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But they are deeply concerned about the Federal deficit, as are Mr. Obama
and congressional democrats.
But again, why? The web of convenient fictions currently in play
amongst both democrats and republicans in Washington—corporate tax
cuts promote economic growth and job creation, government spending
‘crowds out’ more productive private sector spending, ‘excessive’
government debt will cause a financial market rebellion (bond vigilantes)
and handing social insurance programs to private market profiteers is
beneficial to the insured, are all demonstrably nonsense with only a
cursory look at ‘the evidence.’
Effective corporate tax rates are the lowest in modern history and job
creation, even before the economic calamity began in 2008, is the weakest
since the 1930s. As global warming caused by largely private production
and the predatory, dysfunctional private sector demonstrate on a daily
basis, the ‘efficiencies’ of private production come from cost shifting, not
by levels of human motivation intrinsic to capitalism. As QE is
demonstrating, the Federal Reserve can control both short and long term
interests rates—the ‘bond vigilantes’ are only in control when they provide
cover for private interests. And Barack Obama didn’t choose the ‘least
bad’ option with his healthcare ‘reform,’ he chose the private option to
which he is ideologically committed.
Without apparent irony, these convenient fictions are straight from
the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank playbooks circa
1980. While couched in the language of ‘economic development,’ IMF
policies were / are extractive, designed to exert control over political
economies and were / are tools of economic imperialism. The ‘austerity’
of IMF policies, cutting social spending to divert funds to service external
debt, was rarely accompanied by even the pretense it benefited those
whose social insurance programs were being looted. Cut to Mr. Obama
and Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi mirroring the Vietnam Warism that
to strengthen Social Security we must weaken it. Welcome to neo-Colonial
America.
Also without apparent irony, the neo-Keynesian wing of the
Democratic Party claims to have correctly analyzed current economic