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The Illusion of Economic Recovery

They say that the economy is growing and that we are in the midst of an economic recovery, but as I look at my neighbors who are losing their homes and the parents in the PTA who are under-employed and looking for full-time employment, I must admit I do not see or feel it.

I figure Obama and the democrats have to say such to make themselves look good. Likewise, the Republicans have to intentionally imped programs and the efforts of the President to make him look bad. Regardless, the view from the ground level remains one of wealthy politicians bickering like caddy nanny goats. Charlie Brown’s sister Sally said it best in “The Great Pumpkin”…”You elect them then they weasel out of their promises.”

Maybe we get what we deserve. We have been on this trajectory since Nixon accepted the Britton-Woods agreement, removing American from the Gold standard and an asset based monetary system. Now artificial asset bubbles are retro chic and occur everywhere we look in our economy. That’s what happens when one has no asset to back paper. All the government has to do when they are short on cash and need to pay someone is print as much paper money as needed, borrowing more and more and growing more debt (something us regular folk cannot do) creating an environment where everyone from the Government to the Banks accrue debt to capitalization ratios, like MF Global of more than 30 to 1. USB for example is leveraged at 50 to 1.

The question for remains how can one assert that there is an economic recovery occurring in the United States presently and even worse, how can anyone that can do basic math accept this premise? Especially after the credit and derivative based, over leveraged bubble economy we have just experienced that resulted in the financial meltdown in 2008? I cannot put this at the feet of Obama singularly seeing that Republican don’t even have nor have proffered any leadership for improving the economy on anything from the need for state regulation or tax reform, albeit the Democrats especially Obama seem to always cave-in in practice what they dare not abnegate in dictum.

Likewise is the hypocrisy of the GOP, which is on center stage with Mitt “anybody but” Romney. He points fingers at china but seems to ignore the fact that in that nation, spending represents 23% of GDP compared to the United States with 44%. Romney is quick to also say that we are down a path to being like socialist Europe although Germany level of government spending accounting for 48 percent of GDP. In other words that by his logic our goals is heading towards Europe when the facts suggest we are competing with China and playing catches up. He claims that in order to succeed and grow the economy that he will cut spending and balance the budget and lower taxes, which is funny in itself given what we know about our dysfunctional government.

First, the reality is that Obama and Romney are lying out the sides of their necks. On the one hand none of what is being done or said by either can lead to economic growth or a recovery sufficient enough for stable growth in the next decade. It is not the people (although we do have a minor role) the real problem is corporate welfare in the form of state and federal aid to the folk who already have the money and not the folks at ground zero. Yes the Americans with the most loot and corporations have redistribution and shifted wealth and income in America from the middle class to the uber rich and been doing so in plain view since the end of the Regan era. Yet the Republicans claim class warfare on behalf of the Obama Administration and the Obama Administration say he is for Main Street when his actions exhibit otherwise. There is a reason again why The United States has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain. Not to mention that total consumer debt rose at an annual rate of 9.3 percent in December. It is now sitting at a grand total of 2.498 trillion dollars.

Let us examine American International Group, Inc. (AIG). This week AIG with the assistance of the Bush and more so the Obama administrations, reported $19.8 billion in profits last quarter. This the result of a tax break consequent the Treasury Department for AIG and a few other major corporations that helped create the financial crisis of 2008 that exempts them from its right to employ using net operating losses (NOL).

What the past few administrations, the present one and the GOP Presidential contenders are doing is Machiavellian – hiding the truth about how bad our economy is. The unemployment rate today is computed differently from the way it was in 1994. Back then, people who stopped looking for employment and the underemployed—folk who want to work full-time but cannot—were still counted in the numbers. Now they do not. Yet drop in unemployment rates are reported when in reality the US Government measures unemployment using a survey and sample of approximately 110,000 individuals and not number of persons claiming unemployment benefits.

Folks are right when they say there is limited difference between The President and Romney. Both promote economic policies that tighten the association between larger corporations and government. We all know for example that Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel was once a partner at Goldman Sachs and that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who now advises the President on Health care reform, is a well-paid lobbyist for the health-industry. Then there is the observation that the Obama administration talks a god game against corporatism, the problem is like Romney the facts state otherwise – at least Romney admits he believes “corporations are people. “Washington has and always will subsidize big industry and provide loot for their research.

