I’m presently reading “Bad Money” by Kevin Phillips who, in my mind, is one of the best republicans out there – although, I’m guessing he no longer chooses to be associated with the republican party.  The guy is brilliant, although his books are very tedious to me when I read them because they are so “heavy.”  This is the fourth or fifth book I’ve read on America’s economy and the meltdown of 2008 and it further convinces me that without drastic change this nation is headed for second class status in the not too distant future.  In fact, Phillips kind of parallels the decline of other “empires” to support the point that we, in America, are unknowingly repeating the history of the Dutch, the British, and other empires that have come before us.  I haven’t internalized the information in this book, and probably won’t, but his point about the decline of America seems even more real to me as I’m trudging through the pages.  I love this country and I wish I could say I thought he was “full of it,” but, I believe Phillps will be doing a lot of “I told you so-ing” somewhere down the road.  His reward for his brilliance?  I’m guessing he is persona non grata in the repubican circles where he once was a stalwart.

I wrote a bit about this in my last post – and, I’m not sure how much sense I made because all of this economic stuff is very hard for me to understand.  The collaterized debt obligations, the mortgage backed securities, the asset backed securities, the credit default swaps (and other “swaps”) all seem to go over my head.  All of these instruments (I believe it was Joseph Stiglitz who called them “weapons of mass deception”) played a significant role in the undermining of the American economy during the Bush administration – and, failure to better understand what they are and what they’ve done, in my view, would simply be stupid.  In fact, I believe many of our politicians aren’t reading the books available, because “Bad Money” originally came out prior to the 2008 meltdown (although the recession was “under way” despite the denials of Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and other economists leading the way during the last of the Bush “years”) and Phillips (along with people like Joseph Stiglitz – and others) were warning about the bursting of the housing “bubble” long before it happened.

It’s as if somewhere along the line Wall Street determined that instead of producing “things” America could base its economy on producing “wealth.”  And, from their perspective, I’m sure they believe they’ve done and are continuing to do a very good job of this.  The average working “stiff” who’s pension plan is in a shambles, or is out of work with no “light at the end of the tunnel” apparently is just collateral damage.  Of course, the American public was largely aware of what was happening which led to the election of Barack Obama and a significant majority of democrats to the congress in 2008.  To say the ANGER has ramped up because the democratic solution to the economic crisis was a half response is an understatement in my view.  Most of the public is aware of the “anger” on the “right” – hence the “tea party” – because there is a concerted effort on the part of the “liberal media” (for those of you who’ve not been to this site – some of my prior posts explain how somehow “conservatives” are controlling this “liberal” media) to put these whackos on the news or the front pages of the papers.  But, make no mistake about the fact that there is a SIGNIFICANT amount of ANGER on the left.  Anger at the republicans – to be sure – this has been gaining steam since GW Bush lied us into Iraq – but, also anger at the tepid response to the misdeeds of these republicans by the democrats elected to reverse the wrongs committed by Bush/Cheney et al.  So, the republicans “got off” for their illegal behavior thanks to democrats wanting to avoid the “distraction” of holding them accountable and Wall Street is continuing to operate as if creating wealth from wealth is productive – as I’ve pointed out here many times since Obama’s inauguration; Business as usual!

Well, why wouldn’t producing wealth from wealth be productive you might ask?  The stock market has recovered almost half of what it lost after the near collapse of the entire financial sector of our (and the world’s) economy.  Companies like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, etc. are back to reporting BILLION dollar earnings – per QUARTER.  All should be well, right?  I guess the question I have, and I believe Phillips would have along with Stiglitz (and many other economists, I’m sure) is what is the next “bubble” and when is it going to burst?  How many “bubbles” have to burst before the people running this country decide it really is the time for “the change we can believe in?”

One of the things that has perturbed “progressives” (liberals if you must) has been Barack Obama’s proclivity for throwing in to republicans with hardly a whimper of a fight.  Recently, there have been signs that maybe Obama is “getting it” and realizing that we are in a fight for the very “heart” of this nation.  I believe it would have been so because of the obstructionist policies of republicans and the OBVIOUS FACT they have a problem with a Black person occupying the WHITE HOUSE! – But, the Citizens United Supreme Court decision only made it clear how important this fight is.  And, the reality is that for the democrats to win the fight President Obama has to be leading the “charge.”  There is NO WAY they will win by campaigning away from Obama.  And, there’s NO WAY the democrats win if they continue to be fragmented to the point that they can’t defend their own positions in public against the barrage of attacks coming from the corporate right.  So it was doubly disappointing to hear the other day that Obama is already planning his negotiations with republicans after the midterms – almost as if a republican sweep of the upcoming elections will be a good thing.  Sometimes I honestly have to wonder who’s giving advice to our president!

