Tag Archive for role of government

Water, Energy, Money, Blood

April 23, 2012 Economics, Energy, Politics, Values, Wealth No comments

Bless me my conscience; it has been seven months since my last post. In that time, we have witnessed the Republican presidential primary process deliver Mitt Romney—as clear an example of the top 1% as you can get.

We need to think about his success and the success of the 1% in general in a different way than Romney would like, or can even get his mind around. In the conservative worldview, which most of us accept without question, Romney is a winner. He played the game of wealth creation well, and is exactly what we all want to be like: rich (not stiff and awkward). Who doesn’t want to be rich?

In this prevailing worldview the accumulation of vast wealth is what all individuals seek. Along the way jobs will be created, investments will be made, and society will benefit. And this is true to a degree. But jobs are only a once-in-while by-product of wealth accumulation; many times the loss of jobs creates wealth for owners.

The unbounded creation of wealth for the top 1% is also sequestering resources that the rest of us need to be healthy. Imagine if one rich farmer had hundreds or thousands of times more water than the other farmers and there was a drought. This farmer sold the water, but if you couldn’t pay, oh well. I hope you don’t starve.

One person controlling all the precious water is a big problem. What would happen? Would the other farmers attack the rich farmer? Would they be justified in doing so? Would the government back the majority of desperate people and send troops to free the water, or be bought off by the rich farmer and send troops to keep the thirsty, starving mob at bay?

In this metaphor, water equals money. But both actually equal energy. No water, no energy for the growth of a crop. No money, no energy for the growth of the economy. By playing the game of individual wealth creation, which we all do, the winner’s jackpot is now detrimental to everyone else. The irrigation system of the economy is dry, not because there isn’t enough money, but because the flow is being restricted and tightly controlled. Money is flowing not to dehydrated everyday people but into the endless reservoirs of the 1%.

Never mind that people are dying or becoming homeless because they can’t pay their medical bills. In the system we’ve bought into Romney wins and we all lose. It’s perfectly fair that he get as much as he can. Concern for the losers is not part of the equation. But since money is the energy needed for growth, look for higher costs in blood when that energy is not forthcoming.

The Government is Not a Business

June 27, 2011 Economics, Media, Politics, Republicans, Values, Wealth No comments

Have we forgotten whose policies caused the plunge?

In the graphic above, lifted from ABC’s “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour, the yellow line shows how much deeper the current recession is than all previous recessions, at least since 1980. So because the economy is not healing fast enough, we should turn its management back to the people whose policies caused the crash in the first place? Look doctor, my loved one isn’t getting better as fast as I would like. So I think I’m going to go back to the doctor who administered the poison. You know, because whatever you’re trying to do isn’t working. Maybe that other doctor will be good this time.

This reasoning seems to be treated as perfectly logical in the lame stream media. That’s right, I’m using Sarah Palin’s phrase, but for the complete opposite reason. The lame stream media seems to accept the Republican spin that reducing the deficit is the most important step we can take to create jobs. Why? It’s clearly bullshit. Yes we need to cut the deficit, but to even pretend that this will somehow revive the economy is ludicrous. Cutting is cutting. You can’t cut programs without cutting jobs.

What does a CEO do when he needs to get the company back on solid footing? He cuts jobs. He lays people off. He reduces spending to improve the bottom line and get profits back up. Fine. This restoration of the company’s fiscal health doesn’t create jobs, it costs jobs.

The policies the Republicans are trying to put through are not about jobs. They are about deficit reduction, which is essentially restoring the country to a fiscal balance. They seem to view government as a big corporation that is not in good fiscal health and themselves as CEOs who will cut spending and restore the company to the black. They clearly care more about fiscal responsibility, i.e. profits, than they do about the well-being people. This is about the ideology, or rather mythology, of personal freedom. When people are free from government regulations and programs that take money from the worthy workers and wealthy job-creators and give it to the undeserving lazy poor then everything will be in balance and a growing economy will be magically restored.

Not only is this ideology totally wrong, with no possible way of creating growth, it will exacerbate the destabilizing disparity of more money going to fewer and fewer super rich overlords. This is fascism and it’s where Republican policies have been and will continue taking us.

At this moment in time, as the Republicans petulantly refuse to consider any discussion of closing loopholes on their large corporate puppet masters, it seems as if many of these zealots truly believe in the righteousness of their cause and are willing to crash the global economy in the name of fiscal balance. This is shear madness. And yet the “free press” pretends that it’s a legitimate approach. How can one not be pessimistic when clear stupidity passes for a valid economic option and when people are so deluded and mislead that they will seriously consider returning the patient to the care of the poisoner?

Corporate Interests Do Not Equal Societal Good

May 1, 2011 Politics, Values, Wealth No comments

This video from the Network of Spiritual Progressives explains clearly why our political system is leading us to a society of haves and have nots–where there are fewer richer haves and more poorer have nots. Look, we all want to be rich and/or famous, but this doesn’t need to happen without a little more balance and attention to what’s ultimately in everyone’s interest. 

Positive Freedom and Negative Freedom

June 10, 2010 Politics, Values One comment

The Tea Party people keep talking about getting their country back. They don’t make much sense to me so I won’t pretend I understand the nuances of their complaints, if there are any. But I do understand that they somehow think Obama is out to take their freedoms away. They are angry and they think that the president represents a scary sort of big government that is going to take their guns, their hard earned money, and their constitutional rights.

From what I can get, they have a very negative view of freedom—freedom from as opposed to freedom to. They seem to believe that more government equals less freedom. The overwhelming impression I get is that they don’t want government to tell them what to do. The idea seems to be that the government is bad. It’s bad when it does stuff—like collect taxes, keep the economy from collapsing or regulate business. And it’s bad when it fails to do stuff—like protect the Gulf Shore from oil.

There doesn’t seem to be any consideration given to the positive freedoms that government can provide, such as programs to help lift people from poverty so they have the freedom to pursue their dreams. The role of government as I see it is to give citizens the freedom to pursue happiness. How is one free if there are no job opportunities and no affordable healthcare? How is one free if a big company can pollute one’s neighborhood with impunity?

Now I’m not saying that government can’t impinge on individual freedoms. But by focusing entirely on the notion that freedom means freedom from government the Tea Party people are only looking at negative freedom. Their whole movement is negative. It throws off nothing but the negative emotions of fear, hate and anger.

Fear and hate are not ever going to move the country in a positive direction, but anger might. For I too am angry at what has happened to this country. But this anger must be directed at getting government to do more, not less. Positive action is needed to put the brakes on our corporatocracy. But it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards. Most progressives aren’t angry enough and the Tea Party people are frightened of the wrong things and angry at the wrong people.

Under it all however, we all want the same thing—freedom to live a life of our own choosing, without fear.