I signed up to get a daily blurb from Salon via email about what's currently up on their site. Today's entry quickly led me to some articles with more than a little relevance to the sturm und drang vis a vis America's economic malaise. (Okay, I'll try to cut back now on the over-literary phrasing.) They deserve a look, before they get shoved into the background too far.
The big story of the day is the President's speech tonight. The end of active combat by American Forces in Iraq is a big deal - as promised and ahead of schedule. I'll be even happier when all of our forces can leave, seeing as how I have an actively serving member of the military in my family. And if we can figure out how to get out of Afghanistan without a bloodbath or other debacle, that will be even more amazing. The historic record on that is not good for outsiders....
Nonetheless, good news from the war is not enough to make up for the fact that we're continuing to lose the peace here at home. (more below the jump)
We continue to lose the peace because the White House and most DC establishment Democrats still don't realize that America is being strip-mined out from under us in the name of 'free enterprise' aka unbridled corporatism. The concept of government actually trying to run the country and solve real problems for real people has been left for dead. When the President appoints people like this and this to try to come up with an approach to the economic problems facing this country, you really have to wonder who he thinks he's dealing with. (Here's a hint - people who think this is the truth. And don't even look at these guys!) We spent four years mocking George W. Bush for making up his own reality and living in a bubble. Maybe it wasn't W at all - maybe it's a condition of being President.
But enough ranting. I promised to point up some worthwhile reading over at Salon, and will now do so. If you don't mind clicking through the obligatory Salon ad, follow the links on over for the entire articles.
Joan Walsh in Obama Just Doesn't Get It does a much better job than I of examining the President's embrace of the debt/deficit framing the GOP is using to box him in, and his curious detachment from what's the far bigger issue for most people: massive long term persistent unemployment.
...I've heard some smart folks speculate that the White House may even welcome a Republican takeover, the better to "let Obama be Obama," and continue to play out his fantasy of being a Democratic Ronald Reagan, creating a generation of what he used to call "Obamacans" and realigning politics for his lifetime.
If anyone in the White House still believes that, they are delusional. If Republicans win back the House, they will tie up the president in subpoenas and bogus investigations faster than you can say Darrell Issa. The president hasn't created "Obamacans"; instead he's created a phenomenon best described as "Obamacan't." And still he cozies up to Republicans like Alan Simpson, who's determined to slash Social Security and its "310,000,000 tits" (in how many ways was Simpson's statement wrong? Probably close to 310 million). And the problem with Obama's milquetoast approach to the economy isn't just political: If Republicans get to reverse or obstruct the Democrats' inadequate but promising steps forward on healthcare and financial reform, while slashing government spending and extending the disastrous Bush tax cuts, we may yet see an economic collapse to rival the Great Depression -- the one that an earlier generation of brave and visionary Democrats vowed would never happen again.
Meanwhile, Robert Reich plaintively tries to remind us of how things used to work, before Reagan's Big Lie became the accepted truth for an entire generation of Americans who have never heard different from; "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Reich counters with Why a civil society extends unemployment benefits.
Tonight it was Harvard Professor Robert Barro, who opined in today’s Wall Street Journal that America’s high rate of long-term unemployment is the consequence rather than the cause of today’s extended unemployment insurance benefits.
In theory, Barro is correct. If people who lose their jobs receive generous unemployment benefits they might stay unemployed longer than if they got nothing. But that’s hardly a reason to jettison unemployment benefits or turn our backs on millions of Americans who through no fault of their own remain jobless in the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Yet moral hazard lurks in every conservative brain. It’s also true that if we got rid of lifeguards and let more swimmers drown, fewer people would venture into the water. And if we got rid of fire departments and more houses burnt to the ground, fewer people would use stoves. A civil society is not based on the principle of tough love.
emphasis added
Civility, alas, is a quality much lacking in modern discourse. Reich goes into a bit more depth explaining why the 'tough love' approach simply does not apply here. (It certainly didn't when Bush was setting up TARP to bail out Wall Street! But that's another story.)
Finally, for those not afraid of a little science, Andrew Leonard looks at how China has effectively locked up control of some critical resources - and why this is a serious problem for us and the rest of the world.The rare earth element big squeeze illustrates why total conservative antipathy to anything approaching an effective industrial policy by the U.S. government is one of the major failings of blind adherence to 'free market' ideology.
...Rare earth elements are critical to advanced military technologies, computer and cellphone hardware, hybrid car batteries and wind turbine magnets. In other words, if you were going to target an industry crucial to dominating key technologies of the 21st century, rare earth element processing would be near the top of the list.
The U.S. used to be self-sufficient in both the supply and processing of rare earth elements. But today, China is far and way the dominant player at all stages of the supply chain -- and the United States has zero capability for processing the most important minerals. The difference between the two countries? China realized the strategic importance of rare earth elements very early on and directed significant state resources to their development. But when Chinese overproduction crashed world prices in the 1980s and 1990s, American companies abandoned the industry. Now the best guess is that it would require ten to fifteen years for the U.S. to reestablish the domestic infrastructure for processing rare earth element ores into usable materials.
emphasis added
In a companion piece, How G.M. helped China to world magnet domination, Leonard picks up the tale from David Cay Johnston of how the very same GM that just got bailed out by the government (a rare example of government acting against the Reagan doctrine) turned over critical technology to the Chinese, in a classic example of crony capitalism at work.
Once upon a time, the U.S. did make neodymium magnets. A subsidiary of General Motors called Magnequench pumped them out, and employed 260 people to do so.
Then in 1995 the automaker decided to sell the division. Because the deal was for only $70 million it attracted little attention. The buyer was a consortium of three firms led by the Sextant Group, an investment company whose principal was Archibald Cox Jr., the son of the Watergate special prosecutor whom President Richard M. Nixon famously fired.
In the few press reports Sextant got most of the notice, but the real parties behind the purchase were a pair of Chinese companies -- San Huan New Material High-Tech Inc. and China National Nonferrous Metals. Both firms were partly owned by the Chinese government. The heads of these two Chinese companies are the husbands of the first and second daughters of Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader of China.
And there you go. A few articles from Salon to remember when the cry from Right AND supposed "Left" is for the government to cut back and get out of the way of the 'free' enterprise system so that market forces can create jobs, restore industry, and get America moving. What they tend to gloss over is one teeny tiny little flaw in that argument.
The 'free' enterprise system and market forces don't give a damn about creating jobs, restoring industry, or getting America moving. They only thing they are about is generating profit, as soon as possible, as large as possible. Anyone who says differently is either deluded or is trying to sell you something.
It would be nice if the President had concluded his speech tonight by saying something along the lines of:
"But now as our troops are returning from Iraq, and our efforts to achieve meaningful progress continue in Afghanistan, we must not forget that there is work to be done at home. We need to give our returning troops an America where there are good paying jobs and a strong middle class again if they are to truly enjoy the rewards for their many sacrifices. It is past time to turn the same determination and level of resources the government uses to defend our country abroad to rebuilding our economy at home."
Too bad it didn't happen.