Why Are You Struggling?

Long ago, on a Roman galley, the captain tried an experiment. He let everyone on board -- oarsmen and aristocratic passengers -- vote on whether to change to a democratic system, where everyone would take turns, alternately rowing and lounging in the luxurious passenger quarters. Of course the aristocrats voted to retain the existing system. But then, to his surprise, so too did the galley oarsmen.

There is a simple explanation for why you are having a hard time financially, why you are in danger of losing your job or your health or your home, why you don’t have access to the luxuries that more privileged members of society are enjoying.
Why haven’t you realized the truth? In case you are too dumb to figure it out, here it is: It’s because you deserve what you are getting. And because deep down inside, you know this. That’s why you keep making choices that maintain the status quo, that keep you down and struggling.
You don’t believe it? Consider this:
Our legislators obviously believe what I’ve just said. They maintain a tax structure and an economic structure that does what it should do -- it rewards the deserving and punishes the undeserving. In other words, some people get rich, the rich keep getting richer, and the rest struggle to stay where they are, and sometimes, no matter how hard they struggle, they slip downward into poverty.
Look at the statistics -- they’re all around you. You’ve seen them. The top 2% make as much money as the bottom 50%. CEOs get paid on average 400 times as much as their lowest-paid employees. When failing businesses are sold out, the top managers (who ran their companies into the ground) walk away with “golden parachutes” worth millions of dollars.
And at the other end of the scale, 10% of our workforce is unemployed. This country has some 40 million uninsured people. The middle class is getting smaller. More people are in poverty than ever. Millions go to bed hungry every night. Hundreds of thousands of homes are being foreclosed, leaving ever more people homeless.
And how are our governments, local, state, and federal, coping with all this? They are reducing services to those most in need. Thousands of state employees are being laid off, hurting not just them but also all those that they were providing services for. Universities are cutting faculty and course offerings; students must pay higher tuition for fewer and more crowded classes. Public schools are laying off teachers and aides and increasing class sizes. Mental health programs, already appallingly inadequate, are being cut further, leaving the mentally ill in crisis and unable to receive treatment that might save their lives.
Clearly the decision-makers who have brought all this about are acting out of a morality that says that the deserving will be rewarded and the undeserving punished.
And who chose these decision-makers? You did. You have chosen to elect representatives who will carry out your moral values, who will punish you for all your flaws and shortcomings. And as long as you coninue to believe that you deserve the worst, you will keep on electing representatives who will make sure you get it.

Has Obama Failed?

The hue and cry of the Republicans -- and some Democrats -- has recently been to the effect that the Obama presidency has failed. Key evidence: the continuing high unemployment rate.
Is our economic situation as we want it to be? Admittedly no. Ten percent unemployment is clearly unacceptable. So does this mean that Obama has failed? I would suggest that the implied comparison (where we are vs. where we’d like to be) is erroneous.
The proper comparison has to be between where we are, under Obama, and where we would be if his administration had not done what it has, or -- to put it very bluntly and starkly -- where we would be if McCain had been elected.
Of course, we do not know for sure what McCain and Palin would have done, but we have a pretty good idea, both from those candidates’ statements during the 2008 campaign and from the statements and positions of Republican leaders since. I think it is clear that under McCain/Palin we would be feeling the effects of more tax-breaks for the wealthy, more cuts in government programs for the poor and middle classes,and less effort at economic stimulus.
And what would those effects be? The CBO -- Congressional Budget Office -- recently released some projections that without the Obama stimulus programs, unemployment now might be 13% or 14%. And we can figure that there would be more people losing their homes, more people exhausting their unemployment benefits -- in short, we would be in a major depression, not just a painful recession.
So has Obama failed? Hardly. He has achieved a lot, compared to where the country was when he started and where it might have gotten to with different policies and programs.

And we need to recognize too that what the Obama administration as accomplished has been tempered -- and severely limited and distorted -- by the obstinacy and determination of Republicans to do everything possible to cause Obama to fail, regardless of what might be best for the country.

Is Obama a Socialist?

