I had two choices. I could keep this OP short by limiting myself to a rant about how bad things are. Or I could spend a little more time and discuss some ways to make things better.
I picked number 2.
I. The Nation that Did Not Learn From History Generally accepted fact: Obama and the Democratic Congress were sworn in during the middle of a recession—a recession that began during the watch of the Bush administration, which twiddled its thumbs while the Banksters went hog wild with our money. Thanks to Phil Gramm (and---let’s be honest here---Pres. Bill Clinton, whose veto pen must have been out of ink that day) important Depression era banking legislation was rolled back. The Banksters suddenly had the power to invest our money in the most ridiculously overpriced houses, in unsound businesses, and (even) in wild wagers that their own risky investments would fail. Looking back, those last were probably the only “sensible” bets they placed. Everyone was after a quick paper profit. No one cared what happened next year, because next year they planned to be retired and living it up on an island paradise with their easily earned cash. The rich got richer and the poor got more desperate. Income disparity in this country rivaled the all time high set back in 1928----
Speaking of 1928, what happened the next year? Oh. Yeah. Wall Street went bust. We were warned, dude and dudettes.
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
George Santayana
II. Recovery? What Recovery? Bush got on television and
begged the American people to give all their hard earned money to the Banksters. The Democrats did not dare call his bluff. They did not want the Bush Recession to turn into the Democrats’ Recession.
For two years, we have been told to watch and wait.
The economy will get back on track, now that the banks have money and credit has been freed up for mortgage holders and small businesses. Small business will create jobs. New housing starts will mean more jobs. If the Banksters had kept their promise to the American people, we might have emerged from the recession. However, Wall Street
never intended to free up credit. Instead, it conspired with the Bush administration to rob the country blind and keep the recession going for two more years so that the press could re-label it the “Democratic Recession”. Their ultimate goal---- return Congress to the control of the Republicans who started the mess in the first place with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act The Banksters have used their bailout money for bonuses and to pay off the bad investments of VIP corporations like the Carlyle Group. The rest they have squirreled away to be used as a slush fund to help get the Republicans back in power. See this ABC story about how Wall Street is giving twice as much to Republicans as Democrats.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wall-street-opens-wallet-republican-senate-candidates-upcoming/story?id=11359466That is
our hard earned tax money that is flowing into the GOP coffers.
Oh, by the way, what exactly did we get for our billions (besides a solvent Republican Party)? What kind of “recovery” has “experts” worrying that a “second recession” is about to begin?
“It’s starting to feel like another recession” AP
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38855093/ns/business-eye_on_the_economyFunny. To me, it feels like the same recession. I have not seen the unemployed called back to work. I have not seen the ranks of the uninsured shrink. I have not seen more folks buying homes, and the foreclosures have not slowed down either. People vacation at home---if they are not too busy slaving at two minimum wage jobs to take time off work. The rich squirrel their money away rather than spending it. People still go to bed hungry in the richest nation of the world----
And yet, AP tells me that the Bush recession ended somewhere between 2008 and 2010. I must have blinked.
III. If We Were Capable of Learning from History, Here Is What We Might Do….We could…
Put a human face on poverty .
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
Listen up, please, because this is the most important thing of all.
As long as the MSM insists upon scaring the American public with stories about “Mosques” at Ground Zero, crooked (Black) politicians, overpaid teachers and disease ridden immigrants, the poor, the unemployed, the homeless will remain forgotten and their numbers will grow. FDR spoke directly to and about the poor. He hired photographers to capture their images. He made it impossible for the marginally more fortunate to look away. He shattered the myth that only shiftless, lazy people were suffering.
One of Bill Clinton’s final acts in office was a train tour of the country to highlight the plight of the poor. President Obama should get on a train (or bus or plane) tomorrow and tour the country, too. The MSM will have to cover his trip—he is the president. So what if a few Tea Baggers show up along the way? Let the American public hear them jeer a president who is talking about jobs and housing. See how many Americans speak dismissively of the poor, unemployed and sick after they get a chance to look in their eyes and walk in their shoes.
