The other part of the plan as it has been from the beginning is to use the cover provided by the Bush-created financial meltdown as justification for dismantling what’s left of the social safety net. It may sound tin hatty but this has all been nicely choreographed.

Clinton does away with welfare protection while letting jobs escape through NAFTA; Glass-Steagall is repealed allowing a feeding frenzy by financial interests even after the LTCM debacle cried out for more regulation rather than less; Bush tax cuts supported by weak-kneed Democrats in congress severely reduced federal revenues while his war spending was kept off-budget so that the budget deficits everyone is now crying about wouldn’t be acknowledged until it was too late. In addition, the so-called Bankruptcy Reform act which was passed with enormous Democratic support ensured that middle class American households would not qualify for the means test needed to qualify for Chapter 7 thereby reducing people to debt slavery for excessive credit card debt under Chapter 13. An economy that makes nothing but encourages people to consume beyond their means until they are left with nothing and then the whole system comes crashing down taking not only their jobs but in many instances their 401Ks. Then the crowning shot, the chatter that Social Security and Medicare are just too expensive. Medicare would be just fine if health care costs were reined in and Social Security is just fine.

The fear-mongering is not going to stop. I don’t hear anyone saying that the budget deficits we are confronted with are there because at least Obama has put most of the war spending on budget instead of funding it with supplementals altho it looks like that’s gonna happen also.

The death of Social Security is going to be a fait accompli unless we all stand up and demand an end to the cap which sees most people paying into the system for the entire year while the pigs who have raped this country and pillaged our treasury finish making their “contributions” during the first month, if not the first week, of the year.

Minsky has shown that this isn’t going to end with just a few adjustments and some money thrown at the banks. In every single financial crisis where the government bailed out the ailing institutions and no structural changes were made it was only a matter of time until a new crisis emerged which was worse and deeper than the last one.

Nothing has changed to make anything different this time. We will see a much worse financial meltdown occur within the next ten to twelve years that will make this little scare look like a blip on the radar.

Now I’ll read the rest.

“However, there is no government vision to put people back to work building a civilian economy.”—–well, there is the talk about ‘green jobs’ but it is so lacking and all the talk about education is nonsensical (except for that which addresses ‘trades’).

The paradigm of a consumer society based on FIRE as a very major part of GDP (stupid indicator; essentially shows nothing regarding ‘quality of life’) has ended and there is not a vision by those in power to address the change.

“The people who are doing well in the present see much lower prices and their jobs are basically secure. They think.”——concur about the unwillingness to properly analyze the situation but ‘much lower prices’? On what? Housing in terms of buying -not renting- I’ll concur with but what else? Not gasoline,nor food,nor medicines,nor insurance premiums,or clothes. And even those who think they have security are spending less and saving more.

“It is this that is behind the craziness growing on the right wing: the construction jobs and auto dealerships, the franchise owners and shopkeepers, the real estate agents and loan officers, have seen their futures evaporate; and no one seems to be offering them any answers, except pain and suffering.” ——-the ‘craziness’ has ALWAYS been a constituent part of the ‘right wing’(as differentiated from ‘conservatives’ of the old school definition) and yes, they are now finding themselves confronted with the same situation as those they have previously belittled. The pain and suffering is across the political spectrum though and many have nothing left but the hope they get from Obama (which is but another kind of ‘craziness’ to me).

“we have met the enemy and he is us”—
Walt Kelly
(Good post BTW,gracias)

(wink)

thanks

Inflation means higher interest rates, which are intolerable given the size of the national debt.

Basically, I think, everyone’s screwed except a very thin layer at the top.