Mark writes:
Steve, thanks for the feedback. We clearly have a different view of the
proper role of government. A couple of point in response.
- I don't shop at Wal-Mart. Your example is a good illustration of why
I've never spent a dime there. But, that's a personal choice of mine, and
I don't know that I need everybody to agree with it. Shopping at Wal-Mart
isn't illegal.
Good for you! One of our most important tools as citizens is the ability
vote with our pocket books in between our voting in the ballot box. But
when Wal-Mart flexes its economic muscle to get tax breaks from local
communities while doing everything it can to undercut the prices of local
small businesses until they close and the local tax base is eroded or
Wal-Mart sucks more money out of the community to send back to Arkansas
instead of investing in that local community and while doing these things
the only jobs they provide keep people on welfare then it goes beyond their
right to do "business" and we need government to be our collective voice to
set limits on their actions.
- I need help understanding your statement that 'American needs business
as long as business provides jobs with wages that provide for individual
growth economically'. Are you implying that there is a scenario where
America wouldn't need business, if certain conditions aren't met?
Business is about building community. It is as simple as that. When our
corporations lose sight of that fact then they cease to do business and
become soulless profiteers. That is when we need to redefine what we as
Americans will consider to be valid business and what we will not allow.
One of the signs that we are currently losing to the corporations is the
"dumbing down" of our citizenry. Corporations need docile, unquestioning
consumers to maximize profits while government needs an informed, involved
citizenry provide leadership and direction. The media over the last 20
years have become more and more an adjunct of entertainment and are judged
by their ratings instead of their content. We the People are getting our
daily doses of spin instead of information. The "No Child Left Behind"
underfunding has exasperated this situation by leaving schools with large
classes and testing mandates that severely limit the ability of teachers to
teach critical listening and thinking skills because they have to
concentrate on rote memorization.
- Re: those greedy corporations - who do you think holds stock in publicly
held corporations? A lot of it is held by pension funds, for both public
and private sector employees. I don't know the %, but a lot of pension $
are in the stock market. The idea that only the very wealthy are invested
in the stock market just isn't true.
And what has happened to pensions in the last 20 years since the Reagan
gurus told pension fund managers to get out of the mutual funds and bonds
and put their money in the stock market? So many pensions went belly up
that the federal government had to set up a federal agency to back up
pensions just like they did in the 1930s with FDIC when the then Republican
Party under Hoover made the same unsound fiscal decisions as the current
administrations and banks failed left and right.
- if our country headed down the economic road to perdition during the
Reagan administration, how do you explain the much-vaunted boom years when
Clinton was in the White House?
Frankly, I was surprised we didn't have a market crash during the Clinton
years. However, there was a great deal of wealth that the middle class had
accumulated during the 50 years after WWII and it took a lot of shafting
them until they were in debt up to their ears and ready to sell their last
stocks at the drop of a hat.
Back to the Reagan years again. I remember when Reagan sought corporate tax
breaks for the steel industry on the grounds that our steel mills were over
one hundred years old and could not compete with the steel mills we built
for Germany and Japan after the war. The intent of the tax breaks was
supposedly to create good jobs here in America. Instead, US Steel took the
money and started buying up oil companies, part of an airline and many other
businesses. By the end of the decade they were so far out of the steel
business that they changed their name to USX and were considered a success
because they had managed to keep their stock up through their wheeling and
dealing. They did not keep it up through the job creation that was promised
when giving them the tax break. Oh, they did indeed build two new steel
plants--both of them in South America where labor was cheap.
Throughout the '90s I watched as business after business made money by
buying up their competition and putting them out of business instead of
creating better products and really becoming competitive. And when
"consolidation" had pretty well run its course, they turned to our workforce
and started to tell them that the problem was their high wages and benefits
and the only way the corporation could survive was for them to take cuts in
pay and benefits. And when the workers finally balked at any more cuts then
production was moved off to the third world and we discovered the joys of
"outsourcing".
I watched this and listened to our political leaders talk about "exporting
American prosperity" while what was really happening was that we were
importing Third World living conditions for Americans.
Have a good weekend.
I wish you the same!
Happy that it's Friday in Prospect Park
Ditto here in Willard Hay,
Steve Nelson
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