CAFTA, SS, Iraq, and Hard Work. I think I finally get the ownership society.

Worried about your job going overseas with the passage of a new trade agreement?
Worried that you could work for a lifetime and end up poor?
Worried about dependence on foreign oil?
Worried about the income tax burden shifting to the middle class?
Worried about trade deficits? The corporate media? The environment?
Worried that our leader shudders at the notion of hard work?

That's because you don't get it. Jobs are for suckers and income is a crutch.

I finally get it. It's okay to ship manufacturing jobs to Costa Rica, because
the stock is owned by Americans. If all the workers in Michigan who have been
laid off in the past twenty years had just accumulated enough wealth, they'd
be living high on the hog off their capital gains, instead of scraping by and
shopping at Wal-Mart. Which they can still afford to do, because all the
jobs that have been taken by low-wage workers in China and the rest of the Far
East lead to low prices (along with tremendous profits for the good old
American family that owns it).

Sure, we've got a trade imbalance, but that's just because it doesn't make any
sense for us to make any stuff. In this new American Century, it's
an American World, the developing countries are just share-cropping.

You might say that becoming a nation of landlords would leave us vulnerable, that
we should still have our own domestic supplies of stuff. For instance, we ceased to
produce enough oil quite a while ago, and now we're subject to the whims of OPEC.
Well... You still don't get it. We don't want to be a country that produces oil,
we want to be a country that owns a country that produces oil.

And I say country in a figurative sense, as our government shouldn't really be
in the business of owning stuff. Government is really much more the business of
Business than Business is the business of Government. And if we'd all just stop with
the income and start with the wealth, the government wouldn't be able to own anything.
The government won't need to regulate anything either. Disputes between what's
good for shareholders and what's in the public interest will simply disappear
once the public are all shareholders.

There will be no disconnect between what the corporate media wants to say and
what you want to know once we are all the corporate media.

Life will be fine once the consumers own the means of production.

One last thing...
Who, you might ask, will support you in your utopic life of leisure?
If nobody works and everyone just owns stuff, Who will cook the Chilean Sea Bass that
you eat in the restaurant we all own? Well, some people will need that crutch to buy
into the ownership society. And remember, there's a sucker born every minute.

•  i keep saying to myself that

  we should all sell sandwiches to each other but those jobs are given to illegal immigrants

  so maybe they should sell sandwiches to the americans  who work at the debt collection agency (who used to develop software) who collect debts from the health care workers who get their wages from providing health and hospice care to the seniors who used to build cars but cant afford the full cost of health care so the slack is picked up by whom?

  the people with liquid capital can just move their assets elsewhere or import their assets (cheap labor and materials) from elsewhere.

  the fucking neocon capitalists want to turn this country into Brazil and the red state dimwits dont get it

  Clarence Page had a segment on newshour on this today

  by christhughes on Wed Jul 27, 2005 at 05:38:27 PM PDT

•  What I wonder is this:

  since personal buying has kept this economy (barely) afloat, and since the U.S. is a huge consumer nation, after U.S. corporations ship all these jobs overseas, who the fuck its going to buy their stuff?  The chinese?  Not fucking likely.

  by gmb on Wed Jul 27, 2005 at 06:04:18 PM PDT

  •  yeah i yelled at the newshour tonite

    during the CAFTA segment - when the chamber of commerce lackey spewed some shit about free trade only going one way right now (eg my shirts are made in the Dom. Repub)

    AND that CAFTA will create a bi-lateral framework so the US can sell its goods without tariffs/restriction s in the member countries - and what the hell might those be?

    oh great high margin products like rice, timber, or wheat?

    or maybe AR-15s? surplus F14's?

    or Windows Office?

    can some dKos economist tell me what sectors in the US economy would benefit from this? and i dont mean even cheaper shirts from the DR...

    by christhughes on Wed Jul 27, 2005 at 08:25:51 PM PDT

    •  Keep beating your head-

      against the wall cause it's gonna feel much better after you stop.
      It's the same old thing, it gets trying to hear the same old same old.
      Not harping on ya but you know and I know it's just bull shit. Look up the food chain and you see the beneficiaries. Ya right the gross income ???? $$$$Costa Ricans are gonna be buying our refrigerators.

      by Clzwld on Wed Jul 27, 2005 at 09:06:48 PM PDT

  •  "who ... its going to buy their stuff"

    actually, GM is making money in China. With cars built for the local market by Chinese workers.

    But by and large, I'm expecting things to go the other way; I see the big offshoring providers in India and China realizing that the American management giving them orders really isn't adding any value to their products and that all they really need is to hire American marketing companies to get them into the US market without the Fortune 500 CEO baggage.

    Watch a bunch of CEOs pulling the ripcords on their golden parachutes.

    by alizard on Thu Jul 28, 2005 at 02:58:38 AM PDT

•  welcome to the wonderful world

  the DLC gave us in exchange for selling out for all those corporate campaign contributions.

  Personally, I think of neoliberalism as a failed economic philosophy, not a proud Democratic heritage.

  by alizard on Thu Jul 28, 2005 at 03:20:01 AM PDT