Election Day

Tuesday was local election day here in New Mexico, but since I am not yet a registered voter here, I wasn't able to cast one of the fewer than 500 ballots that were handed in. The hardware store owner mounted an insurgency against the incumbent mayor. The incumbent had had what could only be called a wretched term of office, with one damn thing after another -- culminating with the recent refusal of Santa Fe to approve stimulus funds to improve the area water supply and sewage treatment. "Dead Man Walking" came to mind when I saw the incumbent holding court in a parking lot down the street from the city hall.

Actually the vote was closer than I thought it would be. The final results were 211 votes for the incumbent, 275 for the insurgent. I really thought it would be a blow out, given all the issues involved, and the Endless Recession and its effects on the local economy, but it was a fairly even fight, and the candidates are good friends. Or were. I don't know how they'll get along now.

The incumbent is a rancher. The insurgent is a merchant. There's always been a tension in the West between the two economic interests, but in a down economy like this one, their differing interests may turn into hostility. We'll see how it goes.

There was a burst of economic activity in town when some stimulus funds were provided for fixing roads and spiffing up signage and stuff. Things seemed to stabilize for a while, then a slow slide down commenced. People are still leaving the area because there's no work. I pointed out in an earlier post how difficult the local situation is even for plumbers.

Just looking around, not having any statistics at hand, I'd say the local population has declined by 10% or 15% since the advent of the Endless Recesssion. The area's biggest employer shut down early in the economic downturn, and nothing has taken their place -- though a couple of businesses (including a micro-brewery) have opened.

In a tiny way, I don't doubt that the anti-incumbent spirit that manifested itself here on Tuesday was part of what will be felt very strongly in the elections this fall. The fact that the Recession will not End, as a matter of policy, and that there is no work for many, and there won't be, no matter what, as a matter of policy, is having a profound effect on the psyches of Americans. Rejecting incumbents is natural under the circumstances, but so often the alternative is worse.

Unfortunately, Americans haven't wrapped their minds around that simple fact yet.

So here's a picture of the pronghorns I saw out in the field yesterday. They were shy and were going to run away when they saw me, then they decided to pose for one picture before they bolted.

Issues and Answers

So.

The Health Care Reform effort was derailed by some chatter about the arrest of Harvard Prof Skip Gates at his home in Cambridge for "disorderly conduct." The arresting officer had been dressed down by Gates, and at his Health Care news conference, the President himself dressed down the cop by calling the arrest "stupid" and reminding Americans that Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately detained by the police as they have been historically.

Consequently, nobody's talking about healthcare, everybody's talking about Gates and the police.

Yes. Well. Why not? The Health Care Reform issue has essentially been taken out of the hands -- and interest -- of the People by those who are so busy crafting a "reform" measure that, at least to this observer, is primarily intended as a giant wealth transfer from the bottom and middle to the top, yet another one. The People may get a few benefits from this "reform" -- and they may not. In fact, so far as anyone can tell at this point, the centerpiece of "reform" is a mandate that everyone purchase healthcare coverage, coverage that initially will only come from private extortionists, also known as insurance companies. There may -- or may not -- be a so-called "public option" at some point (say four years down the road, or maybe never) by which people can be covered by a government sponsored plan, but by that time, most everyone will be compelled to be covered by private insurance. So, it's hard to see how the public can get very enthused about simply handing more money over to the insurance companies, a lot of it no doubt being tax money and extortion.

I've always seen the course of Health Care Reform in this country as following the pattern set by Medicare Part D, which -- yes -- has provided prescription drug coverage to many elderly and disabled Americans at little or no cost to them (if they're lucky) through miriad private insurance companies, in an extraordinarily complicated format that confuses the heck out of a lot of recipients, and that pays drug companies fortunes, hundreds of billions of dollars, in what amount to windfall profits.

Likely, that's what's going to happen with Health Care Reform, something immensely complex and costly to the government and to individuals -- who aren't lucky enough to qualify for subsidized care -- all to the benefit of insurance companies and the Medical Industrial Complex.

So let's talk about Gates instead.

At least with that incident, you can get a handle on what's going on, and you can opine to your heart's content, no harm no foul, no matter what your Position on it is.

But I'd rather deal with one of the burgeoning economic issues that seems not to penetrate the Versailles Bubble of Washington, nor does it seem to be of more than passing interest to the various progressive powers that be.

It's unemployment, and the continuing skyrocketing unemployment statistics, and the utter absence of any jobs programs to get people back to work. I've been harping on this since last year, to no apparent effect. Indifference is the standard operating status of nearly everyone in the field of economics, no matter what their political persuasion. Just like the crippling household debt loads that keep dragging down the economy, the vast ranks of the unemployed do not rise to the level of attention that requires action by the High and the Mighty. No crisis. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

There has, after all, been "action." Unemployment benefit extentions, for example. Never mind that at least half the unemployed don't qualify for benefits at all. And the other half are lucky if the benefit they receive amounts to half their employed salary (usually it's much less). Each extension has new qualification rules, more stringent every time, so that ultimately, the rolls are further reduced, and unemployed people are required to take any job offered, no matter what the pay/benefit scale.

As for those who don't get benefits at all, "tough luck, suckers!"

The absence of any jobs program, and the utter indifference of most "progressives" to this absence is striking. The point of putting people back to work, after all, is to provide them with income so they can spend money on necessities and luxuries and contribute to economic recovery. But for whatever reason, the groaning load of unemployed, now around 7 million "officially" -- and 14 million + in actuality -- and their heavily reduced household incomes are just fine for most economists and seemingly for most "progressives", too.

The expectation is that unemployment will continue to rise through the end of the year, maybe into next year, and there will be no substantial reduction in unemployment for years to come. A 10% or 11% unemployment rate by the end of the year, which means an acutal unemployment rate of as much as 20%, may continue indefinitely, and economists and "progressives" seem to be fine with it.

The effect, of course, of such a high level of unemployment sustained over such a long time is to put immense and relentless pressure on wages, driving them down, down, down for ordinary people -- at least for those who manage to find or keep jobs. We're already seeing significant wage cuts for workers in many fields. Cuts of 5%, 10%, 15% are common; if trends continue -- which there is every expectation they will -- wage cuts of 30% to 50% will not be unusual. And yet, even with such heavy wage cuts for workers already drowning in debt for which they receive no relief (unlike the banks and Wall Street speculators), those on top of the pyramid are strutting and boasting about their spectacular profits and bonuses. In other words, certain people and certain sectors of the economy are not suffering at all; they have their debts covered by the groaning workers, they keep their yachts and their mansions on various continents, and they see their incomes increase exponentially.

Something is desperately wrong with this picture, yet for whatever reason, most economists -- and most "progressives" -- are oblivious. Victory in the Class War has been won by the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe, oh yes, and now it is being consolidated with enormous brio and vengeance.

Workers will be lucky to wind up at the end of this recession -- assuming there is an end -- drudging at minimum wage or less, with no job security, few benefits, and little future, still drowning in debt. Assuming, that is, they can find work at all.

Why do the Masters of the Universe hate America and hate Americans?

Because as their loot-fest shows, they clearly do.

But perhaps more to the point, why do Americans take it? At what point do Americans say "Enough!" and act on it? From appearances, at any rate, we're nowhere near that point. Workers, desperate to stay employed, essentially agree to anything their employers propose, and popular media essentially advise workers to be as creative as they can be in their submission, for it is only the cleverest submitters who will survive this bleak period. But submit employees must, or they will be out the door.

The anomaly is a workers' strike of any kind or (heavens!) a plant take over, so anomalous is it that it's regarded as bizarre, incomprehensible. When a strike is won, as still sometimes happens, you might not hear about it at all. Don't want to give workers ideas, after all. Unions are cutting deals -- and cutting members' salaries -- right and left, foregoing benefits, raises, job security, retirement, anything, just to keep the membership employed at all.

Workers' retirement funds have been looted and stolen by employers for years, and now those at the top of the pyramid are getting ready to raid Social Security, unwilling as they are to pay the taxes necessary to replenish the Trust Fund. They have been using that money to fund their wars and their tax cuts for generations, and now that the bill is coming due for their raids on the Trust Fund, they're making lots and lots of noises about being unwilling to pay. You mean the Treasury bonds that they insisted were good as gold are no good at all? Could be.

And still the People are passive.

Is it a lack of interest, a lack of knowledge, a lack of leadership? Or is it a lack of will?

I have no answer to that one but it is very clear where this period of economic restructuring is headed for most of us: down.

What Should Happen

I actually heard a version of this notion on the radio as I was driving this afternoon listening to the Tom Sullivan show. Right wing hack that he is, sometimes Sullivan lets a smidge of uncommon sense slip through.

The idea goes something like this:

While trillions upon trillions of dollars are being shoveled out of the Treasury to support the lavish ways and styles of the plutocracy, the common folks are withering on the vine, their homes foreclosed, cars repossessed, jobs disappearing, credit evaporating. The crunch on Main Street is gathering steam even as the hit on Wall Street is deeply cushioned to say the least.

So why not do a "bottom up" stimulus? This is something people have been clamoring for and it is something the Powers That Be have resisted with all their souls and all their might.

So do it anyway. And the way to do it is to issue a credit account to every taxpayer, an account of say $100,000 for individuals, $200,000 for families (more or less), that could only be used for certain things, such as:

to pay down or pay off a mortgage with the limitation that the mortgage must be at least 24 months old.


• to pay off credit card balances more than two years old.
  
  
• to purchase a new fuel efficient vehicle and/or pay off a car loan
  
  
• to pay off certain other debts (such as medical bills)
  
  

to purchase certain kinds of efficient appliances or to weatherize or improve homes, etc.



Any amounts not used within, say, 12 months would revert to the treasury.

Something like this, essentially getting large amounts of money into individual taxpayers' hands to use for specific purposes intended to "turn the economy around" could well do the trick.

Throwing more trillions at phantoms of wealth on Wall Street and in the bankers' boardrooms can't and won't do it.

Putting significant amounts of money in circulation at the bottom of the pyramid just might.

Done Deal

YES! The Extortion will be Paid!

We're SAVED!!!!



Except everybody says that nothing is going to change, nothing is going to get better. The Recession is On, and there is nothing we can do about it. Cinch up and bend over.

Foreclosures will continue as before. Job losses will increase -- perhaps substantially. Credit will continue to be "tight" and will probably get "tighter." (It all depends on who you are and what you want the money for.)

There will be increasing economic hardship among the Lower Orders (anyone beneath the Billionaire Class). Those on the edge will fall off, those in the middle will be squeezed toward the edge and those who are sitting pretty will continue to watch, exploit, and to loot.

So let it be written. So let it be done.