30 Years Ago: The Day the Middle Class Died

Had to add a few comments to this one.

The Reagan worshipers don't want my emails. Too bad. I would truly like to understand how this narrative can be repudiated.

Didn't they actually live the life described below, too? I can't say with absolute certainty, but I'm pretty sure that no one I know grew up in places like today's Westlake, TX, Kenilworth, IL, Mission Hills, KS, or a whole list of NYC suburbs (http://www.forbes.com/2011/01/18/americas-most-affluent-communities-business-beltway.html), and they don't live there now.

My father was a high school graduate who put 3 of his 4 kids through college without crushing debt and with one decent paying union job at Westinghouse. He owned his own home after paying off the 30-year mortgage. We went on vacations to "exotic destinations" like Washington, DC, and Ocean City, MD. We occasionally but not all that often ordered a pizza or went out for dinner. (Anyone else remember the Ho-Jo fried clams? That was big time for us!). Every 6 or so years he was able to buy new middle class sedans like Plymouth Satellites, Dodge Darts and Ford Futuras (woo-hoo!) made in America by fellow middle class workers. He had decent enough benefits so that he and we weren't bankrupted when he was diagnosed with heart disease and needed a quadruple bypass in the late 70s.

He retired with dignity and with a pension that wasn't anything like a lottery windfall but at least was sufficient enough to keep him from having to find part-time work at a McDonald's or WalMart just to make ends meet.

What was so wrong with that America?

What would be so wrong with having some of that back?

How the hell did we screw things up this badly?

I'll tell you. The unvarnished, bald-faced, honest and harsh truth is that we got here exactly and precisely by believing the lies we were told by Reagan, Greenspan, the GOP, and the rest of the trickle-downers who convinced too many of us that if the rich got richer all our boats would rise with that tide.

It was and still is a lie. Now those of us left in the middle class are left to drown in that rising tide.


Published on Saturday, August 6, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
30 Years Ago: The Day the Middle Class Died
by Michael Moore

From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated. [On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.] On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.

Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981."

Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to "go for it" -- to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.

And they've succeeded.

On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.

It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only two unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?

Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started -- a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.

Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:

* The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.

* Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here's your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.

* 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help -- or not.

* Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can't leave now, we're not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.

* You want to go to college? No problem -- just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!

* What's "a raise"? Get back to work and shut up!

And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:

The AFL-CIO.

The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that's just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers -- they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.

Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America.

And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything -- and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn't accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway.

And at every step along the way, the majority of Americans went along with this. There was little opposition or fight-back. The "masses" did not rise up and protect their jobs, their homes, their schools (which used to be the best in the world). They just accepted their fate and took the beating.

I have often wondered what would have happened had we all just stopped flying, period, back in 1981. What if all the unions had said to Reagan, "Give those controllers their jobs back or we're shutting the country down!"? You know what would have happened. The corporate elite and their boy Reagan would have buckled.

But we didn't do it. And so, bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we're now suffering with had it's beginning in 1981 (here's a little scene to illustrate that from my last movie).

It all began on this day, 30 years ago. One of the darkest days in American history. And we let it happen to us. Yes, they had the money, and the media and the cops. But we had 200 million of us. Ever wonder what it would look like if 200 million got truly upset and wanted their country, their life, their job, their weekend, their time with their kids back?

Have we all just given up? What are we waiting for? Forget about the 20% who support the Tea Party -- we are the other 80%! This decline will only end when we demand it. And not through an online petition or a tweet. We are going to have to turn the TV and the computer and the video games off and get out in the streets (like they've done in Wisconsin). Some of you need to run for local office next year. We need to demand that the Democrats either get a spine and stop taking corporate money -- or step aside.

When is enough, enough? The middle class dream will not just magically reappear. Wall Street's plan is clear: America is to be a nation of Haves and Have Nothings. Is that OK for you?

Why not use today to pause and think about the little steps you can take to turn this around in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school? Is there any better day to start than today?

