While history never repeats itself

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Friday June 17, 2011 · 3:17 AM PDT

2011/06/17 · 03:17

there are similarities to what is happening now in Europe and the United States to what happened prior to WW II.

First lets take a look at Europe. Prior to WW II the Germans had a huge deficit, in large part due to the Treaty of Versailles. Germany chose to print tons of money leading to rapid inflation and economic disaster. The bankers received the blame and because the perception was that Jewish people were bankers the Jewish people were blamed.

Okay lets turn the page to today. European countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain are deeply in debt. The bankers having been bailed out at great cost to the people are once again blamed. Further Europe is once again moving to right on the political spectrum. See As Europeans Wince at Austerity, Markets Fear Turmoil. Just as Germany's solution of printing money lead to disaster, austerity is also leading Europe down a path of ever deepening deficits. The people are unhappy. The result is demonstrations that are gradually turning into riots.

There are some important differences. One is the common currency, the Euro. No longer can individual countries devalue their own currencies to enable them to increase costs of foreign good. And guess what country is fighting hardest against any devaluing of the Euro. Yes it is Germany. Germany is scared shit less of what happened to the mark after WW I. I used to have a million mark bill that my grandmother saved when she immigrated to the US. She told me how wheel barrows of such money were needed to buy a loaf of bread. So many European countries are caught in a trap with conservative bankers setting an agenda that will make conditions for everyone worse.

Now lets turn to the US. Once again there is high unemployment with people dropping off unemployment rolls because they have been unemployed for so long. Unlike the conditions before FDR became president, the US has a liberal president. Just like in Europe the bankers are being blamed and were bailed out. Just like in Europe the country is turning to the right and turning towards austerity measures that will only make conditions worse. Just like in Europe liberals are caught in a trap of being forced to take those austerity measures under the belief that those measures will reduce the deficit when those measures will have just the opposite effect.

Now there is one more similarity to conditions now and prior to WW II. There is a religious group to blame. This time the group is Muslims and not Jews. And right wing groups are revving up the hatred, blame the Muslims. Just as other groups such as Gypsies in Germany were also taking blame, we have Hispanics and African Americans taking some of the blame in the US. Right wing radio nuts yell kill them all.

And then there is oil. The Germans marched into Africa and Russia seeking oil. The Japanese bombed Perl Harbor to keep US ships from keeping the Japanese from Indonesia oil. Ambrosia is not the elixir of the Gods, oil is. The supply of oil is not rising to meet the demand, instead the price of oil is rising. Good ole supply and demand does work. We can easily blame speculators who cause sometimes dramatic fluctuations in the price of oil. The truth is that "drill baby drill" is not increasing the supply and worse China and India are increasing the overall demand for oil.

Finally we have trade. There is a question of whether or not the Smoot–Hawley Tariff act of 1930 hurt more than it helped. Once again the world is faced with unfair trade, this time currency manipulation by China. Similarly many foreign countries refuse to allow labor unions to form, again harming the US. Trade agreements must be renegotiated, and the big stick is tariffs. But raising tariffs is again a questionable solution if other countries retaliate. Also the US is hindered by trade treaties that require a resolution process which the people do not agree with.

The US is at war and war spending has increased. The question becomes, why isn't this spending lifting the US out of the depression we are in. The answer is because the war does not require lots of manufactured goods that put people to work. When Obama says that there are no war casualties in Libya, he is right. There are no airplanes being shot down from the skies, so there is no need to make more. Tanks have little impact in Afghanistan and do little good in the mountains where the enemy is. Yeah drones are used, but again few are shot down. Most of the fighting is done on the ground, with ground forces against an enemy that blends with the population. There just is little need for manufacturing to fight these wars. So the war spending does little if anything for the economy.

Of course the spending increases the deficit. Of course the spending takes needed resources away from needed spending on infrastructure, education, research and development. The bottom line is the war spending hurts the economy more than it helps.

So what are we democrats and liberals to do? I pray and hope that Countdown with Keith Olbermann becomes a huge success. I pray and hope that many more people watch Countdown than when the show was on MSNBC. I pray and hope that Keith Olbermann is able to go beyond simple reporting and is able to build a news organization that is able to educate the American people about what is happening and why. I believe the plans are for Keith Olbermann to run three hours of news programming and I pray and hope that the two hours following Countdown do an in depth analysis of the news and not put on pro/con pundits, but rather put on experts who tell us the truth about the economy and what is needed.

So today I say turn off MSNBC and turn on Current.

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