Great blog by Michael Collins. Main stream media is hopeless, of course, and that's what is great about Economic Populist and also what is great about getting rid of your tv.
Of course, it would be laughable today to imagine that a U.S. president could negotiate an arrangement between the U.S.W. and U.S. Steel that would actually reduce the price of steel (unless undermined by monopolistic profiteering) or have any substantial effect on anything.
A U.S. president could, given propitious political conditions, negotiate an increase in the price of steel by putting a tariff on steel imports, but that would be problematic as to real and lasting prices or anything else. The FTAs were intended to, and do, preclude any such thing.
Such an institutional firewall limiting the ability of national governments to interfere in what should be strictly business (market-driven) decisions would be a force for individual liberty and world prosperity -- in an ideal world of free enterprise economics. And if pigs had wings ...
So it is, I believe, with Obama and the strategic oil reserve. Wouldn't the increase in crude oil just be a drop in the bucket of the globalized oil market?
Of course, Obama could require that the U.S. military would buy only from refineries in the U.S. that are buying the oil from the strategic reserve ... but electrons would simply be shifted around in Dubai, Houston and the Grand Caymans to eliminate any salutary effect on prices at the pump. Indeed, it seems likely that the effect of any U.S. attempt to influence the global market through further reducing our strategic oil reserve would undoubtedly become the scapegoat seized upon by the imagineers as the most likely "cause" of further increases in price at the pump. In any event, the spin would be that the deal was breaking the delicate budget compromise managed by Secretary Gates.
TRADE GLOBALIZATION = UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT
The U.S. has unilaterally disarmed respecting all the assets applicable in economic warfare or global financial regulation ... and who knows where the one ends and the other begins? Yet - in the worldview promoted by the 'imagineers' - the U.S. retains all the responsibility for global stability and progress implied by the term 'the last remaining super-power'.
We inherit the worst of two worlds. Responsibility without power.
And, if that isn't bad enough ... considering the situation about Taiwan, Korea and the territorial ambitions of China ... could our national security interest possibly afford any reduction in the already repeatedly raided strategic oil reserve?
So, I conclude, whatever President Obama has said about the strategic oil reserves ... it won't happen ... and if I can figure that out ... everybody knows it won't happen!
You're correct. Our government cares nothing about the people, and doesn't mind throwing the fact in our faces on a daily basis. It doesn't take an MIT graduate, not does it take a Philadelphia lawyer to see it and feel it. Common sense tells us that what has happened to this once great nation, certainly didn't happen by accident, nor did it happen by chance. The American tragedy presently being felt on Main Street America was planned and engineered by the anti-America Washington Brotherhood, and by their supporters in big business Corporate America and the fat cats of Wall Street.
In reality, our government is all about climbing the political ladder at all cost, greed, egos, power, wealth, and selfish self-service. I would challenge anyone to prove that statement to be false and a lie. The daily headlines are filled with examples of government neglect, abuse of power, as well as dereliction of duty. The cold hard fact is that basically, what we have is "taxation without representation".
Poverty is an American shame, and especially one considering that it wasn't that long ago when America was the richest country on earth, and lauded as "the land of opportunity". But now, as we see evidence of the shame and tragedy of poverty on Main Street America daily, opportunities to be self-supporting and prosperous, have been taken away by our anti-America self-serving government. More of the Middle Class are falling into poverty than rising to wealth. We're seeing record numbers getting food stamps, living in shelters, standing in lines at food banks, living on the streets, homeless, hungry, and doing without proper health care. In the past two years, we've seen families living in tent cities, having their homes foreclosed on, filing bankrupcy, and begging for work.
As our economic situation continues to deteriorate, we're seeing food and energy cost soar, proper health care become unaffordable for most, the gap between wages and the real cost of living widen, and an increasing number of citizens dependent on government assistance programs.
Why are we seeing poverty become the "All American Tragedy"? Why are the numbers of poor growing? The reasons and root causes are obvious to anyone that has kept track of the progression over the past half century or so. Basically, we've been sold out by the very ones that we've entrusted with the well-being of this once great nation and her citizens. We've been gradually conned, scammed and cheated over several decades, and now find ourselves under the rule and authority of a government, which bascially answers to no one except itself, and considers itself an entity unto itself. Through anti-America legislation and policy, the government has basically created, engineered, condoned, approved of, and embedded poverty in almost every community across this once rich and powerful nation. The results combine to push us closer to third world status. We are a much dependent nation, deeply in debt, at war, and have few resources left to fight for our economic independence.
Through unjust, unfair, and one-sided foreign trade agreements and policies, our government has taken away our jobs, and by doing so, has taken away the opportunities for us to be self-supporting and prosperous. This is the root cause of growing poverty in America. Along with the injustices of foreign trade, the government has also allowed job out-sourcing to foreign labor markets to go unpenalized and unpunished. Our government also allows, condones, approves of, and encourages cheap foreign labor to take American jobs via illegal immigation into this country. In addition, anti-America H-1B visas, which allow American businesses to import labor, has placed many American workers in the unemployment lines, and thereby created more poverty and homelessness.
Poverty, growing poverty, in America, is a direct result of government actions and inactions, which deny Americans the opportunity to be self-supporting and prosperous. Remember, politicians don't just waltz into Washington and take a seat in Congress, nor do they waltz in and take a seat in the oval office. We, the American voting public, put them there via our votes. Also remember, John Q. Public doesn't vote on the floors of Congress, nor legislate and enact policy. Our decline, especially our economic decline, is a direct result of re-electing professional politicians to serve in Washington. We have way too many citizens afflicted with "Blind Patriotism", and they're quick to swallow hook, line and sinker, the smooth talking silver-tongued campaign rhetoric that's spewed from the mouths of professional politicians each election cycle.
