Date: 2024-10-31 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00023331
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PDA / RALPH NADER ELECTION SUPPORT
1. THE ECONOMY: For the Many, not the Few NOTES for this SECTION |
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Peter Burgess COMMENTARY (added January 2024)
I have been reviewing what Ralph Nader and fellow Democrats were talking about at this point in time before the mid-term elections of 2022.
Many of the issues that Nader and others wanted everyone to know about related to the massive misinformation coming out of GOP talking points and a conservative leaning media. The reality of the US economy prior to the 2022 mid-terms was that it was much stronger than it had been for a very long time, even though Covid and inflation were issues that degraded economic performance to a considerable extent.
I know a couple of years back I started to write about the strength of the American economy under the Biden administation comparing it favorable with the economic progress of the US economy during the administrations of Eisenhauer, Kennedy and Johnson combined.
About two years later, Americans are faced with a problem which is very difficult to resolve. Though the American economy may well be in a better condition than it was two years ago, the media and information landscape is worse. It is difficult to people in general to differentiate between facts and fiction as both circulate in the modern media ... a complex information ecosystem that seems to have embraced the idea of 'anything goes' as long as it makes money for those in control. I think it is fair to conclude that 'responsible journalists' are no longer in control of the media inustry but rather it is owners who are beholden to investors!
But worse ... the modern socio-enviro-economic system that is better than ever based on technical and technological performance has been skewed to serve financial interests rather than people and social interests, let alone environmental interests. The fact that such amazing modern technology and high productivity has resulted in rather little improvement in quality of life and happiness suggests that something is seriously wrong. My education, training and experience suggests that for the past four decades the problem of 'inequality' has been allowed to grow out of control to a level that is worse than any time in all of history.
The emergence of inequality has in my view been enabled and sustained in large part by modern media ... not to mention, a sad passivity on the part of a lot of people who I would have expected to be more interested and engaged.
Whether the emergence of Donald Trump as a political figure will give people a jolt so that they engage to protect society and the world we live in in a responsible manner is in question.
I am scared stiff that dangerous misinformation will prevail and Trump will again have access to immense political power ... and worse!
Peter Burgess
ECONOMY NOTES
* Why inflation? Forty percent comes from higher gas prices set by the world market by giant oil and gas firms. The pandemic significantly disrupted supply chains leading to shortages, and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine reduced the oil and gas it ships to the West, plus corporate price-gouging by firms with monopoly power..
–Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Wilson: Giant corporations are raising prices simply “because they can.”
–Data for Progress February 2022 poll: 64 percent of Americans thought that big corporations were jacking up prices and taking advantage of the pandemic. Even 51 percent of Republicans thought so.
–Gas Prices: Four oil giants on pace to earn $108.4 billion this year, on top of the $77 billion last year. Pump prices are a matter of choice for oil profiteers.
–Oil production highest under Biden in the past forty years.
* Jobs: Simon Rosenberg: sixteen years of Clinton and Obama equaled 33.8 million jobs; eighteen months of Biden equalled 9.6 million jobs; sixteen years of both Bushes and Trump equaled 1.9 million jobs. Of the 43 million jobs created since 1989, 96 percent came under Democratic presidents.
–Trump is the first president since Hoover to end his term in office with fewer people working than when he started. For a while, Trump’s economic data tracked exactly those of the strong economy in Obama’s final two years…but then economy tanked and ended deep recession. Biden’s jobless rate of 3.6 percent in July 2022 was the lowest in fifty years. That one month, he created more jobs than Trump did in all his four years combined.
* Deficits: In 2021, the deficit actually fell by $360 billion. America is now on track for the largest deficit reduction in history this year: $1.3 TRILLION.
* Spending: Biden’s Recovery Act and Infrastructure law helped the GDP avoid falling into a Recession.
–The federal debt grew by $7.8 trillion in Trump’s one term in office.
–Because of the expanded Child Tax Credit, child poverty dropped by a third in 2021. It’s rare for a government policy to work so unambiguously well, yet the GOP wouldn’t continue funding it. “The oligarchy didn’t want to pay for it.”—Robert Reich
– Republicans often attack Democrats for “Socialism!”…even after Trump handed farmers $30 billion because his trade policies were bankrupting them.
– Fox reporter John Roberts to Sen. Rick Scott, “Your plan would raise taxes on half of Americans and sunset things like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Why would you do that?”
* Taxation: Last year, fifty-five large corporations made $40 billion in U.S. profits and paid NO federal income tax. Other companies paid less than 10 percent. The current IRS commissioner, Charles P. Rettig, says the sum of uncollected taxes last year was a trillion dollars.
– Firefighters and teachers should not pay a higher tax than a billionaire. “The party that can appeal to a multi-ethnic working class will be the majority party for the next generation.” (Mike Madrid, New York Times, 3/23/22)
– The GOP had cut the IRS budget by 20 percent below its 2010 level, inflation-adjusted. Audits of large companies plunged by 58 percent between 2010 and 2019. Congress was turned into a recidivist enabler of massive tax evasion—which if done by ordinary people would constitute a crime.
– Trickle-down economics has never gotten billionaires to spread the wealth. That’s what unions are for.
* Michael Kazin: The following aggressive pro-worker, anti-corporate message moved voters 5 points in a poll in the Fall of 2021:
“People are living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay their bills and taxes. They need a government that looks out for the middle class, working families, small businesses, and the vulnerable who work hard. They don’t need a government that jumps whenever the biggest corporations send money and lobbyists. My approach is blue collar. We should bend over backwards for those who work hard so we create jobs in America and grow the middle class again.”
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