Before we get mired down in arguments about what is or isn't "socialist," let's look at a basic difference in how people look at the relationship of individuals to society and vice-versa.
One basic principle, not a bad one in its intention, is that we should earn everything we get. If we find ourselves helpless, broke, sick, homeless, it's because we didn't plan well enough or work hard enough. The moral implication is that if society is properly structured, virtue -- hard work -- will be rewarded, and vice -- waste, laziness -- will be punished. Who can quarrel with that?
And in normal situations this is a good way to run things. If you work harder, you should earn more. And if you choose to be lazy or to squander your money on gambling or liquor or worse things, it's only fair that you should eventually be poor and miserable.
But what about disasters that we did not bring upon ourselves? What about droughts and famines and forest fires and floods? What about cancer and other devastating diseases not caused by our own stupidity? What about steady workers suddenly thrown out of work?
If you agree that such things happen, then you have to acknowledge that almost all of us could at some time find ourselves in a difficult situation which we did not cause and which we cannot fix by ourselves.
Here is where, for most of us, another principle applies: As a society, we all have a responsibility to care for others, and we all have a right to expect the help of others when disasters strike. Or, as the Bible says, "Do unto others," and "Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto Me."
Unfortunately what I seem to be hearing from some politicians (and others) is a rejection of this second principle. "Cut welfare, cut Social Security, cut food stamps, eliminate Medicaid, reduce unemployment benefits," the litany goes on and on. The usual justification for this position is an unwillingness to support lazy bums who don't want to work.
But I think even most bleeding-heart liberals share that unwillingness. And we know that there are abuses of every system that doles out money -- there are always people (and not just poor people) who look for ways to con the system. So let's agree: Every money-spending system needs screening, controls, checks and balances, audits, investigations, and ultimately prosecutions of violators.
That being said, there are needy people, generally people who have worked hard and paid into the system all their lives (or people with legitimate disabilities that have prevented them from doing so). And we as a society, recognizing that "there but for the grace of God go I," have a responsibility (which in the long run may turn out to be enlightened self-interest) to help those in need.
So is this "socialism"? Perhaps. But Obama did not invent it. He has simply seen -- and seeks to enlarge -- this principle of helping the needy as a guiding principle of our caring society, manifested over the past seventy years as Social Security and the more recent Medicare and Medicaid

Restore the Economy by Jobs and Education

All predictions say that even though the recession is technically over, unemployment will decline only slowly and over several years. Since -- as has been pointed out -- 10% of the population controls some 90% of the investment market, that 10% may be quite comfortable with the status quo, but for the other 90% of us the situation is at least worrisome and, for the 10% who are jobless, the outlook is just plain bleak.

It may be necessary to continue to pump money into Wall Street and big corporations and the like, but none of this has much immediate effect on the jobless.

There has been talk about job creation, but I have heard little emanating from Washington that sounds as though it will do much anytime soon, and what I've heard doesn't sound like a comprehensive coherent plan.

Here's my proposal:
First, some self-evident facts:
1) We are going to have to subsidize the unemployed for a long time.
2) The unemployed, for the most part, have lots of available time.
3) There is much work that needs doing in this country, including a) building/repairing/ upgrading facilities in national, state, and local parks and other public facilities; improving streets, highways, and bridges; building mass-transit (train, streetcar, and bus) roadbeds and rolling stock; c) upgrading the electric grid and transmission facilities; d) developing, manufacturing, and installing alternative power equipment -- solar panels, wind turbines, etc.
4) We are going to need more, and more highly trained, workers for a vast range of technologically advanced fields in the future: alternative power, medical technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and many others.

I would put all these indisputable facts together in this way:
Instead of just providing unemployment checks, let's offer most recipients two alternatives:
1) You can go back to school to learn some advanced skills. Government will put lots more money into paying stipends to those who want to improve their skills -- and perhaps the stipends will be bigger than the unemployment schecks. And while several million unemployed ate back in school, hundreds of thousands of teachers (who might be unemployed scientists and engineers) will also be given employment. And when the recession is truly over, and jobs are again plentiful, there will be a large workforce available of people with new high-tech skills.
2) Or you can move into any of a range of WPA or CCC type jobs: The government will pay wages for people who are available for relatively low-skill jobs improving the nation's infrastructure and public facilities. Many state and local governments have lists of "shovel-ready" jobs, some of which are already being done with stimulus finds. (Or if private companies need a boost to do many of the tasks suggested in (3) above, government might supplement wages, sort of like older OJT -- on-the-job-training -- programs.)

The advantages of this approach to the unemployment situation should be clear. Roughly the same amount of money would be spent, but this way it would produce improvements to the nation's infrastructure and facilities, and it would train a workforce for future jobs.