Some Things Never Change

In those days of the robber barons (1891), Pope Leo XIII said:

In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.

You broke the American Dream - get out of the way so we can fix it!

I'm not in the mood to listen to babble about the deficit from the right-wing idiots responsible for wrecking our American Dream. Shut up & get out of the way: there's too much work to be done and too many real problems to address.

The monetarists of the Chicago school of economics destroyed Chile's economy by 1989 with a right-wing ideology that privatized social programs, castrated labor unions, and promoted "free" trade by abdicating any responsibility to regulate the financial markets. Now they've done the same here, and the American wealth that hasn't been dissipated is mostly in the Caymans.

The government has lied for years about the unemployment rate: we have a glut of workers and surfeit of jobs that worsens with each generation. We lie about inflation: household debt levels are atrocious due to the increasing gap between living expenses and median incomes. The government lies about fiscal policy, lumping reserve fund and trust accounting into the budget, to gain public support to fight a "welfare state" that simply doesn't exist.

One real problem is "jobs, jobs, jobs" and has been for years. First the jobs left the rust belt for the sun belt; then they left the country.

One real problem is that we have abandoned capitalism in favor of oligopoly with a hereditary monied class. We have let Walmart destroy mom and pop, Toyota destroy General Motors, and helped Monsanto and ag-business destroy Old MacDonald.

One real problem is that we've all but destroyed the free press and flow of information essential to political and economic freedom. (I thank God for the power of text messaging!) We have sold our national conversation to the Moonies of the Unification Church, to the guy Mike Royko used to call "the alien" Rupert Murdoch, and we grant air and cable licenses to those whose profit incentives favor populist rhetoric over factual information.

One real problem is we've promoted a "strong" dollar monetary policy that undermines the long-term best interests of our people, encouraging reckless reliance on imported fossil fuels and imported goods to the detriment of our own citizens.

Tinkering with monetary policy can't pull the nation from this recession; Neo-Keynesian policy offers the greatest chance of minimizing the coming depression. Some of the pain this entails should borne by those who profited the most under the policies that favored capital over people by putting a sensible tax policy back in place. Some of the impetus can be made by shifting expenditures away from things that harm our citizens' long term interests into spending that builds our economy from the bottom up.

Regardless of the toxic debt our new president inherits, some government deficit spending is inevitable for the next few years. At least the spending THIS time will build a better U.S.A. for my sons.