P.S. Here are a few places you can connect with to get the ball rolling:

Main Street Contract for America
Showdown in America
Democracy Convention
Occupy Wall Street
October 2011
How to Join a Union by the AFL-CIO (they've learned their lesson and have a good president now) or UE
Change to Win
MoveOn
High School Newspaper (Just because you're under 18 doesn't mean you can't do anything!)


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"I thought Republicans believed in government out of our lives, the precious right of privacy, and the right to be left alone. Well, then what they hell are we doing in abortion, and gay/lesbian issues, and mental health…I have a cousin who was gay who was a war hero, World War II. We're all human beings.”
Former Wyoming GOP Senator Alan Simpson (http://bit.ly/k5FRjB)

Let's Keep Blaming Labor

A friend recently shared a Detroit News video report from 2007 about Camacari, "Ford's most advanced assembly plant," that opened in 2001 in Brazil.

The piece ends with the following claim:
"Sources in Dearborn say privately that this is the sort of facility Ford would love to build in the U.S. if only the UAW, historically adverse to this sort of supplier integration, would allow it."

Let me begin by saying that I've never worked in the automobile industry, although very close friends have. I've never been a member of the UAW, nor any other labor union.

That said, I have to wonder about the kind of thinking and reporting that leaves the viewer with the unchallenged conclusion that it is labor's fault that good paying, middle class jobs like building cars goes overseas because the UAW won't "allow" modern plants in America.

The auto industry is clearly one of the central pillars of our economy, and the web of dependencies that has been created seems completely entrenched and undoable. The reason it will be almost - not quite, but almost - impossible to change any of that and build a broader, more sustainable, diverse, and healthier economy is simple.

Money.

And who controls the money?

This report says it's the unions. Has to be them, right? I mean, the piece ends by saying that Ford supposedly wants to build plants like the one in Brazil in America with automation and JIT suppliers integrated inside and all that but the unions won't allow it.

Really? Unions? Are they the people who decide where to invest capital to build plants? Seriously? Is that really the reason Ford doesn't build plants like that in America?

Or is it possible that it might be because the Brazilian factory worker lives in a country where the minimum wage is less than $300 a month (http://tinyurl.com/24v5l8k)?

Ford's employees in Brazil probably have no health care or other benefits, and while they may be "middle class" in Brazil I'm willing to bet just about everything I have left that they can't even afford to buy one of the cars they make.

This is the kind of bullshit news reporting that really pisses me off, mostly because too many Americans are gullible enough - especially my friends on the right - to believe it. They buy this line of thinking that those poor bastards in the boardrooms and corner offices of corporate America are being held back by labor and government. All those magnanimous and benevolent capitalists want to do is invest more money into more businesses to create more jobs, but labor and the big bad government are keeping them from doing that. What a crock of shit!

It comes down to money. Yes, organized labor has money and power but make no mistake, dear reader. The money that matters and that makes these decisions is the real money - the richest 2% kind of money. GOP kind of money. It's why I'll never understand how middle-class Americans could ever, ever, EVER vote Republican. They're voting against their own economic self-interest. The trickle-down, Randian economic model that was sold by Alan Greenspan and bought hook-line-and-sinker by that moronic B-movie actor and GOP god, Ronny, and his minions in the GOP has proven not to work.

None of those facts seem to matter, though, to the latest crop of defenders of the wealthy and so-called free markets; the tea baggers, the Boehner/McConnell crowd, and the real whack jobs like Rand Paul and his Libertarians. Less regulation, more wealth protection, and even tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans has become religion for them, and that belief system has been perpetuated by liars and haters like Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and others so much so that uninformed and easily-duped Americans actually believe in the magnanimity of the rich, and worse, the fallacy of the American Dream that they, too, can someday be rich.

Devotion, admiration, and even worship for wealth, the wealthy, and the so-called captains of industry is how we got to the sorry-ass state we're in now. Maintaining that devotion and electing devotees of Ayn Rand and Ronny Reagan to high office is how we'll go over the cliff for good, too.

