An Article by:
Ben Tanosborn

No gold watch for Alan Greenspan as he retired from serving the elite – we can hardly call it public service!  After almost two decades as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, this Robin Hood for the rich and powerful was bestowed, as he was about to step down, the highest honor in the land – now shrinking in prestige at about the same pace as the United States dollar – the Medal of Freedom.
Now, two and a half years later, as this nation is mired in a recession which is likely to turn into a prolonged economic disaster, something which Mr. Greenspan almost single-handedly brought about, the laudatory decibels for this low talker, and mumbler, have gone down considerably.  Of course, he’ll never lose the admiration and gratitude of those he ended up serving so well: the powerful elite and the aspiring affluentocracy.  Americans in those two groups, flag pins on their lapels, still consider him an economic wizard.  But more than a wizard, he should be dubbed as the rich man’s Santa Claus.

Wizard… what a crock!  An accomplished musician turned into a mediocre economist at best, but with the boot-licking capacity of a male courtesan to American presidents, from Reagan to Bush Son.  A prestidigitator with a facility for gentle criticism; a coiner of cute names for dire situations; misleader via inappropriate numbers and gobbledygook, Greenspan was not the economic genius Wall Street and government leaders portrayed him to be… far from it.  He was definitely no economic rainmaker for America, only a charlatan with a dowser!  Let’s just say that as inhumane as Shrub’s foreign policy has been towards Palestine and the rest of the Middle East, the former saxophone player’s economic policy has proven to be just as genocidal; something the American citizen is finally beginning to experience.  And they have barely let the lions out of their cages at the Coliseum!

Already six to nine months into the recession, government leaders are still telling us that it is just a period of slow growth, a pit stop in this economic race that we’ll eventually win, so worry not, my friend.  That explains to us what “garbage numbers” government is using to rose-color the state of the economy in terms of growth, unemployment and inflation.  We are probably the most lied-to people by their government on the planet, at least among presumably developed and educated nations.

Gullible us!

No matter what Bernanke, Greenspan’s successor, or Treasury Secretary Paulson tell us, we have already entered an epic bear global market the likes of which take us back three generations.  But then WWII was able to bail us out since our economy was half of the world’s… and we were the international creators of wealth and credit, our economic and social well-being then based on savings, not just spending.   Now we produce weaponry, and little else, in a planet which certainly doesn’t need it… and in a global economy where we appear to be an increasingly less important player.  Months we are told before things will start to turn around.  Optimists, you say?  Try liars!

And, please, don’t just point the finger at the sub-prime mortgage loans, house flippers and proverbial greed in the real estate industry.  That was just the catalyst, for our entire economy was out of control or, rather, lacking in proper controls.  Home-ownership as part of the American dream has always been a questionable policy before, and one completely foolhardy as our nation adopted globalization.  Sure, realtors and politicians gained by proclaiming such idiocy – and still do – but the reality is quite different as it only redistributes wealth via tax sheltering; creates a less mobile society, worsening unemployment; and really slams the brakes on economic growth.  People have been brainwashed to think this simple shelter should be equated to both savings and investment in a truly disproportionate way; and that’s the kind of mentality that got us to where we are today.  Not just the abandoned, foreclosed homes, but there still remains a multi-trillion dollar overvaluation in “normal” housing, pseudo-wealth, which because of owners’ psychological inelasticity to the “loss of wealth” will be either eroded slowly by inflation, or lost overnight as people are forced to sell… whatever the reason.

Even Britain has phased out in a two-decade period of tax-sheltering in housing… and we seem to be among the last in the world to accept its regressive concept.  Let’s face it, these misnomers of “ownership society” and “popular capitalism” are but the elite’s way to confuse and enslave an already servile society… simply with clever PR.

