Okay, so I’m going through the news this morning, and I see where Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is saying we need some kind of financial regulation in place to rein in “rampant speculation.” He goes on to say it may be necessary to raise interest rates in order to cut down on the amount of it. Stunningly however, he also dismisses any connection between record-low interest rates and the housing bubble of the late “Noughties” leading to the Crash of ‘07. (Nice to know Ben’s on the job there.)
Further perusal of the latest flowing forth from the bowels of our financial centerpiece reveals an unemployment outlook promising more economic despair for 2010; the aforesaid idle misery is apportioned at a rate in excess of 9% stretching to the terminus of this new year of the new decade according to Bernanke’s own Federal Reserve..
Well, it looks as if the boys on Wall St. may have created a bigger problem than they realize. Since I’m a reader of history, I would like to think what has been created here is an economic phenomenon I choose to call a “Roosevelt Rift.” What we seem to have here is a moment in history where we are presented with the sight of a government hoisting itself by its own petard. To expand on that, I first refer to Franklin Roosevelt’s confrontation of popular revolution on two separate occasions during his administration as an example of doing it right..
The first of these is, of course, the “Great Depression” of the 1930s. This was a time of great social upheaval in the United States. This time saw a vast change in labor practices brought about by “labor intellectuals” like Eugene Debs. As president, Roosevelt was smart enough to understand the potential for upheaval inherent in the jobless masses queuing up at soup kitchens throughout the land. Thus was born programs like unemployment insurance and Social Security, due in no small part, it should be said, to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s advocacy for these programs. In this way, FDR showed enormous political courage in the face of powerful opposition from financial entities like the Harriman Bank and industrialists such as DuPont Chemical.
In his second move to avert disaster, FDR’s post-war administration once again opted for socialized programs aimed at diverting the prospective overthrow of U.S. government through implementation of the G.I. Bill and jobs programs designed to give returning soldiers, sailors, and airmen a way to blend back into American society at the close of the Second World War. This new prosperity saw the beginning of a true middle-class in this country. Roosevelt was well aware of what could happen when you allow a lot of unemployed, well armed, combat-experienced men to roam around with nothing to do. Bush 43 and the rest of his history-light, ‘Neo-conderthal’ cronies found out about this the hard way when they disbanded the Iraqi army in 2003.
Now, our newest “wartime administration” faces challenges very similar to what plagued us in the 30s. The difference is in a response tailored more to Reaganesque economic “trickle-down” theory of the 1980s, than to a reality-based approach of putting the money where it does the most good, ala the National Recovery Act of 1933.
These elitist ideas spread by financial gurus like Milton Friedman have brought us to the brink of financial disaster in much the same way the self-same pecuniary missteps brought about the collapse of Wall St. in 1929. Unlike the response then, the new formula consists of taxpayer bailouts for banks and a greater divide between those who “have,” and those who do not.
Now, the present administration can’t do anything other than continue extending unemployment for the foreseeable future. There is no prospect for any major reduction in the ranks of the unemployed between now and the end of 2010 if the “Masters of the Universe” and their government henchmen in the Labor Department are to be believed. What’s the alternative? Perhaps, a bunch of very hungry and pissed-off chunks of the general population just begging for an excuse to strike back at the ones causing their present state of misery? Try and guess who that might be. This is a classic illustration of the tit caught in a wringer.
Monday, January 4, 2010
No Sweat, Ben's Got Yer Back
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment