Reply #102: The perils of democracy.

[hay rick]

We are living in an era in which our democracy is failing in the sense that our elected representatives are no longer willing or able to act in the best interests of the people. The constituency that they respond to instead is the economic elite and their fleet of lobbyists, their cornucopia of campaign donations and golden post-retirement parachutes, and their captive mass media.

I am unsympathetic to Obama because I think he has been too timid, but I also think more effective stimulus and jobs bills would have been blockaded by the Republicans and skewered by the press. Egged on by the corporate-controlled mass media, the misinformed public would then have blamed the Democrats for not fixing the economy more than they blamed the Republicans for driving the economy into the ditch in the first place and later sabotaging all meaningful efforts to repair the damage.

As regards the consequences, this is not very different from what has already happened. The difference is that Obama has lost significant progressive support for not really trying. The usual defense offered on the President's behalf is that politics is the "art of the possible." If that is so, it is time to redefine the possible.

A few suggestions on things which should be considered for admission to the realm of debatable options, the realm of the "possible":
1. Sharply higher taxes for the very rich including raising the top marginal income tax rate, raising capital gains rates, and reclassifying most hedge fund income as ordinary income. The fact that the current debate on the subject is stuck on the wisdom of returning to a top marginal income tax rate of 39.6% is obscene. It is a testament to the subservience of the media to their masters. As a class, these people are looting the economy. The only reason to bow before most of them is to clamp on leg irons.

2. If you have a good number 1, you don't need a number 2, but here it is anyway: tariffs.