There were a few of us during the past decade who questioned Greenspan’s sanity in going overboard granting easy credit to stimulate the economy solely through housing; a good chunk of the money used: unrealized interest from savings seniors had faithfully accumulated during a lifetime; seniors de facto forced to be donors to an industry which turned out to be not just obscenely greedy but predatory as well.
I hope this to be the last time I write about Mr. Greenspan… he has proved to be all the negative things I always wrote he was.  That doesn’t make me a visionary… but makes him either a fool, or a practitioner of deception; or maybe both.

Can anyone fathom greater recent blunders than Paul Bremer’s disbanding of the Iraqi army as he was made “governor” of Iraq… or Alan Greenspan’s monetary policy during his last five years as head of the Fed?  Well, if you are an American and can come up with one, even if of lesser magnitude… there is a Medal of Freedom waiting to be bestowed on you.  At the Kennedy Center in Washington DC… by George W. Bush!

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, economics, economists, government, labor
Categories: Commentary, Economics, government, Labor, Ben Tanosborn
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An Article:
Ben Tanosborn

It happens time and again as America’s quadrennial campaigns to gain residency at the imperial White House gather momentum.  Although our forever-cloned candidates, one for each of the two indistinct political parties, are asked to address each and every issue of the day, soft-hearted – or perhaps civically-ignorant – Americans that we are, we usually give candidates a free pass, not forcing them to commit to any specific color in their answers, true chameleons they are.  And the press, with its own corporate mission, self-preservation, plays the usual economic game in its key role of as a pleasing whore.

Progressives as well as many other change-clamoring Americans, particularly legions of young college students – many, first-time presidential would-be voters – volunteered to give this new political face of great hope, a man articulating change with a great amount of credulity, the reins of that sempiternal “lesser evil” party of peace-makers and lowly economy’s downcasts.  Of course, having reached that all important milestone which assured him the backing of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama had few options but to accept being placed in the waiting “golden stable” where he gets new handlers claiming to have magical knowledge with which to plot how the presidential race must be ran, not to place… or to show, but to win.

So now that face of great hope has been lifted, not to remove any wrinkles, young man that he is, but “to add” the necessary patriotic wrinkles required to be acceptable to what the new handlers consider to be the candidate’s initiation of trust from Middle-America, not a geographical location but a state of mind: that non-existing, totally equivocated middle of the road of an economically and morally decrepit, fading nation where the imperialism-cancer is already hovering around stage IV having spread to many, if not most, aspects of American life.  This while flags wave high in glory, and flag pins adorn the lapels of politicians and their brethren, our corps of elite corporate crooks.  Could it be that it isn’t change that Americans want… only a return, by whatever means, to easy credit, low oil prices and continuance of that fantasy dream of wealth as a birthright, or one created by motivational charlatanry, rather than the product of one’s labor?

Obama’s hundred-and-eighty-degree turn from progressivism and change should come as no surprise to those of us oft-scalded by American fraudulent politics; although we cannot help but feel deep pain for our idealist young people getting their initiation of fire.  Obama is in the hands of the handlers (visible and invisible) who require his adherence to flip-flop ambidexterity about Iraq, NAFTA (North America Free Trade Association), separation of church and state; and, recently, his unnecessary and obscene vote in the Senate favoring more federal surveillance on the citizenry.  One wonders how Obama might have voted in 2002 on the Iraq resolution had he been then a member of the Senate… with advisers; and not just an Illinois citizen unattached to the powerful.

If we add to all the above his ceremoniously recorded adhesion not long ago to AIPAC (Israel’s lobby) and his of-late windmill attitude to just about anything and everything, one must ask, is there really much of a difference between Barack Obama and John McCain?  Well, age for one thing; and, most definitely, brains.  But as for everything else, including critical foreign policy change, the two senators might have been birthed by the same mother as non-identical twins.

Some people, who have followed Obama’s political evolution since Hillary Clinton’s abdication to what she claimed to be her Democratic Party throne, are quick to give him the benefit of the doubt, saying that once he gets to the White House he’ll be his own man and his deeply imbedded progressive ideas will take root.  Fools we are… has that ever happened before…well, in recent memory?  Not a chance!

