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2010-06-26 Home Front: Politix

Stimulus, Austerity, and the Spiral of Decline

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Posted by gorb 2010-06-26 03:23|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 From the comments section:

"What is the cause of high unemployment? Quite simply, and unequivocally, it is caused by paying ourselves more than the value of what we produce. There are no scapegoats."

As I have been saying here and on other blogs for years now, ticking off many. The party was over thirty years ago but most of us refused to admit it.

America in particular and the West in general believed in two crucially false and fatal concepts:

1. The postwar boom would go on forever, and our expectations for standard of living and income stream security had gone through a "year zero" and so it was right that they be permanently ratcheted upwards.

2. Opportunity egalitarianism was out, outcome egalitarianism was in.

A deadly combination. Now, we must find a way to reverse those, or perish.

Posted by no mo uro 2010-06-26 05:28|| 2010-06-26 05:28|| Front Page Top

#2 There is one thing that the Republicans should all agree to, and early, is that the failure to provide shelter and food to those who needed it at the start of the Great Depression, is what politically destroyed them for 50 years.

People stripped of shelter and food are utterly indifferent to good economic policy that leaves them outside and hungry.

Fortunately, right now the US has an abundance of empty housing, and America has long been awash in surplus food, even during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

So the Republicans in charge again must set up an intelligent plan to put homeless people in housing, and in such a way that they build equity, so have motivation to maintain it; and they should also give an abundance of staple food to anyone and everyone.

This will buy them the years of time they need to make serious fixes in the economy, eliminate much of the debt and ridiculous promises already made, and reorder the government to stop being the problem.

A surprising number of Republicans reject this scheme out of hand, however. They must be persuaded that shelter and food are not "welfare", but absolutely essential both to reform and recovery.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-06-26 14:39|| 2010-06-26 14:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Agreed, but there should be some allowance for decent wheels and cable.

Posted by Shipman 2010-06-26 15:56|| 2010-06-26 15:56|| Front Page Top

#4 The first thing we have to do is to stop the unions from buying politicians. That requires breaking the unions completely, and declaring that all GOVERNMENT unions are illegal. That includes the Railroad Unions, that were forced upon the railroads in 1942 by FDR as a "wartime" measure, and still in place. That will allow the government to reduce the bureaucracy that clogs far too much of Washington, and keeps most worthwhile things from being done. This nation doesn't NEED six million "civil servants", but that's what we have. Right now, that's a number impossible to reduce. Until we do, we're going to continue to go over the cliff at full speed. Thankfully, the Deepwater Horizon disaster has highlighted the folly of our current bureaucracy. Maybe it will actually do some good.

Posted by Old Patriot 2010-06-26 16:21|| 2010-06-26 16:21|| Front Page Top

#5 And don't forget some fun money for going to the c451n0.

Posted by Mike N. 2010-06-26 16:29|| 2010-06-26 16:29|| Front Page Top

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