Economic Downturn – Policy Change?

February 29, 2008

The most important issue for U.S. voters is the current economic downturn. It is important to point out to them that the economic mailaise is a direct consequence of rightwing policies.

The U.S. puts a higher percentage of its population into jail than any dictatorship in this world. This is very expensive and driven by rightwing "law and order" policies and false incentives, i.e. privatization of prisons and lobbying by prison owners.

In 2007, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections. That is up from $10.6 billion in 1987, a 127 percent increase when adjusted for inflation.

Crime rates in comparable countries with less people incarcerated are generally lower than in the U.S. So why should this expensive policy continue?

The War on Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the U.S. some $3+ trillion. What do the taxpayers get for $138 per month they are paying for these wars (other than the right to also pay $103 per barrel of oil)?

Support of Israel has cost the U.S. taxpayer a lot of money. What is the positive result from this investment? Currently the USS Cole and the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau are on the way to the Lebanese coast to cover for an Israeli attack on Gaza. How much does this cost? What is the return?

The current economic downturn will highlight these questions.

The above policies should all be changed for other than financial reasons. But I’ll not be picky if they will be changed because of financial pressure on the U.S. population.

Can we hope that taxpayers will demand and end to these policies because of their costs?

Posted by b on February 29, 2008 at 11:38 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Of course one can always hope, but even with the impending financial crisis in the U.S. I do not think most citizens will make these connections, Bernhard. It goes beyond even the specific bad policies, e.g. Iraq, Israel, domestic criminalization of behaviour that some people don’t approve of, etc. As long as we continue to prop up the military industrial complex through huge bloated budgets each year for all kinds of unnecessary deadly new toys and games, they will always push our political leaders into destructive and costly empire-expanding ventures around the world so they can maintain a continuous demand for more of their goods and products. This dynamic is so pathologically woven into our contemporary political economy that I don’t know if it can be overcome.

Posted by: Maxcrat | Feb 29 2008 16:29 utc | 1

Once again, the quadrennial beauty contest looks set to deliver a well-vetted political messiah into the Oval Office, carried there on the crest of many tens of millions of private dollars. Some candidate, from one of the political parties, will win out at the last.
And deliver more of the same.
Because even delivering the White House, Senate, and House to one party entirely is not going to change anything substantial about our broken Republic. All three branches (SCOTUS, too) serve the system of empire and domination of other “lesser” nations, and will continue to do so no matter whom the right wing parties, Dem and GOP, put into office.
The American political system is hard right and harder right, and thoroughly inundated — drowned — in money. In no sense that makes sense is it a participatory democracy, or a functioning government of We, the People.
Mr. Smith has never gone to Washington, and he never will.
Voting in a pretty candidate who is actually powerless to govern except in the interests of the elite who paid his way into office — that’s a choice?
That’s poor Hobson’s choice, a bitter charade after a lot of misery and hard work. But that’s the choice offered every four years to we, the people. It’s perennially tempting to not be bothered with the charade.
So, let’s say a feller takes that leap, up and says a hollow vote isn’t worth walking across the street to cast, so screw it. What’s left him? What’s next?
The money-corrupted system is still right there, and he lives within and under its baleful stare.
There are only two choices, strategically.
One is to game the system, to use it against itself to eke out one’s fourscore and ten in some comfort and safety. Whether a hermit or a wealthy recluse, simply make your way without concern for the system, other than to avoid it, and to profit from it. Get busy living. Be an Oskar Schindler if you have to, but get on with real life, not politics.
The other is to work at dismantling the system, and not through electoral politics of any kind. Through money, which is its blood. Organized economic action on a massive scale is the only method that will force real, systemic change. The only thing that ever has.
Change will have to be forced, rest assured, if it is to happen. The wrenching, chiropractic kind of adjustments that it will take to get this Republic to a ‘We, the people’ basis will take severe economic pressure to bring about. It will take pain returned back up the economic ladder unto the elites who own and operate the country presently. It will take an outright kick in the pants, and a kick down the stairs.
Those are the two paths open to an internal exile.
But voting? That’s like dropping the soap in the Riker’s Island shower. You’re seriously asking for more of the same.

