay a move away from the dollar. Deficit spending that simply increases our national debt, like the tax cut for the wealthy, will bring us closer to the time when the US Dollar becomes just another currency; it increases our trade deficit and makes the US poorer.
The dollar losing international reserve status will be a very big deal. It will be a disaster for the US, unless the way has been carefully prepared. What's the likelihood of that?
This is what will happen: the US can no longer so freely borrow on international markets: the Fed can't blithely create money as it is doing now with Quantitative Easing. The bigger problem would be: how do we repay (by far) the largest trade deficit in the world? We won't be able to just print dollars for payment. We'll have to earn Renminbi, or Marks or Rials to buy from those places.
Imports will cost much more. Three-dollar gas will be a faint memory: prices would be comparable to Europe's ($5-7 per gallon now), or much higher.
We also won't be able to continue our military mission to control every corner of the globe. That, to me, would be a positive outcome, both for the US and the world. Who would lend to us at the low interest our bonds now pay? Interest costs to maintain our military could bankrupt us, something that happened not only to the Romans, but also led to the overthrow of the Bourbons, ushering in the French Revolution.
Any dollar-denominated asset would be worth much less outside the US. Americans would have to produce more, at lower cost--through subsistence wages, perhaps, or greater efficiency, or probably both--and import less.
Perhaps, an increasingly impoverished majority would demand Equality, as rebelling masses did on the streets of Paris, but it might come too late. The billionaires may have decamped, with their tons of gold (not dollars), just like Tunisia's Ben Ali!
Loss of reserve status could end the American empire. While temporarily poorer, Americans could end up freer and better off--if they throw out the corporate octopus impoverishing us all.
What matters is not the government deficit, but the trade deficit: the two are not necessarily related. Deficit spending that enhances US jobs, productivity and creativity would actually cut the trade deficit and delay a move away from the dollar. Deficit spending that simply increases our national debt, like the tax cut for the wealthy, will bring us closer to the time when the US Dollar becomes just another currency; it increases our trade deficit and makes the US poorer.
The dollar losing international reserve status will be a very big deal. It will be a disaster for the US, unless the way has been carefully prepared. What's the likelihood of that?
This is what will happen: the US can no longer so freely borrow on international markets: the Fed can't blithely create money as it is doing now with Quantitative Easing. The bigger problem would be: how do we repay (by far) the largest trade deficit in the world? We won't be able to just print dollars for payment. We'll have to earn Renminbi, or Marks or Rials to buy from those places.
Imports will cost much more. Three-dollar gas will be a faint memory: prices would be comparable to Europe's ($5-7 per gallon now), or much higher.
We also won't be able to continue our military mission to control every corner of the globe. That, to me, would be a positive outcome, both for the US and the world. Who would lend to us at the low interest our bonds now pay? Interest costs to maintain our military could bankrupt us, something that happened not only to the Romans, but also led to the overthrow of the Bourbons, ushering in the French Revolution.
Any dollar-denominated asset would be worth much less outside the US. Americans would have to produce more, at lower cost--through subsistence wages, perhaps, or greater efficiency, or probably both--and import less.
Perhaps, an increasingly impoverished majority would demand Equality, as rebelling masses did on the streets of Paris, but it might come too late. The billionaires may have decamped, with their tons of gold (not dollars), just like Tunisia's Ben Ali!
Loss of reserve status could end the American empire. While temporarily poorer, Americans could end up freer and better off--if they throw out the corporate octopus impoverishing us all.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Denigrating Reason
"We're building a grassroots movement to stand up to the special interests and stand up for middle class consumers," says Al Franken, in response to the FCC approval of the Comcast-NBC merger.
I wonder how that will happen. I have a local activist friend, a county legislator, who continuously tries to get people out for demonstrations, to hold signs, to protest--new Democratic Governor Cuomo's conservative economic policies, for example, when he gives the state of the State at a local college. I went to one or two demos, and was embarrassed by how few people there were. My friend even urged me to speak!
How do you mobilize people who work 10-hour days, and then go home to vege out in front of the TV, or on the computer? How do you mobilize people whose lives are isolated, who get most of their contact through TV, and who, moreover, are increasingly influenced by the corporate media?
People are discouraged from thinking in this USA. It's like Steve, my "Christian" fellow alum, whose reaction about anything is "those leftwing intellectuals…" About the economy: "intellectuals and economists" can say all they want, but "I know: debt is debt." When I expose him to a little Keynesian economics--deficits can be investments, if the money goes to enhance the economy--he dismisses all intellectuals--including me, of course. He knows; he's a self-made man (in California real estate).
His antagonism towards thinking parallels the vociferous right wing Commentariat--Palin, Beck, et al. And look how well the politics of ignorance and anger has done in the last election! People voted for Republicans not for what they stood for, apparently. Polls show high support for all the issues Republicans oppose, like health reform, and aid to the unemployed. People voted for Republicans simply because they weren't in power; they were angry. A man demanded of me, as Election Inspector, to produce a list of incumbents up for re-election (I wasn't allowed to give political information), so he could vote against them. Their party affiliation didn't matter; but his ignorance was staggering. He's the corporate elite's template for the perfect voter: ignorant and unthinking. I saw a Republican election observer take him outside; he told him who to vote for.
We have schools that "teach to the test," and universities increasingly funded by corporations to promote their interests. In public schools, thinking is discouraged in favor of rote learning and discipline. I taught in colleges, none of them prestigious. In all of them a student who could think, or who wanted to think was a precious gift. Ironically, there were more of them in my prison classes.
Inmates knew they were being screwed; everyone else just wanted a B.
Our denigration of reason parallels Rome's in the Empire's last centuries.
I wonder how that will happen. I have a local activist friend, a county legislator, who continuously tries to get people out for demonstrations, to hold signs, to protest--new Democratic Governor Cuomo's conservative economic policies, for example, when he gives the state of the State at a local college. I went to one or two demos, and was embarrassed by how few people there were. My friend even urged me to speak!
How do you mobilize people who work 10-hour days, and then go home to vege out in front of the TV, or on the computer? How do you mobilize people whose lives are isolated, who get most of their contact through TV, and who, moreover, are increasingly influenced by the corporate media?
People are discouraged from thinking in this USA. It's like Steve, my "Christian" fellow alum, whose reaction about anything is "those leftwing intellectuals…" About the economy: "intellectuals and economists" can say all they want, but "I know: debt is debt." When I expose him to a little Keynesian economics--deficits can be investments, if the money goes to enhance the economy--he dismisses all intellectuals--including me, of course. He knows; he's a self-made man (in California real estate).
His antagonism towards thinking parallels the vociferous right wing Commentariat--Palin, Beck, et al. And look how well the politics of ignorance and anger has done in the last election! People voted for Republicans not for what they stood for, apparently. Polls show high support for all the issues Republicans oppose, like health reform, and aid to the unemployed. People voted for Republicans simply because they weren't in power; they were angry. A man demanded of me, as Election Inspector, to produce a list of incumbents up for re-election (I wasn't allowed to give political information), so he could vote against them. Their party affiliation didn't matter; but his ignorance was staggering. He's the corporate elite's template for the perfect voter: ignorant and unthinking. I saw a Republican election observer take him outside; he told him who to vote for.
We have schools that "teach to the test," and universities increasingly funded by corporations to promote their interests. In public schools, thinking is discouraged in favor of rote learning and discipline. I taught in colleges, none of them prestigious. In all of them a student who could think, or who wanted to think was a precious gift. Ironically, there were more of them in my prison classes.
Inmates knew they were being screwed; everyone else just wanted a B.
Our denigration of reason parallels Rome's in the Empire's last centuries.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
MLK Hangover
When is an anti-war activist for a war? In the case of Martin Luther King, Jr., apparently, it's 43 years after his death. Yes, the Pentagon celebrated Martin Luther King Day. The address by the Pentagon's Counsel, a friend and classmate of MLK's son, didn't entirely elide King's opposition to the Vietnam war--and war in general-- but Johnson certainly tried to sugarcoat it for those listening. American soldiers as Good Samaritans:
"Those in today’s volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have made the conscious decision to travel a dangerous road, and personally stop and administer aid to those who want peace, freedom and a better place in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in defense of the American people." (Jeh Johnson's Address to the Pentagon on MLK Day).
I would be the first to applaud the unusual military men and women who do "administer aid" in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but wanting "peace, freedom and a better place" in those war-torn countries is not the same as bringing peace. However, the military is brainwashed into thinking that it is.
American planes rain down destruction on both places, as do unpiloted drones in Pakistan and the border areas, Special Ops go out on night raids and kill people, some of whom are labeled "bad guys" after they are killed, while others are hauled off to hell-holes like Bagram, where they are mistreated and/or tortured. How does this bring "peace" and "freedom," how does this create a better place? Too often, innocents, including women and children are killed. Sometimes, Americans have even falsified the carnage afterwards to make it look as if the innocents were "insurgents," placing guns, or explosives paraphernalia near them to incriminate them after the fact.
So many observers have pointed out that every woman and child, every non-combatant killed, or detained in our notorious "black" prisons, creates dozens of supporters of the insurgency, even if many don't know what the insurgency is. Some go over to the other side even with their eyes wide open: they know the brutality of the Taliban, and its retrograde social policies, but they see the US/NATO as worse!
Their conclusion is justified, even if the Taliban are more intentionally brutal than US/NATO forces. It is the US/NATO presence that drives the war; its technology and money makes the destruction possible.
If MLK were alive now, he'd say 'let the Afghans choose their own way.' He'd also denounce the huge sums of money spent by the US on destruction (euphemistically labeled 'Defense.') He would point out, in his resonant voice, that all those hundreds of billions of dollars were snatched from the hands of babes, children, and our future, that if we spend on destruction, instead of education, we'll reap the whirlwind.
That's what the Romans did. They didn't even spend money on their famed roads, only on their 'volunteer' (mercenary) military. Look where that got them!
"Those in today’s volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have made the conscious decision to travel a dangerous road, and personally stop and administer aid to those who want peace, freedom and a better place in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in defense of the American people." (Jeh Johnson's Address to the Pentagon on MLK Day).
I would be the first to applaud the unusual military men and women who do "administer aid" in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but wanting "peace, freedom and a better place" in those war-torn countries is not the same as bringing peace. However, the military is brainwashed into thinking that it is.
American planes rain down destruction on both places, as do unpiloted drones in Pakistan and the border areas, Special Ops go out on night raids and kill people, some of whom are labeled "bad guys" after they are killed, while others are hauled off to hell-holes like Bagram, where they are mistreated and/or tortured. How does this bring "peace" and "freedom," how does this create a better place? Too often, innocents, including women and children are killed. Sometimes, Americans have even falsified the carnage afterwards to make it look as if the innocents were "insurgents," placing guns, or explosives paraphernalia near them to incriminate them after the fact.
So many observers have pointed out that every woman and child, every non-combatant killed, or detained in our notorious "black" prisons, creates dozens of supporters of the insurgency, even if many don't know what the insurgency is. Some go over to the other side even with their eyes wide open: they know the brutality of the Taliban, and its retrograde social policies, but they see the US/NATO as worse!
Their conclusion is justified, even if the Taliban are more intentionally brutal than US/NATO forces. It is the US/NATO presence that drives the war; its technology and money makes the destruction possible.
If MLK were alive now, he'd say 'let the Afghans choose their own way.' He'd also denounce the huge sums of money spent by the US on destruction (euphemistically labeled 'Defense.') He would point out, in his resonant voice, that all those hundreds of billions of dollars were snatched from the hands of babes, children, and our future, that if we spend on destruction, instead of education, we'll reap the whirlwind.
That's what the Romans did. They didn't even spend money on their famed roads, only on their 'volunteer' (mercenary) military. Look where that got them!
Monday, January 17, 2011
Serfdom Better than Wage Slavery
My son was not laid off last week, but a lot of people were. They came in to work and were told they no longer had a job: just like that. My son works for a firm that services Wall Street. Instead of growing by 40% in the next year, as its leaders had forecast, its business this year will not grow at all. So, they restructured.
But imagine: working for a firm for years, and then walking in one day and being told, "You don't work here anymore."
The only thing that may drive this small corporation to give at least several months' pay, and decent severances, is to protect its reputation on the Street.
My daughter helped unionize an office of Calpirg's subsidiary, The Fund, only to see this ostensibly progressive non-profit put roadblocks against negotiating a first contract, while management fired the shop members one by one--until finally my daughter lost her job; soon thereafter the division was closed and with it the union shop.
Corporations are people: remember? They can give unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns. They are so humane.
I also helped found a union, back in the days when unions weren't yet targeted for destruction. I played a small part of bringing a union to the University of Central Florida: the faculty voted 80% for. Why? Without a union, department chairs and college deans frequently overrode faculty recommendations, whether it was for hiring, promotion, or tenure. Our chair promoted his favorites.
The union didn't change much, but it was some insurance on job tenure and promotions.
Working in firms like my son's, people have no security. He's paid well, including a nice bonus ("not Wall-Street-size, Dad"), but he could walk in tomorrow, or next Friday, and not have a job!
Does the corporation care for the people who work for it? Even the CEO is expendable, although he's probably careful to have a golden parachute in his contract. But corporations are not people. They use people, and spit them out. If you're lucky, you may have a good job in a corporation for a long time. It used to be that you'd get a pension if you lasted until retirement, but now you and your employer jointly fund a 401K while you work there. If the market goes bust, as it did in 2007-8, then your retirement fund could go bust, too; the switch from pensions to contributory funds is accelerating, expressing employers' lack of concern for employees.
In the hundred years before Rome fell, all but the Senators were reduced to serfs. Employees with no security are more at risk than serfs or slaves, but that's the direction in which we're headed.
But imagine: working for a firm for years, and then walking in one day and being told, "You don't work here anymore."
The only thing that may drive this small corporation to give at least several months' pay, and decent severances, is to protect its reputation on the Street.
My daughter helped unionize an office of Calpirg's subsidiary, The Fund, only to see this ostensibly progressive non-profit put roadblocks against negotiating a first contract, while management fired the shop members one by one--until finally my daughter lost her job; soon thereafter the division was closed and with it the union shop.
Corporations are people: remember? They can give unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns. They are so humane.
I also helped found a union, back in the days when unions weren't yet targeted for destruction. I played a small part of bringing a union to the University of Central Florida: the faculty voted 80% for. Why? Without a union, department chairs and college deans frequently overrode faculty recommendations, whether it was for hiring, promotion, or tenure. Our chair promoted his favorites.
The union didn't change much, but it was some insurance on job tenure and promotions.
Working in firms like my son's, people have no security. He's paid well, including a nice bonus ("not Wall-Street-size, Dad"), but he could walk in tomorrow, or next Friday, and not have a job!
Does the corporation care for the people who work for it? Even the CEO is expendable, although he's probably careful to have a golden parachute in his contract. But corporations are not people. They use people, and spit them out. If you're lucky, you may have a good job in a corporation for a long time. It used to be that you'd get a pension if you lasted until retirement, but now you and your employer jointly fund a 401K while you work there. If the market goes bust, as it did in 2007-8, then your retirement fund could go bust, too; the switch from pensions to contributory funds is accelerating, expressing employers' lack of concern for employees.
In the hundred years before Rome fell, all but the Senators were reduced to serfs. Employees with no security are more at risk than serfs or slaves, but that's the direction in which we're headed.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Heroism, Viciousness and Social Security
On the one hand, you have the heroism of people like Patricia Maisch in that Arizona crowd, and you have the deranged hatred of the killer, Loughner. And yet, on a scale of viciousness, I would rate Loughner less vicious than the people, both in Congress and in finance, who want to wipe out or weaken the only economic security deprived Americans can count on--Social Security.
Who has Maisch's kind of heroism in the realm of national politics? On the one side, we appear to have the mean and meaner, and on the other, we have people who might have good instincts, but so many are corrupted by politics.
Conservatives claim that the left hates the free enterprise system, hates business and is elitist. This is ironic, since even Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a Socialist, works to bring business to Vermont, and speaks like the New York working class Jew his family was. Democrats do the same: they want to get re-elected.
What the elected tribunes of business claim, is that no regulation is best for business, even when the lack of it led to the crack up of 2007-8, which was surely not good for business--except, ultimately, the big banks. But that's not enough. No, Republicans want to "partially" privatize Social Security, even after the stock-market crash that wiped out so many people's retirement portfolios, and private pension funds.
What is that about? The right-wing enthusiasm for going after Social Security is driven by several different, reinforcing motives. One is simply ideological: it's a government program; it's well-run and popular, thereby giving the lie to the claim that governments can't do anything.
It is not running out of money, either. Down the line, its financing should be tweaked, but a second motive animating the right is all that money: they want to get their hands on it, just like the bailout money, just like the commodities exchanges and currency markets, just like the money of the millions of us suckers, who dabble in the market. But Social Security money would be trillions, and so many more could be sucked dry, by high finance.
But I think there's another reason, one alluded to by Helen Thomas, the recently displaced star White House reporter. She concluded that we shouldn't give the newly empowered Republicans, "the ability to wipe out or even mitigate the only economic security deprived Americans can count on."
Think about that: the only economic security deprived Americans can count on--like a number of my friends. What the movement to privatize would also do, if successful, is render the elderly a new frontier to "invest" in--even down to our last dentures. And it would make us even more vulnerable than most of us are right now.
To the vicious, that's attractive, too: the Populus can then be managed, just as they were in Rome.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Why Dismantle the US?
It doesn't seem to make sense that Americans, many from old families living in this country for many generations, would want to dismantle the country that nurtured them.
In my Dec. 7th blog-post, "Come-on to Apocalypse," I showed how a libertarian/conservative list was promoting relocation to any of "80 beautiful countries." Allegiance to the US seems absent among the moneyed. Their attitude: take your fortune somewhere else, where you won't be so heavily taxed/regulated/controlled. The assumption is that the US is all of these things, although our tax burden is lower than almost all other developed nations. In many developing ones, however--and some developed ones like Greece--taxes and regulations are not enforced.
I expect the emigres would evade taxes of both their new abode and their former one, but it's ironic that the site promoting emigration also highlighted free medical care, something most conservatives complain about when it's "Obamacare."
So, the financiers, or other wealthy, have places to go. Their means of enrichment, however, might even suggest a parallel to fugitives from the law, who flee the country to escape imprisonment. For example, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, et al, get virtually free money from the Fed, which they use to speculate through computer programs and algorithms, doing split-second trades for billions of dollars, and profiting with fractions of a cent. Actually what they are doing is ripping off millions of dollars daily, from everyone else. How different are they than the cyber-criminals who siphon unnoticeable fractions of a cent from millions of transactions? There have been crime movies, in which super-criminals invade bank security networks and do the same thing.
But Goldman, et al aren't criminals, at least in the legal sense: they're Wall Street operators. Why do they want to dismantle the US? Because they can: they can come away fabulously wealthy, but at the expense of everyone else.
The same ethos rules many American businesses: military contractors who overbill, "frackers," who don't care if they ruin our drinking water, for-profit prisons gaining "clients" from corrupt judges and manufacturers who outsource to avoid taxes and union wages.
This isn't just economics, it's politics: the effect of trade treaties. Mexican or Chinese workers undercut American labor. Trade barriers were lowered or eliminated enabling corporations to break unions and force American workers to compete with the lowest-paid labor globally.
