Talking Point: US Government Debt and Jobs

Job, Jobs, Where are the Jobs?

The talking point is simple. Average Americans are not spending money, and the economy is stalled, because they don't have much money. It's no use giving tax breaks and low interest rates to product manufacturers, because the people who would normally buy their products don't have money. People need jobs.

It is debatable whether the American public is responsible for 70% of domestic spending on goods and services, but by sheer number their spending potential is huge. They might make up 70% of domestic spending if they had money to spend, but they don't have good jobs.

Why not? Government policies over the past several decades, supply-side (trickle-down) tax policies and corporate globalization policies, have created a record wealth gap. A study by three Citigroup analysts indicates that the top 1% of Americans earn as much annual income as the bottom 60% and the top 1% possess as much wealth as the bottom 90% of Americans. The analysts concluded “economic growth [in the US] is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few.” [1] This is borne out by recent statistics showing that growth in domestic product sales have declined at discount stores and have grown in high-end stores and luxury products.

The Solution:

The government needs to set policies to put money in the pockets of average Americans, and I'm not talking about a $600 check; it needs to be tens of thousands per year, which simply put means temporarily creating jobs. The money for these jobs needs to come from the places that it is being hoarded: The richest 1% of Americans and transnational corporations who have benefited greatly from government policies over the past few decades.

After people have had government-sponsored jobs for several years, they will have the money to buy more products and services they need. This will create a market for private sector products and, in turn, support more jobs in the private sector. Eventually, the government can get out of business of job creation.

And yes, these jobs will require more government revenue in the near-term, but will also generate new revenues. In the long run, we'll be more likely able to pay down the US Government debt.

Agree? Let policy makers know:

• Contact the Broadcast Media
• Contact the US Senate
• Contact the House of Representatives

Update: Listen to a professional, Bill Gross, founder and co-chief investment officer of the investment management firm Pimco. "America’s debt is not its biggest problem", Washington Post, August 10, 2011.

Sources:

1. Can the Middle Class be Saved? Atlantic Monthly, September, 2011.

The Irony

Regarding the US State Depaertment documents recently released by WikiLeaks:

The White House immediately condemned the release of the WikiLeaks documents, saying "such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government."

Emphasis added.

Sources:

Associated Press, US tries to contain damage from leaked documents, November 29, 2010.

When in times of human events...

We are facing a "When in times of human events" moment. The present current "form of government" has "become destructive" of "deriving [its] just powers from the consent of the governed". In cases like this, which are not light and transient causes, "It is the right of the people to alter or abolish it." Alter significantly we must.

Many actions of the Bush administration are intentionally designed to be nearly irreversible. Consider the appointment of partisan operatives to the judicial bench, driving the treasury into debt as a means of weakening federal agencies that protect the environment and the rights of the common people, shifting our national treasure and power to transnational corporations that are in alliance with the Bush administration. The Congress is similarly captured by the influence of the consolidated wealth leaving them impotent to reverse course.

Our nation has become corrupted by an small elite class of people, some operatives and some are simply lucky relatives going along for the ride, probably oblivious to the crimes being committed as they live in luxury, traveling freely and enjoying all the best that money can buy. They do this in the face of a failing empire, which can no longer hold the index finger high and say "USA, We're #1".

The following rankings are evidence of US decline in the world:

• Number 37 on the Healthcare Quality Index (World Health Organization).
  
• Number 32 in infant mortality rate (Save the Children).
  
• Both of which are a result is number 29 on life expectancy.
  
• Number 9 on Adult Literacy Scale (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)).
  
• Number 12 on student reading ability (OECD).
  
• Number 48 on the Journalistic Press Freedom Index (Reporters Without Boarders).
  
• Number 17 on women's rights (World Economic Forum).
  
• Number 13 on a quality of life survey by Economist magazine.
  
• Number 45 on the Environmental Sustainability Index (Yale and Columbia universities).
  

Reversing this corrupt course is no light and transient cause. Our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are threatened by increasing evidence of a tightening police state. Consolidated corporate power, including the mass media, is used by a small group of people who enter and exit the government at will to secure largess for themselves and their adherents. This intertwining of corporate and unitary executive power, used to consolidate ever more power, is a hallmark of fascism; Actually, fascism isn't an "ism." It doesn't push a doctrine. It does anything necessary to expand its power, even if that means pretending to promote a doctrine. Fascism is by its nature corrupt.

The situation is reaching a tipping point, evidenced by the revelations of Ron Suskind that the Bush administration ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to forge a letter linking Iraq to 9/11 and the CIA's compliance. The CIA crossed a bright legal line when it used the forged Habbush letter to influence domestic opinion; the CIA is strictly limited to foreign intelligence matters. This restriction is a keystone to the freedoms of democracy we hold so dear.

Will the people of the United States simply accept this blatant abuse of power, which was intentionally targeted at them by the Bush administration? The Declaration of Independence says:

all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

It also says,
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Yes. We are living one of those When in times of human events moments.

