Economic “Recovery?” Not for You and Me

[NC_Nurse]

http://www.laprogressive.com/economic-equality/economic-recovery/


People Who Run Corporations Don’t Care About You or Your Environment

We’re not going to get anywhere with discussions about what to do to save -– “restore” probably is more accurate — the economy in which most of us dwell until we face up to a basic truth that everyone has so far avoided.

This, I believe, is the essential hidden fact of economics in 21st century America: What we have is exactly what the tiny economic elite, the one or two percent of richest Americans, wants us to have.

Whatever “save the economy” crap they talk is for consumption by the suckers, to be processed by their captive information media. They are hoping and angling with great success to keep the vast majority of the American people in a state of duress and anxiety.

On edit: this article is worth reading in full. Lots of good data, and a clear picture of where things are heading.

[jtuck004]

1. Read a few books like "It Takes a Pillage", "Econned", "13 Bankers" and

it becomes clear that the statement above from the article "What we have is exactly what the tiny economic elite, the one or two percent of richest Americans, wants us to have" is something that Americans desperately need to internalize. The financial sector has worked since the 1930's to overcome the restrictions placed on them, and have been extroidinarily successful. From millions spent lobbying to placing former employees into positions where they can affect policy and remove regulations, the financial sector is perhaps the single greatest threat to our economic and political freedom that has ever existed.

[riderinthestorm]

7. I'd go back even further to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

The public is under the mistaken impression this is a public institution but it's not. While the manipulation of the US economy had obviously occurred wholesale before with oligarchs controlling vast portions of it, imho it wasn't until the creation of the Fed that our manipulation became truly breathtaking in scale with the global scope beginning to achieve full power by the 1930s.

[jtuck004]

10. True. 13 Bankers does a pretty good overview of that, and

shows that after the excesses that led to the Great Depression there was political will to regulate the banks. Things went pretty good up until globalization began, and they started deregulating airlines, trucking, and then finance in the 70's and 80's. Then the finance sector started using their power to move their folks into government to take of the problem they had in the 30's. Then they just began to take everything they could.

[txlibdem]

2. We need to end the fantasy that they SHOULD care about us or what we want

This article is spot on with the facts. Corporations do not give a crap whether you live or die. They have made you entirely expendable here in the USA. And if the workers at one place wise up and starts demanding that they quit treating us as slave labor, they close up the doors and move the whole damn operation overseas.

In short, as the system is architected to harm you from start to finish they have absolutely zero incentive to give a crap about you or your needs, wants or desires. Everything is in the Corporations' favor, they control the jobs, they control the prices, they control the production, they control the rules workers have to follow, they control your privacy (or lack thereof), they control who gets a raise or promotion, they control who gets the shaft, they control the courts so if you don't like it you can just pack sand, and now they control the elections.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Arbeit

macht müde.

[WillyT]

11. I Always Thought It... Macht Frei

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Of course.

I just prefer my version Work makes you tired.

[patrice]

4. We should work on this: The whole concept of Ethos DOES NOT APPLY to corporations.

They aren't even im-moral, because you'd have to have moral that you reject in order to be im-moral.

They are amoral, without morals, so if they happen to look moral, that's only a chance by-product of something else.

[NC_Nurse]

5. Agreed. Many people like to ascribe good intentions to companies, but if they

exist it's usually a happy coincidence (or a PR move).

[northernlights]

6. marketing and pr

if they happen to look moral, it's a by-product of marketing.

[undergroundpanther]

8. they want us

to have nothing but want,need,desperation or fear..this makes us controllable and exploitable4.They want Stark inequality. They want to be lords and we serfs, dependent upon them and eager to do whatever they want us to do.They want a paradise free from the human conditions,suffering,need,fear,lack..etc..built upon the backs of millions of people with a little,scared of becoming like the others who have nothing. The top percent people are not like us,they are sociopaths and do not care about anyone's well being "down here".They give just enough to survive,distractions so we can't think,a little future hope and bait us with unattainable things to keep us obedient and in debt to them via a faceless corporation..

[laughingliberal]

9. K & R nt

[LooseWilly]

12. I recently went to India... I suspect it was an accidental trip to the future.

I hadn't really realized what a population of around a billion meant... but people everywhere means something wholly new to me now. And, most of them are poor and hustling for a rupee... and that's what the "boom economy" looks like now?

I don't think it's a coincidence that the "boom economies" of today are India and China... with the billion-ish populations in each country, what you really have is a lot of "human resources", and with the corporate mobility of globalization... that population of desperate potential workers draws corporations like moths to a flame. A 10 percent rate of economic growth is much easier to achieve when GDP is 2 billion, than when it's 20 billion (numbers chosen at random). Statistically, if the US GDP were to drop sufficiently, then a slight recovery could qualify as a 10 percent growth rate...

That article seemed right on target to me. My suggestion would be for everyone who hasn't already done so to visit a "third world" country of their choice. India, Mexico, Morocco, China, Kenya, Guatemala, Thailand... it doesn't really matter which... visit because that is the direction the US is moving toward, and since "the people" seem to be afraid of, or outright mocking of, Canadian health care and Western European socialism... I don't see any forces with the political will and the media reach to slow down the march.

Of course, the irony is that for the most part, it is only the wealthy profiteers of the current system that can afford to go to any of these countries... and even more ironically still, they're likely to go to a Club Med or Club-Med-Equivalent when they do... and so they will see the rich side of the third world, which is a parallel for the rich side of the US... (the rest of us can always just sleep in bus or train stations as we go... though I don't recommend the Mexico City train station, the police come through every couple of hours to beat on the trash cans with their bully clubs to wake up the waiting room full of people sleeping on the floor... though, on the other hand, there's usually someone willing to share a patch of cardboard to help a stranger insulate him/herself from the cold floor... which is enough to make it worlds better than the Los Mochis bus station with its hellish legions of insects on the prowl)