Friday, September 7, 2012

Our Grandparents Knew Better

We see the results: high unemployment, the collapse of the middle class, more children in poverty, outrageous wealth inequities, declining opportunities for both jobs and education. We are experiencing the result of four decades of conservative, neoliberal domination of our economic agenda that has been advanced by both political parties. After simmering for years, the breakout came when Reagan declared, "Government is not the solution; government is the problem." He was wrong - dead wrong.

Our grandparents understood what we have forgotten. They understood the role of government in the economy. And, they understood that the economy is not all about money; it is about productive capacity. They understood that government spending puts financial assets into the private sector. So, government can spend in a manner that is counter-cyclical to the business cycle to maintain a healthy economy.







In recent decades we have become burdened not with unsustainable public debt but with the myth that government finances are the same as those of the household. Where once we could afford, as a nation, anything we could actually do (moonshot); now we can afford very little, because we don't have enough money, which is asinine. We think that we can only do what we already know how to do (drill, baby drill). Then we must relax environmental standards and financial regulations to make our efforts more profitable. We fear opening new horizons, because we can't afford them.

We have been duped! Our elder statesmen tell us we are burdening our grandchildren with debt, and that increasing deficits are caused by too much government spending. The truth is different. Government spending enriches our grandchildren and deficits are caused by too little production. Thus, we have been frightened into accepting economic conditions contrary to our own best interests, but quite acceptable to the elite 1%.

The scales will be tilted toward the elite 1% until we citizens of a great nation realize the following simple truths that our great productive capacity affords us.

    •    We can assure a decent standard of living for our elderly.
    •    We can provide health care for all our citizens so that no family need become impoverished by adverse health issues.
    •    We can educate our youth to provide a highly capable workforce in support of an entrepreneurial society.
    •    We can assure opportunities and prosperity for all industrious citizens.
    •    We can regulate our financial institutions so that they can not "stack the deck" against their own customers.

In short, we can do anything we put our minds to once we again accept the idea that we are a "can-do" society. We have lapsed into a "can't-do" society, because we have been duped by false economic myths perpetrated by a wrongheaded, neoliberal economic ideology. 


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New Sense - Common Sense