Again, why? There is strong anti-union feeling among those who earn from capital: after all, the more a worker gets, the less they get--and vice-versa. Additionally, workers without unions can't resist the boss.
It boils down to class struggle. Capital is winning, never mind if it's destroying the country. With their money, the wealthy can always go somewhere else: one of those "80 beautiful countries." They can even find new victims.
In Rome, Senators voted to hand Italy and the Emperor over to the Ostrogoths, rather than raise taxes on themselves.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
How to Dismantle the US
It really hasn't taken that long, and it's nearly successful. The mouth-frothing "revolutionaries" think it's a return to True Principles--like slavery, a friend joked--but it isn't.
The counterrevolution began because of the moderate success of progressive politics in the late 1960's. The initiators? The extremely wealthy, who felt threatened by everything from civil rights to Medicare to that old perennial: taxes. They funded think tanks and talk radio that began to spread their ideology, supplemented later by Fox News: their views boil down to liberty for wealth and corporations, but liberties for ordinary people only to the extent they don't conflict with the interests of wealth-holders and corporations. In effect, they promote democracy for money, corporate "free" trade, and neglect or dictatorship for everyone else.
Ever notice that the Department of Education is a favorite target of frothers? Good public education promotes democracy, even in the workplace (!). It also creates a highly skilled workforce. This would be good, if you wanted a relatively egalitarian society. If you want greater class differences, managerial power, and profits for shareholders, with only a small minority able to get decent jobs, then you oppose school budgets until you destroy the public system--good people send their children to private schools (and have the money to pay for them).
The rest become surplus labor, like Marx's lumpen-proletariat, like the Roman mob getting "bread and circuses." That keeps wages down and destroys unions. "Free" trade does the rest.
Anyone earning wages (as opposed to capital gains), pays taxes to support the only parts of the Empire worth maintaining: prisons and the war machine.
What about the great consumption market that underlay American power? Now, corporations make their money in Asia, Latin America, even Europe: places where the middle class is emerging, or has been able to protect itself. In the US, dwindling numbers can afford middle-class consumption. Notice that US output has now recovered to pre-crash levels--yet with 10-19% unemployment, and few prospects for the unemployed. Corporations earn greater profits than ever, but mostly abroad.
Republicans block job programs, demand tax cuts for the wealthy, and try to de-fund all public programs but the military--and the police. You need the police, and fear of "Terror," to keep the restive masses in line. Fox, etc. promote the latter.
So, the Pentagon gets about $1.35 trillion, or about $4,000 per person. Other discretionary expenditures are nugatory in comparison. Social Security and Medicare ran surpluses from the payroll tax until this year, against which government borrowed, to reduce the deficit.
Meanwhile, other nations spend on green infrastructure, education and health: they surpass the US (14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics. Shanghai came in first). No wonder Google, etc. set up research centers in China!
Our military will be all that's left--until the world stops lending us money.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Roman Senators: 400 AD, 2010-2011 AD
They're much the same. Roman Senators in fifth century Rome were the wealthy elite; they had formal titles; our elite does not. There are no legal disabilities and privileges dividing society, as there were in the fifth century, but it hardly matters.
In both eras, the dominant "Senators" constructed schemes to loot the wealth everyone else produced. Maybe it was a natural outgrowth of the Roman Empire's conquest-slave society. But it's happened here especially with the explosion of the financial sector--supported by empire, the US and wealthy nation's national banks.
Alan Greenspan helped create the casino financial system, opening the door to Wall Street's "inventions," like Credit Default Swaps, and even, variable interest mortgages, encouraging homeowners to cash in, to gamble, or buy ATV's.
In Roman times, Senators arranged it so they could collect everyone else's taxes, while avoiding taxes themselves. They used their positions and connections in the Imperial bureaucracy to collect all the gold, land and slaves in the empire, impoverishing everyone else. In the US, today, Warren Buffet and his hedge fund colleagues pay taxes, but despite the many millions they earn, they pay at about half the rate of ordinary Americans. Obama and Congress just extended low income tax rates for the wealthy, who already pay lower rates on capital gains, interest, and payroll taxes. They’ve cornered most of the new wealth created since 1975.
In the US, the Fed creates money for the elite: it's been expanding the money supply for decades. Why for the elite? Low interest rates--virtually zero for the banks--allow them to make cost-free profits on the rest of us. Have you ever borrowed money at zero interest? Further, cheap money induces fools (like me) into the stock market, but the sophisticated traders, the ones with "algorithms" and computer programs--and lots of virtually free capital--are the ones who walk away with profits. The rest of us buy high, sell low, and enrich our brokers with fees.
Of course, Wall Street isn't the only reason why US wealth concentrated at a staggering rate since the 1970's. There was the Reagan "revolution," the proliferation of conservative "think tanks" (propaganda sites now fueling Fox News) the Clinton collaboration, W's triumph, and now Obama's compromise/capitulation. With the important exception of Clinton's tax hike on the wealthy, all the rules, all the financial innovations, all the dilution of regulations, were directed toward the enrichment of a tiny elite.
And it has prospered. Wall Street, after the massive government bailouts of 2007-8, has sucked in greater profits, largely from gambling with government money, than it ever did before: in the midst of the Great Recession, with 9.6-18% unemployment, job insecurity, and banks gambling, instead of lending.
We're not out of recession, but we're on our way to another bubble crash. The elite, like 5th century Roman Senators, could capture all the wealth.
In both eras, the dominant "Senators" constructed schemes to loot the wealth everyone else produced. Maybe it was a natural outgrowth of the Roman Empire's conquest-slave society. But it's happened here especially with the explosion of the financial sector--supported by empire, the US and wealthy nation's national banks.
Alan Greenspan helped create the casino financial system, opening the door to Wall Street's "inventions," like Credit Default Swaps, and even, variable interest mortgages, encouraging homeowners to cash in, to gamble, or buy ATV's.
In Roman times, Senators arranged it so they could collect everyone else's taxes, while avoiding taxes themselves. They used their positions and connections in the Imperial bureaucracy to collect all the gold, land and slaves in the empire, impoverishing everyone else. In the US, today, Warren Buffet and his hedge fund colleagues pay taxes, but despite the many millions they earn, they pay at about half the rate of ordinary Americans. Obama and Congress just extended low income tax rates for the wealthy, who already pay lower rates on capital gains, interest, and payroll taxes. They’ve cornered most of the new wealth created since 1975.