Even President Carter, as honorable a president as this nation has ever had, found it necessary to bend later on in his administration to the influence that the Miami Mafia (exiled Cubans) had on Florida politics.  Castro’s Cuba, or rather the apolitical Cubans in the Island, had to suffer the consequences of America’s WIR (Weapons of Ill Resort): embargoes, economic sanctions and other destructive, anti-people dirty tricks which are constantly being performed secretly.

There are three key issues for Americans which overrule everything else, issues that have been addressed with ignorance and/or triviality by both Obama and McCain.  They are: the complete overhaul of an economy in shambles; the imperialistic treatment we give to our presence in both the Middle East and Southwest Asia (Afghanistan, Iraq and the military-infested waters of the Persian Gulf, for which a more apropos name would be the Pentagulf); and our irreverent, imperialistic position towards Russia.  The latter, an issue which is not being played much by the American media… but an issue that will comeback for sure to hunt us… and hurt us.  Unlike Germany and Japan, Russia is not a defeated country… and to treat her with triumphal disdain and bullyism could ultimately exact too-high a price for the United States.

Arsonist Bush may be lighting up most destructive fires around the world, but no one hears either McCain or Obama speaking of putting them out.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, democracy, economics, media, politics
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On This Fourth of July 2008

An Article by:
Ben Tanosborn

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with its own government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the denunciation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, a new government must be instituted, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.  That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of the people of the United States of America; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their existing system of government.  The history of the Executive in this government, exemplified and accentuated by the current administration; together with a long history of a lobbies-corrupted Legislature and a politically-appointed Judicial, are histories of repeated injuries and usurpations, not acting as to balance power but jointly providing a unified corruptive government, all having in direct object the establishment of a world empire and a domestic ruling class able to exercise absolute tyranny over the people. The present and recent past administrations of the United States of America are hereby deemed non-responsive to the interests and well-being of the people of this nation while also acting as an imminent and constant danger to the cause of peace in the world.  To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

…That existing government has made itself a self-perpetuating tyranny where the channels to change and impeachment are de facto blocked by the duopolistic party system.

… That existing government operates under the auspices of special interest groups whose money influence the election of officials in such government, the enactment of legislation, and the way domestic and foreign policy are created and conducted.

… That existing government has not only permitted but promoted the ever-widening gap between haves (20%) and have-nots (80%), with serious wealth and income inequality.

… That existing government shows no concern for the well-being of the people as evidenced by the availability of healthcare, education and social welfare relative to other nations with similar or fewer resources.

… That existing government is responsible for instilling fear in the population, making terror the underlying reason for curtailing freedoms, spying or even lying to the people.

… That existing government maintains a military with a destructive capacity far in excess of that needed for self-defense; and to the detriment of public needs.  And that such massive destructive capacity only serves to paint the United States as a coercive, imperialistic and terrorist nation.

… That existing government by engaging in criminal wars, embargoes, blockades and other black-listing of foreign nations has made the United States not just an international bully but a piranha, world’s leading perpetrator of genocide and dislocation of people.

… That existing government has in fact misgoverned domestically in every facet of governing; while abusing its power to promote mayhem internationally which has gravely damaged the reputation of the people of this nation before the eyes of the world.

We, therefore, the people of the United States of America, in self-representation and joined   in mind and effort, appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name of one another with common joint interests, and self-exercising our authority as free people, solemnly publish and declare, that these United States of America are, and of right ought to be free from the tyranny of the existing government; that they are absolved from all allegiance to this existing Federal government, and that all political connection between them, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that the Fifty States making up this union immediately join forces to create and summon a Constitutional Congress for the sole purpose of enacting a new constitution and the formation of a new Federal government; representatives to that Congress to be judiciously chosen by the States in proportional numbers to population. The new constitution, and the government which will derive from it, to be exemplary models in morality and brotherhood; such government to have full power to work for peace and against war, to regulate all wealth-producing activities to guarantee a free but fair market, and to do all other acts and things which independent nations may of right do for the well-being of its citizens. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we, the people of these United States of America, pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Author’s note:  Rather than a plagiarization of the original Declaration of Independence this re-declaration is intended as juxtaposition to that great document of long ago… and the sad political reality we have today in a broken government which does not represent the citizenry; a reality that would bring dismay to its signers in their futuristic vision of the United States.  It took a revolution to free the Colonies from the English Crown… and it appears that it will take another revolution for this nation to retrieve both, its moral compass and true freedom for its people.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, citizens, democracy, direct democracy
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An Article by:
Ben Tanosborn

