A few articles pertinent to the current economy

These articles seem to touch on common themes - the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and now we are cutting services to those who can least afford it, yet not removing the tax breaks for the wealthy... This disparity was summed up by a friend of mine thusly:

"Things America used to be able to afford, but can't any more: retirement, medical care, education, highway maintenance, infrastructure, food safety, environmental protection, space exploration, college. But for some reason we can't add tax cuts for the rich on that list."

Yes, apparently we can still afford tax breaks for the rich, even when we are trillions of dollars in debt and the economy is in crisis.

The Hijacked Crisis - NYTimes.com

Paul Krugman - some key points:

• "what we’re seeing now is what happens when influential people exploit a crisis rather than try to solve it"

• "When you’re bleeding profusely from an open wound, you want a doctor who binds that wound up, not a doctor who lectures you on the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle as you get older. When millions of willing and able workers are unemployed, and economic potential is going to waste to the tune of almost $1 trillion a year, you want policy makers who work on a fast recovery, not people who lecture you on the need for long-run fiscal sustainability."

• "What would a real response to our problems involve? First of all, it would involve more, not less, government spending for the time being — with mass unemployment and incredibly low borrowing costs, we should be rebuilding our schools, our roads, our water systems and more."

My thoughts on this: This is one of the reasons I voted for Obama - he talked about *investing* instead of cutting. Rebuilding instead of tearing down. What happened to that guy?

• "The usual suspects will, of course, denounce such ideas as irresponsible. But you know what’s really irresponsible? Hijacking the debate over a crisis to push for the same things you were advocating before the crisis, and letting the economy continue to bleed."

Why London Is Burning (Hint: It’s Not Just Thugs)

Patrick Smith of the Fiscal Times agrees with Krugman:

• "austerity without policies that spur demand and ameliorate its negative effects on ordinary people are not merely incomplete: They will lead—as now we see on our front pages—to violent backlashes."

• "In no case have ideology and faith proven substitutes for good, detached economic and social thinking. And this time—check the videos and news photos from Britain—we are playing with fire."

My thoughts: I believe the London riots are disgraceful opportunistic violence - people stealing things they wanted - that distortion of the dream to mere desire for money. And the violence and looting and burning are inexcusable. But at its roots, not an excuse, but an attempt to understand what happened, at its roots is that disparity between the haves and have nots. And by haves and have nots, I'm not just referring to money - also education, status, opportunity, purpose. The simmering resentment reached a flashpoint, and it could happen here, too. I'm not saying we should be afraid, but we should be aware of the harm, real harm, we are causing others by the cuts we are making. We should consider who the various measures will hurt, and try to hurt the fewest people, the least amount. There are far more poor than rich, and cuts hurt them far more than raising taxes would the rich. The least harm to the fewest people would be to raise taxes.

And while we are on the subject - let's make corporations pay their taxes - if they are "people, too" as Mitt Romney affirms, they need to pay up! Yes, we have one of the highest tax rates on corporations in the developed world, so lets reduce our corporate tax rate, but remove the loopholes so they all have to pay! Huge profits, ridiculously overpaid CEOs, combined with layoffs and tax loopholes make corporations one of the few that it would hurt least... tax them.

The rich are different — and not in a good way, studies suggest - Health - Behavior - msnbc.com

Brian Alexander from MSNBC hits a nerve:

• "the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class "ideology of self-interest.""
  

  
  
• "Because the rich gloss over the ways family connections, money and education helped, they come to denigrate the role of government and vigorously oppose taxes to fund it."

• "a strong allegiance to the American Dream can lead even regular folks to overestimate their own self-reliance in the same way as rich people."

My thoughts on this:

In addition, the "American Dream" itself has become distorted. It used to be about creating something, being an entrepreneur, achieving a personal accomplishment. Now it's just about being rich. It's like every American baby is born with a lottery ticket, and they're all hoping to hit it big...

This allegiance is because they are actually "failed rich people" - they are delusional about their own ability to become rich someday, so they consistently vote against their own self interest in favor of the interests of the wealthy.

• "most people could quickly tell you how much they paid in taxes last year but few could put a dollar amount on how they benefited from government by, say, driving on interstate highways, taking drugs gleaned from federally funded medical research, or using inventions created by people educated in public schools."
  

  
  
• "Last year, research at Duke and Harvard universities showed that regardless of political affiliation or income, Americans tended to think wealth distribution ought to be more equal."

• "The problem? Rich people wrongly believed it already was."

Recommended Reading for "clueless" rich people:

Nickled and Dimed - on (not) getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

The combination of ideology, playing politics, pandering to campaign contributors, and willful ignorance keeps that gap between the haves and have nots growing larger than ever.