Obama knows this and this is probably why General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt Started a PAC to collect money from its employees for candidates “who share GE’s values and goals” of which Obama got more than any other politician. Immelt was appointed to Obama’s economic recovery board and eventually was named to head his Jobs Council (although it continues to ships jobs abroad). His company stands to make a mint on its investing in “carbon offset” assets if the Obama administration institutes its cap-and-trade energy plans via, HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. If passed, GE will get “incentives” to sell energy-efficient appliances ($75 for each dishwasher sold until 2013 and $200 for each refrigerator) that will make it a bundle.

Romney by the same token is no different. He talks the same game. His tax cuts from what I have read and worked out will result in more than $500 billion in lost revenue over the next decade if he is elected, meaning he will balloon the deficit even more than Obama – Greek economic mathematics revisited if you ask me.

All I am saying is that what they say is an economic recovery to me is an allusion, a penumbra of false light. Alexander Hamilton wrote The Federalist No. 85 for a reason - that is possible for wealth to corrupt and result in a central government that is too powerful that serves the elite at the expense of the many. The republicans and the democrats, as articulated through their economic policy don’t see to get this. Obama or a Romney will still continue programs like the why H1-B visas, which are provided for foreign workers in areas such as engineering, when folk like one of my neighbors, a chemical engineer can’t find a job. In general because they cannot problem solve or accept that neither fiscal austerity nor monetary stimulus will work because neither targets nor deal with limiting inflation or increasing employment. Instead they focus on nominal GDP growth, which will get more US citizens to get more and more in debt, which only make things worse.

All while China sits on the side line, with about $2 trillion dollars of our debt, that may eventually depreciate in value because eventually we going to have to deal with the possibility of runaway inflation in a time when it will become more difficult to borrow. We see and feel it o the ground but I doubt Romney or Obama have bought a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread lately. In the “Dunciad”, Alexander Pope wrote “Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all.”

That us the way I see things now. Like I said, they say that the economy is growing and that we are in the midst of an economic recovery, but as I look at my neighbors who are losing their homes and the parents in the PTA who are under-employed and looking for full-time employment, I must admit I do not see or feel it.

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Severe Conservatives Equal Amero-Facist

In the mid-1930s, Sinclair Lewis once stated that “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” I do not think that he was aware that his words would aptly describe many in the conservative party today from the halls of congress to the GOP presidential candidates.

A while back Willard Romney labeled himself "severely conservative." During the same period, both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have been presenting moral-social concerns and tossing out their records to attempt to show who can be considered as being an “authentic conservative” like tennis players stroke that little yellow ball across the net.

Between their imbriferous vagueness of language and finger wagging, all I can say is that to consider the mass of republicans today as conservatives is derisory and misses the point. First, what is a severe conservative? Personally, the use of severe is more appropriate as an adjective for Gout, a limp, hernia or thunder storm more so than conservative. However it does lend itself to the sclerotic, Lilly white polity of the GOP.

For the good of me I cannot place these individuals who claim to be conservative as such just because they are in the GOP. They have no resemblance in conviction, surety or belief or are any were close to the likes of Edmund Burke, John Quincy Adams, Robert Taft, Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr. Unlike these individuals, today’s conservative is just a republican who use ideology as a basis for policy formulation and sound bites. Both of which are idiotic and disastrous since in order to be effective one must take into consideration and account the fact that our world is not static and ever changing – thus people (especially politicians) must be flexible, elastic and pragmatic.

Today’s conservative as a result do not believe in what they say they stand for. They hate the middle class, support big government handouts to corporations, destroy small business and farms for the benefit of the large corporations and even hate the constitution (although they wrap themselves up in the same treasured document). In essence they stand for the systemization of the predatory process and are more akin to “amero-facist” in the image of a Jonah Jacob Goldberg or Glen Beck than a harry Truman.

They do not practice what they preach. Earlier this year Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris, of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee had the director of the Oscar-nominated, environmentalist documentary “Gasland,” Josh Fox arrested for filming a hearing on fracking, So much for first amendment and the constitution. At a campaign event in this Detroit suburb on Saturday, Rick Santorum called President Obama a “snob” for wanting all Americans to go to college. But on an archived page of Rick Santorum’s 2006 Senate campaign website, he said he was “committed to ensuring the every Pennsylvanian has access to higher education.”

Gingrich, Romney and Rick Santorum are continuing to pressure President Obama on issues of religious freedom in an attempt to describe the current debate on contraception. But they are quick to forget a similar tone regarding the Catholic Church on divorce (will they say they will not insure divorced women) or pedophilia. Nor will they discuss such on consistent terms regarding Islam or the so-called ground zero mosque, instead promulgating a monolithic view of all Muslims as enemies of the state. Not to mention, one would think that by speaking firmly on religious freedom that Romney would open himself up to polygamy, seeing it is a Mormon belief but he has never espoused religious freedom regarding church and state on this.

They also tend to think that "capitalism" and "America" are synonymous and that anything that serves the interests of the nation over the individual is made to being against capitalism, The despise what they call "crony capitalism” yet often forget In their deluded way of thinking that it is the government-connected like a Romney or a Gingrich Instead of blue-collar workers or farmers being the exploited, who implement and put the C in crony. They are similar in stature to the “catholic corporatist” described by Ludwig von Mise and Trotsky and lecture the world as if we were in Asia Minor in 325 ace.

Ideology as a basis for policy is both idiotic and delusional. In the real world, politics and politicians must be flexible, elastic and pragmatic to deal with the ever changing dynamics and environment of the world around us. It as if these news conservatives (Amerofacist) seem to have forgotten what being a conservative once was. Now it is just Republican when it wasn’t that way. True, I am no conservative but I have studied history. But what do I know; I’m just a behavioral scientist who teaches statistics. True, I am no Henry James, but I can say tersely that severe conservatism as evinced by today’s republicans especially Gingrich, Romney and Santorum mimic more of fascism that what I learned from the writings of William Buckley Jr or Martin Luther King Jr. Too bad most folks don’t notice this, or else they would be in a better position to combat attitudes that are more destructive to our great nation than constructive.

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US Shouldn't Be Israel's F+++ Boy on Iran

Unlike some folks, I remember the day the people of Iran overthrew the Shah in 1979. Looking at our current contrived grievance with Iran, I wonder if the present administration does. Over the past year, due to the omnipotent pressure and power of the US Zionist lobby, we have seen multiple military attacks on Iran nuclear facilities and even the kidnapping and assassination of leading Iranian academics and scientist. We have even seen pressure placed on democrats by this lobby, in particular the loss of the New York 9th district congressional seat vacated by Anthony Weiner to such an extent that the President sent bunker buster bombs to Israel to appease their supporters. In fact just this New Year, Obama signed into law sanctions against Iran oil exports. I guess it was designed to show America’s Jewish lobby and Israel that Obama is hard on Iran.

I have been taking my time writing on this because I want to see how all the chips fall. Just last month Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner attempted to get Chinese policy makers to join an American-led campaign to reduce oil exports from Iran because of its nuclear program. However like Russia, they have rejected to participate in the US/European sanctions or the oil embargo directed toward the Persian nation. This will be problematic since it is the Treasury Departments responsibility to enforce sanction laws since the new legislation would prevent access by nations who do not support sanctions on Iran to the American financial system. Although loop holes in the law allow for selected exemptions, in all honestly, I do not think that the President, just as presidents past, is ready for what may exist on the horizon in an election year or to our economy. The Chinese trade surplus with the United States widened even more to 24.2 percent to $17.4 billion this past December.

China exports $1.5 trillion of its production and ships 20% of its exports to the U.S., which created a $252 billion trade deficit in 2010.Not to mention that as of last year China owned $1.16 trillion in U.S. debt in the form of Treasury bills, notes and bonds - 26% of the total of $4.5 trillion held by the public. For all practical terms this makes China America's largest banker, giving it leverage over the US as evident when China threatens to sell part of its holdings whenever the U.S. pressures it to raise the value of the yuan. It is no wonder that the U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

Another concern is that some fear Russia fears Israel is pushing America to war on Iran “which could retaliate by blocking” Persian Gulf oil shipments. It is clear that Russia will do what it perceives as necessary to protect its strategically important Tartus, Syria base, its only Mediterranean one (there is as we speak a Russian aircraft carrier battle group is positioned nearby). Then we have 15,000 combat troops in Kuwait, inclusive of two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit along with two aircraft carrier battle groups remains in the region – so the President has to be careful from a geopolitical purview.

As it stands, the Obama policy is another political divertissement of imperious old men who have never been to war and like to say they have a right to prevent other nations from self determination, especially when it comes to developing nuclear power. Even it is in the form of weapons, history shows that the only folk who have used nuclear weapons have been the United States. So important is this that we will assist in the assignation of scientist – an act that if implemented by the Taliban or Iranians we would call terroristic. Now we have even indicated to them that any effort to control their own geopolitical borders via the Strait of Hormuz would evoke a swift response from the US military. Again strange since we say one reason we are hard on Iran is because they are a vehicle for state sponsored terrorism.

To keep Israel happy Obama will likely find some excuse to save face, and maybe even attack Iran. As we speak, he is trying to gain support from Middle East allies in preparation for an impending US-Iranian confrontation. This is hard to understand for two reasons. First, we just got out of Iraq and are trying to get out of Afghanistan, why do we want another war so soon with a country of 75 million in which historically, sanctions have never worked. Moreover we as a nation cannot distance our self from targeted assassinations and other subversion in Iran.
He may as well give up on any support from China and when they and Russia do not go along, he will have do-do on his face because he will be powerless to do anything against them: Russia could damage our economy by artificially raising the price of crude oil and China by stop purchasing our debt and/or selling US papers in bulk causing more devaluation of the dollar. I hope the Obama administration thinks this out, for every indication suggest that Washington, Israel and NATO allies cannot wait to bump heads with Iran and Syria. This even when the fact remains that no evidence whatever suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program, according to the latest March 2011 US intelligence assessment.

Why is the White House plotting against Tehran when the living standards of the American working class continue to fall? According to Reuters, 23.7 million American workers are either unemployed or underemployed right now. I can figure out why spending billions on another military effort (war) is more important than spending that money here at home where it is needed.

What we do know is that Israel is believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East and that although Iran states it has missiles capable of reaching Israel, it is questionable if could hit long-range targets accurately. Sure two years ago Iran said it would build 10 new uranium enrichment sites, the only thing the Obama Administration really has to hang its hat on is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu desire for harsh action against the nation – not for nuclear weapons but rather for its civilian nuclear program, saying such technological advances serve as a threat to the entire world.

I am dumfounded that countries without oil, like France and Italy via French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini are demanding “immediate” actions against the Iranian government when any preemptive strike or military campaign against Iran will become a large weight on the global economy. Some have speculated that the price of oil may grow to $300 per barrel if military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities occur. State Department spokesman Joseph Cirincione believes that a military operation against Iran will lead to a large-scale war and will only encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

Thus any Israeli strikes against Iran will send shock waves across the region. Global markets fluctuate just on reports involving Iran. He cannot allow Israel to persuade the US and Britain to start a war against Iran in order to prevent it from producing nuclear weapons because if oil prices increase in multiples, the most vulnerable economies (US and Europe) will just suffer greatly. The same is true if the US continues to impose more sanctions on Iran and Obama cannot afford such with gas prices at home rising more and more each day. As I write, oil hovers above $106 as Iran tensions mount meaning any conflict could lead to global crude supply disruptions. The announcement that Iran will stop selling oil to Britain and France in retaliation for a planned European oil embargo this summer shows they aren’t playing.

The fact is that, no evidence whatever suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program, according to the latest March 2011 US intelligence assessment. Ross knows it and so do some political and media heads, yet they suppress truth and promote confrontation and war. But the real outcome will be that a “Stronger-than-expected demand against limited inventory and scarce excess production capacity leaves the market extremely vulnerable to price spikes in the near-to-medium term," Goldman Sachs said in a report. "It is important to emphasize that a spike in oil prices would most likely inflict damage on the economic recovery."

Targeting Iran’s nuclear program is a red herring and the real aim of the west is regime change and controlling strategic geopolitical regional resources. Israel doesn’t have the best interest of the US populous in mind and really don’t care about us at all. They are hypocrites saying the desire a two state solution when never has been the case even since the Oslo accords. I mean how can you want a Jewish state without wanting an Islamic state? Not to mention, the arguments being made by Iran and their nuclear ambitions are similar as those presented by Israel pertain to the nuclear reactor at Dimona. As indicated earlier, Israel is in fact a nuclear power - the only nuclear power in the world that insists on behaving as if it were not one. They don’t let UN inspectors in so how can they ask us to do their dirty work? Again, Obama and any future President need to see through this and get away from standing buy Israel at all cost. Would you stand by your friend if he was an admitted rapist or murderer? If we don’t, we will find out who the real rogue state is and dragged down in what may turn out to be world war III.

Neoliberalism and Foreign Policy in the Obama Adminisration

Undoubtedly the Obama Administration inherited a complete mess from the prior administration covering both the economy and foreign policy. And true to form, he in many respects has continued the aforesaid policies of the former president from the bail out of the Auto industry, TARP, extending the Bush tax cuts and even Bush’s neoconservative foreign policy undertakings. In the classic sense, a large assemblage would propose that Obama’s foreign policy strategy is diametrically opposite to the neoconservative hawks of the prior administration. Maybe, but in the verity of evidence suggest that the present administration has only morphed neoconservative dogma into neoliberal dogma.

This case can be made singularly by presenting the current Obama administration policies regarding Iran, Israel, Libya, and even tertiary nations like Nigeria, Somalia and the Congo, IT IS NOT FAR FETCHED TO draw the aforementioned parallel within a historical context. As a nation the foreign policy approach of the Obama administration to be fair, remains in the tradition of the fallacy of the first crusades which resulted in the capture of Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks in 1099. This remains to be the premise of what we see between the west (US and Europe) and the East (Arabs, Persians and Asians).

What do I mean you may ask? Well today as then, the US is a representation of the crusader state – meaning that our goals through foreign policy are to promote a universal culture of values “that must be spread throughout the world in the righteous cause of peace.” This is the basic tenant of Wilsonian idealism the way I have understood political history and put in action by both Obama and Bush. Neoconservative appears to be conservative yet support and favor big government, interventionism, and hostility to religion in politics and government.

Neoconservatives played a small role in the Ronald Reagan Administration, but came out the closet during the George W. Bush Administration after 2001. In comparison, the same can be said of Obama whose primary foreign policy goal demonstrates zeal to expand world peace and preserve American exceptionalism at any cost.

As I recall, Obama campaigned against President Bush’s policies, yet he continues most of these policies today. Like Bush, he has increased funding for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and has quadrupled overseas deployments. In Somalia for example, the Obama administration “has put in place policies to limit food aid to the region, using food as a weapon of war and killing hundreds of civilians weekly via its use of US drone strikes. Recently he has sent US troops to oil rich Uganda (Uganda has yet to produce a single barrel of oil) to intervene militarily to help Uganda fight the rebels of the LRA who are currently in the Central African Republic. Recently, more information has surfaced asserting that the U.S. Army has been making “preparations for possible direct military intervention in Nigeria.”

All I am saying is that the manner in which many pundits attacked neoconservative foreign policy was appropriate and the same amount of scrutiny needs to be directed at this new neoliberal foreign policy of Obama. The only difference between the two is not idealism but rather methodological. Bush proffered a less technological approach than Obama currently employs.

Although the present administration is providing the appearance of getting of Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama continues to stay the of Bush neoconservative policy in the Middle East pushing out longtime rulers, as was the case in Libya and as he is attempting to do in Syria. Albeit his first act as President was signing an executive order to close the facility holding terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay within a year, he still maintains the policy of the former administration as well as has continued a version of the Bush practice of renditions. I wonder how essential it was to hold and water boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a secret prison in Eastern Europe to help get info to identify Osama bin Laden’s couriers?

Also, Obama in concert with Eric Holder continue the practice of indefinite detentions and continue to trample the civil liberties of US citizens just as Bush did with the Patriot Act and the FBI’s ability to obtain certain phone records without warrants. The Obama’s Justice Department has given legal authority for the continuation of these policies.

Now I did not get a chance to speak on the example of Ira and Israel, but I will and soon, just not here. The only point I wanted to try and make that the neoconservative philosophy many conservatives applaud today has not been removed from the current Whitehouse. In fact it has changed and mutated into a more vile policy perspective, that has taken us even further back to the times of the crusades, one which says to the world it is our way or the high way. My only concern is that other nations don’t forget the pangs of neocolonial practices they see make nations like the US richer, while they barely have food to eat and water to drink.

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