The Brits made an imperial mess of Iraq back in 1930, now it is America’s turn!

We followed the fate of the French in Vietnam; are trying hard to imitate the Russians in Afghanistan; and now, our emulation-in-progress is of our beloved European cousins.  Who would ever think that it was an American philosopher (by way of Spain), George Santayana, who stated just a century ago, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  And American government leaders always seem to be the forgetful ones, although as it happens in all these cases, it is the American people who are condemned to pay the consequences in both blood and dollars.

We are not even speaking of millennia ago, or even centuries; only the recent past.  How can we be so forgetful as to how the British bamboozled a timid Iraqi Parliament, where the true nationalists lacked a voiced, into signing an agreement in 1930 that would have Iraq in turmoil with coup after coup until Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979?  And we all know what has happened since then.  Seventy-eight years later here we are, cramming down their throats an illegal “strategic alliance” that is similar in both content and tone to that Great Britain “imposed” on Iraq almost eight decades ago.

And I say illegal for both Iraq and the United States.  For Iraq, it’s a non-valid agreement since it will be contracted under duress from an occupier’s demands, whatever excuses are brought forward to obtain legitimacy.  For the US, it’s also an invalid pact unless it is subsequently ratified by the US Senate.  We are told that the wording in this strategic alliance has been crafted so as to “avoid such ratification.”  Nonsense, if the provisions in such agreement or alliance have the underlying intent of a treaty, it is a treaty; and as a treaty, constitutionally, it must be ratified.

True that the American Executive Branch has been operating for decades outside of the Constitution in taking the nation to war (undeclared war) and entering into treaties (or agreements) thanks to a spineless Senate and the de-facto consent of Americans, who really care little, or are brainwashed by the White House, unless the conflict turns sour.
It is remarkable that the two senators who will be contending for the highest office in the land next November, McCain and Obama, aren’t exercising their duty as senators, making this issue one of national concern, one to be handled with both transparency and care.  Malfeasance in office by members of the Senate made Bush’s invasion of Iraq fait accompli; once again, it will be malfeasance if the senate remains blind, deaf and mute to this travesty.

It is interesting that Barack Obama claims that “had he been a member of the Senate back in 2002, he would have voted against granting Bush permission to invade Iraq.”  Well, he is a member of the Senate now… but one hears little noise from him on this important issue, one that could keep the United States involved in the Middle East until the area runs out of oil or Israelis, whichever comes last .  Time for deeds, Sen. Obama!

Iraq does not appear to be willing to have the U.N. mandate extended beyond its current expiration date, at the end of this year; and the US really doesn’t care whether its effective control is through a mandate granted by the U.N. or an agreement with a government which may not be of unity or consensus.  The US must have a tacit control of Iraq’s oil while maintaining a solid military presence in that part of the world to counter not just Iran and its nuclear aspirations, but any “problems” that may emerge anywhere in Southwest Asia.

Although the hush-hush negotiations on the Strategic Framework Agreement and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) had reached an impasse by the second week in June – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki referring the deadlock on what his government felt were critical sovereignty issues – both Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad (US) appear confident that an agreement will soon be reached since both countries are committed to a joint security pact.  Yes, we will have two caliphates out of Baghdad; one ran locally by Iraqis, the other ran by Americans as part of the Empire.