Posted by: Hobson | Feb 29 2008 17:11 utc | 2

Hobson’s said it all.

Posted by: …—… | Feb 29 2008 17:23 utc | 3

Hobson’s said it all.

Posted by: …—… | Feb 29 2008 17:23 utc | 4

Well, there is a big sucking sound around the money spout these days, so maybe that will cause a few more citizens to surface for air.
But, no, the country won’t change from the inside. It will have to be beaten and disassembled from the outside. Who can say where that will lead?
Jay Leno, as part of his late night entertainment, occasionally does people-in-the-street interviews about basic matters of US history, govt, and current events. The numbers of blissfully unconcerned and the levels of ignorance among voting age US citizens is shocking. Or maybe not surprising at all. Republican Party knows what it is doing when it uses emotion and identity politics and sweeps issues under the rug. After a recent walk through the streets, during a bit Tuesday primary, Leno concluded, “you get the govt you deserve.”
Still, I vote – to assert that I want to be asked, that govt should be answerable to the governed and serve at their pleasure, because I want them at least to have to enter into the charade, because I hope some day the choices will be meaningful. It doesn’t have to mean voting for either major party candidate. Write in, choose someone who can’t win, mark the ballot somehow.
Sometimes I have fantasized about a massive protest vote, where voter turnout is high but the major party candidates receive less than half the total votes, with other votes scattered everywhere, for your next door neighbor, the king of Prussia, whoever. What would the media say?
Hobson, that’s it. Really doesn’t matter even the candidates’ intentions, the system is structured to go in a particular way by all the extra-electoral forces.
Did anyone know that there is still a third candidate for the Democratic nomination? Mike Gravel, senator from Alaska at time of Pentagon Papers.

Posted by: small coke | Feb 29 2008 19:38 utc | 5

The analyisis is correct in its direction – not its numbers: Big hit to economy from credit crunch, study says

The economic impact of the mortgage crisis and credit crunch will be huge, and it has barely begun, a new study prepared by several prominent economists and released Friday has concluded.
“Feedback from the financial market turmoil to the real economy could be substantial,” it said. Unless they can quickly recapitalize, banks are likely to cut back their lending to consumers and businesses by more than $1 trillion, cutting economic growth by more than a percentage point over the next 12 months.
…
What is different this time is the amount of leverage. Bank balance sheets were forced to expand in the wake of the mortgage crisis, as off-balance-sheet investments were forced onto their books.
This so-called “unwanted lending” is set to reduce bank loans to business and consumers.
The paper estimates that total mortgage credit losses will cost $400 billion, up from initial estimates in August of $150 billion. Roughly 50%, or $200 billion, will be on the books of U.S. banks and securities firms.
This will result in an estimated contraction in lending of $1.13 trillion.

The actual basic losses in my estimates is $1 Trillion, the lending contraction will be factor 5 of that.

UBS analysts published a report Friday saying global losses could be $600 billion.
…
The findings were presented at a forum organized by the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Presenters included Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs, Anil Kashyap of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Hyun Song Shin of Princeton University.
At the forum, two top Fed officials — Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren and Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin — were asked to respond to the paper. Both said they agreed with the basic story.
…
“Looking ahead, I believe resolution of the current financial market problems requires some stabilization of U.S. housing markets. At this time, it’s difficult to determine when that stability will materialize,” Lockhart said in a luncheon speech in Atlanta.

Looking at historic numbers for such a housing glut and price depreciation of houses I’d estimate six years for stabilization of housing prices.

Posted by: b | Feb 29 2008 19:44 utc | 6

The great national enema took six years during the last Bush recession (back then it was S&L corruption that poisoned the well). But Japan took more than a decade to purge. What determines the duration – severity or sector structure? The former would imply a long slump like Japan’s, but their economy’s uniquely rigid.

