Tag: recession

(crossposted from Cobalt6)

Yes that’s right.  There never was supposed to be another great depression.  It was never gonna happen.  The rich guys were way too smart to ever let anything like that happen.  This was part of the first advice I ever received about how to plan my finances for life.  Sitting on the front porch in Bridgewater in the Spring of 1975 at the ripe age of 23, my new financial guru, kindly providing his services as a benefit of my employment, went on for quite a while about how the bankers and politicians had learned their lesson very well and that there would “never, no way, ever, be another Great Depression.”

He is in grave danger of being wrong.  Thirty-three years later we find ourselves at the precipice.  We are in an economic crisis that is looking so deep and so wide that no one really understands it, and no one knows how to get us out of it.  Our leaders have a plan and they are trying to implement it but the going is slow.  Will the new law now going into affect slow the fall enough so that we can pull ourselves out of it?  The reviews are mixed. There is a lot of debate and shouting on both sides. Can we spend ourselves out of the ditch we’re in?

Original article, a speech by Jeremy Dear given at the Annual Conference of the Labour Representation Committee (the organising hub of the left wing within the Labour Party and among trade union activists), via Socialist Appeal (UK):

As an aside, you may be asking why we should be interested in what Jeremy Dear is giving a speech on? The answer, to me, is simple: Labour has been hijacked by the neoliberal militarists just the same as the Democrats have been. While the crisis in Britain may not be 100% the same as here in the US, it is part and parcel of the collapse of international capitalism. Our workers face the same problems as theirs. It is within this framework that I think Dear’s speech is worth a read:

When everyone is mad, only madmen are respectable. The sharp collapse of automobile sales in America is supposed to be a dire omen of economic failure, and pressure is mounting on the government to “save” the US auto industry. But on closer inspection, the US auto industry has been encouraging wildly wasteful and environmentally destructive behavior for decades, and “saving” it is the last thing we should do. This industry should be shut down and rebuilt from the ground up. Here is why:

1. Automobiles are ecologically and socially destructive. Producing, fueling, and disposing of them consumes vast amounts of precious resources. Yet their impact on world society has been to spread unsustainable living patterns and isolate individuals from contact with their neighbors.

2. Automobiles have been sold as disposable fashion merchandise, an extremely wasteful practice. There is no reason an automobile cannot be designed to last 20 years, like a refrigerator, stove, or washing machine. (The billionaire founder of IKEA drives a 20 year old Volvo.)

3. Automobiles generate a huge number of deaths and injuries and inflict enormous insurance costs on their owners. Actively selling “high performance” cars and encouraging drivers to drive them as fast as possible contributes to this mayhem.

4. The toxic wastes produced by automobiles are substantial. Discarded tires alone account for a huge problem, since no efficient recycling system has been developed for them. Similarly, vast amounts of plastics and toxic fluids are dumped into the ecosystem because of artificially stimulated junking of cars to permit the frequent replacement that is vital to the current industry model of selling cars as fashion statements.

We need to stop this madness. The world auto industry should be producing only about 1/3 of its current output of cars, and these cars should be engineered to last indefinitely, with a minimal negative environmental impact. GM, Ford, and Chrysler should be shut down, because they are unlikely to reinvent themselves as “green” vehicle manufacturers. New organizations should replace them, and the US government should provide appropriate research and development subsidies to help these newcomers rebuild the US auto industry.

The future of the world automotive industry should be grounded in sustainability, not disposability. We literally cannot afford to keep making and buying cars as we have for the last 60 years.

Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed what looks to me like the most sane and reasonable solution to our financial mess.  

Instead of being between a rock and a hard place, between a fraudulent bailout of the criminal banksters and a total collapse, Great Depression 2, destruction of the financial systems of the U.S. and the world, we have the middle ground sanity of Bernie Sanders.  His proposal for, if not solving, at least helping to heal our dire financial straits is the best I’ve seen.

Wall Street Bailout – 09/26/2008

There is little public support for President Bush’s $700 billion bailout. Just 30 percent support Bush’s package, according to an Associated Press poll released Friday. More than 4,000 of you have taken our survey, and those results are even more remarkable. Are you confident that taxpayers would be treated fairly if Congress and the Bush administration agree on a bailout? You aren’t. Do you think a bailout would help the economy? No. Do you favor a surtax on individuals who make more than $500,000 a year and couples earning more than $1 million to pay for a Wall Street bailout? More than 91 percent agree with the proposal by Senator Bernie Sanders. What’s more, as of late Friday, more than 40,000 (as of late Friday)of you co-signed Bernie’s letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson suggesting a tax on the very wealthy.

Follow below the fold to learn more and see if you want to sign on and support Sanders’ proposal.