As I've said, and have written about many times, the term "Global Economy" basically means "equalization to the lowest level", economically speaking. At present, we're on a fast train headed towards third world status, which basically greatly increases poverty and dependency. We're seeing many signs of it now. Our currency is losing value, we're forced to borrow money each and every day just to keep government running and to fund two senseless deadly costly wars, and we've become an import and energy dependent nation. America no longer produces what America uses and consumes.
Poverty has become an epidemic in America, and the cure seems decades away. Everyone can see the illness taking hold, but few are willing to address the root causes. Poverty is growing, but those with the power and authority to address and correct the problem, refuse to do so. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, and the poverty train is still moving down the track, picking up speed by the minute.
We can end poverty by getting rid of "The Washington Brotherhood", and electing pro-America representatives to serve in government. Else, sit back and watch this nation hit the proverbial "rock bottom".
This post seems to assume that the US government is interested in the well being of the people, except that it has been lately corrupted by corporate interests and needs to be alerted to the condition of the people?
Say what?
The very basic assumption that the government exists to serve the well being of the people is laughable. Show me proof that the US government has the best interest of citizens at heart. I'm waiting.
And then it might be supposed that finally when a conservative mainstream show like 60 Minutes illustrates the dire circumstance of the people, the government will then take notice and alter its path? Say what?
Pfaff. 60 Minutes could put on such an episode every day and nothing would change. Everybody in the country could watch it twice, and nothing would change. Congresspeople could have a 60 Minutes loop piped into their offices 24 hours a day and nothing would change.
Our government clearly cares nothing for its people. We don't need 60 Minutes to show us what we can see with our own two eyes.
The fact that government operates in its own self interest and disdains our citizens is more than evident. 60 Minutes is a sideshow outside the main circus tent. Inside the tent the ringmaster carries on as if all was well and then retreats to his private rooms for a drink after the show. The fact that the lions just ate the audience is a matter of indifference.
This Economic Populist is a fantastic resource. Also, the blogs of Robert Oak, in particular.
I don't have a tv, don't want one, but I do have eyes to see. Even in the somewhat remote county in California where I live, we are seeing the homeless families and children. And the safety net, such as it is, is largely built up of voluntary contributions in money, in time and in kind. Whatever government may do, it is very limited and kept hush-hush.
I recall when Rep. Peter DeFazio, 4th Dist., Oregon, informed constituents back in the 1990s about NAFTA that the plan was to bust the U.S. down to a third world country. It seemed to me to be an exaggeration at the time.
Consider it in conjunction with the drive to raise retirement ages. So now we Generation Jones and younger workers have to work till we're 70, 72, 75...eventually 80. If we have work at all, and that increasingly means permatemping for whatever corporation will pay you $3 an hour and point you to whatever fed/state/local welfare benefits they can with dedicated public assistance computers in the lunch room (a la WalMart).
What this amounts to is harvesting workers for a required contribution to a scheme that they will likely die before realizing AND increase the chance of poverty for their surviving spouse or partner.
Reading the above piece, I actually sprouted hives.
as well if he really was going to do something about China and bad trade. He should run, so far it seems he's just toyed with the idea. He'd be a lot of fun too....I mean he is one wild guy, fine by me if we get someone, anyone who actually can read a spreadsheet and isn't a corporate lobbyist puppet.
No other big names have come out this strongly against China and our trade deficit with them.
Even if Trump did nothing else right but fix China trade, he'd be a plus, since our current President has made nothing any better, and many things actually worse.
The potential to restore our economy by fixing our trade policies is tremendous. We import $2.3 trillion/year, and $2 trillion of those imports are not oil related. If we could cut our non-oil imports in ½, it would increase our GDP by $1 trillion--or roughly +7%.
A $1 trillion reduction in our trade deficit would be the equivalent of +14 million jobs (at $70K/job).
If we put 100% Tariffs on all of China's $300 billion+ imports, it would add $300 billion to Federal revenue. (And a 200% Tariff, which would be my own preference, would add $600 billion in revenue.)
Despite my previous, long-standing dislike of Trump, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat if I believed he'd take REAL action against China, and succeed in eliminating our trade deficit with China.
With the exception of breaking up big banks and taking back the trillions of taxpayers' money banks were given, nothing else would help our economy more than eliminating our trade deficit with China.
There was another interesting statistic from the Personal Income report that was not widely reported (Or at least, I never heard it mentioned.) Wage and Salary Disbursements for January increased $16.8 billion, or only +0.26%.
($16.8 billion ÷ $6,510.9 billion = 0.00258)
Since the BEA's inflation measure increased +0.30%, that means that Real Wages & Salary Disbursements for January DECREASED by -0.04% on annualized basis. So not only did Real Personal Consumption Spending decline -0.1%, but Real Wages & Salaries also declined by -0.04%.
And this is an aggregate amount covering the entire US labor force. Given an annual 0.77% increase in size of the US population, this is a decline of -0.81% in per capita real wages & salary disbursements.
Have you heard Mr. Hair, reality TV billionaire Donald Trump lately? It's astounding, he's talking truth on trade, China, all sorts of issues and would run as a Republican. Considering what we got with the biggest media campaign in Presidential politic history, i.e. more of the corporate/lobbyist same as change we can believe it...
I'm ready to have a crazy, sexed up, hair puffed billionaire TV reality star as President.....
I mean it's astounding, there he is, calling it like it is and there isn't a single politician out there doing the same.
How could it be worse? If he won maybe he'd redo the White House in Gold leaf. ;)
At least then the Conspiracy Theorists out there would know where the gold of Fort Knox is. ;)
If there is a solution, it starts with honest accounting.
