It is surprising to me how clueless President Obama is about economic recovery. This is partly the result of his decision to keep Wall Street goons Geithner and Summers in charge of critical elements. Obama seems to think that the stimulus bill will actually let the economy recover. He is wrong and I wonder how long it will before he realizes just how wrong he is.
Obama Asks For Patience On Stimulus.
He [Obama] said his stimulus plan must be given time to work and appealed to Americans, who are increasingly uneasy with rising unemployment and ballooning budget deficits, to let his plan “work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.”
It is difficult to realize when transformational events occur — to realize that the current financial crisis and economic “recession” (I prefer D E P R E S S I O N) are unique. It has never happened before. The 1930s were not the same as the crisis of 2000s — yes, this economic crisis began with the stock market plunge in 2000 — it is nearly a decade old already. Sure, there are some similarities with the 1930s — both had stock market busts and both had high unemployment. However, what makes this economic crisis so unique is jobs are being destroyed and they are not coming back. Sure, the stimulus package will create some jobs. However, most of the public work projects will be short term jobs, lasting just a few years. If they improve infrastructure this will be good the the overall economy. Yet, permanent living wage jobs are the problem.
Capitalism’s purpose is just to make profits — not to create jobs, and certainly not to help people support themselves. If there is anything good about capitalism, it is the ability optimize. However, optimization is not necessarily a good thing. For example, when mergers occur between two large supermarket chains, it results in stores being closed and people being laid off. The back office of the newly merged entity can function with many less people. There is less competition so prices are increased. In the end, you have a more optimized company but less people are employed, prices are higher, and rich people make more money.
For example, in my area the CVS drug store has been acquiring competitors for the last few years. With the latest acquisition of Longs Drug Store, it has rendered CVS without any competition in my area. As a result, prices has zoomed — in some cases as much as 50% — all because of elimination of competition and a willingness to gouge their customers. CVS does not have to compete any longer. The only people to benefit from this are the stockholders of CVS. Meanwhile, all of the people who shop there are exploited. This is typical of capitalism — reward the few and exploit the many. For CVS is doesn’t matter if products they sell are vital for the health of their customers — profits, only profits, are what matter. This is a good example of why capitalism is self destructing.
The longer President Obama fails to realize that this economic crisis is unique, the worse he will appear to the electorate. Already, I will not vote for Obama again — he was been a great disappointment to me. I thought Obama was smart enough to solve real problems; instead, he seems to be 70%+ like Georgie W who I consider to be a corporation pretending to be human.
Meanwhile, Republicans will continue to hammer Obama for his stimulus plan even though it was Republicans who contributed to the inane provisions of the stimulus, e.g. 1/3 of it was tax cuts. Republicans love to compromise and subvert legislation with the help of corporate special interests. In the end Republicans will not vote for the legislation because they will always find something wrong with the end result – and be ongoing critics. Democrats fall for these tactics time after time. They will fall for it with health care, climate change, and Wall Street reform. In the end, ordinary citizens of America will lose. Longer term even the rich in America will lose as the country is destroyed.
America is doomed.
