Or rather decades..
Because it's all too depressing, and I almost don't care about what I think about it, so why should I share it with you?
Expect you to care, when I barely do?
All pruny bathing in cynicism, here. You are stupid. You are stupid. You are stupid.
Well, you know, whatever, right?
All the discourse coming out of D.C. about default and all that is pure bullshit, cynical even for Washington and our "opinion making" elite. Ever since the Iraq invasion I've been marking their lies and propaganda. At first I was shocked and incredulous, then for a while I was paranoid.
Now, I'm bemused verging into indifferent. Still, I'll shake myself free of torpor to see if anyone cares to have a conversation. I'll just make a few quick salient points to the void. If anyone cares, you have my email address, or can leave a comment or whatever else may please you.
Study these two images:
This debt that the government creates is mostly held by Americans. Some 70% - that's seventy percent - of the debt is held by federal social security, military or civil pension funds, and our own investor class. That's to say that the interest on the public debt for the most part enriches American citizens and corporations.
This means that the tax revenues being used to service the debt goes to major capitalists, to private investors. A default preventing the service of this debt would mean Daddy War Bucks might lose his free money stream. Not gonna happen, as in not ever. The warmachine and the banksters will get their lucre. There will be no default that keeps their bloody paws from grubbing in the public till, believe me you.
There may come a point where there is a default that reorganizes the debt that could screw foreign interests, but barring war or some other major catastrophe I doubt even that.
That's right. Think about the scam, now. Seriously. You're stupid, but still. Think about it: TARP "bails out" the banks and major investment funds and insurance companies who deliberately created a bubble to run our economy into the ground.
Then, they demand that the government create public debt to "save the economy." That public debt is then bought by the same private investor class who created the crisis.
They simultaneously demand that taxes on their investment and corporate income be abolished, thereby guaranteeing a sophisticated genus of debt bondage for the idiotic American public.
The wars feed the corporate contractors and the public debt simultaneously, as well. Money goes from the public to the rich.
The debt - no matter whether accrued by war or bailout - always constitutes a massive transfer of wealth toward our investor class, the wealthy, and the currently retired.
The very people who own and watch FOX News and read The National Review and profess to hate that house servant Obama.
The very people who say they hate the government are using it to rape the middle class. Especially the future middle class, which will eventually be subsumed into the global working class (aka "proletariat") when it becomes feasible to pay the average American what they pay the sweat shop workers in Asia or immigrant labor here. That day is coming, and even though most Americans are stupid they still feel it looming, which is why they are so mindlessly restive.
The middle class being for the most part catatonic, in a trance state where they blame the government for the mess, not seeing that the government is the only agency that they have any real direct influence over, and is the only means of breaking the critical mass that monopolistic capital left alone always ultimately achieves, in which it draws all wealth to itself through interest on debt, and then enslaves all labor at a subsistence wage.
The zombies do not see that we have allowed our government and public discourse to be co- opted and utterly corrupted by the adepts of the rich.
That's right. I said it.
Enjoy your chicken.
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So...if debt is being used against us, shouldn't we try to get out of it? Lower the debt? Balance the budget?
ReplyDeleteYour analysis, albeit cynical, makes sense to me and if it's spot on then what do we do?
What direction do you think we should go in?
d.
Well, we've already talked about this, and will talk about it all some more before too long in person. I'll just say here for anyone who might read this that I am pessimistic that anything will be done.
ReplyDeleteWhat should be done is this:
The Supreme Court decision that holds that spending money to influence elections (Buckley v. Valeo see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo) needs to be overturned.
All political campaigns need to be publicly funded, and personal campaign contributions capped at a very low figure. Organizations (corporations, unions, special interest groups) must be forbidden from giving money. Citizens, not groups should finance campaigns, and the overall total contributions allowed a given campaign should be limited to use for very specific purposes.
As does Roe v. Wade, which essentially creates the Blue v. Red State divide itself, in that it drives many working class and middle class Americans to vote against their economic interests in the name of conscience. The right wing promises them the Supreme Court to get their votes, but the Court will never overturn Roe because that would throw the issue back to the states, which would largely normalize our politics by returning the great mass of pro life voters to their natural home on the left of center.
Corporate personhood needs to be abolished, and the management of corporations held liable for their organization's actions. There is no such thing as constitutional rights due a corporation.
Glass Steagal (or something even sterner of corporate and investor malfeasance) needs to be re-instated, and those responsible for the graft behind the lending that created the housing bubble need to be vigorously prosecuted and jailed for substantial sentences when and if convicted.
The legislative process needs to become more limpid, and simple majorities in both houses should be enough to pass all legislation.
That's just for starters. I'll have more to say on this, later.