But, hey, not to worry. Our children, grand children, and great grand children will have it better. Unregulated, unfettered, and under-taxed free markets and the absurdly wealthy who run it are making sure that we're going to be a big part of the third world by the end of the century - maybe sooner. Then maybe all those middle class jobs will come back.

How, you ask?

Because we'll be the nation of poor, desperate people willing to do anything for a few bucks an hour.

A Condensed History and Plea for a Better Future

Dateline: October 29, 1929

U.S. stock market crashes. That wouldn't have been such a big deal for most Americans in 1929 except that unregulated banks had invested their depositor's funds into the stock market, too, and without having to tell anyone what they were doing. When the stock market tanked and there no buyers, the banks couldn't sell their holdings either. Some had to close. They no longer had the one thing a bank is supposed to have - money.

Remember, this is an unregulated industry and there was no such thing as the FDIC and deposit insurance. That didn't come along until 1933 (http://www.fdic.gov/about/learn/learning/why/index.html)

Panic about being able to get to one's money, of course, causes the "run" on the banks. Bankers have no money. They lost it all. Oops. Sorry about that.

No money in banks also means no credit for businesses to operate, either. Businesses, naturally, start to worry about preserving whatever remains of their capital so they let workers go. People don't have work so they have no income. Remember, this is before unemployment insurance or any sort of government welfare programs, too. People literally have nothing. No money in the bank and no one working means no one is buying anything, either, so there's no reason for businesses to produce much in the way of goods and services. It certainly doesn't mean there will be any growth and rehiring any time soon. The spiral downward has started, and it's adios amigos to everyone.

Ain't unregulated, unfettered capitalism grand?

And with sincere apologies to some of you, that stupid fucking Russian cunt had the balls to write a few pieces of fiction less than 30 years later and some people like Alan Greenspan either came to believe it was a new religion, suffered severe amnesia about what had happened and why a few decades earlier, simply never bothered to study history at all, or more to what I believe saw then and now that deregulation is the surest way to become filthy rich at expense of ordinary people.

Back to the 30s. So, the federal government creates programs to put people back to work - work that actually benefits society as a whole. My father worked in the CCC program. He and many other young men from PA took care of parts of the Appalachian Trail. So what, you might say. What did that really do for society? Ok. Forget the A.T. Ever hear of the TVA, Triborough Bridge, the Bay Bridge, or Grand Coulee Dam? There's a good chance something where you live that serves you, your neighbors, and the common good - a school, a hospital, or a highway, for example - was built by people employed by BOTH private businesses and the government as a result of the federal government and deficit spending to fund work programs. (See http://americanhistory.about.com/od/greatdepression/tp/new_deal_programs.htm and http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/the-new-new-deal/public-works-administration/693/)

Let's speed things up a bit. This is getting pretty long.

Lawmakers and citizens alike come to realize that businesses and especially banks are either too stupid or too greedy or both to be completely trusted to regulate themselves. Glass-Steagall is passed in 1932. The "Truth in Securities Act" is passed in 1933 and the SEC and a bunch of other laws are passed beginning in 1934. Banks, at least, are safe and some rules are in place to regulate the financial services industry.

Now it's 1999. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, a GOP disaster euphemistically referred to as the Financial Services Modernization Act (reminds me the so-called "Patriot Act". We should always get very suspicious of legislation given names that sound like sugar coating or the titles of Mel Gibson movies) effectively repeals Glass-Steagall.

Only a few short years later we find ourselves once again in an economy where too little regulation and oversight exists, thanks mostly to Greenspan, the GOP, and weak-kneed Dems.

W drives the final nails into the coffin up by giving away the federal surplus to the rich, invading 2 countries off the books based on total lies (except for the fact that Afghanistan was harboring bin Laden and he proceeded to fuck that up totally by invading Iraq) and running up the biggest debt since - you guessed it - that other GOP nitwit, Reagan. The financial service sector, who had been merrily creating so-called investments out of highly speculative debt, and the real cold-blooded capitalists who were making even more billions on derivatives tied to that shaky debt, have been doing so without regulation or oversight.