What remains to be seen, even if an agreement is reached, is whether the US Senate will once again capitulate to the White House, allowing its duties and responsibilities to be usurped by Imperator George W. Bush.  And whether the American people really give a damn now that they are paying over $4 per gallon of gasoline, soon projected to be $5, which when added to the other economic miseries the country is enduring calls for either a revolution or surrender.  My bet is on the latter.

Tags: american empire, Ben Tanosborn, colonialism, empire, Global, globalization, imperialism, military
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

Last Sunday, at our annual family gathering celebrating the clan’s mothers, and their constant efforts to keep the men-folk firmly footed in reality, I assigned myself the task of counting happy and sullen faces at the reunion, excluding those of youngsters – all my grandkids are happy by default, what one might call by birth-fate.  Well, more than counting, I was trying to derive some obvious direct proportionality between happy faces and political conservatism.

Sole purpose of this exercise was a curiosity-check in my part, a sort of small sample verification of the recent findings in a scientific study funded by the National Science Foundation, which headlined as: Conservatives [Are] Happier than Liberals! 

Duh!  I could have told the two NYU researchers that; but, if scientific validation was the primary reason for the study… let’s just say that the money was well spent!

Well, the truth is that our family did not prove to be a good sample, being rather happy folks by their very nature… forget the politics.  And our politics are basically centrist; the extremists’ overflow divided down the middle.  Bottom line: there was nary a sullen face in the crowd… except for mine, but that is a given for this progressive head of the clan.

According to the results of this study, us-lefties are just a bunch of displeased, sad, discontent, sorrowful, depressed, dejected, joyless, miserable, gloomy, disconsolate, hapless, melancholy (plus a whole lot other adjectives) folks.  And that frame of mind apparently shows in our faces by being morose, sulky, gloomy, somber, glum, sour and moody among other things.  It seems, or so the study interprets, that we-liberals are truly bothered by the social and economic inequalities which prevail in this world.  And that because of biological or mental malformation, we were dispossessed of that magic gene that all conservatives have: the rationalization gene.  (That’s my take.) 

Results from many sociological and psychological studies tend to indicate that liberals succumb to the effects of inequality in such a fulminatory way that they feel impotent to counteract it by grasping for some measure of rationalization; while conservatives do not find a great problem in replacing any moral order with something more congenial to their needs or convictions.  Little surprise then that the Pew Research Center found in a 2006 survey that 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the United States described themselves as “very happy,” yet only 28 percent of liberal Democrats made the “happy” list.

When American conservatives claim adherence to family values, or to a certain moral order, they are not really coming down the mountain after having talked to the Creator.  Those values, and the moral order from which they are drawn, satisfy nothing but the permissibility of their desires, “their families”… values that are exclusionary as the very private reasons that created them; values that rationalize inequality in the crudest of forms, most particularly in social and economic aspects.  Thus, they may advocate the sanctity of life for an unborn child; yet neutralize, via rationalization, the genocidal killing of a million Iraqi children, or America’s warring involvement anywhere in the world.

Perhaps rationalizations which focus in the behavior of specific individuals can find eventual remorse and the return of one’s conscience in its original state, undamaged.  But group rationalizations, as those being used in society which permit the strong to abuse the weak in economic matters, or the subjugation of peoples, or the taking of human life no matter the circumstances; no, there is no return of the group conscience, not in its original state and, most definitely, not undamaged.

Aristotle said it well over two millennia ago when he wrote (The Ethics) that, “men start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.”  Perhaps we could add cultural to revolutionary to find greater applicability to modern times.  Indeed, it is their private lives that drive conservatives to modify their conscience and take the low road of rationalization when it comes to inequality or defining social justice.

As for me, I’ll remain long-faced to the world… trying to stay in peace, happy, within.

