Why are Republicans drying up the consumer base?

[The Backlash Cometh]

That's the slogan we should be pushing. Small businesses are going to be hurt more than helped when the few loyal customers can't afford to buy from their stores. And more importantly, these anti-public government worker moves are not going to result with a tax break for taxpayers because the Republicans will use the money they get to spend it on the defense budget.

[ashling]

1. I believe you are on to something

Republicans want to hurt small business

[Newsjock]

2. We don't matter one whit to them anymore

The bulk of their profits are coming from other countries.

[Lasher]

5. Exactly right, the US worker and consumer have been sold out.

We should be taxing their asses off but we are fools.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. Good points. Public workers buy American products.

[Lasher]

22. And the US wealthy elite build factories on foreign soil with their tax break money.

They used to re-invest in US operations to avoid paying taxes. Not anymore. Instead they're using profits to eliminate US jobs with cheap foreign labor and we're letting them. It's insane.

[The Backlash Cometh]

24. Now how do we get this information to the mainstream?

[Lasher]

28. We can't.

So many have bought into the neoliberal propaganda for the past 30 years. Despite the philosophy's abject failure for all but the most affluent among us, few want to admit that they and their parents have been fools all their lives. They are willfully ignorant, and they are teaching their children to be the same.

After the disaster of the GWB years we were on the verge of putting discredited Reaganomic principles to rest. But on our side, the best we can come up with is yet another neoliberal president. The leader of our party has the same basic economic beliefs as the last 3 Republican presidents. After a three decade long failed experiment, and with control of the Executive & Legislative branches of government, what has been our remedy? Extend the Bush tax cuts; raise defense spending and continue the Bush wars; push for even more 'free' trade agreements; enact token controls on business, despite a critical need to restore New Deal protections; push for even more privatization; and signal to the opposition that our once-sacred social programs are now fair game.

I am a voice, crying in the wilderness. There are others but we are few. Sadly, I have realized that we can't get this information to the mainstream.

[Historic NY]

3. They haven't looked at main st. recently.

In my area big box business is pushed more than the little guy. All the corporate welfare goes to those that come in. We no longer have any small hardware stores and one or two pharmaceys are being squeezed out by the big box ones. Doing business local means getting in your car & driving to another locale for stuff. When workers have less to spend Main St. suffers, Repukes don't get it..

[PA Democrat]

4. Wall Street and corporate CEOs are all about short term profits

even at the expense of long term profits and the overall economy. CEO compensation packages enable CEOs to make obscene amounts of money for doing things that will cripple the company's long term ability to compete as well as hurt the economy. A company announces a big layoff to boost short term profits and the stock price rises.

The system is counterintuitive if you care at all about the common good of the people.

[lame54]

6. because there is always Walmart...

:puke:

[Skidmore]

7. They've sucked this market dry and now have their sights on

the billions of people in the markets of Asia. This is why they are pushing free trade there. On to greener pastures, they.

[FredStembottom]

14. ..and want America just long enough to front their investments in Asia

We should say "Fine. Go to Asia". But cut the cord completely.
New American companies would rise overnight to replace them.

[tosh]

8. Crop rotation.

Drying up the consumer base here while cultivating it in Asia, India. While the bubbles grow there, we become more willing to work & settle for less until VOILA! slave wages, manufacturing return and the cycle continues.

[Boxerfan]

9. Excellent analogy...Crop rotation

And we are being "tilled under" as we speak.

[whatchamacallit]

10. Yep n/t

[MisterP]

25. Andre Gunnar Frank notes this pattern: since the 16th century the Nordeste (the little equatorial

"nose" of the country) was cultivated for sugar; as sugar declined capital turned to Minas Gerais and its mining; then, Sao Paulo state's ranching; then, more towards the South's coffee

each of these regions was in turn converted to a non-self-sustaining extractive field for capital and then abandoned, producing for export and then abandoned by capital and

[Raksha]

20. Very good analogy!

[leftstreet]

21. +1

[socialist_n_TN]

11. Simple really. The big capitalists,............

who ARE the Republican bosses, don't need the American consumer anymore. They think they can sell to the world.

[BuelahWitch]

16. But "the world" does not make enough to buy their items

at the current outrageous prices. So they're really fucking themselves in the long run.

[brewens]

12. It must have been about 1988 at one of the Anheuser Busch

conventions, that one of the Busch's gave a speech about this. It must have been Auggie III. I worked for a Bud distributor and we just watched the video tape at a mini-convention. My bosses were in St. Louis for the real thing.
He warned all the distributor owners there about supporting anything that hurt working people. I don't think he actually practiced what he preached, but for a little while anyway, he had the right idea. He talked about how they made their money selling the best premium beers to blue collar types that could afford it.

I can remember when that was the battle cry of all three of the big brewerys. They weren't about to go down the cheap beer road. Let the low end brewery's fight over scraps selling that stuff to poor people. A lot of guys like me would have told you then that there was no way we would drink anything but our favorite Bud, Miller or Coors.

Just a few years later we're drinking a Keystone and saying, "this isn't too bad for the price." All three of the big boys joined the race to the bottom. Now AB isn't even an American owned company. I wonder how many of the distributor owners at that convention are still in the business? I personally know three guys my age that grew up working at their family beer distributor business. Back in the 80's they would have told you they planned on making big bucks running it now. All three had to sell out and move on. One's a teacher, one drives truck and delivers freight and the other made out considerably better, but I don't know exactly what he does.

[jeff47]

13. Because they're short-sighted

It's grabbing short-term gain, and don't worry 'bout the long-term. It's what CEOs in the US have been doing since the 80s, it's trickled down to more people.

[malaise]

15. Simple

They want political power by any means necessary. Truth be told the corporations have seized the party and are pushing their agenda. Ask the fascist Koch brothers.

[Moostache]

17. Power for power's sake.

Gutting your consumer base's purchasing power in favor of short term lower taxes (followed by a collapsed economy, bankrupt nation and failed currency) is the only thing they seem interested in these days.

Makes me wonder if these treasonous bastards have already cut deals with the Chinese and the Saudis to have themselves installed as regional governors in the next empire to pop up on the globe.

Unregulated capitalism - a one way wave to disaster and ruin.

[XanaDUer]

19. They're just shifting it to China and India

but, it's a good slogan!

[Zoeisright]

23. Because they already have all the money and they don't care?

Hell, most of them are set for ten lifetimes, let alone just one.

[Hannah Bell]

26. yes indeed. we should be pushing it hard -- cutting jobs = downward spiral.

fewer workers = more demand on public services/fewer tax revenues = fewer customers for businesses = more businesses (esp small, local) going under = fewer tax revenues/more lost jobs = rinse, repeat.

good way to shrink the economy, if that's your aim.

maybe their plan is to shrink the consumer side, expand military spending, & push more people into the military as a means of survival.

in preparation for WW3.

[Raine]

27. That's what China, India and the rest of the World

are for, they have it figured out already. I actually heard one of them on one of the MSNBC shows a few weeks ago talking about the "markets" in the rest of the World. They don't care about the people here. They have plenty of other places that will buy goods, the countries where American jobs have already been outsourced to.

[mmonk]

29. Because their corporate lords sell globally, not just locally.

They can sell to counties that give a crap about their people and have protections for wages.