I could almost believe in the Tea Party if they would at least demand an end to the way the 'Washington Brotherhood' continues to support unfunded perpetual warfare and other sacred causes being treated as 'off budget'. Of course, the SS Trust Fund, for the sake of the same honesty, does need to be off budget -- truly off budget. Any trust fund needs to be off budget, but nothing else should be off budget.
But the nouveau Tea Party is into fictional accounting as much as any of the old-timers.
I could almost believe in the progressives or in the libertarians if either would advocate an across-the-board tariff (by any name, including VAT). But the progressives and the libertarians are willfully blind to how American working people are being played for suckers by foreign producers smart enough to take advantage of the global system of neo-mercantilist trade and kleptocratic financial capitalism.
I could almost believe in the news media if they would honestly acknowledge that the trade imbalance IS actually balanced ... by the selling of America and of America's future.
But in terms of the "big picture", it's almost a distraction. Some good Science comes out of NASA whereas what benefit, beyond lining Halliburton's pockets, does outsourcing the military to them in terms of building, food, and all of the day to day infrastructure that makes a military run effectively and smoothly? They are charging the U.S. taxpayer sometimes 500x more than what it used to cost as part of the military service, i.e. peeling potatoes, mess hall, building infrastructure, latrines, shipping, ....this is all the stuff the military used to do internally and obviously by outsourcing it to the "Private sector", there isn't any real cost savings.
So, each agency has it's ineffectiveness but I do not believe NASA for example, as burned through cash like say the virtual fence or multi-billion dollar contracts awarded each year where literally nothing, nada, zippo was delivered for the money.
Again, it's ratios, as I try to list in the above post, i.e. having multiple "job training" programs handed through the various divisions, regions and branches of government are nothing in comparison to multi-billion dollar contracts where that company gets the money yet the U.S. government literally gets nothing that functions in return. Getting gouged on prescription drugs or insurance companies and even Hospitals driving up the cost of health care for all, there is no comparison to those billions to say "inefficiencies in food stamp distribution".
Even NASA blowing up a satellite/rocket doesn't compare to the billions in losses.
No hint of mercy in those cold calculating eyes ...
On the other hand, Wen appears to be sane in his remarks. At the recent March 4 opening of the National People's Congress in Beijing, Wen appeals for the support of the people based on recognition of a need for social stability.
Following Robert Oak, we could interpret Wen's remarks as the Communist Party's attempt to justify China's mercantilist policies. But does the P.R.C. really NEED to justify their wildly successful participation in a neo-mercantilist world-system to the people of China? I don't think so.
According to BBC:
"China must ensure social stability by reducing inflation and corruption, Premier Wen Jiabao has told the parliament's annual session."
If anything, what Wen is seeking to justify to the people is the political corruption that exists in China -- otherwise, Wen has nothing that needs justified! He is also, apparently, preparing the people for measures to bring the wild economic growth under control and assuring the people at the bottom that they will not be the ones asked to make the sacrifices.
Far from announcing cuts in egalitarian social safety nets, Wen announced increases in subsidies to farmers and the urban poor.
I am interested in the contrast between China and the United States.
In China, there doesn't appear to be any concern about 'balancing the budget' or eliminating government regulation. We hear no clamor for 'whatever it takes' to unleash an economic engine of unrestrained growth.
Far from denouncing the evils of government interference in market mechanisms, Wen announced measures to "firmly curb the excessively rapid rise of housing prices in some cities."
COMPARING U.S. AND CHINA:
BBC quotes Wen, as follows:
"We must make improving the people's lives a pivot linking reform, development and stability... and make sure people are content with their lives and jobs, society is tranquil and orderly and the country enjoys long-term peace and stability."
Wen sounds like a politician, yes, but I wonder why the U.S. and the P.R.C. appear not only to be heading in opposite directions as to financial soundness and sustainable trade balances but also as to national popular understandings of national goals. Conventional wisdom will opine: "What can you expect? -- we are at opposite points in some kind of cyclic system." No doubt, but how else can we realistically describe this other than as China UP, America DOWN?
I cite as my evidence the ubiquitous investment advice throughout 2010 to invest your $US .... in China!
U.S.-based investors have themselves been making the comparison clear. Whatever the political rhetoric may be, votes with dollars speak unambiguously.
Here in the U.S., media and politicians alike appear never to have heard the term 'social stability'. Like cheap gasoline, social stability is something we take for granted ... a corollary of the revealed doctrine of American exceptionalism. In public at least, we seem to have an aversion to the very words "social instability" ... even though that may well be the best possible descriptor of what we are looking at for the foreseeable future.
Social stability or instability is discussed, if at all, in religious terms, with social stability no more intertwined with national economic policy than is global warming. Yet, all the media and the political elite appear to take for granted the idea that governmental policy -- and nothing else -- can and must take responsibility for unprecedented rapid economic growth throughout the country over the next few years. The only question is how to go about it -- with governmental action or with governmental inaction.
For example, Joel Kotkin writing at forbes.com in late 2009, deplores "our Euro President" and identifies Obama with a European (and decidedly unAmerican) craving for "peacefulness and social stability above all else."
What then is suggested as our SuperAmerican priority? Kotkin is clear about that: "for America, with its growing workforce and population, slow economic growth simply is not socially sustainable." Ir is remarkable that the basic economic-political approach of an arch-critic of Obama is no different than that of the President!
None of them -- neither Republicans nor Democrats -- have an inkling of sane monetarist policy! And as for something like a VAT or the dread T word ... forgeddaboudit! Oh yes, we can discuss such radical solutions as an absolute gold standard ... but questioning the functionality, in human terms, of the WTO system of trade or the IMF system of currency exchange ... heavens-to-betsy, no!