Posted by: …—… | Feb 29 2008 20:27 utc | 7

…—…
The difference is as spoken here before. The US continues to sucker other countries. Japan was suckered into buying Rockefeller Center before the commercial real estate market busted in the 1980s. Now we are extinguishing Chinas investment in the US by pumping dollars into the economy and devaluing assets. Wowww, the rest of the world really gets played by US manipulators. The only bad thing is the elites never get hurt while we sucker everyone else, the middle and lower classes in the US gets hurt. The commodity crash coming is going to burst like a hydrogen bomb. The fallout will be dramatic. It may take a while, but it will happen.
I must say, I do agree with Greenspeak telling the Middle East oil barrens to drop the dollar peg and use the Euro. Oil prices would drop by 1/3 worldwide. I have already hedged my bet.

Posted by: jdp | Feb 29 2008 21:22 utc | 8

Can we hope that taxpayers will demand and end to these policies because of their costs?
As I see it, we’re back to where we were before our revolution: taxation without representation. Large businesses and elites are represented. The average taxpayer? Not so much. So about the only way for us to “demand” anything is to stop paying said taxes. When our already crowded jails are overflowing with tax protesters, things would have to change. But I don’t think we have the collective stomach for revolution just yet, either violent or non.
This isn’t aimed at anyone here, but I am sometimes confused at the attitude expressed by many outside the US who wonder why we don’t “do something”. We vote, nothing changes. We attempt to hold our governments accountable to our laws in court, nothing changes. We complain, petition, protest, nothing changes.
And so really, for all practical purposes, we have two options:
1. Live our lives as best we can in relative peace and comfort, despite our crumbling economy and the injustices our government perpetrates on the rest of the world. Or
2. Really demand change, go to prison, and put our families and friends at risk as well. To truly demand change requires that one abandon the status quo as unacceptable. Any attempts to do this in the US bring some pretty swift and harsh consequences.
So what’s to be done? Really? It’s true a sizable percentage of our people aren’t aware just how bad things really are. But would it make any practical difference if they were?
Perhaps there’s hope out there and I just can’t see it. If so I hope someone will enlighten me.

Posted by: Chemmett | Mar 1 2008 3:24 utc | 9

“As I see it, we’re back to where we were before our revolution: taxation without representation.”
I’m sorry, Chemmett. I don’t think we’re allowed to say that anymore.

Posted by: Monolycus | Mar 1 2008 6:49 utc | 10

it always cracks me up when we do that. They never frickin learn

Posted by: …—… | Mar 1 2008 18:30 utc | 11

jail ::
That the US uses laws, definitions of crimes, arrest and incarceration, to create a new slave labor pool, has been said over and over.
Part of the ‘black’ community revolves in and out of prison as a lifestyle. In prison, they are with mates, have their social scene, ugly as it might be, get health care, some education sometimes, discipline, etc. The men being deprived of work on the outside have no choices. And so it goes on…
Ex. website of Iowa Prison Industries (that is the official name.) “Stunning” handcrafted furniture at rock bottom prices, for certain customers. They publish their finances if you dig in, one of the few that do (last I saw…)
link

Posted by: Tangerine | Mar 1 2008 19:43 utc | 12

Haha, that’s perfect, Monolycus. One can’t make this stuff up…

Posted by: Chemmett | Mar 2 2008 18:33 utc | 13

Seems like everyday is so much a repeat of the same old bad news.
It’s early in the wee hours Monday morning – here are just a couple of some news headlines:
This
from Reuters about the successful work of Tony Blair as the “peace envoy”:

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday after days of fighting that killed more than 100 people and drew an appeal from Washington to end violence and rescue peace talks with the Palestinians.
The Hamas Islamists who control the coastal enclave declared “victory” and vowed to continue firing rockets into Israel. But the Israeli government declared it had achieved its objective of deterring attacks, which have disrupted life in border towns.
[snip]
An Israeli government spokesman said after the troops pulled back on the ground: “We will continue with our defensive actions against those who fire lethal rockets at our civilians.”
[snip]
“The main goal of the Israeli government … is to end the firing at targets in the south. There were dozens of deaths among the Hamas terrorists — this is certainly deterrence.”
Hamas officials said they found four bodies in northern areas of the Gaza Strip following the Israeli withdrawal, taking the Palestinian death toll since Wednesday to 112.
Medics and Hamas have said about half of those have been civilians, including women and children.