Increase taxes on the rich . Why should we stop at repealing the Bush tax cuts? The last time the nation’s elite were
this filthy rich was 1928. One of the (largely symbolic) actions of the FDR Democratic Congress was a bill that raised the taxes of those most able to pay them. If Congress did the same now, for every Koch Family Tea Bagger who complained, ten hard working Americans would cheer. When the GOP exclaims
But raising taxes on the rich will plunge us into recession! remind them that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy are the most inefficient form of government spending designed to stimulate the economy. If you need to cite proof, I have the links in this old Journal
Books Not Bombs .
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/440 Slash military spending What is the second most inefficient way to jump start an economy through federal spending? Give your tax dollars to the Pentagon. Our current crop of generals and admirals do everything they can to hand out corporate welfare, because they know that they will be rewarded with high paying private sector jobs when they retire from the military.
Military spending---along with tax cuts for the wealthy---have bankrupted our country. We can not get back all the dollars we have squandered but at least we can stop throwing good money after bad. When I talk about slashing the Pentagon budget, I am not referring to GOP style cost saving measures. You know, taking away the soldiers’ body armor, reducing medical services, depriving them of education opportunities. We need to cut the money that flows into the coffers of the so called Defense Industry which is hard at work producing the next generation of planes, helicopters, submarines and bombs that will never actually get used.
Increase education spending. What is the most efficient way to spend federal money to jump start the economy? Channel more of it into education. See my journal above for links. Education spending does not mean promising local school districts money if they will fire all their teachers with seniority and replace them with temp workers who are paid much less. That is just more corporate welfare, and it actually
harms the economy, because teachers who are middle class tax payers and consumers are replaced by lower middle class workers who will pay less taxes and spend less at local stores. Cheap charter schools run by private firms will not buy computers or other equipment which might boost the economy. All their extra money will go into their personal bank accounts.
The federal government needs to help schools hire more
qualified teachers, in order to reduce class size and improve learning. The jobs created through sensible education spending provide a boost for the economy by training the next generation of workers, so that the country as a whole becomes more productive. They need to allow local school districts to evaluate the needs of their own students and their own communities and decide where and how they will concentrate their resources. For instance, an area with a large number of obese children who are prone to diabetes (pick any Latino community in Texas) should get points for investing in physical education to keep its (future workers) healthy.
Now that so many people are out of work, kids going to college need more financial aid, not less. Ignore the Tea Baggers who demand that grants be cut. Their own kids are getting government money to go to college. They just don’t want anyone else to share.
Invest in public health. Because our nation has squandered its public health money on “terrorism preparedness”, we are sicker than the folks in Eastern Europe---and paying dearly for the privilege of dying young. All that early death and disability is a drain on the economy. Fewer people pay taxes, more people rely on social programs. In addition to health insurance for everyone, we need to invest a little money in the basics. Like proper nutrition for our school kids. Mass cholesterol screenings. Affordable, easily available birth control along with sensible sex education. We need to clean up our waterways---and make sure that the poor are not eating polluted fish. We need to clean up our air, so that our kids can get outdoors and exercise again.
We have a choice. Spend a few pennies now keeping more Americans at a healthy weight, or spend tens of thousands of dollars down the road paying for hip and knee replacements. The folks who predict doom and gloom for Medicare never seem to consider that disease prevention could keep the program solvent into the 22nd century by cutting costs and keeping more of us working. They act as if God has decreed that we will all have failing hearts, lungs, kidneys and joints shortly after the age of 65—just in time to make HCA a hefty profit.
Public health expenditures can also be used to jump start the economy. Screening programs are labor intensive—that means more jobs. Infrastructure projects (like cleaning up water supplies) also require workers. Since carbon fuel emissions definitely make people sick (whether or not you believe in global warming)
with heart attacks, strokes, asthma and pneumonia, public works projects designed to increase our solar and wind power grids will give the economy a double boost.
