Now that most economists, our government, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street Barons, and our ignorant and shallow 24/7 info-entertainment Media pundits have pronounced that the recession is over, there are no more excuses. For all those people still lounging around on unemployment benefits, given up looking, or working at temporary and part-time jobs, get off your lazy duffs.
There are no more excuses. Take Responsibility. You only have yourself to blame that you’re not successful and wealthy. You only have to think of your goals and they will be yours. These are some of the worthless shibboleths hurled at people in economic, financial or employment distress. They are part of our bankrupt Calvinist and Puritan ethics but being fundamentally wrong doesn’t mean they can’t dictate the relationship between Americans for decades beyond their actual usefulness.
These economic and social paradigms were created by some in our society to deflect the responsibility and blame from those who have the lion’s fault for our national mess: The greedy wealthy who inherited their fortunes, our timid and clueless political class, those lucky ones who struck it rich but forget that their success was due to the help of others and good fortune, and our financial and banking sector that created the greatest Ponzi scheme in over 80 years that fell apart due to greed, hubris, incompetence and arrogance. They actually had the unabashed callousness and mean-spiritedness to blame the poor in Cleveland and Detroit for starting the whole real estate mortgage meltdown.
With official unemployment continuing to rise unabated, despite all the statistical tricks of overlooking millions of people whose benefits have expired, given up looking for work when there are 6 applicants to every open job, or taken menial part-time work outside their experience and education levels, many individuals who are responsible for running our society, economic and political system, and many of our private enterprises are completely unable to feel empathy, understanding, or compassion for anyone but themselves unless they happen to be touched personally. Then they get all excited about a few narrow charities that deal only with the issues faced by their families and friends. In this manner they do not have to address the larger systemic and nationwide disasters this country continues to ignore.
There will be many in our society who will start over with their discredited economic and political theories as if they were not completely discredited by the events of the past two years that they also completely failed to anticipate. Now with this stunning recovery underway, we don’t need more federal stimulus spending to create new jobs but more tax cuts for the wealthy because they’re leading us out of this recession. We should cut back government spending unless it for national military escapades around the globe that perpetually prop-up our corrupt and wasteful military-industrial complex. We don’t need more spending on education because the best will always succeed without governmental assistance. We don’t need global environmental and national financial regulations because that would hurt the businesses that we need to continue this phenomenal recovery. We don’t really need meaningful healthcare reform because we can’t risk changing anything that might impede our great economic recovery.
For those members of the poor and middle class in our country who have yet to see any governmental assistance or employment prospects, you don’t deserve anything because you really are not important to the wealthiest and most powerful people in our country. Shocked? Well wake up and smell the manure you’ve been given and have happily eaten for decades.
Americans should be happy that Paris Hilton and her narcissistic bevy of co-celebrities have not suffered at all during this minor recession. Go ahead, vote for Republicans in 2010. They won’t change this national paradigm but skew it even further towards the wealthy. Don’t you remember the prior 8 years of George W. Bush and the previous 30 years when Republicans controlled the White House, The Congress, or Both? The winners in 2010 will be those who amass the greatest campaign war chests – the corporate Democrats and Republicans – aided by the fact that more than half of Americans don’t even bother to vote in Mid-term elections.
The dollar’s decline will have many unforeseen benefits. It certainly will increase our global competitiveness if the Chinese do not continue to manipulate their currency and trade policies unfairly. Our economic, political and military influence and responsibility for global events will not constantly drain our national attention and coffers to the detriment of addressing our internal needs. Higher oil prices will spur alternative energy development and more conservation so we do not have to be constantly pre-occupied by crazy autocratic regimes that sit over oil reserves and extreme religious anger toward the West.
Higher oil prices will increase global transportation costs rendering the manufacture of consumer products and business goods more economically viable back in our country closer to the ultimate customers. Permanently tighter credit will eliminate most irresponsible and financially worthless investments in favor of those that may make the most long-term economic and social sense. Other countries will lessen their dollar holdings transferring the full responsibility of our national debt and future deficit spending upon our own citizens who will finally have to make the hard choices on taxation and the government we want and can afford. Being a lesser power, we might stand up for our national interests more aggressively than when we were responsible for the entire globe.
As President Obama took office, he was handed a CIA report outlining the steady military, economic and political decline of the U.S. that will take place over the next 2 decades. This collapse is happening even faster than they predicted. We can only hope that our President guides us towards a soft landing. We must psychologically accept our future national roles as a former global empire responsibly addressing its internal challenges and cooperating on global issues as just one major player in a multi-polar world dominated by a half dozen countries other than ourselves.
Marc Pascal
N.B. I actually prefer a newer spelling for the word paradigm with its useless silent “g” to match how it is pronounced today: “Paradyme.”