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JANUARY 15, 2004 - It is very simple when
you take away partisan spin or non-Moderate Independent media
corporate bias, to plainly lay out the current state of America’s
economy.
Personal bankruptcies, as reported just a few days
ago (see Washington Post story "US Consumer Debt Grows at Alarming Rate"), have
reached yet another all-time high. At the same time, consumer
debt has done the same, surpassing $2 trillion for the first time
ever.
And remember, this is just the personal debt and
does not include the government’s debt at all. The federal
government is running – yes, you guessed it – record deficits as
well.
Now, the entire Bush/Limbaugh Republican theory of
economics is trickle down – that the tax cuts he gave to wealthy
investors and businesses will trickle down and benefit everyone via
jobs. In fact, if you watch or read the
corporate-owned-and-operated non-M/I media, they are simply
reporting that this money that was given to the businesses and
wealthy investors has been received by the businesses and wealthy
investors, and, according to their reports, that this is a sign that
“the economy” is recovering. As proof, they offer the stock
markets’ advance. Then, in their next breath they say that job
growth is simply a lagging party of this “recovery,” but should
follow as things trickle down.
The reality is that the Bush/Limbaugh Republican
setup involves, as with their campaigning, a two-pronged
strategy. In campaigning, they not only shoot to get their
message out there as fully as possible to stop the Democrats from
being heard. With the economy, they not only seek to get money
to businesses and wealthy investors, but to ensure that it never,
ever has a chance to trickle down.
No, they didn’t mention that part of things, did
they? But their policy proposals make this very clear.
The rest of the media doesn’t put things together and reports spin
more than simple fact, but here is the M/I summary of President
Bush's recent economic proposals:
1) Eliminate overtime pay for workers who
make over $22,100. Yes, that means if you make $22,101, your
employer will, if this President Bush proposed initiative passes,
work you as many hours a week as he feels like without having to pay
any overtime whatsoever.
2) Rather than dealing with jobs going
overseas, President Bush proposes to bring cheap overseas labor over
here in unlimited numbers. His immigration proposal made his
point very clear: he wants cheap labor to be able to take jobs
away from Americans. By eliminating complex immigration rules
which prohibited foreign labor from pouring into the country and
taking jobs from Americans, President Bush is ensuring that American
employers do not have to offer wages that Americans can live on or
conditions that are reasonable, but instead can simply give away
jobs to people from other countries. And the best part is,
these immigrants don’t have to given anything, like citizenship, in
return.
In other words, employers, don’t worry, the money
we gave you never has to actually trickle down to American
workers. You want cheap labor, no hassles or attachment, you
can have it, American workers be screwed (and
unemployed.)
You don’t have to read tea leaves or guess what
sort of person George W. Bush is, as many media sources pretend you
have to do. All you have to do is look at the record and the
proposals.
No proposal has been put forth the actually help
American workers get jobs or encourage employers to hire, but
instead, one has been put forth to encourage employers to hire
non-Americans at ultra-low wages, and another to encourage employers
to get more work for less money out of employees, both hurting
actual wages and enabling employers to hire less employers since
they can get more work from those they employee for free.
So while the rest of the press keeps putting out
there that we are in recovery and jobs are just around the corner,
you see that not only are jobs not right on the horizon, but
President Bush is enacting policies directly to ensure employers
don’t hire Americans and cut the wages of those they do employ,
working them longer hours as well.
The message is clear: we will not let
anything trickle down.
And yet there are those who believe the trickle
down is just around the corner.
Fact: personal bankruptcies, all-time
high
Fact: consumer debt, all-time
high
Fact: another 300,000 people stopped looking
for work last month, while only 1,000 jobs were created – yet
President Bush stood up and said this was good news.
Fact: not only aren’t there incentives for
those who got the tax cut money to hire and share the wealth, but
there are disincentives.
Fact: the deficits – despite Dick Cheney’s
claim that they don’t matter – are a looming disaster, and truly the
only part of “trickle down” that is trickling down – trickling down
to the state and local level.
In addition, nothing is proposed to deal with the
death of pensions. Yes, you haven’t heard about this in the
non-M/I media, which only covers what the parties tell them to, but
this is a massive situation. Just people are starting to live
longer, companies are doing away with the old life-long pension that
retiring people could count on. This means that all people
will have when they retire is what money they happened to save (and
not lose in the market.) This is a looming disaster of
starving, homeless elderly like never before seen if nothing is done
about it. The President, nor the Democrats, have acknowledged
this issue with any proposals.
So yes, corporate profits are up – the tax cuts
handed them all sorts of money, which instead of using to hire
people, they simply held onto as profits. And, so, the stock
market is up.
But people are going entirely bankrupt in record
numbers and this problem is getting even worse as consumer debt hits
never-before-seen-levels.
How any media source in good conscience can report
the economy is, and has been, in “recovery” as debt, bankruptcies,
and deficits all reach record levels is beyond us at The Moderate
Independent.
What it comes down to is that the state of the
economy depends on your values. If you have purely corporate
values, you think the economy is in recovery. If you have
family values, you see that the economy is in horrible shape and
moving further in the wrong direction.
And it is the same for the economic/immigration
policies President Bush has put forth. If you have corporate
values, you see them as a wonderful boost to the bottom line.
If you have family values and care about America, you see them as a
direct roadblock to any potential recovery and an all out assault on
the American labor force. | 