SUMMARY: The P.R.C. embraces classical monetarist policy, controlled growth and regulation of financial excess, while the U.S. embraces a desperate Keynesian policy (heedless of the global neo-mercantilist environment), desperate pursuit of growth (by way of voodoo economics) and mulish refusal to consider reigning in of obvious financial excesses (such as markets based on derivatives).
WHAT ARE OUR VALUES HERE IN THE HOMELAND?
Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein is thought of as the originator of world-system theory. Early in 2001, well before the 9-11 events, at the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Wallerstein predicted 60 years of global social instability.
On March 1, Wallerstein published Commentary 300 on "The Wind of Change -- in the Arab World and Beyond" -- using the metaphor of the 'wind of change' and warning that the powers formerly known as 'the West' no longer hold sway over the existing world system.
I am of the Henry C. Simons school of thought in that I believe that values should determine all political-economic thinking, policies and decisions -- not the other way around.
And, yes, to quote Oak:
"Due to the power of U.S. multinationals offshore outsourcing American jobs to China, don't expect any support for the people inside China on human rights and social issues anytime soon."
Nonetheless, we cannot avoid questions that arise out of an objective consideration of Wen's remarks:
Is social stability something that WE value? Is it a priority for US? I mean for US, the people ... and heck with the government and the political elite in Washington.
Obviously, as the U.S. backpedals away from democratization in the Middle East, our government thinks that it places a high priority on stability whenever oil is involved. However, this pursuit of stability seems to be based on feckless strategies informed by bumbling intelligence -- all reaction and no preparedness.
It may be that China is about to fall apart and the Communist leadership there is fearful of a mass uprising, growing even as we speak. Or not.
Meanwhile, what concerns me is what are we doing for ourselves here in the Homeland?
What do we choose? Reality-based social stability or a desperate national gamble ... based on what?
I voted Obama is worse. With Bush everyone knew he was corporate owned but Obama sold out the people who voted for him. Obama should be charged with fraud.
OK, I get your point now. Please forgive me for being a little slow. I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree.
Just so I'll know in the future, when speaking of government waste, what is the minimum amount allowed to be discussed on EP? In other words, funding several $$Million studies concerning the effects of pollution in the ocean would not qualify as large enough to be included in any discussion on government waste, correct?
Am I correct in saying that NASA's budget is not large enough to be of any concern? Again, I appologize for not meeting your waste threshold of hundreds of $Billions.
The reason if you read this post is to not do precisely what you are doing. That is fixating on one little piece of news you read and then getting all pissed off about it.
A budget should be a system, a spreadsheet, just like a corporation or a for profit business....what is not giving any returns and where is the serious bloat?
That is the point. The damn report is biased, they are picking and biasing towards minor amounts as "waste" and the real budget busters are going unscathed.
You're not touching a nerve in so much as not reading the post and understanding the intent.
It is AGAIN, $540 billion dollars in contracts each year, $170 Billion in no bid contracts each year!
By going on and on again about $1 billion or whatever it is, you are defocusing from $540 billion. Which is bigger? $1 billion or $540 billion?
That is the point, again, people who do not get ratios, time periods of course will pick their favorite claim whether that be teacher's unions or the fact they do not have a pension, therefore public workers should not have one, or say "bridge to nowhere", or Congressional private jets....
But regardless, if one cannot understand that $540 billion is 540 times larger than $1 billion, if they have no concept of scale, or proportion and ratios...
the real theft of the government pocketbook, corruption and budget busters will never be addressed.
Look, the biggest budget busters are Medicaire/Medicaid and the DoD. That is where the waste is. That is where the money is going and I've listed now, multiple times, the causes...
but you cannot seem to grasp the causes and somehow think this is one little agency that just screwed the pooch on a satellite....this post is NOT. It's overviewing a GAO budget report which has "wording bias" contained within.
Sorry, I didn't mean to touch a nerve. I seem to have a habit of doing that on EP. But, If I'm not mistaken, the word "waste" was part of the root article title. I guess that I completely missed the intent of the piece. I won't mention NASA again. We'll just agree to disagree on that subject.
DARPA invented the Internet and is responsible with not only IETF standardization but a host of advance research going on surrounding networking technologies and methods plus other advanced research. I cannot even list all of the research, past/present projects of DARPA, but I do think something called the Internet, should help you realize their value to the U.S. economy.
The reason you would not have a lot of this technology is because the private sector has slashed and burned it's advanced R&D and even worse, labor arbitrage their advanced R&D STEM personnel. Bell Labs is no longer what it used to be and the lack of patents tells the tale.
You need to look up some of this yourself instead of railing on NASA frankly. Read the study...
the point of this post is how people are manipulated into zeroing in on workers or some minor "budget buster", when that is not the point! The point is the budget is used as a political weapon, they are not looking at the big picture in terms of efficient and effective management.
NASA is TRIVIAL in comparison to the $540 Billion in contracts each year.
This is the last reply on NASA, if you want to talk about $540 billion dollars in one fiscal year in comparison of $2 billion dollars over 8 fiscal years....
that's the point of this post. The real waste is with the private health sector, that's big pharma, the medical complex, the system itself, insurance companies gouging Americans as well as the government. Additionally the DoD is littered with "favored" no bid contract awards that are often pure waste and they don't get one thing functioning back.
:)
Great blog by Michael Collins. Main stream media is hopeless, of course, and that's what is great about Economic Populist and also what is great about getting rid of your tv.
Of course, it would be laughable today to imagine that a U.S. president could negotiate an arrangement between the U.S.W. and U.S. Steel that would actually reduce the price of steel (unless undermined by monopolistic profiteering) or have any substantial effect on anything.