When the bubble bursts ON W's WATCH, who pays? We the taxpayers do.

So I get the tea party anger. Honestly, I do. But the anger, frustration, and demand for change needs to be directed where it belongs; at deregulation, failed GOP economic and fiscal polices dating back to Reagan, and the disaster created that forced Bush to have to put TARP in place for Obama to have to accept and implement. Wake up, tea baggers and you Obama-haters. Have you just conveniently forgotten or chosen to ignore how we got here?

Now I can't believe I'm going to say this, but the more I read and listen to people a lot smarter than I the more convinced I am that TARP had to be done to save the economy and that, perhaps, the biggest mistake being made in DC is that the feds are not spending enough.

The parallels all seem to be there to the 1930s. Some experts say that FDR was too concerned about fiscal restraint in the beginning. Had he done more, they say, the Depression may not have lasted as long or required WWII to really pull us out of it. (I'm sorry that I can't find a reference to that and don't have time to keep searching right now as we're going to a grad party. Maybe someone else can find something on it. I only remember hearing it or reading it somewhere; maybe last Sunday on one of the news programs.)

There are people out there a lot smarter than I who can explain all of this a million times better. Here's one.....

http://robertreich.org/post/719313692/my-father-and-alan-greenspan

What got me going on this today was an article in today's NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/us/politics/11tarp.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

It's proof to me that Americans really aren't very well-informed. Candidates for public office are probably the dumbest of the lot. Trying to make hay on who voted for TARP is like blaming the iceberg for the sinking of the Titanic (the iceberg didn't do anything). Captain W and his administration steered us into that iceberg. In case you haven't noticed, they and their cronies are long gone in their yachts for life boats.

How refreshing would it be for politicians to stand up to the STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE HYSTERIA IN THE MEDIA and actually educate the voters on what really caused the bottom to drop out of the economy and the fact that....gulp....there was no other choice but to go with W's bailout. I mean, really. What alternative was there?

The real objective ought to be what comes next to keep this from happening......AGAIN!

One Person's Perspective on the Federal Debt as a % of GDP

What's been the history of the Federal debt, what's been happening over time, and who's been in power when it happened?

Initial searches weren't very efficient and it was hard to find a reasonable summary. Here's one of them: http://zfacts.com/p/318.html. The web site owner claims to be an economist who does this in his spare time. Take it for what it's worth.

Ever the skeptic, I decided to check further and to account for Congress and the role they play. I decided to create my own chart. It's attached. The Sources at the bottom include a link to the actual Federal debt tables used to generate the underlying line graph.

Conclusions? Here are mine.
1. Federal debt as a % of GDP went through the roof due to WWII

2. Federal debt marked a steady decline after WWII regardless of who was in the White House and through 35 years of a mostly Democratically-controlled Congress until.......

3. Reagan, a terrific actor (which some mistake for intelligence and oratory skills) and famous co-star to trained monkeys, got elected...yes, I hate the stupid f***...
AND Republicans took control of the Senate

This next point is, IMHO, probably the single most important fact to remember about all of this.

4. The Republican-controlled 106th Congress takes Ronny's "smaller government" religion to its fatal extreme by passing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in November of 1999 which is signed into law by another RWMF and career politician, Bill Clinton.

For those who need a little history review, GLB repealed many of the regulatory safeguards which had been put into place by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which was the federal government's response to the unfettered and unregulated bankers who caused the * FIRST * Great Depression.

Go back further (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/demise.html) and understand how Glass-Steagall was coming under serious attack during Reagan's administration in 1986-1987....at the same time a former J.P. Morgan director and life-long disciple of Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, was being made Fed Chairman.

"In the spring of 1987, the Federal Reserve Board votes 3-2 in favor of easing regulations under Glass-Steagall Act, overriding the opposition of Chairman Paul Volcker. The vote comes after the Fed Board hears proposals from Citicorp, J.P. Morgan and Bankers Trust advocating the loosening of Glass-Steagall restrictions to allow banks to handle several underwriting businesses, including commercial paper, municipal revenue bonds, and mortgage-backed securities."

Do you see those words, "mortgage-backed securities"?

5. The upward trend continued on Bush 41's watch and with a Democratically controlled Congress (Dems can be such pussies...or are they just RWMFs of a different stripe? Both, I'd say.)

6. Yes, Clinton was in some ways the benefactor of a booming economy and, yes, some credit for reducing the Federal debt has to go to a Republican Congress
(In case anyone would like a quick primer on how the Federal budgeting process actually works, the roles various branches and departments play, etc., see http://useconomy.about.com/od/fiscalpolicy/p/Who_budget.htm)

7. Finally, it was without a single shred of doubt in my mind or any possibility for any sort of fact-based denial that a Republican-controlled Congress and a half-witted Republican son of a Texas oilman is who put us on this disastrous financial path.

The list of fiscal failures since 2001 is long, but we can start with cut taxes that primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans while waging 2 wars off the books. Add to that, the bottom dropping out of an unregulated financial services sector based too heavily on an overly-speculated real estate market that had so much credit and investment capital tied to it and what did those geniuses think would happen? It leads to a reality in which Wall Street and RWMFs everywhere get all the reward with none of the risk and we taxpayers are left to bail out the whole friggin' mess....

My point is the current pathetic state of our economy and the federal budget is something that began long before Obama came into office, before voters turned Congress back to Dems, and really began when Rs were in charge and is rooted in the desire of RWMFs everywhere to deregulate and get rich.

I have no problem with fiscal responsibility, but to think that a president and Congress can fix the mess of previous administrations over night - or even in a single year - just isn't realistic. And I don't think we'd be in this mess if the justifiable and now obviously needed regulations and oversights of the financial services industry had not been repealed.

If anyone has a better plan than what is being done now, I'd like to hear it. Was allowing all the TARP recipients, GM, and any other recipients of federal money to fail the better plan? In a perfect Randian world, I guess the answer would be, "Yes."

p.s. Snowboard Cross racing at the Olympics is way cool!

Additional Sources
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/hist.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60U09L20100131
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/02/the-big-bank-bailout-bill/
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/glass_steagall_act_1933/index.html
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/bush-tax-cuts/ignore.cfm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html

Why the Republican Party Hurts Free Markets

I think we have the deregulatory philosophies and policies of the so-called free market capitalists, mostly of the Republican Party and their latest incarnation of a high-priest, Alan Greenspan, to thank for much of our economic problems. Even he seems to now be acknowledging this (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96070766). It's not all his fault, to be sure.

The rest of this somewhat lengthy post (from an email thread with friends dated January 24, 2008) attempts to make the point that our troubles are rooted squarely in the social, fiscal, and political ideology of the neo-conservative elements of the Republican Party.

(Now excuse me whilst I climb on top of my soapbox!)

Let's start with the concepts of "free markets" and "capitalism". In my mind, "free market" does not and should not mean a "free for all". Maybe there never was a time when true free marketers understood that they were nothing without a market. Maybe true capitalists could never reasonably be expected to understand that their primary goal and very survival depends on the needs of their markets and how best to grow those markets for the benefit of everyone's long term prosperity and stability. Maybe there was never any hope that they could, would, and should accept the logic and reason for legislation, regulation and oversight as the very best means for keeping out those who would manipulate, cheat, and ultimately destroy those very same markets for their own personal gain.

Maybe it's time for those who like to call themselves capitalists and free marketers to realize the danger in listening to the Ken Lays, Jeff Skillings, Andy Fastows, Bernie Ebberses, and, yes, Alan Greenspans, Dick Cheneys, and the Bush-type royalty of the world who would have us believe...
....creative accounting like mark-to-market, derivatives, and the like are real things on which to base an economy
....the fantasy and fallacy of the Ayn Rand-followers who trust in the benevolence of an untaxed, uncontrolled, and unregulated wealthy to have everyone's best interests at heart
....that not getting caught is the same thing as not doing anything wrong, and that
....no one - especially government - should be poking their civil service noses into business

As Americans, we especially like that last one. When it comes to the authority to regulate commerce, we forget that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifically gives Congress the power and, hence, the responsibility to do just that. Could be the good ol' Founding Fathers knew enough about human nature even way back then to know that, generally speaking, people and business needed regulation if they were to perform for the common good and not just their own self interest. (Common good, by the way, is a great way to think about a free and open society. Keep that in mind.)