And in other news from Reuters this morning:

LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) – European shares were set to fall sharply at the open on Monday, tracking falls in the United States and Asia, with worries over a U.S. recession and bank writedowns at the top of investors’ minds.
[snip]
The big earnings event of the day is an update from HSBC …analysts forecast will take a bad debt charge of $15.8 billion, adding to hefty writedowns by big global banks as a result of a credit market crisis.
[snip]
MARKET SNAPSHOT AT 0610 GMT
NIKKEI .N225 12,992.18 -4.49 % -610.84

Is it just me, or do others here sometimes feel like they are in the movie “Groundhog Day”? Am I just too impatient for positive change?
Oh well, in keeping with this threads theme, here is an interesting video on the U.S. “economic downturn”. As a blogger (from ‘economicrot’ –sort of a relevant name, heh?) said, it is unusual to see this type of doom & gloom in the mainstream media.

Posted by: Rick | Mar 3 2008 8:08 utc | 14

american madonna

Posted by: anna missed | Mar 3 2008 9:57 utc | 15

the gift of security

Posted by: anna missed | Mar 3 2008 10:04 utc | 16

liveleak: CNN Money: Williams Admits Great Depression Coming
International experts foresee collapse of U.S. economy

“The end of the third quarter of 2008 (thus late September, a mere seven months from now) will be marked by a new tipping point in the unfolding of the global systemic crisis. […] In the United States, this new tipping point will translate into – get this – a collapse of the real economy .

The 1930s Great Depression led to policies that favored restrictions and regulations on the psychotic, gonzo Ruling Class.
They did not like it. This time around, I’m sure they’d prefer their freedom to rape left intact.
This time around, any potential Roosevelt (namely, Obama) can be sabotaged by Cheney’s sleeper cells, which would undermine faith in personality-based populist movements.
The “Obama Is Jimmy Carter” meme is already being floated. And he’s not even elected yet.
Discrediting and destabilizing Jimmy Carter was the key for the “Reagan Revolution.” The Iran Hostage Crisis accomplished this. We all know Poppy Bush’s role (and the CIA’s). Again: Cheney’s sleeper cells are in place for the next (Democratic) President to be sabotaged.
When the collapse hits, I see no chess pieces in place currently which would favor anti-fascism. All the pieces are in place for a worldwide banquet of fascist rape.
In other words, the Big Collapse will be fortuitous and tasty for the fascists. It will be the heyday of cheap labor and unlimited fun.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 3 2008 12:21 utc | 17

liveleak: CNN Money: Williams Admits Great Depression Coming
International experts foresee collapse of U.S. economy

“The end of the third quarter of 2008 (thus late September, a mere seven months from now) will be marked by a new tipping point in the unfolding of the global systemic crisis. […] In the United States, this new tipping point will translate into – get this – a collapse of the real economy .

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 3 2008 12:22 utc | 18

Sometimes I have fantasized about a massive protest vote, where voter turnout is high but the major party candidates receive less than half the total votes, with other votes scattered everywhere, for your next door neighbor, the king of Prussia, whoever. What would the media say?
A massive protest vote? Ya, me too, hence my voting Rhino, commie, green, someone with my wife’s maiden name…
What would the media say? Can’t say, but most normal people to whom I mention this phantasy reply either:
– your vote is wasted, don’t you want to win
– no experience at governing, therefore incompetant
– ANARCHY!!, ANARCHY!!
– society would collapse!!
– what! hold another election and waste more $$$
“The numbers of blissfully unconcerned and the levels of ignorance among voting age US citizens is shocking.”
Sad fact, I’m afraid, is that political junkies make up a very small portion of any great grey mass and to this greater mass, the whole electoral process is something that happens every so often like the Olympics and requires about as much consideration.
Not to mention ignorance in general…

Posted by: jcairo | Mar 3 2008 15:22 utc | 19

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