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STOP WISHFUL THINKING / WE'RE IN A SEVERE BUSH DEPRESSION
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Beyond poor employment numbers over 8 years, George W. Bush redefined the quality of American jobs but the full extent of his disastrous legacy is just now being felt.
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Stop wishful thinking, we're in a severe Bush initiated Depression and unless Obama stops bailing out Wall Street and starts propping up Main Street ~ it will rapidly become an Obama Depression particularly if he tries to inflate the same debt bubble that just burst : Allen L Roland
As Layoffs begin to spread through out the entire economic sector ~ wishful thinking is rapidly being replaced by the stark realization that we are in a major Bush initiated Depression.
Compounding the problem is the fact that our Depression, like a malignant cancer, is spreading across the Pacific Ocean to the booming Asian economies.
Martin Weiss, Money and Markets, predicted this economic tsunami some time ago and states the facts ~ " It’s no secret that America’s unemployment crisis is spinning wildly out of control ...
FACT #1: More than 2.6 million families lost a paycheck in 2008. That brought the total number of unemployed workers to over 11 million ~ fully 74% as many as were unemployed inThe Great Depression.
FACT #2: This great lost paycheck pandemic is still accelerating. One year ago ~ in January 2008 ~ an average of 1,000 U.S. workers lost their paychecks every workday. By December of last year, 28,727 paychecks vanished per workday ~ nearly 29 times more.
FACT #3: Obama warns more jobs may be lost than in The Great Depression. This crisis is still in its early stages. President Obama himself has warned that the unemployment rate will explode to at least 10% in 2009. If he’s right, more than 15 million workers will be without a job ~ more, even than during the depths of The Great Depression.
And even these sobering facts don’t begin to fully describe the financial pain about to be felt by millions of American families ... " http://images.moneyandmarkets.com/reports/Event/CC/header32.gif
Reinflating the same debt bubble is not the answer but, as Paul Craig Roberts writes ~ " The growth of debt has outpaced the growth of real output. Yet, the solution offered by Obama’s economic team is to expand debt further. This is not surprising as Obama’s economic team consists of the very people who brought on the debt crisis. Now they are going to make it worse. " http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21813.htm
Bailing out banks is not the answer either as Lynnley Browning writes last week in the New York Times ~ " Many of the largest United States corporations, including big banks now receiving federal bailout money, operate scores of subsidiaries in offshore tax havens that may let them evade or defer their tax bills, according to a government study released Friday ... The study, by the Government Accountability Office, singled out Citigroup as having 427 subsidiaries in offshore havens like the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and Switzerland. Bank of America has 115 subsidiaries in offshore havens, while Morgan Stanley has 273, the report said." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/business/17tax.html
Here's a simple example of how we could move Obama's stimulus plan from Wall Street to Main street. Obama plans to give a one time only $300 dollar rebate to each social security participant as part of his stimulus plan. Why not make it a permanent $300 dollar monthly increase to every social security participant, retroactive to January 1st, which would inject an extra $3600 dollars this year into each senior consumer's hands and would have a dramatic effect on consumer spending. Consumers, especially seniors, don't want more credit ~ they want more cash.
Senior Social security beneficiaries have long been unfairly and blatantly used by the Bush administration so why not have Obama use them to trigger consumer spending with a well deserved bonus. If it wasn't for social security, over 50% of all seniors would be in poverty and what a signal this action would send to main street.
That's the type of dramatic Main Street action that's needed if Obama hopes to restore consumer trust and faith in our government and economy. If he instead plays the same old debt game the Bush Depression will soon be an Obama Depression and he will lose his mandate in the 2010 midterm elections.
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/01/27.html
Freelance Online columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews and speaking engagements ( allen@allenroland.com )
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
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