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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

Where are your friends when you really need them? Isn’t that time of need when true friends really surface, sharing their buoyancy as they try to help keep you afloat? Well, we really haven’t seen many of those friends around, not for America, although we have seen the traditional parasites – those who instigate our misguided foreign policy for their own ends, as well as those who either go along with America’s criminal government, or simply look the other way.

In some regions, such as Latin America, one would hardly expect to find any friends of the United States – of the non-servile kind, that is – given the long history of bullying and the oppressive hand this nation has had in that region… but what about Europe? All NATO nations should be America’s true and tried friends, right? But they aren’t… not when they are unwilling to strongly influence our government’s behavior.

For several years some of us have been asking just what this NATO outfit is all about! And no, we don’t seem to find the answer by looking at the baptismal records and its purported reinstatement as “a military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America for a concerted mutual defense.” Its purpose might have appeared clear back in 1949: a mutual defense pact against the feared advances of communism. But that was then, and now is now. And the now is becoming rather obvious: NATO is just a military toy-tool for the policies drummed up at the White House and the Pentagon.

The United States was simply supposed to be another NATO member, just like Canada and the European members, regardless of size and economic-military strength. But if you believe that, you believe in fairy tales, particularly when Bush makes that reality clear time and again. His latest proclamation last week in Croatia made it clear once again when he delivered a mixture of mini-harangue and cheerleading chant to a crowd from that state, formerly part of communist Yugoslavia. Joining the organization, they were told by Bush, would mean their nation would be defended by “America and the NATO alliance.”

and NATO, you say? Was it yet another of Bush’s ignorant misspeaks? No, not really. America, or rather its present government, thinks of itself as a distinct and separate entity, all powerful and meritorious… the rest is the lesser NATO, a janissary pool of troops commanded not from Brussels but from the Pentagon.

Truth be said, NATO is an illusory relic that has served past its needs and now should be given a burial; or better still, it should be broken up to reflect a true world’s desire to achieve and maintain peace. If Europe, or more apropos, the European Union, feels a need to retain defensive military teeth, so be it; but its defense force must be its own without providing hegemony to, or be dictated by, anyone else. Can anyone just picture the proximity of the waters in the North Atlantic and the poppy fields of Afghanistan?

Shouldn’t Europe be more assertive in its dealing with the peoples of the Middle East, instead of sheepishly following the lead, or be under the leash, of the United States? A greater harmony would likely develop between the Muslim population throughout Europe and native European people who are hosting and/or assimilating them. If such were the case, one could foresee a greater probability of success for a quicker and long-lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which the United States has continuously served as a gully instead of a bridge.

Shouldn’t Europeans try to find more common ground with next door Russia, and try to secure stronger economic ties, instead of providing a source of friction and unnecessary confrontation by submitting to the forced military requirements of the US? Much of the existing divisive tribulations affecting the Ukraine and Georgia have been caused in no small part by US sub-rosa involvement. The Europeans should ask themselves, to what end is this conflict-seeding by the US beneficial to them?

One needs to ask, just what are the Europeans afraid of? Being, perhaps, cut off from energy sources unless the US remains on top? A less beneficial world trade situation for them as a result? Nonsense, the opposite would likely happen as a result. And one would think that tensions would lessen uninviting more cold wars, and offering greater prospects for peace throughout the Middle East.

And for America, the return of the prodigal European friends, as brothers tendering advice and help of the right kind – not just troops for a struggle in Afghanistan that will only be resolved via mediation with the Taliban – not just vassals and prostitutes for an empire that, if unchecked, will ultimately claim both peace and the economic well being of the American people. That’s what our European friends could do for America.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, Drug War, economics, empire, latin america, military, neoconservatism, politics, power
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

Four presidential elections ago Democratic political-carnivore James Carville coined the phrase, “it’s the economy, stupid,” to denote Papa Bush’s failure to properly address the 1992 recession. The senior Bush was the idiot then… but all of us, Americans, may be jointly the idiot now. And maybe we shouldn’t be talking about a recession, but a true depression. You know, like back in the 30’s, with our McMansions but without apples.

