The Weekend Economists' Panglossian Pandemic January 20-22, 2012

[jtuck004]

36. The more I read and study it is clear to me that there

is no solution to the inequity that infests this country to be found in continuing our present course. I know there are people who think there is a solution to be found in continuing to play the current game, but I think they are deluding themselves, and being dishonest with others. There are currently three powerful parties in existence; the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Financial Sector. Of the three, and although not elected by the people, the most powerful and also the most serious enemy of the American people by any measure is the Financial Sector. They have thoroughly mingled with both parties to the extent that there really is no hope of change without a true realization of who is controlling their lives by a large number of people.

Yet we are so divided that the educational effort and political likelihood of such an effort is Quixotic. Harriet Tubman is quoted as saying "I saved a thousand slaves. I could have saved a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves". In November we will have a choice between a sitting president who, despite his good work, is actively protecting the criminals that brought us our current financial crisis, (one need only to look at the charges and prison sentences that resulted from the S&L scandal, the racketeering and other crimes, to gain an understanding of the fraud that continues to be perpetrated), vs rich greedy bastards whose plans include making more structural changes that will increase their considerable advantage, and leverage, over most Americans.

There is no question that regardless of the election's outcome it will be at least a full decade or more before we even have a possibility of full employment (and that is remote). Based on the information provided us by the labor department every month, those jobs will be primarily service-oriented, providing little to no disposable income, continuing the downward spiral of misery and poverty that drove 2 1/2 million people into poverty last year, (that's more than the number of jobs that were created, btw) numbers that will continue to increase unless something drastic is done to create new opportunities. Our economy has traditionally been driven by the spending of those with decent jobs, but that and the tax base for the public sector is evaporating into the air as we speak. (Note: Obama may have given food stamps to more people than at any time in history, but I am DAMN GLAD HE WAS THERE TO DO IT, given that the previous president left us losing 700,000 jobs a month. So no, I am not an Obama hater, (the man has music in his soul, and it's on display today. How could you not like that? His opponents have NOTHING to compare to that, baby). But I think when the history books are written it will be seen as a terrible strategic mistake to have taken office while we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month, after millions of wealth-creating manufacturing jobs had been lost, and not make a huge job and education program the first and only priority. It's only too bad the people that were advising him won't take the blame.

Business gets nowhere without investment, and a country is no different. We have forgotten to invest in our people. Unemployment doesn't move people forward, it just ends. Food stamps just barely keep them alive ($4 a day - Orange juice, 6 eggs and a loaf of day old bread - think there's enough there to keep you learning in school?). We need 30 million jobs, not in construction but in research and develpment, science, energy, medicine, and training for 100 million people at no cost to them. Instead we get pissy little job contracts and insurance mandates for people who have no jobs to pay for it, and a bunch of "Look, stopped the leak, and the boat is not sinking any lower in the water" - while the waves are lapping over the deck. We need to INVEST $5 to $10 Trillion at a minimum. But it's not happening. We are continuing to circle the drain as people cash out their pensions and millions are still to be foreclosed on, with more job loss and misery ahead for tens of millions of people.

We are not just poor - we have been pressed, not into involuntary, but voluntary servitude, with the Financial Sector as our masters. Elizabeth Warren's book details how our major expenses are no longer those we have much control over, such as transportation or food, but things we really can't lower by just having less, such as a simple roof over our heads or insurance to pay for medical care. And those are owned by the 1%.

From "An Essay on Voluntary Servitude", Étienne De La Boétie
...
"Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives. All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death...I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces."

Many will vote for Obama, perhaps not because they expect great things, but because the alternatives are worse. Others will vote for the Republican Candidate. Regardless of the outcome we are supporting the tyrants, because the ultimate winner will be the Financial Sector.

We have allowed this to become an asset-driven country where the 1%, those with the gold, rule. One can play with politics and rules and regulations all day long, but except perhaps for a few local fights, those with the assets are going to control the power. Would it be possible to create a workable alternative to playing their game, begin to build a power structure that actively works against the greedy bastards by develping assets that aren't under their control? Maybe dozens, or scores of small groups that begin to take back power locally, but are part of a larger organization? Take back the school boards, create your own industry to the extent that you can.Get people together that are like-minded, have them put whatever money they can together and create business that relies less on the existing structures? Gather property and assets without mortgaging your effort to a bank, make it a community effort (Savings and Loan? Shades of George Bailey). Create your own schools? It was done in 1900, 1940. Maybe we could learn from the experience of those who began to build the country?

It doesn't have to be a third party, it could be Democrats that want a more progressive bent, one that invests in people and not banks, people who simply won't support candidates that favor the Financial Tyrants.

And if that isn't the solution, what is? Both parties favor the Financial Sector, our real enemy, and it is pretty clear that an appeal to most politicians basic humanity can be easily bought in enough numbers to influence the legislation that keeps the Financial Sector in power.

Saul Alinsky pointed out that when a group successfully challenges another for power, they often become just as bad as the ones they replaced. When people pointed out the irony in this, and asked him his solution, he said he would then go to work for the underdog.

Not for me. He liked the fight, I want to see people thrive, not just go through a lot of effort over and over again.

I know, Quixotic. What then is the solution if it is not rebuilding our assets away from the control of the Financial Sector?
This really doesn't have anything to with Obama, or even the next pres, it's more a long-term action focused on finding a way to stop serving the banksters. Regardless, come 2020, tens of millions of people will be poorer than they are today. But they\we don't have to be servants.

Just thinkin' out loud...