Isn't it time to finally wake up to the fact that "trickle down" is just another way of saying "pissed on" by the powerful and wealthy elite in business and government? Isn't it time to admit that "trickle down" is actually a good description of what happens to people everywhere except at the top - we get a trickle of what government "gives" to those at the top in the form of deregulation or tax cuts? Isn't it time we recognize that there is but one political party where big business, ultra-wealthy, and neo-conservative social and political dogma come to their full realization...all at the expense of the rest of the common good?

As I see it, big business and government are one and the same inside the Republican party. R's talk a good game about being inclusive, being for less government in our lives, being for less government spending so as to avoid bad things like increasing deficits, and being about protecting American families and family values. Well, from my perspective, they've done exactly the opposite beginning with Reagan and finding their full throat especially over the last 8 years. Again, just my opinion.

The following excerpt from an article by author Larry Beinhart summed it up pretty well for me (http://www.alternet.org/workplace/98913/a_crash_course_in_economic_crashes/?page=entire)

"The core, the very heart of Bushonomics, is cutting taxes, especially for the wealthy. ...the tax cuts were sold as economic stimulus and jobs packages with the promise that they would not create deficits. This last was based on a romantic Ayn Rand vision of millionaires racing into the backwoods to build, build, build new businesses that would create jobs, "good jobs," and new taxes would be paid by the businesses and the workers, making up for the initial deficits.
Alas, none of that ever happened.
Deficits were created."

More good reading by Beinhart on Bushenomics (I like that term!) can be found here (http://www.larrybeinhart.com/articles/node/12) and at his web site.


I also think that the AFL-CIO's executive council statement from March of last year is worth reading (http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/ecouncil/ec03052008a.cfm).

It opens with...
"The implosion of the housing market and the cascading crises in the credit markets are the direct consequence of a 30-year experiment of trying to create a deregulated, low wage economy where high consumer spending is propped up by easy credit and asset bubbles. Real solutions must be based on restoring the economic health of the American middle class through good jobs, health care, retirement security and a voice at work for all. And an important part of the solution must be the thoughtful, comprehensive re-regulation of the financial markets."

Don't get me wrong, I'm working my ass off trying to build as much personal wealth as I can just like everyone else. I don't expect or want government at any level to provide - or limit - my potential or opportunities. The reality as I see it, however, is that the old adage about the corrupting influence of power is all too true and very much alive in the backrooms and corner offices of so-called capitalists and free marketers who, it seems to me, are found far more often in the Republican Party.

Capitalism and free markets are honorable ideas, too be sure. It's a shame that they have been usurped and corrupted by what I see as a twisted ideology based upon greed and exclusion now found almost exclusively in neo-con Republican dogma, and which manifests itself as so-called pro-business policy and legislation that, in the end, is anything but helpful to the advancement of markets and the people who make up those markets. Us.

The very idea that business people - especially those people in financial markets who wield such great power and influence and whose decisions affect so much of our lives - need not be regulated is not only silly and naive, it's dangerous and serves only to breed more and more corruption. Left unchecked and unregulated, positions of that much power are destined to be filled with people from ever smaller circles of influence who care less and less for anyone except themselves and their exclusive circle. They will gladly sacrifice entire markets and economies - the very goose that lays their golden eggs - in order to amass as much personal wealth as possible and as fast as possible.

Consider this.

According to a 2007 research paper published by The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College (http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_502.pdf), in 2004, the latest year for which federal data was available at the time, the top 1% of American households held just over 42% of nonhome wealth "defined as net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing (the primary residence only)" (Wolff, p7). Think about that for a minute. Almost half of the nation's wealth is held by 1% of us.

What's even more interesting to me is this. Their wealth had risen by about 2% from 2001, the year W took office, to 2004. So it got me thinking. What was that wealth distribution like under other presidents and their parties?

Well, all that wealth held by the richest 1%....
...was 42.9% in 1983, 2 years after Reagan took office, and had jumped 4% to 46.9% by the time he left in 1989
...had dipped by 1.3% to 45.6% in 1992 during King George I's reign
...had bounced back up by 0.6% to 47.2% by 1995 during Clinton's first 2 years, but
...fell back to 39.7% - a whopping 7.5% drop - by the time Clinton left office in 2001

What does it prove? I don't know for sure, but I decided to dig deeper.

Republicans controlled the Senate but not the House in 1981, 1983 and 1985 during Reagan's 2 terms (http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/l/bl_party_division_2.htm). The deregulation and tax cuts of Reaganomics were implemented in '81 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan). As we all know, such measures take time to manifest themselves. Given that reasoning, Reaganomics was presumably having significant positive affects for the wealthy by '89 when 47% of the nation's wealth was held by that wealthiest 1%.

On the other hand, Clinton's Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 passed that August without a single Republican vote in a Democratically-controlled Congress and:
1) cut taxes for 15 million low income families
2) made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses
3) raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers and
4) mandated a balanced budget

When Clinton left office 8 years later, this country had a $559billion surplus. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton). If we assume the same timetables for Clinton as we did for Reagan, then the 7 to 8 year gaps from implementation to maximum realization are essentially the same.

All I know is that I was prospering and the economy seemed much healthier during Clinton's administration, especially towards the end, and before the wealthy right-wing's favorite Republican son bought his way into the White House and started his service in January, 2001.

So let's do the same math on W. In 2001, he whips us into a frenzy about the budget surplus being our money and returns it to us - well, not "us" but to the wealthy - and, lo and behold, 7 years later we're in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Truth, or circumstances that conveniently fit a theory? If you're still debating Darwin and favor creationism as part of school curriculum, then I can guess how you'll answer that! ;-)
(Don't get angry. I'm just be the snarky little liberal!)

Probably would be a good idea to make sure that The American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 - and anything else that comes out of the White House or Congress during this presidency - is judged along the same kind of time tables, and not in weeks or months.

When it comes to capitalism and free markets, the answer is, "No, I'm not a communist, socialist, fascist, or any other -ist (except atheist!)." Capitalism is good and preferable to all the other -isms. And, no, I don't think Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and every person of wealth is a criminal, nor do I think they should start writing us all checks under some government mandate that strives to "redistribute wealth". (That's code speak. More on that in a minute.)

I just think people need rules. Especially people of great power and wealth. They need to be governed and regulated by laws that, to quote a famous document, "...promote the general Welfare" instead of promoting the disturbing and ever-growing prosperity gap in this country. Government oversight and regulation of business is what helped this country - you, me, and the rest of the middle class (by some accounts, including those earning income as high as $250K (http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RS22627_20070320.pdf) - to rise up from beneath the boot heal of the wealthy elite. Without government oversight and regulation, we'd all still be living in company housing, working in dangerous conditions, and trying to buy goods and services - including food - that did not need to meet any quality or safety standards. Why should it be any different for financial markets?

What I firmly believe we need to be doing as citizens is electing leaders who are willing to stand up to the so-called capitalists and free marketers - and their party - who got us into this mess. We need to be willing to talk openly about our support for proper levels of taxation and regulation as the reasonable price for living in a free society based on democractic principles and not feudal ones in which a small ruling class controls all the wealth and power.

It means we need to recognize code-speak like "tax and spend liberals", "death tax", "big government" and the like for what it really is - a subterfuge perpetrated and perpetuated by an elite few from within a political party who has lost all sense of morality and social conscience, and has society's best interest nowhere in its sights.