A U.S. president could, given propitious political conditions, negotiate an increase in the price of steel by putting a tariff on steel imports, but that would be problematic as to real and lasting prices or anything else. The FTAs were intended to, and do, preclude any such thing.
Such an institutional firewall limiting the ability of national governments to interfere in what should be strictly business (market-driven) decisions would be a force for individual liberty and world prosperity -- in an ideal world of free enterprise economics. And if pigs had wings ...
So it is, I believe, with Obama and the strategic oil reserve. Wouldn't the increase in crude oil just be a drop in the bucket of the globalized oil market?
Of course, Obama could require that the U.S. military would buy only from refineries in the U.S. that are buying the oil from the strategic reserve ... but electrons would simply be shifted around in Dubai, Houston and the Grand Caymans to eliminate any salutary effect on prices at the pump. Indeed, it seems likely that the effect of any U.S. attempt to influence the global market through further reducing our strategic oil reserve would undoubtedly become the scapegoat seized upon by the imagineers as the most likely "cause" of further increases in price at the pump. In any event, the spin would be that the deal was breaking the delicate budget compromise managed by Secretary Gates.
TRADE GLOBALIZATION = UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT
The U.S. has unilaterally disarmed respecting all the assets applicable in economic warfare or global financial regulation ... and who knows where the one ends and the other begins? Yet - in the worldview promoted by the 'imagineers' - the U.S. retains all the responsibility for global stability and progress implied by the term 'the last remaining super-power'.
We inherit the worst of two worlds. Responsibility without power.
And, if that isn't bad enough ... considering the situation about Taiwan, Korea and the territorial ambitions of China ... could our national security interest possibly afford any reduction in the already repeatedly raided strategic oil reserve?
So, I conclude, whatever President Obama has said about the strategic oil reserves ... it won't happen ... and if I can figure that out ... everybody knows it won't happen!
You're correct. Our government cares nothing about the people, and doesn't mind throwing the fact in our faces on a daily basis. It doesn't take an MIT graduate, not does it take a Philadelphia lawyer to see it and feel it. Common sense tells us that what has happened to this once great nation, certainly didn't happen by accident, nor did it happen by chance. The American tragedy presently being felt on Main Street America was planned and engineered by the anti-America Washington Brotherhood, and by their supporters in big business Corporate America and the fat cats of Wall Street.
In reality, our government is all about climbing the political ladder at all cost, greed, egos, power, wealth, and selfish self-service. I would challenge anyone to prove that statement to be false and a lie. The daily headlines are filled with examples of government neglect, abuse of power, as well as dereliction of duty. The cold hard fact is that basically, what we have is "taxation without representation".
Poverty is an American shame, and especially one considering that it wasn't that long ago when America was the richest country on earth, and lauded as "the land of opportunity". But now, as we see evidence of the shame and tragedy of poverty on Main Street America daily, opportunities to be self-supporting and prosperous, have been taken away by our anti-America self-serving government. More of the Middle Class are falling into poverty than rising to wealth. We're seeing record numbers getting food stamps, living in shelters, standing in lines at food banks, living on the streets, homeless, hungry, and doing without proper health care. In the past two years, we've seen families living in tent cities, having their homes foreclosed on, filing bankrupcy, and begging for work.
As our economic situation continues to deteriorate, we're seeing food and energy cost soar, proper health care become unaffordable for most, the gap between wages and the real cost of living widen, and an increasing number of citizens dependent on government assistance programs.
Why are we seeing poverty become the "All American Tragedy"? Why are the numbers of poor growing? The reasons and root causes are obvious to anyone that has kept track of the progression over the past half century or so. Basically, we've been sold out by the very ones that we've entrusted with the well-being of this once great nation and her citizens. We've been gradually conned, scammed and cheated over several decades, and now find ourselves under the rule and authority of a government, which bascially answers to no one except itself, and considers itself an entity unto itself. Through anti-America legislation and policy, the government has basically created, engineered, condoned, approved of, and embedded poverty in almost every community across this once rich and powerful nation. The results combine to push us closer to third world status. We are a much dependent nation, deeply in debt, at war, and have few resources left to fight for our economic independence.
Through unjust, unfair, and one-sided foreign trade agreements and policies, our government has taken away our jobs, and by doing so, has taken away the opportunities for us to be self-supporting and prosperous. This is the root cause of growing poverty in America. Along with the injustices of foreign trade, the government has also allowed job out-sourcing to foreign labor markets to go unpenalized and unpunished. Our government also allows, condones, approves of, and encourages cheap foreign labor to take American jobs via illegal immigation into this country. In addition, anti-America H-1B visas, which allow American businesses to import labor, has placed many American workers in the unemployment lines, and thereby created more poverty and homelessness.
Poverty, growing poverty, in America, is a direct result of government actions and inactions, which deny Americans the opportunity to be self-supporting and prosperous. Remember, politicians don't just waltz into Washington and take a seat in Congress, nor do they waltz in and take a seat in the oval office. We, the American voting public, put them there via our votes. Also remember, John Q. Public doesn't vote on the floors of Congress, nor legislate and enact policy. Our decline, especially our economic decline, is a direct result of re-electing professional politicians to serve in Washington. We have way too many citizens afflicted with "Blind Patriotism", and they're quick to swallow hook, line and sinker, the smooth talking silver-tongued campaign rhetoric that's spewed from the mouths of professional politicians each election cycle.
As I've said, and have written about many times, the term "Global Economy" basically means "equalization to the lowest level", economically speaking. At present, we're on a fast train headed towards third world status, which basically greatly increases poverty and dependency. We're seeing many signs of it now. Our currency is losing value, we're forced to borrow money each and every day just to keep government running and to fund two senseless deadly costly wars, and we've become an import and energy dependent nation. America no longer produces what America uses and consumes.