Here is a thought. Let’s revive the WPA but this time around call it the WPHA---“
Works Projects for Health Administration .
Reform immigration rules The current system is designed to benefit corporate America. Basically, the state and federal governments “look the other way”, i.e. they fail to enforce immigration laws so that corporations can get serf labor for cheap. Since “illegals” can not call upon the federal government to protect their rights (they have no rights), they are easily exploited. They are paid less than minimum wage, they get no overtime and if they are injured on the job they are shit out of luck. Their presence in the U.S. workforce drives down wages for everyone. That means less tax money flowing into Washington and less spending at the local mall.
Companies that hire undocumented workers should face stiff fines and penalties. No company that hires “illegals” should get a government contract. At the same time, the feds need to increase the number of immigrants who are here legally to do the work that no one born in this country wants to do---like picking fruit or bussing tables or digging ditches. These documented workers will be able to demand a living wage. They will be protected by OSHA. They will pay more taxes and spend more at the local Kroger.
What we absolutely must not do is what Herbert Hoover did. We must not try to blame our current economic problems on immigrants and “send them back home.” For most of them, home is now a chicken plucking factory somewhere in the U.S., and no matter how many times they are sent away, they will come back to the employers who are more than willing to exploit their labor.
Pass the Employee Free Choice Act Some of the most important New Deal legislation was enacted to protect unions. Better paid workers mean more taxes and more local spending (am I starting to sound like a broken record yet?) In the years since the New Deal, Congress and the Feds have attempted to roll back the rights of workers. Reverse that trend. If people feel empowered at their work place, if they are treated like real human beings and not just cogs and wheels, they will have more job satisfaction—which means they will be less eager to go on permanent medical disability
Rein in Medicare Part D, aka the Drug Company Free Federal Money giveaway Inflation is down, but prices continue to soar on medications used by Medicare enrollees. (Socialized) western Europe gets bargains on its domestically made drugs, because their companies can recoup their losses in the U.S. The whole world is getting their drugs cheap thanks to U.S. taxpayers----
As much as I like charity, I think that most of the rest of the world can afford to pay their own medical bills. For those countries that are truly poor, sure, send them federal aid. But do not make Grandma choose between eating and breathing. Do not drive Medicare into bankruptcy so that a bunch of (mostly) foreign drug companies can post record profits. As federal spending to jump start the economy goes, that is the stupidest, most wasteful spending of all. Links in my old journal below.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/430 Do whatever it takes to put folks back in homes Home sales are great for the economy, especially new home sales. That is because the housing industry is a big employer.
The only people benefiting from all the foreclosures are the vulture funds which are snatching up properties at a fraction of their value. Carlyle Group can afford to keep you and your neighbors’ houses empty for three or four years, until the economy turns around. However, unoccupied homes do not help the local bakery or hardware store---and it is small businesses, domestic businesses that are going to get us back to work. The multinationals are sending their jobs to other countries. Speaking of small businesses…
If the Banksters will not loan money to keep small businesses going during these rough times, then the Feds should loan the money. And they should finance these loans by taxing financial institutions. If a bank does not want to pay the Small Business Tax, it can write its own loans to small businesses.
Ignore Big Business when it claims we are moving closer to Godless Communism One of the faults of the New Deal is it did not go far enough. The rich could get their way if they just screamed
Communism! Communism! All Americans knew how bad things were in Russia in the 1930s, so the threats were effective. There is no longer a communist Rusia, communist China is our economic partner and communist Cuba has better health care than we do.
All of the above ideas (except for the last one) were stolen from the New Deal. It took FDR a couple of years in office to get things rolling, so I think it is too early to give up on Obama and the Democratic Congress, and anyone who says "Let the GOP run things, they can not be any worse" is probably hoping that this recession is a long and miserable one.
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