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A
little lite Saturday reading: One
never knows what they will find on the trail, scouting. I was chasing a link to some anti-Semitic
comments by a journalist from another publication and ran across this. KWC From
the Eric Alterman weblog, Altercation, Friday, Oct. 17th, where a
reader shared an opinion and then some speculative fiction on the Future: No Joy in Newton (or W. 98th
Street): Eric: Nightmarish. Great game, though. Professor Emeritus The first blow came in 2003. America had been
in a long recession precipitated by the end of the “dot-com boom” and the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Recovery had been delayed by the war to
depose Saddam Hussein, civil unrest in Venezuela and coordinated action by the
OPEC oil cartel, all of which kept oil prices high. President George W. Bush
sought to time an upswing in the economy to coincide with his 2004 reelection
campaign. He gave large tax credits to wealthy Americans and kept government
spending levels high (particularly in Iraq, where rebuilding costs exceeded 400
billion yen per month. What’s that? Yes, I did say “per month.”). By late 2003 the economy was showing signs of
life, and really took off when oil prices began to dip. (America never weaned
its economy off of its dependence on oil and such price fluctuations were
keenly felt). This recovery hid the seeds of America’s
demise from the electorate: an unprecedented budget deficit, large private debt
loads and a crumbling infrastructure. Elected officials and the America
punditcracy were aware of these things, but their protests were lost in the
wave of good feeling that came with the growing economy. The American
electorate was also distracted by seemingly trivial issues, such as the right
of homosexuals to marry and the criminal trial of a popular athlete. Thus America was unprepared for blow #2. In
2006 two terrorist attacks — a handheld missile launched at a Boeing 757 and a
coordinated suicide bombing at four shopping malls on major American shopping
holiday in November — sent the economy spiraling. Unlike in 2001 there was no
government budget surplus to cushion the blow. In fact the government went
further into deficit when reduced tax revenues were combined with long-overdue
domestic security expenditures to respond to the new threats. Blow #3 was less visible but the worst of
them all. The baby boom generation was now well into its retirement years. An
antiquated law entitled elderly Americans with a government grant regardless of
their needs. This program had already created a deficit which had been kept
hidden from the general budget figures, hiding the coming peril from the
nation’s aging demographics. Even worse, America did not have the
infrastructure to care for its elderly (as many of you know, it is not the social
custom in America for the elderly to live with their adult children, but rather
to live independently with hired help or in institutions designed to care for
the aged). Older Americans demanded even more government
assistance with health care costs and vouchers for institutional care. Because
older Americans voted with greater frequency than the population at large, they
held much political power, and politicians were afraid to take positions
against their interests. This led to what Americans call “the Great
Homelessness.” Unlike the last recession, American homeowners could not cushion
the recession by refinancing their mortgages at lower interest rates. Many
two-income households who lost one of their incomes soon looked to bankruptcy
to shed their debt burden and start afresh, but they discovered that
“bankruptcy reform” successfully pushed by the credit industry in 2004 stymied
such plans. Mortgage companies soon became massive landlords — effectively
renting back these homes to the former owners. America witnessed two horrific phenomena. The
first was the culmination of concentration of wealth trends which had
decelerated in the late 1990’s under President Bill Clinton but returned with a
vengeance in the 2000s. Ninty-five percent of the nation’s wealth was owned by
a tenth of its populace. The next was what one American _expression_ calls
“eating the seed corn” — money that should have been spent on repairing its
infrastructure went to the care of its elderly. Still this does not answer why America did
not bounce back as it has in the past. For that, you must look to the rest of
the world. For example, take our experience in Japan. By 2003 we were coming out of our own
recession, but with less debt and much more investment capital than the
Americans. In 2004 Prime Minister Kozumi made major inroads in reducing some of
the protectionist special interests that had always hampered our economy. With
2005 came the great “Stem Cell Miracle” where Japanese researchers won a race
to cure Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease. It should be noted that American
researchers were hampered by government restrictions on the use of stem cells,
else they may have made the discoveries first. These proved to be not only a
milestone in medicine but the most profitable biotechnology patents in history.
Japan also took advantage of America’s recession to buy-up prime real estate
and other opportunities. (Interesting sidebar: a popular myth in America, both
during the 1980s and today, is that Japan “bought it out” — when actually
Japan’s acquisitions lagged behind that of some European nations.) It was probably inevitable that a populist
movement arose in America. By this time wealth had become so stratified that it
made more sense to cut the economic pie more equally than it did to try to
expand the size of the pie: voters demanded national health insurance, housing
subsidies and other entitlements funded by large taxes on the wealthy. Many of
the wealthy, being no dummies, saw what was coming took a lesson from rich
Britons and became “tax refugees,” moving overseas. This is why the world’s
tallest building is in Gatesville, Argentina. America also enacted
protectionist barriers to protect its remaining industries. The end result of all of this has been a
restored social stability for Americans and a significant rise in the median
standard of living, but at a cost of an economic anchor that has weighed down
America’s economy ever since. Even when the economy is growing, much of this
wealth must go to servicing its national debt, and much of the rest goes into coffers
overseas. (At this point I was teleported back to the
present.} ps: Eric, Stupid —I can’t resist a note on the Boy Scouts. I once
tried to get someone at Scout HQ to answer whether they bar Native Americans if
they insisted on a traditional polytheistic belief and would only say an oath
if they could substitute “Spirits” for “God” or somesuch thing. Never got an
answer - so next time you hear the Scouts defend themselves that they don’t
discriminate between religions, don’t believe ‘em! http://www.msnbc.com/news/752664.asp?0dm=C215O |
