Outta the box solutions for the New Millenium
How outta the box will the Obama-ites be when the "new" Sec. of Treasury is Geithner, who is an acolyte of worldclass failures/thieves Rubin & Summers? And doesn't Larry "Far from Harvard" Summers also, gulp, have a big job in the Obama Tsunami? Who's to be the new head of The Fed? Or will it still be Ben "Burned in September" Bernanke?
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about the way WWII was the only thing which bailed us outta the Depression (tho the WPA guys took some nice pics and recorded some lovely folk music). By the way, the stock market was flat during and AFTER WWII and didn't start climbing till the '50's despite all the employment and consumption & production of the '40's. This may have been because progressive income taxes were so formidable that the rich couldn't pump up the market until they stopped paying at 92% (top margin in '45). In those days, after all, the market had not yet been democratized and was mostly for Richie Riches. Now it's like a big family oriented Vegas casino whose tilted tables stoop to rip off even the middle and lower middleclasses (in the form of 201K's,* severed pension funds, etc) along with the Chinee highrollers.
At least in the 1930's we still had all those shuttered factories, ready to jump back into life after Hitler blitzkrieged Poland. Now we're more hollowed out than that. The Rust Belt is rusted, busted, and dismantled. All those folks trying to survive as greeters at Wal-Mart will never be on the assemblyline again. Those lines are in China. And those greeters are average age 82. What would a recovered American economy, productive again, even LOOK like? Service providers taking their jobs back from Bangaloreans? I don't think so. The outsourcing is gnawing even higher on the employment foodchain these days. American programmers may soon be fry cooks. Hell, even diagnosticians won't be able to get their patients back from the Indians. What DO Americans who aren't cops, teachers, soldiers, nurses, pols, bureaucrats, prison guards, do for a living these days? Does ANYbody actually MAKE ANYthing any more? Or will they ever again? I mean besides a few hotshot movie stars? And maybe even the stars may soon become CGE pixels. And please don't say we'll all be assemblying solar panels and other green shit. Even if we DO buy a whole new generation of green cars and supersaver a.c.'s those babies will be manufactured in Seoul & Shanghai. And what will we buy the new green gizmos with? $ borrowed from Chinese & Indians? Or will we swap California for them?
All I can picture is a geriatric population nursed by legions of immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America. America: from Super Power to just plain Super-annuated. From Home of the Brave to Brave New Mega-Nursing Home.
*soon to be 101K's
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about the way WWII was the only thing which bailed us outta the Depression (tho the WPA guys took some nice pics and recorded some lovely folk music). By the way, the stock market was flat during and AFTER WWII and didn't start climbing till the '50's despite all the employment and consumption & production of the '40's. This may have been because progressive income taxes were so formidable that the rich couldn't pump up the market until they stopped paying at 92% (top margin in '45). In those days, after all, the market had not yet been democratized and was mostly for Richie Riches. Now it's like a big family oriented Vegas casino whose tilted tables stoop to rip off even the middle and lower middleclasses (in the form of 201K's,* severed pension funds, etc) along with the Chinee highrollers.
At least in the 1930's we still had all those shuttered factories, ready to jump back into life after Hitler blitzkrieged Poland. Now we're more hollowed out than that. The Rust Belt is rusted, busted, and dismantled. All those folks trying to survive as greeters at Wal-Mart will never be on the assemblyline again. Those lines are in China. And those greeters are average age 82. What would a recovered American economy, productive again, even LOOK like? Service providers taking their jobs back from Bangaloreans? I don't think so. The outsourcing is gnawing even higher on the employment foodchain these days. American programmers may soon be fry cooks. Hell, even diagnosticians won't be able to get their patients back from the Indians. What DO Americans who aren't cops, teachers, soldiers, nurses, pols, bureaucrats, prison guards, do for a living these days? Does ANYbody actually MAKE ANYthing any more? Or will they ever again? I mean besides a few hotshot movie stars? And maybe even the stars may soon become CGE pixels. And please don't say we'll all be assemblying solar panels and other green shit. Even if we DO buy a whole new generation of green cars and supersaver a.c.'s those babies will be manufactured in Seoul & Shanghai. And what will we buy the new green gizmos with? $ borrowed from Chinese & Indians? Or will we swap California for them?
All I can picture is a geriatric population nursed by legions of immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America. America: from Super Power to just plain Super-annuated. From Home of the Brave to Brave New Mega-Nursing Home.
*soon to be 101K's
posted by mobydoug at 7:27 AM
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