Sources:

Statistics on American rankings are from page 244 of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," Vincent Bugliosi, Vangaurd Press, 2008.

Is the US a Failed State?

Is the US a failed state? The thought came to my mind three times in one day, so it is begging for a response.

First, the issue of "failed states" was raised by Alan Narin, journalist and long-time human rights activist on behalf of the people of East Timor. In response to a question about the recent assassination attempt against the Timorese president, Narin said[3]:

Some are saying Timor is a failed state, that here the international community has been pouring all this money into Timor, and all they get out of it is chaos. I think those comments distort the situation.

He goes on to define a failed state:

I think a serious definition of a failed state would involve two basic responsibilities of any state. I mean, one is, they have to obey their own murder laws, so they shouldn’t be killing civilians or backing the killings of civilians overseas. And, two, they shouldn’t be letting people die preventably. People die of hunger, disease, that could be easily prevented.

Then Narin turns the lens on the United States:

But if you’re going to judge other states by that standard, you would have to say that, say, Australia or Indonesia or the US are much more of a failed state than Timor is, because those are countries that have been killing civilians overseas.

And the evidence on the second point is glaring. The US government failed dramatically in preparing for and responding to Hurricane Katrina. Years after Katrina, New Orleans remains a disaster area, due in great part to failures of the state.

Playwright Eve Ensler[1] has been active in New Orleans since Katrina hit. The disaster is man made, and outgrowth of corporate capitalism run amok, much like the on-going financial sector crisis:

People don’t know that the mental health rates and the suicide rates are out of control. People don’t know that people who lived in houses [with rents] that were once $400/month are now $1,200. People don’t know that people are being charged for fuel adjustment, this new term, and they don’t even have a meter, you know, the gas meter in their house. I mean, it’s a bizarre, I think really immoral and profound statement about where the US is. [a failed state].

You know, we did a brunch there recently for the women in the Gulf South, Mississippi, Alabama, grassroots activists, fabulous women who have just been working twenty-four hours a day, and we just gave them a brunch. Women were standing up and weeping, you know, talking about the fact that no one had ever given them a brunch. I thought, a brunch? This is what we’re grateful for? A brunch?

It is pitiful, in the sense you would expect from the most desperate people living in an undeveloped nation, not the United States.

Throw in the FEMA trailers with toxic levels of formaldehyde, provided by the unassailable "private sector," and the failure is palpable. This is now well documented by the Center for Disease Conrol (CDC), as is FEMA's attempt to cover up the evidence. Remember Narin's definintion: 1) don't murder civilians and 2) don't allow them to die if preventable. True, formaldehyde works slowly, but here's a case in which the US government gets a two-fer as a failed state; the US is simultaneously killing civilians and allowing preventable deaths.

Finally, the third reference to "failed state," was an article that didn't use the term, but effectively made the case. I include a reference to that article in my "Sources" below.[2] It was the thing that ultimately triggered this blog entry.

A "failed state" or perhaps simply a "corporate state"? Perhaps the more appropriate question is whether this "failed state" status is intentional. We hear people, beginning with Ronald Reagan, say, "We want less government." They are usually people who want more undemocratic corporate power. People like radical tax reformer, and Bush administration insider Grover Norquist, who says he wants to shrink government, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." They say they want to make government small and ineffective. So is it "conspiracy theory" to take them at their word?

Sources:

[1] Democracy Now, On Tenth Anniversary of V-Day, Vagina Monologues Playwright Eve Ensler Focuses on Violence Against Women in New Orleans and Gulf South, February 15, 2008. Eve Ensler, Award-winning playwright and creator of The Vagina Monologues, which has been translated into over forty-five languages and is running in theaters all over the world. She is the creator of V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls.

[2] For an extensive piece on related topics See: Race, Poverty, and the Neoliberal Agenda in the United States: Lessons from Katrina and Rita, Kenneth E. Bauzon on Crimes and Corruption blog.

[3] DemocracyNow, East Timor Braces for Potential Crisis Following Assassination Attempt on President Jose Ramos-Horta, February 15, 2008.

Bush Continutiy of Government

The video below was passed to me with the following note:

Bush signs unconstitutional "power grab" presidential directives NSPD51 and HSPD20, giving him full-dictatorial powers in the event of a loosely defined "catastrophic emergency."

The directives define "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function."

It also states, "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government." In other words, the president gave himself the sole power and duty to interpret the constitution anyway he chooses, and neither Congress nor the public shall be allowed to debate or disagree on such matters.

The deeper points of 1) the corporate media's failure and 2) this story being advanced by conservatives are interesting to me.

Clearly we need to regain control over the commercialized mass media. To do so, and to affect other deep social changes, the principled left and right will need to ally.

Bush Signs Unconstitutional Power Grab

Sources: