Fake Prosperity

[kentuck]

Give me $3 trillion dollars and I can give a large proportion to the wealthiest and still have enough left over to help those at the bottom. Anytime you put $400 billion dollars into an economy, it cannot but help to spark it. That is what we have spent in Iraq. Yet, the average person in Iraq is not doing any better. A few have bought into the dream of the American dollar and volunteered to be policemen or join the military. They make pretty good money, relative to what they made in the past.

But, look at what has been put into the American economy and look at the measly results. Never in the history of this nation has such a Keynesian thrust been imposed upon an economy. Yet, few jobs have been created relatively speaking. The Clinton Admininistration averaged 250,000 jobs per month for 8 years! This Administration, despite spending like maniacs, have not created a fourth as many.

This economy is a fake and is built on sand. Those that buy the lies of the Bush Administration are due for a big fall. Give $3 trillion to the Democrats and watch what they can do. It is not Democrats that run up the debt - it is Republicans. Democrats are always left with the burden of bringing the debt under control.

[fasttense]

1. Just wait until 2007, it will get worse and those at the bottom will

suffer the most.

[oc2002]

2. ..well, maybe those at the bottom will vote in the next elections.

..but I doubt it.

[elehhhhna]

3. Too late now, but if those asshats had urged their rich corp pals

to just HIRE a few peole each, they could have stayed in control for damn near ever. Too flippin greedy by half.

[alvarezadams]

4. Ah, welcome to neolib economics!

Yes, the world of the Friedmans, the Chicago Boyz and of the "GDP trumps all".

It's always the same. Institutionalized corruption cum weighted dice means that SOME make a fortune. Give a free reign plus all the benefits to big business and by virtue of their volume the GDP will grow. Even employment will grow... but not wages, of course. The neolib bubble.

When the bubble is about to burst the neolibs go back to good ol' Keynes and pump-priming. Unfortunately they are ideologically (and nepotistically) inclined to understand pump-priming in another sense... as opposed to programs that are labour-intensive they seek out and, remarkably, FIND... places to spend public money that ends up in few hands.

Viola! The GDP continues to grow! Even consumer confidence grows as ... the mortgages go higher, salaries don't go as far...

[kentuck]

5. Bingo!

Well said...

[alvarezadams]

6. I wanna know who died...

... and made Von Misses king of the hill.

When Keynesian economics started there was a political debate on the subject. His philosophy was part of the political platforms and were thus "elected" through the electoral process.

50 years later a party and a half (the GOP and conservative Dems) came along and decided, unilaterally and with no public debate, without a clear political statement on the subject... and Von Misses /Hayek were adopted as economic poster children for big business. And even today nobody talks about one vs. the other or a mix of the two. From Blair to Kerry to Bush to Chirac, all are in the same neolib boat and nobody asked if it was OK with the electorate.

We weren't given a chance to choose. All we were fed was pro-neolib rhetoric couched in terms of "we have to compete with the third world", "government is part of the problem", "lower taxes" and the like.

No wonder so many people abstain. It's the same type of apathy that totalitarian regimes foster through oppression - yet this time around hardly anyone talks about propaganda and indoctrination. No wonder the "fairness doctrine" went out the window.

The only saving grace is a measure of hope. Perhaps the fundies will someday realize that their support of an entirely "unchristian" philosophy is heresy. The 4th estate certainly won't open any eyes.

[kentuck]

7. 50% of Americans still believe there are WMDs in Iraq...

It may be too much to expect them to know anything about what is happening in economics. The price of a gas is too high is about the most complex sentence they can understand.

[alvarezadams]

8. I think that

Stevenson and Fullbright were the last politicians that didn't talk down to the electorate. JFK and LBJ were the last to appeal to our higher values.

It's been downhill since, reaching the bottom under Reagan and going subterranean under Dubya.

[kentuck]

9. I agree..

Good points.