It’s a natural human instinct: to narrow things down, to simplify things. And even people with extensive education and high professional stature succumb to any facile answers to the most difficult and intricate questions. Right now in this United States we seem to have major trouble accepting the “R” word when it is really the “D” word that should be worrying us. No, the economy is not just simply slowing down; it is tanking!

In the past year I’ve attended more than half dozen banks-sponsored presentations for their business customers (my clients) about the state of the economy – international, national and regional/local. A long time ago I reached the conclusion that most bank economists are but meaningless window dressing with no other value; after my latter experiences, I am now totally convinced.

At these state-of-the-economy breakfasts, during the closing “questions and answers” set aside period, I have been posing for all of three years the same questions dealing with the out-of-control real estate “fake market” and the parallel “bubblicious” stock market based on a totally unsustainable consumption-through-credit rate of growth. Questions to which I have been receiving the same idiotic stock answers; answers that you get to hear monotonously and often from the blokes and broads at CNBC: “Heck, our real estate prices aren’t really that high, only 4 or 5 times the annual household income; and that’s really comparable or even lower than the ratios in most European nations, where they can get as high as 7 times.” Also, they dismiss an overvaluation in world stock markets, perhaps of 5 to 10 trillion dollars, by saying that it isn’t much when measured against a combined world markets’ valuation of around 60 trillion dollars.

Aren’t we able to see that grotesque rationalization by our cadre of not very bright economists, Wall Street bulls-on-steroids, and don’t-give-a-damn politicians? Our socio-political system, unlike that of Canada, Europe or Japan, does not cater to the well-being of people – or at least not as much, as we see other nations with free higher education, universal healthcare, great public transportation systems and many other perks we don’t have – so a housing ratio comparison is totally out of place, absurd. If the Europeans are putting 40 percent of their income into housing, we probably should be aiming at nothing higher than 25 to 30 percent.

And it isn’t the crookedness of the sub-prime fiasco that got us here, but a runaway upsurge in values that had less to do with the workings of a free economy – the forces of supply and demand – and much more to do with greed… in great part selfishly promoted by the real estate industry itself. So here we are 2 or 3 trillion dollars in overvalued housing, some of it already spent in past consumption (equity loans), the rest in the pockets of crooks, house-flippers and agents who benefited from unnecessary, unwarranted commissions. A properly structured capital gains tax on short term real estate profits would have prevented this second onerous tulip festival.

As for that present valuation of 60 trillion dollars for the world stock markets… what would that value be if earnings decline by 25, 50 or 75 percent (something which a depression would bring about in short order); 45, 30, 15 trillion dollars (using same price/earnings ratio)… what then? Haven’t we in the US come to the end of the road as we consume more than we produce? Our grandkids can no longer collateralize our borrowing, and China is not likely to go along banking our diminishing-value dollars.

Americans have taken Norman Vincent Peal’s power of positive thinking several degrees beyond rationality. The made in America “something for nothing” syndrome, which has given us multi-level marketing and other get-rich-quick schemes have seen their day… even with the spiritual backing of those Christian mega churches that promote the Gospel of Greed instead of espousing a Love Thy Neighbor doctrine.

Uncontrolled predatory corporate practices, untaxed individual greed, and unrestrained consumer gluttony, together, are bringing this economy to its knees. Now, after the fact, the partner-in-crime government wants to bring about the establishment of some market controls… overhaul the system, they say; that after lower- and middle-class America have been fleeced – although the final realization of “poverty” is a few months away.

Well, we could all ask Dick Cheney to summarize the state of this predatory economy. Of course, we should expect another of his customary in-your-face responses: “so”?

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, corporations, corporatism, economics, economy, government
Categories: Commentary, Economics, government, Corporations, Ben Tanosborn
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

 Change… holy change!  If only we could be blessed with a light rain from the heavens that would wash away our prejudices, greed and dissipating wastefulness.  Cleansed, Americans could then become one whole people instead of the many fractions that now make up this nation of diversity; diversity not just in people but also in rights, hopes and expectations.
 