For anyone who might read this and who doesn’t understand;  the “melding” of corporate interests with government is the foundation of fascist governments.  When you have a republican party marching in “lock step” – that is, there isn’t ONE OF THEM that I’m aware of who has the courage to speak out against the racist, authoritarian positions being put forth by one republican leader after another – especially this crew that call themselves the “tea party,” you have to wonder where their accusations of fascist or communist aimed at Obama come from.  If you feel precluded to do so, look up the phase political projection – that should give you a good idea of what’s coming at us from the “right.”  

The other day I heard that Michelle Bachman was going to run for Speaker of the House if the republicans take over in November.  Can you even imagine that?  Do you know who that woman is?  What the hell is going on with our country?  In my heart I have to believe that the voters will speak in the election and put these people “out to pasture” where they belong – but, I’ve grown not to trust any aspect of the process anymore.  The voting machines?  Well, we know they could be rigged.  If you don’t believe me and the two election of GW Bush wasn’t enough to convince you, take the time to research the democratic primary in South Carolina this past spring.  The guy who won wasn’t even a viable candidate, didn’t campaign, didn’t have ANY money, and defeated a statewide known candidate who actually had a chance to compete against the republican in the general election.  One way to prevent the possibility that democrats retain their majority?  Rig the machines!  One democratic voter after another in South Carolina claimed, after the primary, that they tried to vote for the other candidate, but the machines wouldn’t let them.  Republican corporations own and operate the voting machines that are used around the country, and many of them leave absolutely NO “paper trail” – so that it is evidently impossible to prove the rigging of the machines – although, several groups have proved how easy it WOULD be to rig them.

Kevin Phillips points out very clearly that the United States is in decline and we apparently aren’t going to do anything about it until it’s too late.  What might happen you ask.  Well, I believe he’s trying to get our leaders to recognize how close we are to having the rest of the world abandon the dollar as the world’s main currency.  The world is watching us and they can’t believe what’s going on in America.  Bush/Cheney was too much for them as well as us.  But, if we vote in the same ilk again the saying “fool me once, shame on you – fool me twice, shame on me!” becomes totally relevant.  Countries who have resources we depend on are watching carefully at what our voters do.  If they decide to abandon the dollar, the US economy is in bigger trouble than it now seems.  Additionally, other world leaders are looking for America to assume it’s leadership role in many areas.  For example, if we elect a congress that believes global warming to be a hoax and refuses to address our HUGE outlay of fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere, many of them will do more than just shake their heads.  Remember, this is a truly global issue.  If we continue to treat the Muslim world as if they are ALL terrorists, our future looks dim (we can’t kill them all, we can’t defeat everyone in the world who doesn’t like us).  If we continue living beyond our means and consuming WAY MORE than we produce, we will be facing even more serious problems.  If our bankers on Wall Street continue to plague investors around the world with bogus investment instruments they will spend their money elsewhere.  America’s corporate interests are ripping off anyone and anything they can, including the American public, international investors, and America’s political system.  These corporations have teamed up with their foreign shareholders and officers to instigate an assault on the American political process, which, if successful – according to people like Kevin Phillips – will lead this nation to second class status in the world.

I’ll conclude this rant by pointing out that the American politicians have for years been “cheating” or “cooking the books” to make things look better to the American public than reality would suport – all the while losing the respect and willingness to cooperate of the world leaders who now control “the money.”  Inflation reporting has been “tweaked” in order to save the government money and make it look as if they are doing a better job managing the economy than we all know is true.  The dollar has been kept artificially “low” in order to make our exports (and our trade deficit) look better.  Two wars were waged with ALL THE MONEY kept off the books to make our deficit look smaller – and, ON AND ON.  In the mean time, “third world” countries (like Venezuela, Brazil, the middle eastern countries, etc.) with the natural resources America got so used to exploiting have nationalized their oil companies (and other natural resources) and have created “soveriegn wealth funds” with all the dollars we’re now spending for their expensive oil and other commodities.  Foreign leaders are beginning to look at our Wall Street Bankers and Hedge fund managers as “locusts” – according to Phillips’ book – and, they are beginning to “look elsewhere” for their investments.  The American voters started this drive toward “decline” when they voted in Ronald Reagan in 1980.  They exacerbated the problem with the election of George W Bush in 2000 (don’t get me totally wrong here, Bill Clinton was no saint as far as stopping this trend), and if they now turn to the “tea party” …… well, I think you can see where I’m (and possibly America) is going with this.