How the System Works

The rich can afford to hire people to look after their interests. In fact most of the big institutions of society really are mainly concerned with making sure that the interests of the rich are met. Meanwhile, everybody else has to look after themselves. This is hard when you are busy earning a living and taking care of house and home.

Paul Krugman illustrates how the rich manage the system so that their interests "win" over the long run. This is from a posting on his NY Times blog:

I am not happy about plans to create an independent deficit-reduction commission. I’ll have more to say later on, but right now let me just remind you about what happened with the last serious effort to do this kind of independent-commission stuff, the Greenspan commission on Social Security. It was a game of three-card monte:

1. The Greenspan commission recommends tax increases on working-class Americans, plus some benefit cuts, even as Reagan is cutting taxes on the rich. But these tax increases, you see, are dedicated to Social Security.

2. In 2001, with the US budget in surplus — almost entirely because of the surplus in Social Security — Greenspan warns that we’re paying off our debt too fast, and calls for tax cuts (which mainly favor the rich, of course)

3. A few years later, with the budget back in deficit, Greenspan calls for, you guessed it, cuts in Social Security.

More broadly, you can’t solve big policy issues with an independent commission unless there is some kind of agreement among a wide range of people about general values, economic philosophy, etc.. And right now there isn’t.

Yesterday's Republican Senate seat win in Massachusetts demonstrate how quickly people lose track of who really represents their interests. I have no knowledge of this Democratic candidate Coakley or how inept her politicking was, but unless she was absolutely corrupt the people of Massachusetts (and the rest of the US) would have been far, far better off with electing her to sustain whatever legislative agenda the idiot Obama is trying to put forward than to put another obstructionist Republican in office. I'm depressed.

Another thing bothering me this morning is the worry that the US is heading into a double dip recession. If you look at the Great Depression it looks a lot like what we are getting right now, i.e. false "dawns" and lots of "slips" back into recession. And then too the politicians haggled and did little constructive while things got worse. It is all just so pathetic.

Back to the theme of voting and the American public...

Here's a bit from an article in the Christian Science Monitor by Michael Corcoran that salvages the only hope from the mess of a rightward drifting USA:

As a Massachusetts voter, I was not happy to see Scott Brown win the Senate seat that Ted Kennedy held for 47 years. The loss is no doubt a huge boon for conservatives, a monumental embarrassment for Democrats across the nation, and a massive political problem for progressives.

The election, however, does offer a silver lining. The Democrats can no longer pretend they are on the right track. Indeed, the end of the “supermajority” held by the Democrats held in the Senate may force them to fight – boldly – for serious change. If they do not, they will be unable to fend off this effective populist, right-wing movement, which now has all the momentum going into the midterm elections this November.

The Democrats should use this moment to make a sea change in their strategy and move in a far more populist, progressive direction on healthcare, jobs, and financial regulation.

In the past year, the Democrats have shunned their base. These loyal liberals donated sweat, time, and money to elect President Obama and helped cement large majorities in both chambers of Congress. Yet within days of his historic victory, Mr. Obama started keeping his base – and more important, its progressive goals – at arm’s length.

Obama’s appointments were the first ominous signs of the troubled direction he would take with his administration. His choice for chief of staff was the first mistake: progressives have long disliked the centrist Rahm Emanuel. His appointment of a group of Wall Street insiders who had ties to the financial crisis – most notably Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the director of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers – was another major mistake.

Obama’s team has acted predictably. They have been woefully soft on banks, having failed to pass any meaningful financial regulation.

There is enough rumbling among the left, Obama has no excuses. He has to stop playing footsie with the Republicans and start governing for the majority of Americans.

Or, as this Corcoran goes on to say:

But the need for 60 votes is a myth; Bush never enjoyed an 18-seat majority in the Senate – as the Democrats do now – and he passed several radical pieces of legislation. The 60 vote rationale is now irrelevant, and Democrats can aim to pass much better healthcare reform through reconciliation, which requires only 51 votes (or 50, so long as Vice President Joe Biden votes to break a tie). This means a public option and Medicare expansion can be put back on the table.

Obama should go after the big banks aggressively, with effective new regulations, limits on executive pay, and a strong consumer protection agency led by Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren. This is both greatly needed and likely to please voters who do not make common cause with the bankers, who are pulling in huge profits while many Americans suffer. Obama should also work to pass a new Keynesian jobs bill that makes up for the inadequate one passed in 2009.