Poverty has become an epidemic in America, and the cure seems decades away. Everyone can see the illness taking hold, but few are willing to address the root causes. Poverty is growing, but those with the power and authority to address and correct the problem, refuse to do so. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, and the poverty train is still moving down the track, picking up speed by the minute.
We can end poverty by getting rid of "The Washington Brotherhood", and electing pro-America representatives to serve in government. Else, sit back and watch this nation hit the proverbial "rock bottom".
This post seems to assume that the US government is interested in the well being of the people, except that it has been lately corrupted by corporate interests and needs to be alerted to the condition of the people?
Say what?
The very basic assumption that the government exists to serve the well being of the people is laughable. Show me proof that the US government has the best interest of citizens at heart. I'm waiting.
And then it might be supposed that finally when a conservative mainstream show like 60 Minutes illustrates the dire circumstance of the people, the government will then take notice and alter its path? Say what?
Pfaff. 60 Minutes could put on such an episode every day and nothing would change. Everybody in the country could watch it twice, and nothing would change. Congresspeople could have a 60 Minutes loop piped into their offices 24 hours a day and nothing would change.
Our government clearly cares nothing for its people. We don't need 60 Minutes to show us what we can see with our own two eyes.
The fact that government operates in its own self interest and disdains our citizens is more than evident. 60 Minutes is a sideshow outside the main circus tent. Inside the tent the ringmaster carries on as if all was well and then retreats to his private rooms for a drink after the show. The fact that the lions just ate the audience is a matter of indifference.
This Economic Populist is a fantastic resource. Also, the blogs of Robert Oak, in particular.
I don't have a tv, don't want one, but I do have eyes to see. Even in the somewhat remote county in California where I live, we are seeing the homeless families and children. And the safety net, such as it is, is largely built up of voluntary contributions in money, in time and in kind. Whatever government may do, it is very limited and kept hush-hush.
I recall when Rep. Peter DeFazio, 4th Dist., Oregon, informed constituents back in the 1990s about NAFTA that the plan was to bust the U.S. down to a third world country. It seemed to me to be an exaggeration at the time.
Consider it in conjunction with the drive to raise retirement ages. So now we Generation Jones and younger workers have to work till we're 70, 72, 75...eventually 80. If we have work at all, and that increasingly means permatemping for whatever corporation will pay you $3 an hour and point you to whatever fed/state/local welfare benefits they can with dedicated public assistance computers in the lunch room (a la WalMart).
What this amounts to is harvesting workers for a required contribution to a scheme that they will likely die before realizing AND increase the chance of poverty for their surviving spouse or partner.
Reading the above piece, I actually sprouted hives.
as well if he really was going to do something about China and bad trade. He should run, so far it seems he's just toyed with the idea. He'd be a lot of fun too....I mean he is one wild guy, fine by me if we get someone, anyone who actually can read a spreadsheet and isn't a corporate lobbyist puppet.
Hey unlawful, haven't seen you for awhile. A while since I wrote this up but I think you're right as I recall...
Yeah, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze on the middle class....
show up here more! Very few are paying attention to the stats, monthly, annual economic indicators and could use your observations!
I heard Trump too, and I liked what I heard.
No other big names have come out this strongly against China and our trade deficit with them.
Even if Trump did nothing else right but fix China trade, he'd be a plus, since our current President has made nothing any better, and many things actually worse.
The potential to restore our economy by fixing our trade policies is tremendous. We import $2.3 trillion/year, and $2 trillion of those imports are not oil related. If we could cut our non-oil imports in ½, it would increase our GDP by $1 trillion--or roughly +7%.
A $1 trillion reduction in our trade deficit would be the equivalent of +14 million jobs (at $70K/job).
If we put 100% Tariffs on all of China's $300 billion+ imports, it would add $300 billion to Federal revenue. (And a 200% Tariff, which would be my own preference, would add $600 billion in revenue.)
Despite my previous, long-standing dislike of Trump, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat if I believed he'd take REAL action against China, and succeed in eliminating our trade deficit with China.
With the exception of breaking up big banks and taking back the trillions of taxpayers' money banks were given, nothing else would help our economy more than eliminating our trade deficit with China.
There was another interesting statistic from the Personal Income report that was not widely reported (Or at least, I never heard it mentioned.) Wage and Salary Disbursements for January increased $16.8 billion, or only +0.26%.
($16.8 billion ÷ $6,510.9 billion = 0.00258)
Since the BEA's inflation measure increased +0.30%, that means that Real Wages & Salary Disbursements for January DECREASED by -0.04% on annualized basis. So not only did Real Personal Consumption Spending decline -0.1%, but Real Wages & Salaries also declined by -0.04%.
And this is an aggregate amount covering the entire US labor force. Given an annual 0.77% increase in size of the US population, this is a decline of -0.81% in per capita real wages & salary disbursements.
Little wonder that Real PCE's fell by -0.1%
Have you heard Mr. Hair, reality TV billionaire Donald Trump lately? It's astounding, he's talking truth on trade, China, all sorts of issues and would run as a Republican. Considering what we got with the biggest media campaign in Presidential politic history, i.e. more of the corporate/lobbyist same as change we can believe it...
I'm ready to have a crazy, sexed up, hair puffed billionaire TV reality star as President.....
I mean it's astounding, there he is, calling it like it is and there isn't a single politician out there doing the same.
How could it be worse? If he won maybe he'd redo the White House in Gold leaf. ;)
At least then the Conspiracy Theorists out there would know where the gold of Fort Knox is. ;)
Where is a Ross Perot when you need him?
If there is a solution, it starts with honest accounting.