In the US, the Fed creates money for the elite: it's been expanding the money supply for decades. Why for the elite? Low interest rates--virtually zero for the banks--allow them to make cost-free profits on the rest of us. Have you ever borrowed money at zero interest? Further, cheap money induces fools (like me) into the stock market, but the sophisticated traders, the ones with "algorithms" and computer programs--and lots of virtually free capital--are the ones who walk away with profits. The rest of us buy high, sell low, and enrich our brokers with fees.
Of course, Wall Street isn't the only reason why US wealth concentrated at a staggering rate since the 1970's. There was the Reagan "revolution," the proliferation of conservative "think tanks" (propaganda sites now fueling Fox News) the Clinton collaboration, W's triumph, and now Obama's compromise/capitulation. With the important exception of Clinton's tax hike on the wealthy, all the rules, all the financial innovations, all the dilution of regulations, were directed toward the enrichment of a tiny elite.
And it has prospered. Wall Street, after the massive government bailouts of 2007-8, has sucked in greater profits, largely from gambling with government money, than it ever did before: in the midst of the Great Recession, with 9.6-18% unemployment, job insecurity, and banks gambling, instead of lending.
We're not out of recession, but we're on our way to another bubble crash. The elite, like 5th century Roman Senators, could capture all the wealth.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Tax Cuts a Bad Deal
So, the tax-cut compromise is a done deal.
The Republicans were clever; they repeated ad infinitum: don't raise taxes in a recession. But continued tax-cuts for the wealthy will be counterproductive.
We'll have to borrow $700-$800 billion (probably from China or Saudi Arabia) to pay for their lower taxes. But that money will not stimulate the economy. It will buy speculation on the stock market, or investment overseas long before it creates a single job here. It will also exacerbate US inequality. Already the US has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth among developed nations.
Tax cuts for those below $250,000 income, will mostly be spent in the US, on consumer goods, and on homes, creating demand for jobs. Even here, many of the consumer goods would be imports, so many of those dollars will fly out of the country. Leakage of any kind of spending, except direct government expenditures on something like a WPA, is to be expected in an economy as open as ours.
The effects of the tax cuts are not only economic; they are also social. Economic inequality increases social distance. When you have escalating social distance, you lose a sense of community. That's why legislators who have lived lives insulated from economic hardship, elected by money from the wealthy, can credibly threaten to cut off an unemployment extension, or argue that poor rich kids need tax breaks even more than the long-term unemployed need benefits. Further, high inequality is an economic handicap to the nation, since consumption by the wealthy cannot substitute for mass consumption as an economic base for a stable economy; inequality makes economic instability more likely: prosperity depends on a small minority.
Inequality is even a health hazard: inequality of wealth is directly correlated with poorer overall health of the population. This is partly due to unequal access to health care, but is also due to higher levels of anxiety, which extends even to the wealthiest. Why? Greater inequality breeds resentment, crime and violence.
Obama's compromise was a bad deal for everyone. The pre-Bush tax rates for the over $250,000, should have been restored. I think they should be raised, because the top 2% have cornered most of the growth in wealth produced by everyone since 1980. That's why wages have hardly budged since the '70's.
Further, corporations are swimming in cash, and only slowly hiring or loaning out money. So, more money in elite pockets will not promote investment, or create jobs--except maybe in China or Malaysia.
As the recent elections demonstrated, large aggregations of wealth skew the balance of political power. The Compromise illustrates the consequences: a one-year unemployment extension vs two years of high-end tax-cuts and a more unstable economy.
Our equivalent of fifth century Roman Senators has prevailed, to even their ultimate detriment. It is one more step towards our own 476 ( (See: Fall of Rome).
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Next Right-wing Target
They anticipate that their dirty deal with Obama is sealed, and will pass even in the Democratic House. Why Democrats will pass such a monster is another question.
So, right-wingers are pleased about the $700-800 billion in income tax breaks for those who don't need it--people earning over $250,000 a year. They also are moderately pleased with the Estate Tax deal, in which estates under $5 million will be exempt, and the rate above that is lowered to 35%. Actually, many right-wingers want to eliminate the estate tax altogether. They don't call it the "Death Tax" for nothing. Under Bush, they had put in place the budget-busting Medicare Part D, which is lavish to big Pharma, as well as the tax cuts now being renewed.
So, what is their next target? They are mobilizing to prevent the GOP from supporting "compromise" on the debt ceiling. It's currently at $14.3 trillion.
That looks like a large number, and it is, but the US keeps on bumping up against whatever ceiling is current law; it has been for years--except during Clinton's last two years.
Before the Great Recession, the biggest and fastest addition to the debt was during the Bush II administration. Trillions in debt were added from the two unjustified wars, the two rounds of tax cuts and the unfunded Medicare Part D.
The recession, as recessions always do, caused the debt to rise further, because the unemployed and/or defaulted homeowner is unlikely to pay income tax, but aid to both means the government has to borrow. Would it be better to let people starve in the streets? Or sink into a depression?
Right-wingers seem to think so. They don't expect to be the ones who do the starving. They apparently assume that if people don't have jobs, it's their own faults--after all, jobs are listed in newspapers and online, so why aren't people working? They have it too easy with unemployment insurance! Those stupid Democrats wanted unemployment benefits extended; it was the lever Republicans used to get their way.
However, if the government runs out of money, it won't pay unemployment. To stop the government from borrowing will, effectively, stop the government from operating.
Why do right-wingers want this?
There is much rhetoric in right-wing venues about the damage government does. Their assumption is that a coming period of stalemate will be a good thing: it will stop that African Socialist, Obama, from expanding government programs and regulations. It will also demonstrate what right-wingers believe: government can't do anything right. If they can hamstring government until the 2012 election, then right-wingers can regain power.
But they don't appear to care if, in the process, they drive the US into a depression. If they succeed, the US will lose the dollar's reserve status. Then, goodbye American Empire.
So, right-wingers are pleased about the $700-800 billion in income tax breaks for those who don't need it--people earning over $250,000 a year. They also are moderately pleased with the Estate Tax deal, in which estates under $5 million will be exempt, and the rate above that is lowered to 35%. Actually, many right-wingers want to eliminate the estate tax altogether. They don't call it the "Death Tax" for nothing. Under Bush, they had put in place the budget-busting Medicare Part D, which is lavish to big Pharma, as well as the tax cuts now being renewed.
So, what is their next target? They are mobilizing to prevent the GOP from supporting "compromise" on the debt ceiling. It's currently at $14.3 trillion.
That looks like a large number, and it is, but the US keeps on bumping up against whatever ceiling is current law; it has been for years--except during Clinton's last two years.
Before the Great Recession, the biggest and fastest addition to the debt was during the Bush II administration. Trillions in debt were added from the two unjustified wars, the two rounds of tax cuts and the unfunded Medicare Part D.
The recession, as recessions always do, caused the debt to rise further, because the unemployed and/or defaulted homeowner is unlikely to pay income tax, but aid to both means the government has to borrow. Would it be better to let people starve in the streets? Or sink into a depression?
Right-wingers seem to think so. They don't expect to be the ones who do the starving. They apparently assume that if people don't have jobs, it's their own faults--after all, jobs are listed in newspapers and online, so why aren't people working? They have it too easy with unemployment insurance! Those stupid Democrats wanted unemployment benefits extended; it was the lever Republicans used to get their way.
However, if the government runs out of money, it won't pay unemployment. To stop the government from borrowing will, effectively, stop the government from operating.
Why do right-wingers want this?
There is much rhetoric in right-wing venues about the damage government does. Their assumption is that a coming period of stalemate will be a good thing: it will stop that African Socialist, Obama, from expanding government programs and regulations. It will also demonstrate what right-wingers believe: government can't do anything right. If they can hamstring government until the 2012 election, then right-wingers can regain power.
But they don't appear to care if, in the process, they drive the US into a depression. If they succeed, the US will lose the dollar's reserve status. Then, goodbye American Empire.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Wiki-Revolution II
Wikileaks has added a new wrinkle to non-violent protest. Neither Gandhi, nor Martin Luther King could reach so many, to unveil the secrets, of violence and corruption, by so many, over most of the globe. Neither could stop wars, and perhaps wikileaks can't either, but it can certainly reach the masses of people with the information they need, so popular revulsion could stop them. It's possible.
The wikileaks case is radical. Political alliances crumble, and others emerge in unforeseen places, like conservative libertarians and anti-war progressives: Ron Paul insisted that Assange is only the publisher and that nobody was killed by the document dump, compared to the many killed in illegal wars caused by lying, the very thing the documents illustrate. He said if Assange is prosecuted, then the Times and WaPo should be as well. He claimed (as Ellsberg has) that what Assange did was just as legal as Daniel Ellsberg, and the Pentagon Papers. Some claim that Assange is no Ellsberg, but one funny fact is: Ellsberg loudly proclaims that he is.
However, this is bigger than one person. What wikileaks wrought is not simply Assange's creation. As wikileaks' name implies, it involves the cooperation of numberless collaborators all over the world, but it has also awakened a sleeping giant--yes, like Gandhi awakening colonized Indians from their torpor. The counter-offensive, after wikileaks was attacked, on the web and financially, has made people wake up. If you have a computer, and you're enraged at the world as presently constituted, here is a bloodless, even relatively safe, way of expressing your outrage, and perhaps forcing changes. Technology now being what it is, it is entirely possible that a small global movement, say 1 million strong, could force the world's governments to negotiate, to stop their wars, to enforce fair labor laws worldwide, to oppose the power of global corporations, or to act definitively and decisively on global climate change.
Anonymous demonstrates a whole new power, much more direct, non-violent, and populist. Yes, you have to have minimal understanding of computers, and a computer, of course, but computers and computer literacy are like a disease spreading across the globe with lightning speed.
On matters of free speech, and on wars and secrecy, progressives should look around them. As Ron Paul's speech indicates, progressives can find allies in funny places: progressives and libertarians have more in common than they think. There will be more libertarians, and hardly fewer progressives in the next Congress. Think how progressive the free exchange of information could be.
In addition, the resulting generation of hacktavists could make it possible to dismantle The Empire without bloodshed. The US might emulate Britain, peacefully withdrawing, instead of collapsing, like the fall of Rome.
The wikileaks case is radical. Political alliances crumble, and others emerge in unforeseen places, like conservative libertarians and anti-war progressives: Ron Paul insisted that Assange is only the publisher and that nobody was killed by the document dump, compared to the many killed in illegal wars caused by lying, the very thing the documents illustrate. He said if Assange is prosecuted, then the Times and WaPo should be as well. He claimed (as Ellsberg has) that what Assange did was just as legal as Daniel Ellsberg, and the Pentagon Papers. Some claim that Assange is no Ellsberg, but one funny fact is: Ellsberg loudly proclaims that he is.
However, this is bigger than one person. What wikileaks wrought is not simply Assange's creation. As wikileaks' name implies, it involves the cooperation of numberless collaborators all over the world, but it has also awakened a sleeping giant--yes, like Gandhi awakening colonized Indians from their torpor. The counter-offensive, after wikileaks was attacked, on the web and financially, has made people wake up. If you have a computer, and you're enraged at the world as presently constituted, here is a bloodless, even relatively safe, way of expressing your outrage, and perhaps forcing changes. Technology now being what it is, it is entirely possible that a small global movement, say 1 million strong, could force the world's governments to negotiate, to stop their wars, to enforce fair labor laws worldwide, to oppose the power of global corporations, or to act definitively and decisively on global climate change.
Anonymous demonstrates a whole new power, much more direct, non-violent, and populist. Yes, you have to have minimal understanding of computers, and a computer, of course, but computers and computer literacy are like a disease spreading across the globe with lightning speed.
On matters of free speech, and on wars and secrecy, progressives should look around them. As Ron Paul's speech indicates, progressives can find allies in funny places: progressives and libertarians have more in common than they think. There will be more libertarians, and hardly fewer progressives in the next Congress. Think how progressive the free exchange of information could be.
In addition, the resulting generation of hacktavists could make it possible to dismantle The Empire without bloodshed. The US might emulate Britain, peacefully withdrawing, instead of collapsing, like the fall of Rome.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Bloodless Wiki-Revolution
One of the things about the confrontation, wikileaks vs authorities, is that no blood has been spilled.
Despite all the bombast about "endangering Americans and our allies," it's clear that wikileaks and the cooperating news outlets have been very careful to insure no individual will be endangered. People are shown to be corrupt, or brutal, arbitrary or incompetent, but that doesn't kill them. It may shame them, but shame may be justified. Or, they may be embarrassed.
If there is one thing people of large egos fear more than death, it's embarrassment. Almost all political leaders, almost by definition, have large egos.
I said, on my 11/30 blog, that "if people laugh, it's all over." Maybe, that's why there have been such determined offensives by the US, and by some corporations against wikileaks: they could have been modeled on any number of authoritarian regimes. Corporate responses: shutting off donation routes, shutting off accounts, canceling site hosting, may be protective (in case GOP crazies make business with wikileaks into treason). Maybe, as well, they responded because wikileaks is attacking their people, the ones they influence, know and work with: their Generals, administrators, diplomats, Congressmen, Senators, President, the government they support, because it supports them.
It is heartening to know that revolutionary protest isn't confined to France or Thailand, and is possible, in cyber terms, all over the world. And it is strikingly non-violent.
We have enough blood and guts wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe Somalia, Yemen--. So, by contrast, General Assange's master-stroke flew through electronic space, killing no one. Further, his "attack" only makes it more difficult for governments to hide behind secrecy, or to rely on it.
Is that so damaging? Perhaps to people used to exercising power out of the public eye. For them it could be a danger to their careers, at least. There were demands that Hillary resign, when the first State Department cables were released by wikileaks, although the demands have since died down.
Wikileaks emerged into my consciousness a couple of years ago, when "Julian" started sending me documents on Kenyan political corruption, and then classified military handbooks. I was initially startled, because my son's name is Julian. Unfortunately, I couldn't use Assange's documents, so, I joke, "Julian" went to the NY Times, instead!
Wiki-allies' counter-offensive, if only symbolic, like one-day walk-out strikes, demonstrates that there are real populist forces out there in cyber-land, and they aren't toothless. Think about it: if enough people became so discontented that they became hacktivists, if their number grew into the millions, instead of a few thousand, they could bring civilization to its knees! What would they demand? Freedom of information.
Transparency is probably the most democratizing force on the planet, but things may have to fall apart further, before our Roman Senators withdraw their grubby fingers from deep inside our pockets.
Despite all the bombast about "endangering Americans and our allies," it's clear that wikileaks and the cooperating news outlets have been very careful to insure no individual will be endangered. People are shown to be corrupt, or brutal, arbitrary or incompetent, but that doesn't kill them. It may shame them, but shame may be justified. Or, they may be embarrassed.
If there is one thing people of large egos fear more than death, it's embarrassment. Almost all political leaders, almost by definition, have large egos.
I said, on my 11/30 blog, that "if people laugh, it's all over." Maybe, that's why there have been such determined offensives by the US, and by some corporations against wikileaks: they could have been modeled on any number of authoritarian regimes. Corporate responses: shutting off donation routes, shutting off accounts, canceling site hosting, may be protective (in case GOP crazies make business with wikileaks into treason). Maybe, as well, they responded because wikileaks is attacking their people, the ones they influence, know and work with: their Generals, administrators, diplomats, Congressmen, Senators, President, the government they support, because it supports them.
It is heartening to know that revolutionary protest isn't confined to France or Thailand, and is possible, in cyber terms, all over the world. And it is strikingly non-violent.
We have enough blood and guts wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe Somalia, Yemen--. So, by contrast, General Assange's master-stroke flew through electronic space, killing no one. Further, his "attack" only makes it more difficult for governments to hide behind secrecy, or to rely on it.
Is that so damaging? Perhaps to people used to exercising power out of the public eye. For them it could be a danger to their careers, at least. There were demands that Hillary resign, when the first State Department cables were released by wikileaks, although the demands have since died down.
Wikileaks emerged into my consciousness a couple of years ago, when "Julian" started sending me documents on Kenyan political corruption, and then classified military handbooks. I was initially startled, because my son's name is Julian. Unfortunately, I couldn't use Assange's documents, so, I joke, "Julian" went to the NY Times, instead!
Wiki-allies' counter-offensive, if only symbolic, like one-day walk-out strikes, demonstrates that there are real populist forces out there in cyber-land, and they aren't toothless. Think about it: if enough people became so discontented that they became hacktivists, if their number grew into the millions, instead of a few thousand, they could bring civilization to its knees! What would they demand? Freedom of information.
Transparency is probably the most democratizing force on the planet, but things may have to fall apart further, before our Roman Senators withdraw their grubby fingers from deep inside our pockets.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Come-on to Apocalypse
Today, I got a letter, no heading, from the "President of the Sovereign Society." She has a website: she spells the nation, "Amerika," as in escape from! She sells a how-to to gain dual citizenship and more.
These missives come from a conservative publishing group: I recognize the MO.
Many trot out tired bromides of the right, but this one is revealing. It lays out the dream of would-be capitalists, who scream loudest about Freedom, and: America has been ruined (by that Socialist Obama and that cowboy, W). Astoundingly, Erika is selling "government health programs and FREE prescriptions," while you "live like royalty for less than $390 a week;" the four countries most affordable for retirees; how you can gain business and tax benefits with dual citizenship, and so on.
Other newsletters in the network provide interesting stock analysis and questionable advice, but the MO is telling. It never lays out something for you to read, until after you subscribe. They give a presentation: a rolling script, while a voice hypes the argument. You can't move forward or back; it forces you to hear each agonizing minute if you want to figure out what they're selling. If you try to cancel, it yells at you, in print--or voice over it--that you mustn't give up this chance NOW! Every time I've watched one, it concludes by selling a subscription to another, more specialized newsletter that will: solve all your health problems, or make you rich, instantly, protect you from the coming apocalypse, or, in this case, sell you a newsletter for fleeing the United States. The subscriptions go upwards from the $35 for an extended advertisement for other newsletters, to several thousand for the "elite" stock advice sheets.
Having received one for free and then another for $35 (deductible as an expense), I can see a pattern. First of all, a significant share of the financial advice is either to buy gold, since everything will collapse soon, or oil, the more polluting the better. Some recommendations are interesting, but when I check the buy figures, they're almost always late--buy below $6.50, when it hasn't been below $6.50 for weeks. The newsletters are sparing of real recommendations, but lavish in selling other newsletters.
Their star economic commentator, a Brit, gives scornful analysis of the US economy; he lives in Taiwan.
There is something this audience shares with the left: a conviction that the US is in inevitable decline. However, they are sanguine about it--and eager to exploit it. Then, as reward, there are "over 80 beautiful, get-away countries," where you could establish residency, and maintain "your personal privacy and affluence."
They are wannabe Roman Senators; Roman Senators buried their gold before Rome's "fall." Afterwards, the barbarians tortured them to get it for themselves.
These missives come from a conservative publishing group: I recognize the MO.
Many trot out tired bromides of the right, but this one is revealing. It lays out the dream of would-be capitalists, who scream loudest about Freedom, and: America has been ruined (by that Socialist Obama and that cowboy, W). Astoundingly, Erika is selling "government health programs and FREE prescriptions," while you "live like royalty for less than $390 a week;" the four countries most affordable for retirees; how you can gain business and tax benefits with dual citizenship, and so on.
Other newsletters in the network provide interesting stock analysis and questionable advice, but the MO is telling. It never lays out something for you to read, until after you subscribe. They give a presentation: a rolling script, while a voice hypes the argument. You can't move forward or back; it forces you to hear each agonizing minute if you want to figure out what they're selling. If you try to cancel, it yells at you, in print--or voice over it--that you mustn't give up this chance NOW! Every time I've watched one, it concludes by selling a subscription to another, more specialized newsletter that will: solve all your health problems, or make you rich, instantly, protect you from the coming apocalypse, or, in this case, sell you a newsletter for fleeing the United States. The subscriptions go upwards from the $35 for an extended advertisement for other newsletters, to several thousand for the "elite" stock advice sheets.
Having received one for free and then another for $35 (deductible as an expense), I can see a pattern. First of all, a significant share of the financial advice is either to buy gold, since everything will collapse soon, or oil, the more polluting the better. Some recommendations are interesting, but when I check the buy figures, they're almost always late--buy below $6.50, when it hasn't been below $6.50 for weeks. The newsletters are sparing of real recommendations, but lavish in selling other newsletters.
Their star economic commentator, a Brit, gives scornful analysis of the US economy; he lives in Taiwan.
There is something this audience shares with the left: a conviction that the US is in inevitable decline. However, they are sanguine about it--and eager to exploit it. Then, as reward, there are "over 80 beautiful, get-away countries," where you could establish residency, and maintain "your personal privacy and affluence."
They are wannabe Roman Senators; Roman Senators buried their gold before Rome's "fall." Afterwards, the barbarians tortured them to get it for themselves.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Obama: Ordinary Politician
The American people have been betrayed. An election stolen; a popular election and a surge of hope: hope disappointed; another election bought.
Obama perpetuates the failing policies of the past: he depends on "experts" from the past. While he could give inspirational speeches as a candidate, he's a pedagogue as President, rarely a fighter. He went from talking about changing the dialogue, to repeating it.
Obama is now going to cut (government) workers wages to trim the deficit, while unemployment is high and borrowing is dirt-cheap. Wage-cuts will slow down the economy further, increasing the deficit. He's talking about "compromising" with Republicans, by caving in on continuing tax cuts to the over $250,000 crowd. That would add $700 billion to the deficit, but few jobs.
He signed a health care bill, but like Medicare Part D, signed by W, it caters to the needs of the health care industry far more than patients, and provides no alternative to private health insurance; he could have pushed for the public option but Rahm Emmanuel persuaded him otherwise. "Reform" will give insurers huge new markets, subsidized by Uncle Sam.
He did sign a New Start treaty that cuts nuclear weapons, but his timid, transactional politics, reinforced by the Senate Democratic leadership, makes it unlikely to be ratified in this Congress; it won't be in the next.
Has he gotten us out of wars? Obama campaigned against Iraq, but we're still in it: our military is angling to stay after the 2011 treaty cut-off negotiated by Bush! And we're in up to our ears in Afghanistan--now until 2014. And Pakistan, and--the torturers are unpunished, and Guantanamo still has inmates.
Obama campaigned on the need for an international agreement on climate change, deploring Bush's rejection of Kyoto. He went to Copenhagen empty-handed from Congress (no climate change legislation passed), but he didn't use the EPA's so-far unchallenged mandate to regulate CO2 as leverage. So, no agreement was reached, just a handshake on the "we'll try to reduce emissions," mantra.
Then there's the deficit commission. Obama appointed advocates for dismantling Social Security and Medicare. So, of course, the co-chairs propose cutting Social Security, not raising the cap to better finance it, and cutting Medicare, not restructuring health care so we can pay for it.
Obama hasn't even challenged the false notion that Social Security contributes to the deficit; it doesn't. Instead, he tries to co-opt Republican anxiety about deficit spending, while millions are without jobs, or homes, and the economy is stuck. The nation needs a huge public works/public jobs program, not deficit-cutting: not until unemployment is slashed.
Obama is hardly a reformer like Emperor Majorian. Despite his rhetoric, he is a lesser Emperor, like Glycerius, creature of Generals and Senators, two years before the fall of Rome.
Obama perpetuates the failing policies of the past: he depends on "experts" from the past. While he could give inspirational speeches as a candidate, he's a pedagogue as President, rarely a fighter. He went from talking about changing the dialogue, to repeating it.
Obama is now going to cut (government) workers wages to trim the deficit, while unemployment is high and borrowing is dirt-cheap. Wage-cuts will slow down the economy further, increasing the deficit. He's talking about "compromising" with Republicans, by caving in on continuing tax cuts to the over $250,000 crowd. That would add $700 billion to the deficit, but few jobs.
He signed a health care bill, but like Medicare Part D, signed by W, it caters to the needs of the health care industry far more than patients, and provides no alternative to private health insurance; he could have pushed for the public option but Rahm Emmanuel persuaded him otherwise. "Reform" will give insurers huge new markets, subsidized by Uncle Sam.
He did sign a New Start treaty that cuts nuclear weapons, but his timid, transactional politics, reinforced by the Senate Democratic leadership, makes it unlikely to be ratified in this Congress; it won't be in the next.
Has he gotten us out of wars? Obama campaigned against Iraq, but we're still in it: our military is angling to stay after the 2011 treaty cut-off negotiated by Bush! And we're in up to our ears in Afghanistan--now until 2014. And Pakistan, and--the torturers are unpunished, and Guantanamo still has inmates.
Obama campaigned on the need for an international agreement on climate change, deploring Bush's rejection of Kyoto. He went to Copenhagen empty-handed from Congress (no climate change legislation passed), but he didn't use the EPA's so-far unchallenged mandate to regulate CO2 as leverage. So, no agreement was reached, just a handshake on the "we'll try to reduce emissions," mantra.
Then there's the deficit commission. Obama appointed advocates for dismantling Social Security and Medicare. So, of course, the co-chairs propose cutting Social Security, not raising the cap to better finance it, and cutting Medicare, not restructuring health care so we can pay for it.
Obama hasn't even challenged the false notion that Social Security contributes to the deficit; it doesn't. Instead, he tries to co-opt Republican anxiety about deficit spending, while millions are without jobs, or homes, and the economy is stuck. The nation needs a huge public works/public jobs program, not deficit-cutting: not until unemployment is slashed.
Obama is hardly a reformer like Emperor Majorian. Despite his rhetoric, he is a lesser Emperor, like Glycerius, creature of Generals and Senators, two years before the fall of Rome.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)