Let there be no mistake, ours is a nation where indignation and ill will run much deeper than we would like to believe, or dare broadcast for everyone to hear; and it is these real life-size grievances never addressed fully or with candor – not just imagined ones – that prevent us from attaining national cohesiveness.  Instead, all we have done from time immemorial is to lie to ourselves and to others… just by adding patches.  Ours has never been a Fourth of July America, the one that our state department sells to the world, but a nation which has provided both: opportunity for some to realize a so-called American dream and, for others, the condemnation to relive an American nightmare.
 

Patches that cover up the problems of race, economic inequality and wantonly obscene self-indulgence are constantly being affixed to the American psyche as if telling us all that everything is fine with no reason to worry or complain.  So truth is patched with lies time and again, as we are all asked to join in that proud chorus of “God Bless America,”  an America that really belongs to a few, although most of us are deceived into adopting it as our very own.  And the bullshit builds up, as do the patches, until the boiling cauldron overflows… then, the patches temporarily disappear and we come to blows.
 

Last week the media did its thing, and presented us with a reverend Wright made to look more like an irreverent Wrong exalting his black congregation with a blasphemous  “God Damn America.”  No American flag pin adorning his clerical garb, just words of anger and rancor coming from his mouth.  An embittered Christian pastor who tells it like he sees it… and that for tens of millions is really the America they live in and not the mythical America that we seem to be patriotically proud of.  By so doing, Rev. Wright created political problems for a member of his flock, Senator Barack Obama, and his quest for the Democratic nomination… and the chance to occupy the White House.
 

Obama’s denunciation of Rev. Wright was one of form as well as substance, but it did appear as a conditional denunciation to the existing racial problems that still afflict this nation.  And that is something that most conservative Americans just don’t tolerate… it has to be an unconditional denunciation, and total adherence to the philosophy that “America does no wrong,” or it’s no denunciation at all.
 

Even if one questions Obama’s path and ability to bring real change to America, he does appear as a person of reason and honor… unlike most other politicians; and that, of course, will hurt his chances of being nominated by his party; and, if nominated, of being elected.  After all, he’ll be portrayed as just a letter away from the founding father of Al Qaeda.  The lies and denigration against aspiring-president Obama will be in full force and the fascist bloodhounds will be combing the woods and the marshes looking for that half-Negro terrorist who dares tell us that we have racial problems to solve.  It has already started.  In this morning local paper, The Oregonian, an uncalled for salvo was dishonorably discharged by a reader: “Barack Obama stands by Rev. Wright with glee.  President he should not be.”  Jubilant delight not from Obama but from the Rovesque nincompoop who wrote such trash!  But that’s what the senator will get, non-stop, if and when he receives the Democratic nomination to run against John McCain.
 

Black rage in America is real, very real, even if it remains patched.  The American judicial-prison system is a disgrace, one which affects blacks uniquely and disproportionately, as do other institutions.  When Mainstream White America, the America that controls power, fails to address these problems, should people act surprised if criminal trials really become political trials, such as O.J. Simpson’s or Mumia Abu-Jamal’s?
 

We have only touched on racial resentment – which affects more than just blacks – but it applies with an ever increasing force to the broadening economic inequality and the accelerating disappearance of the middle class.  Racial and economic rage affecting the “Other America” is likely to grow in the next few years attaining super-majority status to demand drastic social, economic and political change in this land of ours.   
 

It is not double vision that makes us see two Americas… it is only political blindness that makes us see only one.  Distance between the two Americas needs to be dramatically narrowed or we shall continue to remain the United States of Resentment, and not the United States of America we should strive to be.

     

Tags: american dream, Ben Tanosborn, corporations, economics, Global, government, National, politics, Social Change
Categories: Commentary, National, Global, Economics, government, Politics, Corporations, Social Change, Ben Tanosborn
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn