If you listen to conservative talkers and bloggers, you would think that Americans everywhere would be joyous with their share of the expanding economic pie--and they'd be demanding more and more conservative economic policies.
Southern California conservative blogger Kevin Korenthal (aka SoCalPundit) is representative when in The Big Economy That Could he wrote:
It would seem that the American economy is stronger today than it has ever been. That has got to be a supreme disappointment for Osama bin Laden whose 9/11 attack was partly directed at derailing America’s thriving capitalist economy. Now, despite prognostications that gas prices and a housing market slow down would depress the economy, we seem to be in better shape then ever.But in a new Gallup Poll issued today, 70% of Americans believe the economy is getting worse -- the most negative reading in nearly six years.
How could it be? Are most Americans simply wrong?
What's clear is that the conservative talking heads endlessly bragging about the great economy simply aren't typical Americans. Simply put: they're rich--very rich, and all of their friends are very rich, too. These are the very lot--and a relatively small one at that--which have been the primary beneficiaries of current economic policies.
On the other hand, most Americans (70% according to the survey) are deeply concerned about their current and future financial circumstances.
So while large businesses report record profits, average Americans find themselves paying more for everything. And to make matters worse, while jobs are being produced at record levels, Americans increasingly find it difficult to find jobs with decent salaries.
Under the current policies, the rich are getting richer without any extra effort, risk or investment, while most Americans pay for that accumulation of wealth through runaway prices and reduced salaries and benefits.
This new reality probably explains why conservatives and their propaganda pieces are using every device possible to keep people in-line. You have to wonder why, for example, the free-market right has all of a sudden gone loony on immigration? Maybe they're not as loony as they seem?
Could the trumped up hysteria over immigration be yet another example of Wag the Dog?
Absurdly, during the Bush years, it is entirely possible that the economy has been increasingly “better,” even as 70% of Americans experience it as worse post September 11th. This seems a counterintuitive paradox; however, when one considers the issue of measuring the economy’s “improvement,” the paradox disappears. How economists and the republicans measure the economy has everything to do with how they frame the success of trickle down economics. After all, if you consider only the increasing GDP, the over-all creation of wealth, the increasing value trust funds, the bonuses of the CEOs of companies, the improving stock market, and the increasing numbers of new million and billionaires – there has been clearly the economy has improved in terms such as these.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, at the very same time, social inequality is on the rise: The concentration of wealth and the concentration of poverty create a situation, in an expanding economy, in which an increasing population proportion is excluded from the economy’s “growth” and “improvement.” The “haves” have more of what is growing, and the “have-nots” are increasingly having less of it. Moreover, the middle class is shrinking; a small number of its members are radically improving their standard of living, while the majority of its members experience deteriorations in income, healthcare, access to education, and other socio-economic resources.
Economists and politicians are notorious for abusing selecting only those true statistics that reinforce the reality they want others to buy into. Scrutinizing their facts is an imperative if one wishes to COMPREHENSIVELY understand the totality of their assertions.
I would suggest reading an article in the New York times recently penned by one of my college Professors, Dr. Richard Alba. Here is the link:
> http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-alba19jun19,0,5842224.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
>
> Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com
-Savatore Labaro, Albany, New York.
www.myspace.com/salvatore_labaro