The current economic crisis will not be complete until people understand that Walmart is not the solution — Walmart is the problem. Walmart needs to fail. People need to protest and picket every Walmart store in the nation as a symbol that companies like Walmart are the problem.
When the government sends out “stimulus” money to taxpayers, many of the poor spend it at Walmart. This is understandable because the U.S. has created a rapidly growing poor. The poor are trying to feed themselves. Sure, they go to the place with the lowest prices. However, Walmart is a direct conduit to China. With Walmart being the most successful retailer in the U.S. today, it is helping the U.S. little when money is spent at Walmart — on the other hand, it helps China a lot.
That is just the beginning of the problems with Walmart.
Walmart pays below living wage salaries and encourages their employees to seek public assistance because their wages to most employees are poverty wages. Walmart provides crappy health insurance but it is so expensive that employees cannot afford it. Even if they do pay it, the employees find out just how crappy it is with large deductibles and low limits on benefits.
The Walmart model is not sustainable. The company will fail. Many people already know how the greed and corruption of Walmart has hurt America through the film. Many people who once shopped at Walmart will no longer shop there because they understand that Walmart policies and practices are not good for America.
Congress needs to pass laws to force Walmart to act in the interest of America. There needs to be living wage laws. There needs to be restrictions on selling cheap foreign products. It is clear Walmart will never do the right thing on their own because of their greed. Until current policies and practices are put to an end at Walmart, there is no hope for America.
America is doomed.
Treasury Geithner not only cheats on his taxes but he cheats for Wall Street. Today, Geithner gave Wall Street one of their top priorities — end of mark to market. Marking securities to the market is the most honest way of valuing assets. Oh, honest and Geithner — those things don’t go together. So, no wonder that Geitner took the side of the cheats and liars.
Seriously, can America not come up with one honest banker to run the Treasury? This county’s economic system is doomed. There is no saving it. All of these buying toxic asset programs and flooding the banks with more and more tax payer money will just guarantee the eventual collapse of the entire system.
In the end the dollar will be worthless so, maybe, giving all of this money to the banks will ultimately mean nothing. But, for now, Americans are suffering and the U.S. government is using their limited ability to borrow money to prop up failed banks, instead of helping ordinary citizens. Why are we surprised? It was this same mentality that brought about this financial crisis. The rich and powerful won’t be finished until the entire system collapses.
America is doomed.
IBM continues with its ruthless layoffs:
Confidential sources confirmed that IBM laid off over 15,000 contractors and employees in the last few weeks across virtually all divisions in the U.S. Sources indicate that there will be considerably more layoffs throughout the year as IBM increases employment in lower paid foreign countries. For example, IBM is attempting to get U.S. employees to relocate to places like India and accept lower local salaries. All of these efforts will result in decreases in salaries and expensive U.S. benefits. IBM maintains its policy to not reveal the distribution of world wide employment in an effort to hide the extent of its employment decisions, particularly in the U.S.
The U.S. government needs to pass laws that make such behavior illegal for companies doing business in the U.S. IBM taxes should be increased to compensate for the extra burden that laid off IBM workers pose on state and federal governments.
America is doomed.
As unemployment continues to rise, the risk of a complete societal breakdown increases. Such breakdowns have massive casualties and suffering and not limited to a father killing his children. For example, Australia is experiencing serious fires that have killed over 100 people, burned down nearly 1000 homes, and were caused by an arsonist. That is an example of a serious societal breakdown. The emergency people try to get the fires under control and the displaced people try and find a place to sleep. The arsonist will be tried for murder, because it is murder when somebody knowingly sets homes ablaze and people die.
Society works when people have hope, goals, and optimism toward the future. When these motives are removed and replaced with hopelessness, joblessness, and homelessness people will do horrible things. These people are suffering. They are humiliated for not being able to care for themselves and their loved ones. These people don’t know what to do except they don’t want to live with their pain any longer.
When I read the daily news with another set of horrible statistics, I wonder about the 600,000 people who were laid off in January according to the latest government report — how many people were really affected? I wonder about the 200,000 state employees in California who are forced to take two days off a month without pay — how many people were really affected and how many others think they will be next? I wonder about the fathers and mothers who cannot provide for their families. I wonder when society will begin to break down.
It is amazing to me to that politicians, particularly national Republicans, speak against providing for the citizens of America. These same Republicans will pine on about how pro-life they are and how religious they are. Yet, they show callous disregard for, in their words, “god’s children”. The Republicans will speak passionately about the rule of law and putting people into prison who break the law. They will advocate the death penalty for people who kill others, even if the deaths are indirect. For example, these Republicans would have no problem delivering the death penalty to the person who started the fires and killed over 100 people.
Yet, the Republicans would beg for mercy if a court ruled their actions to abandon fellow citizens in a time of need resulted in a societal breakdown and people died. But, people will die because of the actions of these Republicans. When society does break down, society can round up the people who set the fires, massacred the people in the malls, and exploded the automobiles and put them all to jail. But, will those politicians who consistently showed a blatant disregard for fellow citizens be put into those same jails and given the ultimate penalty? I doubt it.
America is doomed.
One definite winner in the economic crisis is President Obama. If Obama stimulates the economy back to recovery in the next four years, he will be considered a hero. If, despite Obama’s best efforts, the economy is still struggling, it will be the obstructionist Republicans who are to blame. Obama knows this full well and will be on TV, writing editorials, and constantly on the news pointing out how he is trying to get legislation to help the economy through Congress and the Republicans are opposed to everything.
Obama is planning on doing a “State of the Union” to Congress soon even though Presidents don’t normally do that until the end of the first year. Does it surprise anybody that Obama after just a few weeks of trying to reach out to Republicans abruptly changed his tactics by attacking the Republicans as being obstructionist? Plus, an irony in American politics, President Obama is exactly right. Thus, Obama is already showing he will not be pushed around and that Americans have already voted for change.
With no votes in the House and three votes in Senate, Republicans have no defense of their actions. Republicans have no new ideas and the old idea about just lowering taxes so the wealth “trickles down” is already considered a failure by a majority of Americans. At least there will be one winner in this economic malaise — President Obama.
Reagan is a joke and is considered the grandfather of the economic crisis with his policies that cut taxes and started the massive increase in the national debt. Reagan’s Bush twins continued the spending and now America has an $11 TRILLION national debt which will continue to grow and will all be blamed on the Republicans.
In two and four years, Americans will be voting again. If the economy is doing well then Democrats will be elected. If the economy is doing poorly then Democrats will be elected. Republicans are a dead party until they figure out some new idea that they can sell to America. This will be a very difficult task, indeed, because Republicans were in charge for decades and their ideas didn’t work and apparently have no new ideas. It would truly be comical if the Republicans pushed forward the likes of a Sarah Palin or Russ Limbaugh as the new leader of the party. Maybe they could bring back a Newt Gingrich or a Bob Dole? When these names are mentioned do you think of pathetic clowns who are too tired, old, and just not funny anymore?
My advice to Republicans is to get on board with Obama or figure out a plausible new way to proceed. If there really is a new idea out there in Republican land, Obama has already indicated he is willing to listen and act. However, Republicans continue to try and sell the same old failed ideas. The train that Republicans are on will need fewer cars in two and four years. Republicans are providing Obama’s best defense if the economy doesn’t turn around as they oppose everything he does. Sadly, the Republican tactics will not only render the Republicans politically impotent but will result in more pain for ordinary Americans.
America is doomed.
