Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): Free Americans Resisting the Fourth Reich on Behalf of All Species. NOTE: Thanks to Michael Givel for this. -- kl, pp
Date: April 21, 2004 7:42:15 AM GMT+07:00
Worse Than the Gilded Age:
Yearning for the days of the old-time robber barons.
Seattle Weekly
by Knute Berger
The old robber barons robbed us blind, but at least
they were engaged in industries that created jobs: They hired workers
to build railroads, steel mills, ships, roads and mines. Today,
while that infrastructure crumbles, a new breed is still robbing
us blind but leaving nothing behind. Globalization offers them cover
to strip-mine our country of jobs. Buying cheap stuff at Wal-Mart
is our reward; working at Wal-Mart our destiny.
It's gotten so bad that even some of the rich are uneasy.
Billionaire investor George Soros is devoting millions to the cause
of defeating George W. Bush in 2004 because of his fear that Dubya's
economic and foreign policies will bring about our ruin.
Warren Buffet, one of our more enlightened barons (he's in favor
of the inheritance tax, for example) worries, too, about the current
administration's economic policies. "If class warfare is being waged
in America," he says, "my class is clearly winning." He notes that
in 1952, one-third of federal taxes came from corporations. Last
year, it was just over 7 percent--and business is still demanding,
and getting, exemptions, breaks and subsidies in the name of
"competitiveness."
In exchange, we're asked to accept a "jobless recovery" and a
government deep in debt. What kind of a recovery is it if it is
jobless? What kind of recovery is it when all we've done is roll
back public services? As former Harvard Business School professor
Yoshi Tsurumi wrote a couple of weeks ago, America's gross domestic
product (GDP) is growing at 4 percent per year, but "hardworking
Americans can't eat GDP," no more than French peasants could eat
cake. He says income distribution in the U.S--the gap between rich
and poor--is starting to make us resemble Argentina or Mexico.
Tsurumi has an interesting perspective. He was one of Dubya's
professors at grad school. Is this the kind of economics Bush learned
at Harvard? Tsurumi says Bush came to class with his mind already
made up, perhaps by his class.
Tsurumi writes: "I still vividly remember him. In my class, he
declared that 'people are poor because they are lazy.' He was opposed
to labor unions, Social Security, environmental protection, Medicare,
and public schools."
Well, give him an A for consistency.
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rest at http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0411/040317_news_mossback.php
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