During the previous Depression Americans were faced with a stark choice between the economic policies of the two parties. The Republicans long believed in the trickle-down theory, in which the wealthiest few got preferential treatment from the government because the logic was that eventually some of that money would trickle down to the little people. The Democrats pointed out that this had proven to have failed and that the working class deserved more fair treatment instead. Their theory was that if many more people could afford to buy more goods and services, eventually those who owned the big companies would see the money trickle up and everyone would share in the good times instead of just a few.
After both theories had their turn in place, Americans realized that the trickle-down theory of economics simply did not work to the benefit of the people who didn”t own their own steamboat or country estate. Not enough was trickling down to keep millions off the bread lines. When the workers finally did get a fair shake, this country”s economy boomed for decades.
The wealthy ruling class didn”t give up however and after 50 years of being discredited, they found the perfect spokesman, who brought to us the new supply-side economics of the 1980s. Of course, it was the same trickle-down theory, but this time with a great new name. All we had to do was cut the taxes of the richest few, the economy would surely boom and the deficits would magically be reduced! The first President Bush called it “Voodoo economics” but when he became part of that administration, he never again spoke of it. Of course, we had to bust those unions, the first of which were the air traffic controllers. Since then, we have seen a series of tax cuts that have almost exclusively gone to the wealthiest few, which have been unfunded, adding trillions to our deficits and a never ending series of concessions on the part of workers, who were persuaded to take the cuts “to save their jobs.”
The corporations who benefitted from those cheaper workers didn”t stop there, however. By becoming “multi-national” they were free to find entire populations of nations who were available to be exploited for pennies on the dollar. So the American workers who took cuts to save their jobs have now spent the past 25 years watching those jobs being “off shored” to places like Mexico, China and even Vietnam. I watched a garment worker whose factory was finally closing down being interviewed recently. He said no matter how good a job he did, he could not compete with someone who worked for 37 cents per hour.
Sadly today, the workers no longer have a party to represent them. While the Republicans have at least had the integrity to be honest about who they work for, the Democrats of today have sold their souls for campaign cash so they can keep their own jobs in Congress. Even when they have overwhelming power in both houses, they are only able to tinker at the margins of a grossly unfair situation. They, including President Obama, have continued the shameless policies of the previous administration when it comes to bailing out the wealthy on Wall Street instead of providing jobs for Main Street or relief for the actual homeowners in trouble. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan are all doing very well now and management is getting huge bonuses, thank you. Meanwhile somewhere today, Bob Goldman is packing up his house, which is being foreclosed on next Tuesday.
I recently read a comment that the only way to compete with slave labor is to become a slave. Truer words were never spoken. Is that what our children and their children have to look forward to? It seems that as long as we allow elections to be won based upon huge corporate campaign donations instead of ideas, honesty and ability; we will get exactly what we”ve been getting. The shaft ? straight down into economic oblivion.
Lowell Grant is a local real estate broker.
