Results of the 2010 Census stand in stark contrast to the Elections 2010 results. All the Election 2008 hoopla has died down and apparently it’s back to the same ol’, same ol’.
This is specially true considering the past three years have not been good. Actually, my entire working life the economy has not been good.
In fact since I graduated college more than 30 years ago there have been seven---count them---seven recessions. At the same time not only have the average American’s wages not risen or at least stayed flat---wages have actually dropped about 11 percent.
Oh and by the way beginning next month, “more than 10,000 baby boomers a day will turn 65, a pattern that will continue for the next 19 years.”
More daunting still is the fact that we are told that our national debt is approaching 13 trillion dollars. Though I don’t know where that came from since throughout the “w” administration we were told our national debt was not even $1 trillion. Notwithstanding, combined these are grim, sobering facts.
“Wait”, you say, “How about the dot com era?” “What about the fact that so many Americans bought houses in the 1990’s?” “What about the fact that most Americans paid for years into company pension plans, social security?”
Well basically it’s been like a very well timed joke--- mostly on us--- the boomers.
Step back for a moment and refocus.
What little (very little) the 1970’s may have given it took back with ridiculous gasoline prices, low wages, the close out cost of the quarter century long conflict in (officially)Vietnam, (and unofficially including Laos, Cambodia and Thailand), not to mention the start of an out of control inflation rate that would spread into the 1980’s.
The 1980’s---ah yes the Uncle Ron years---a/k/a the “me” years ruled by greed and more greed. Where do you begin? There was so much greed and corruption it is impossible to cover it all.
In addition to the inflation of the 1980’s there were the Gordon Gekko’s of the decade, Ivan Boesky, Mike Milken and Charles Keating and the meltdown of the Savings and Loans across America. Don’t forget the Iran-Contra scandal and Reagan’s dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine and almost every other progressive program put in place since the Great Depression.
Following the egregiously Red 1980’s the decade of the 1990’s seemed to have so much promise. Though maybe because Slick Willy a/k/a Bubba was so--- well--- slick no one would have guessed the decade and maybe Bubba were just setting us up---yet again.
Yes, I know the 1990’s witnessed the dot com boom, the rise of home ownership and not just a balanced budget but money in the bank! The tote board in Times Square calculating and broadcasting the amount of interest on the national debt was actually brought to a grinding halt. Of course the fact that the nation was not paying interest on the national debt just served to piss off the oligarchs and when that happens there’s hell to pay! And we have been ever since. Do you have any idea what the interest on a billion dollars is over the course of a year?
People lose sight of the fact that when we borrow to balance our national books someone is paid a great deal of interest. That is usually the world’s largest banking interests. So for those in power who want only to please the oligarchs (those who own those large institutions) there is absolutely no incentive to balance the budget. Career politicians have to please their benefactors. Politicians doing otherwise pay the price. Ask Bubba.
Viewed from a different perspective, the oligarchs are really the Cadillac driving welfare mothers Ronald Reagan often cited for his acrimonious, racist, sexist assault on anything progressive (healthcare, equal employment opportunity, the Fairness Doctrine and Glass Steagall). [By the way, pushed to support his often cited in GOPer presence reference to the Cadillac driving Black welfare recipient Reagan backed down and admitted it was something he had been told and didn’t actually ever see one. You think?]
Clinton started out much too progressive for his own good. He knew what presidents going back to the Great Depression Era knew, Americans desperately needed a new healthcare delivery system. But you guessed it, the oligarchs would have none of that. Of our approximately 14 trillion dollar economy insurance alone is a more than one trillion dollar industry mostly a rip-off and a fraud. Even the military-industrial complex doesn’t amount to that much, though it gets closer every year. The 1990’s hosted the first Gulf War and still the military industrial complex spending did not reach $1 trillion dollars and the national buget was balanced.
Rounding out the decade Texas Red’s Phil Gramm and others put in place those processes sealing the fate of Glass Steagall and putting in motion events resulting in the inevitable collapse of the nation’s banking and financial industry.
Then the year 2000 brought us such notable “w” flops as Windows ME and of course the presidential election stealing “w” himself. His repugnant and rapacious slash and burn assault on any progress made by the average American in the previous decade was of historic proportion. Not only did he give the oligarchs a disproportionate amount of the money “we the people” had in the bank his public policies also ensured that for the next eight years Americans would lose pensions, jobs, homes and with them quality of life and of course any chance of retiring. Oh yeah I almost forgot “w” and his buds also made certain we the tax payers paid another shakedown in the waning hours of his administration. Remember when “w” said the sky was falling? (There’s no such thing as coincidence)
Americans balanced the budgets through the enormous bailout for the nation and world’s largest financial institutions that under the philosophy of laissez faire had experienced mission creep into insurance (AIG) and real estate (all of them).
The icing on the cake was that after we paid off essentially super inflated, unrealistic mortgages incurred by people new to home purchasing encouraged by a corrupt, greedy financial industry those banks turned around and foreclosed on those mortgages the tax payers had just paid. To date that is 10 million foreclosures.
Two years ago there was much fanfare heralding the arrival of the first African-American, okay bi-racial president. He announced ready with this super majority congress to change conditions in America.
Would he narrow the chasm between those who have and those who don’t?
By 2008 the gulf between rich and poor was wider than at any other time in American history since before the Great Depression. Ronald Reagan, George Bush, “w”, Newt Gingrich and the oligarch pleasing GOPers had managed to strip away all things progressive.
Two years later we are still three years short of healthcare reform. There are approximately 25 million unemployed or under-employed Americans and 10 million Americans who have lost their homes and hope.
The oligarchs are poised to return to the good old days of reaping large interest payments from tax payers paying on the national debt, depleting any chance Americans will see an increase in their net worth. The gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening yet again.
At the same time Americans are saddled with funding two wars with no end in sight financed by a shaky economy and recovery.
2011 brings us the result of our "democracy"; reactionary right-wing GOPers, Tea Partiers and other fringers results of the 2010 Census notwithstanding. These Ronald Reagan clones are ready to again strip away, on behalf of the oligarchs they serve, anything of value the average person might be poised to receive.
As I stated at the outset; historically, nations and people tend to be more generous and giving, no wait---make that less greedy and hateful---when times are good and times are anything but good.
It all looks too familiar---Texas and more and more U.S. Red and getting Redder….
From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…
Hasta Siempre,
Hasta Siempre,
More:
Texas Matters
Segment 1: Boyd Ritchie is the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Texas. This week, two democrats in the state House changed parties and became Republicans - Allan Ritter of Nederland and Aaron Pena of Edinburg.
http://audio.tpr.org/txm538.mp3
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