I could almost believe in the Tea Party if they would at least demand an end to the way the 'Washington Brotherhood' continues to support unfunded perpetual warfare and other sacred causes being treated as 'off budget'. Of course, the SS Trust Fund, for the sake of the same honesty, does need to be off budget -- truly off budget. Any trust fund needs to be off budget, but nothing else should be off budget.
But the nouveau Tea Party is into fictional accounting as much as any of the old-timers.
I could almost believe in the progressives or in the libertarians if either would advocate an across-the-board tariff (by any name, including VAT). But the progressives and the libertarians are willfully blind to how American working people are being played for suckers by foreign producers smart enough to take advantage of the global system of neo-mercantilist trade and kleptocratic financial capitalism.
I could almost believe in the news media if they would honestly acknowledge that the trade imbalance IS actually balanced ... by the selling of America and of America's future.
Ross, where are you?
But in terms of the "big picture", it's almost a distraction. Some good Science comes out of NASA whereas what benefit, beyond lining Halliburton's pockets, does outsourcing the military to them in terms of building, food, and all of the day to day infrastructure that makes a military run effectively and smoothly? They are charging the U.S. taxpayer sometimes 500x more than what it used to cost as part of the military service, i.e. peeling potatoes, mess hall, building infrastructure, latrines, shipping, ....this is all the stuff the military used to do internally and obviously by outsourcing it to the "Private sector", there isn't any real cost savings.
So, each agency has it's ineffectiveness but I do not believe NASA for example, as burned through cash like say the virtual fence or multi-billion dollar contracts awarded each year where literally nothing, nada, zippo was delivered for the money.
Again, it's ratios, as I try to list in the above post, i.e. having multiple "job training" programs handed through the various divisions, regions and branches of government are nothing in comparison to multi-billion dollar contracts where that company gets the money yet the U.S. government literally gets nothing that functions in return. Getting gouged on prescription drugs or insurance companies and even Hospitals driving up the cost of health care for all, there is no comparison to those billions to say "inefficiencies in food stamp distribution".
Even NASA blowing up a satellite/rocket doesn't compare to the billions in losses.
Yes, Premier Wen Jiabao is, at best, a cold fish.
No hint of mercy in those cold calculating eyes ...
On the other hand, Wen appears to be sane in his remarks. At the recent March 4 opening of the National People's Congress in Beijing, Wen appeals for the support of the people based on recognition of a need for social stability.
Following Robert Oak, we could interpret Wen's remarks as the Communist Party's attempt to justify China's mercantilist policies. But does the P.R.C. really NEED to justify their wildly successful participation in a neo-mercantilist world-system to the people of China? I don't think so.
According to BBC:
"China must ensure social stability by reducing inflation and corruption, Premier Wen Jiabao has told the parliament's annual session."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12654931
If anything, what Wen is seeking to justify to the people is the political corruption that exists in China -- otherwise, Wen has nothing that needs justified! He is also, apparently, preparing the people for measures to bring the wild economic growth under control and assuring the people at the bottom that they will not be the ones asked to make the sacrifices.
Far from announcing cuts in egalitarian social safety nets, Wen announced increases in subsidies to farmers and the urban poor.
I am interested in the contrast between China and the United States.
In China, there doesn't appear to be any concern about 'balancing the budget' or eliminating government regulation. We hear no clamor for 'whatever it takes' to unleash an economic engine of unrestrained growth.
Far from denouncing the evils of government interference in market mechanisms, Wen announced measures to "firmly curb the excessively rapid rise of housing prices in some cities."
COMPARING U.S. AND CHINA:
BBC quotes Wen, as follows:
"We must make improving the people's lives a pivot linking reform, development and stability... and make sure people are content with their lives and jobs, society is tranquil and orderly and the country enjoys long-term peace and stability."
Wen sounds like a politician, yes, but I wonder why the U.S. and the P.R.C. appear not only to be heading in opposite directions as to financial soundness and sustainable trade balances but also as to national popular understandings of national goals. Conventional wisdom will opine: "What can you expect? -- we are at opposite points in some kind of cyclic system." No doubt, but how else can we realistically describe this other than as China UP, America DOWN?
I cite as my evidence the ubiquitous investment advice throughout 2010 to invest your $US .... in China!
U.S.-based investors have themselves been making the comparison clear. Whatever the political rhetoric may be, votes with dollars speak unambiguously.
Here in the U.S., media and politicians alike appear never to have heard the term 'social stability'. Like cheap gasoline, social stability is something we take for granted ... a corollary of the revealed doctrine of American exceptionalism. In public at least, we seem to have an aversion to the very words "social instability" ... even though that may well be the best possible descriptor of what we are looking at for the foreseeable future.
Social stability or instability is discussed, if at all, in religious terms, with social stability no more intertwined with national economic policy than is global warming. Yet, all the media and the political elite appear to take for granted the idea that governmental policy -- and nothing else -- can and must take responsibility for unprecedented rapid economic growth throughout the country over the next few years. The only question is how to go about it -- with governmental action or with governmental inaction.
For example, Joel Kotkin writing at forbes.com in late 2009, deplores "our Euro President" and identifies Obama with a European (and decidedly unAmerican) craving for "peacefulness and social stability above all else."
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/12/barack-obama-nobel-peace-prize-europe-o...
What then is suggested as our SuperAmerican priority? Kotkin is clear about that: "for America, with its growing workforce and population, slow economic growth simply is not socially sustainable." Ir is remarkable that the basic economic-political approach of an arch-critic of Obama is no different than that of the President!
None of them -- neither Republicans nor Democrats -- have an inkling of sane monetarist policy! And as for something like a VAT or the dread T word ... forgeddaboudit! Oh yes, we can discuss such radical solutions as an absolute gold standard ... but questioning the functionality, in human terms, of the WTO system of trade or the IMF system of currency exchange ... heavens-to-betsy, no!
