Monday, November 1, 2010

HARK, HARK...THE DOGS BARK! On Keynes vs Mises school of economics and the failure of them both cause the American Political Establishment don't wont Change

Its been almost two years since that November day when America elected the first African American President, a day of reckoning for many Fellow American...
I was glued to the TV screen for months, and finally I was relieved:
The candidate who was my choice was elected the future President...
I was happy and that night I fell asleep dreaming dreams of a righteous soul...pink!
I needed it, cause what follow was a comical tragedy of missteps like a field of border line idiotism...

The American Political Establishment did not wont change, they have enough turbulence for the last year or two when the American Ice Queen of the Democratic Party and the Republican new comer Darling with its decorated vet on the other side, both lost to a very skinny guy with a big floppy ears and even funniest name, who come out of nowhere and blow them both way behind, like an Arabian stallion in an Damascus race!
Yes, both Party have enough of the change they could have master all of a sudden...
The economy did not think the same...
The economy needed a heavy lifting...a very heavy lifting sooner the better...
So the change came to America:
The President elect intend to deliver on his promises, and he set the pace:
1. Stop the Bleeding with the Stimulus Package of tax cuts for the most  needy, sort of like federal income raise!
2. Financial help for the everyday expenses of the daily states activities, cause they were bleeding too, straitening the safety net for the misfortunes among us, and start some projects to hire back all off those workers laid off by Corporate America...
3. Pass the Health Care Reform bill that will reset for the better the current state of the affair in the Medical Industry, and make American goods and services chipper on the Global markets...
4. Pass the Energy bill that will set America on a path to a Energy Independence of dirty fuels, and lift us to the green level of endurance...
5. End the Wars and bring our brave boys and girls in Uniform home...

It was a bold Agenda set to deliver profound change in Washington DC, if the Opposition did not raise a unbridgeable barrier for success...

Or so the story goes...

Those of You Who believe that One Party contribute to the failure of the policies, think again!
The bills that pass the Congress are not something that came out of the bookstore but were made in different levels of bipartisan commissions and chambers, they come from the people that I called American Political Establishment of the both Parties...
They are the ones that rule Washington DC like an Octopus with so many spread tentacles in every aspect of policies making, and they don't need any change at all...
Why would they?- Most of Their Kids have a secure place in a Private Ivy Leagues schools, They  have money enough to start any business they can possibly wish for, They already have mentions of an estates they live into etc, etc...
Most of them are way beyond the income level of the the middle class, they simply don't know, and frankly even less wont to know the trouble that are plaguing ordinary Americans...
Some of them I believe have honest intentions of helping the people but they are limited with the lack of comprehensions beyond their imaginations: people who never experience hunger or cold can read and read stories, but will never fully grasp the pain, or the mind wreckage they can cause, it just the way it is...
Simply said:
- Every goal was turn upside down!
1. The stimulus tax cuts were spread so much, so teen, no one really felt them in the ordinary life...
2. States lead by Republican officials diminish the effects of the financial help provided with stimulus money...Many constructions projects enter a gridlocks of local politics and get stalled...
3. The Health Care Reform lost the corner stone, The Public Options and was left with the patchwork that don't really look much better, and even it will cover and worm many people, like any blanket under an open sky, blanket don't stop the winter freeze...
4. Energy Industry was another patchwork of Cap and Trade bill...
-Excuse me, cap what?- Don't  trade me up bill!-  that no one really understand...
5. The Wars just change the locations, just a little bit up the Globe, that's all...

Many have different explanations why nothing really happen to be qualified like a  real life success, some say : the Stimulus should have be bigger, some say it was just the Democratic Christmas tree full of goodies and no substance, some says we should have left the system to the forces of the free market to work his way out of it, yes, so many different approaches, I call all of them Apologetics...

When You have a razor deep, deadly cut, You cant simply put band aid and a little make up and expect some magical recovery of the torn flesh...
What You will have is a full blown infection of the wound and that is what happen...

The Crises was so severe and so long, the pain among the people was so deep that split open a crack in the shield of hope and the old fears from the dark shadows of the Nation subconscious break loose, pushed and drugged with the dogs of hell who bark and bark the words of all out ideological war of Deceit!
The whole summer we were witnessing the outbreaking of the plague from the dark corners of our imaginations manifested with the Tea Party activism and a devastated leadership of some well paid politicians who's only job was to use divide and conquers strategy of a last resort...

The real Questions We should be asking is not:
What kind of policies we should pursuit in order to get out of the crises?
The real Questions is:
- Can the system repair itself from the crises without a Government Interventions in the Economy?
The answer is simple:
- No, it cant!
Then, while All of You try to swallow my statement, I can safely say the follow up Questions will be:
- Who benefit then from the Government Interventions?
Contrary to the official Public Opinion I can tell You right now:
- Don't kid Yourself, Government Intervention in the Economy don't really help Middle class, never was designed for that purpose, cause start long before FDR took office, and I have very simple classic example to prove You my point:
- Remember Hoover Dam?
What no one wants  you to remember are the flying businessman's dropping on the pavements of Wall Street during the Great Depression, eleven of them is said to sky dive that "Black Thursday" 1929...
What they not going to tell You is that the Great Depression was not only American Crises, it was World Crises, it spread like a wild fire all over the Globe wherever the capitalism was dominant mode of production!Sort of like the one we have today...
It devastated the countries that were exporting agricultural products, countries we call today the Third World!
Europe was on the verge of total collapse giving birth to National Socialism in Germany, which I call a bastard child of the Great Depression!

What they don't wont Us to even imagine was possible is that people were dying out of hunger and cold, and they were lining in the chicken soup lines, some never get any, every day while the country side were having the harvest spoiled on the field because no one came to buy their toil...
- In the field of plenty, people were hungry to death...
When Cinderella Man went to The Rich Mans Club to ask for a little help, he did not find them cover in blankets shivering from a winter cold!
-No, He find them well suited fat cats who just did not wont to chip in! Sort of like the Wealthy people today!
The Government Intervention is nothing but the effort to preserve the system preserving the profits of his major players in the banking, construction, retail, services or small businesses...
None of them really help middle class, none...
Every construction project spur with the Governments taxpayers money is surly creating jobs for many workers, but it is only a drop of a stone in the Sea of Unemployment that is devastating the rest of the Economy, and even it is creating a ripple effect, it will not change the surface of the vast Ocean!

So When the help for the People came?
Even more important question is: Why the change in policies come?
The real help for the People came when they overwhelmingly took it to the streets demanding actions from the Governments and it happen because they have a ally in the White House, FDR a man who could not walk, but was standing tall for the people, a Man who push trough the Congress the Wagner Act, Social Security, unemployment's benefits, establishing minimum wage and an 8 hour work day!
That was the help for the middle class, but the change was so insignificant that even it bring help to the most needy, still was not able to turn the economy around!
So what was the final exit out of the crises?
To answer and understand the solution we have to understand how any Crises end! Is there a common ground for them?
Of course it is?
"Crises always end in one of the two ways: with the great destruction of the production forces, so called bust; or making the production relatively chipper: trough technological breakthrough and opening of a new markets!"

If we wont to solve the current Crises we need to look how can we implement the second solution, cause the Great Depression  really end with the WWII the greatest destruction World have ever seen before,pale in comparison with any Mises dream of let the crises wine itself down without any Government intervention, and we don't wont to go that path again!
We need to put the taxpayers money to work toward the implementations of the current technological innovations, that will spur the economy trough the science, the same way the military is using NASA to implement new and new weapons of destruction: this time, let NASA work for the Common Good of the People!
Imagine the speed of taking care of the Banking system famous like the TARP money, how fast it get out of the Congress, and now, imagine the same speed The Federal Government is using to start the Reconstruction of this Country, concentrating the material and the best human resources in an 50 state investment projects in Infrastructure of Roads, Bridges, Public Hospitals, Public Research Facility, Libraries, Public Parks, Public Recreations Centers, Schools from Elementary for kids to Spacial Trade Public School for adults, Public Energy Power Plants in  Oil, Wind, Coil, Gas, or Nuclear field,
Public Investments in productive Facility that will bring Jobs for Generations to come, not just for the time being of  pure construction!Jobs that will produce and sustain itself repaying many times over the public investment, while providing strong Union wages for the employees and drive wages in the aria of any other business in the neighborhood!

Cause the money are not the object, technologies are not an object:
Our set of mind is!
Our inability to wrap our mind around the Idea of the Government being the Great investor for the Common Good of the Nations instead just being the Helping Hand for the Wealthy!
We need to understand that the taxpayers money can be used like a Public Investment where the owners will be the taxpayers, not the Wealthy Fat Cats who melt the money between the need for the Projects and their Profitable bank accounts!
All the Income generated from those Investment can fill the Public Coffers of the States and Federal Budget, and make a way to lower the tax burden for everyone!

Cause soon or letter we need to face the other side of the painful reality:
As long as we are focused on supply side economics which is help for  the business to recover, today manifested mostly trough tax cuts,  we will have lukewarm results!
- We need Demand Side economics to get out of the slump we are into!
I hear this Questions over and over:
- Jobs?
- Where are the jobs!?
Yes: Where are they?
- Did they fly to China?
No, I don't think so!
My Dear Fellow Americans, we are working those jobs like second or part time, we are working them way deep into are retirement age, our children are also working them, and it is not cause we wont to, but it is because we are forced to work them:
- When Reagan call the Army Pilots Controllers to replace the Air Traffic Controllers, he did not "deal" only with their Union, he "deal" with every Union in America, giving the Corporate America a notice that the right to organize is just a dead letter on a peace of paper called Wagner Act!
- Without the Unions to level the playing fields the wages of the Americans of every walk of professional life went downward spiral into a simple need of more working hours just to catch up...
Just an attempt to organise the Union in one workforce will bring the owner of the Mighty Corporation on the Main Floor among to people to " listen" to them, so he can make things better, just don't go Union please, and the whole Industry will get a raise, not to follow the Union Path!
Never see that in Your Work environment?
I did!
Twenty First Century with an awareness of the Seventeenth!

Every benefit that we today enjoy came to be cause somewhere Union People were marching, wiping the bloody nose, spiting the broken tooth's, holding the breath cause of a broken ribs, but still marching and singing for us today!
With a stroke of a pen the elected official will always take the Glory of the Victory, but it was never theirs, it was always that wretched Union guys who many time take  their last breath hitting the pavements of the street marching against the naked guns or the police bats!
They will tell You that today no one is biting Unions, and they can openly organize!
No, today blood is shed in a more sophisticated ways, we are not savage brute of the old  days...
No, today We Will slowly fire their leaders one by one, never even meeting their demand, and staling the negotiations into oblivion...
Yeah...
Never see that in Your Working Environments?
I did!
Twenty First Century and awareness of the Stone Age...
In order to accomplish any of the solutions, We The People need to change the players in this game called politics:
We need to change the figure of the Political Establishment of the both Party who sell us out to the smallest denominator in the last three decades, we need People with strong convictions, open minded spirit that will stay the path of Reconstruction of this Country of ours!
We the people must not forget that we have a Man in the White house Who is our ally!
How can we be so sure in his allegiance to Us?
Cause the dogs from hell did not stop barking and barking on him!
The elections are coming:
- Do we wont real change or we wont to stay the same path to nowhere?
- Do we wont same old Establishment who will give us crumbs instead of a Cake for Christmas?
This election is just the beginning on the Path of Recovery, just one step on the stairs to Success toward the better tomorrow...
I admire the Tea Party People for their courage to stand up to the Republican establishment, but at the same time I feel sorry for them cause they are not joining us in our Progressive fight for a future that will work for all not just the few of the most fortunate among us!
- I feel sorry for them cause many of them are just a poor people used and will be abused soon after the elections are over from their Rich Masters who pray on their naivete and lack of Knowledge!
We are All The People, just some of us need to learn more then the others about the True Values of Freedom of Opinion and the Pursuits of Happiness not limited to a color, gender, sex orientation, religious believe or corner of the World, and We Progressives need to show them the way!
The Future is on our Progressives shoulders!
Are We going to carry her weight, or we going to drop it for the next Generation?