SUMMARY: The P.R.C. embraces classical monetarist policy, controlled growth and regulation of financial excess, while the U.S. embraces a desperate Keynesian policy (heedless of the global neo-mercantilist environment), desperate pursuit of growth (by way of voodoo economics) and mulish refusal to consider reigning in of obvious financial excesses (such as markets based on derivatives).
WHAT ARE OUR VALUES HERE IN THE HOMELAND?
Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein is thought of as the originator of world-system theory. Early in 2001, well before the 9-11 events, at the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Wallerstein predicted 60 years of global social instability.
On March 1, Wallerstein published Commentary 300 on "The Wind of Change -- in the Arab World and Beyond" -- using the metaphor of the 'wind of change' and warning that the powers formerly known as 'the West' no longer hold sway over the existing world system.
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm
I am of the Henry C. Simons school of thought in that I believe that values should determine all political-economic thinking, policies and decisions -- not the other way around.
And, yes, to quote Oak:
"Due to the power of U.S. multinationals offshore outsourcing American jobs to China, don't expect any support for the people inside China on human rights and social issues anytime soon."
Nonetheless, we cannot avoid questions that arise out of an objective consideration of Wen's remarks:
Is social stability something that WE value? Is it a priority for US? I mean for US, the people ... and heck with the government and the political elite in Washington.
Obviously, as the U.S. backpedals away from democratization in the Middle East, our government thinks that it places a high priority on stability whenever oil is involved. However, this pursuit of stability seems to be based on feckless strategies informed by bumbling intelligence -- all reaction and no preparedness.
It may be that China is about to fall apart and the Communist leadership there is fearful of a mass uprising, growing even as we speak. Or not.
Meanwhile, what concerns me is what are we doing for ourselves here in the Homeland?
What do we choose? Reality-based social stability or a desperate national gamble ... based on what?
Reminds me of the surprise overthrow of Reza Shah Pahlavi. The CIA had not a clue.
That's what's called 'intelligence'?
"Nice work if you can get it ... "
I voted Obama is worse. With Bush everyone knew he was corporate owned but Obama sold out the people who voted for him. Obama should be charged with fraud.
OK, I get your point now. Please forgive me for being a little slow. I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree.
Just so I'll know in the future, when speaking of government waste, what is the minimum amount allowed to be discussed on EP? In other words, funding several $$Million studies concerning the effects of pollution in the ocean would not qualify as large enough to be included in any discussion on government waste, correct?
Am I correct in saying that NASA's budget is not large enough to be of any concern? Again, I appologize for not meeting your waste threshold of hundreds of $Billions.
The reason if you read this post is to not do precisely what you are doing. That is fixating on one little piece of news you read and then getting all pissed off about it.
A budget should be a system, a spreadsheet, just like a corporation or a for profit business....what is not giving any returns and where is the serious bloat?
That is the point. The damn report is biased, they are picking and biasing towards minor amounts as "waste" and the real budget busters are going unscathed.
You're not touching a nerve in so much as not reading the post and understanding the intent.
It is AGAIN, $540 billion dollars in contracts each year, $170 Billion in no bid contracts each year!
By going on and on again about $1 billion or whatever it is, you are defocusing from $540 billion. Which is bigger? $1 billion or $540 billion?
That is the point, again, people who do not get ratios, time periods of course will pick their favorite claim whether that be teacher's unions or the fact they do not have a pension, therefore public workers should not have one, or say "bridge to nowhere", or Congressional private jets....
But regardless, if one cannot understand that $540 billion is 540 times larger than $1 billion, if they have no concept of scale, or proportion and ratios...
the real theft of the government pocketbook, corruption and budget busters will never be addressed.
Look, the biggest budget busters are Medicaire/Medicaid and the DoD. That is where the waste is. That is where the money is going and I've listed now, multiple times, the causes...
but you cannot seem to grasp the causes and somehow think this is one little agency that just screwed the pooch on a satellite....this post is NOT. It's overviewing a GAO budget report which has "wording bias" contained within.
Sorry, I didn't mean to touch a nerve. I seem to have a habit of doing that on EP. But, If I'm not mistaken, the word "waste" was part of the root article title. I guess that I completely missed the intent of the piece. I won't mention NASA again. We'll just agree to disagree on that subject.
DARPA invented the Internet and is responsible with not only IETF standardization but a host of advance research going on surrounding networking technologies and methods plus other advanced research. I cannot even list all of the research, past/present projects of DARPA, but I do think something called the Internet, should help you realize their value to the U.S. economy.
History of DARPA.
NASA has created a host of advances in material science. These organization have what is called spin-off, to commercial enterprises.
NASA spinoff.
The reason you would not have a lot of this technology is because the private sector has slashed and burned it's advanced R&D and even worse, labor arbitrage their advanced R&D STEM personnel. Bell Labs is no longer what it used to be and the lack of patents tells the tale.
You need to look up some of this yourself instead of railing on NASA frankly. Read the study...
the point of this post is how people are manipulated into zeroing in on workers or some minor "budget buster", when that is not the point! The point is the budget is used as a political weapon, they are not looking at the big picture in terms of efficient and effective management.
NASA is TRIVIAL in comparison to the $540 Billion in contracts each year.
This is the last reply on NASA, if you want to talk about $540 billion dollars in one fiscal year in comparison of $2 billion dollars over 8 fiscal years....
that's the point of this post. The real waste is with the private health sector, that's big pharma, the medical complex, the system itself, insurance companies gouging Americans as well as the government. Additionally the DoD is littered with "favored" no bid contract awards that are often pure waste and they don't get one thing functioning back.
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