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It's pure Chicago School fundamentalism, Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006) its leading advocate for public wealth in private hands, unrestrained accumulation of profits, abolition of corporate taxes, and social services curtailed or ended. He called economic freedom an end to itself; opposed minimum wages, unions and an egalitarian society; supported a flat tax for the rich; wanted Social Security and Medicare abolished; believed private schools should replace public ones; wanted everyone to be on their own "free to choose;" and called profit-making the essence of democracy - a dark world view harmful to the majority and devastating to the poor and disadvantaged, characterized by SAP harshness.
They benefit capital, not people, and the more severe, the greater the harm. They're a package of wage and benefit cuts, mass layoffs, privatization of government services, deregulation, de-unionization, currency devaluation, free capital flows, market-based pricing, free (not fair) trade, environmental harm, and at least one other few know about.
A provision in the 2008 Farm Bill lets Washington withhold up to 15% of Social Security and disability benefits from anyone with outstanding government debts, no matter how old. It applies to farm and small business loans, unpaid or disputed taxes, health care amounts veterans owe, and other government debt, potentially affecting millions late in life when they can least afford it.
Overall, the effects are devastating, including growing poverty, inequality, the destruction of the middle class and unions, hunger, homelessless, environmental harm, and police state measures to quell dissent - the essence of tyranny showing up in America and arriving at a fast clip.
Barack Obama - Neoliberal Neocon
As a candidate, he promised change, a new course, sweeping government reforms, addressing people needs, and "ensur(ing) that the hopes and concerns of average Americans speak louder in Washington than the hallway whispers of high-priced lobbyists...."
As president, he's for business as usual, not the public. Besides unbridled militarism, imperial wars, handouts to the rich, shocking lawlessness, embracing torture, political persecutions, illegal spying, and police state rule, he ignores growing poverty, joblessness, homelessness, human despair, and budget-strapped states in favor of a discretionary spending freeze from 2011 through 2013, amounting to one-sixth of the budget. Defense, national security, and business needs remain unconstrained.
That was his State of the Union message, followed up by Executive Order (EO) 13531 on February 18 titled, "National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform." In other words, soak the poor. Enrich the wealthy, the way it always works, mostly in recent decades, especially since 2000, and more than ever under Obama - central casting's poster child for power.
His EO charges the Commission with "improv(ing) fiscal sustainability over the long run (and) balanc(ing) the budget" by 2015, - impossible given trillion dollar + annual deficits as far as the eye can see. Its real aim is to dehumanize America, strip off its democratic veneer, and transform it full-blown into Guatemala, Honduras, or occupied Iraq, Afghanistan, or Palestine through imposed austerity enforced by militarized repression.
As for "fiscal responsibility," financial writer Ellen Brown calls it fear-mongering code language for:
"delivering public monies into private hands and raising taxes on the already-squeezed middle class," not a measure "to save the country from bankruptcy."
She quoted Professor Carroll Quigley from his 1966-published "Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time," saying:
Financial capitalism's "far-reaching aim (is) to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and (world) economy....This system (aims for control) in a feudalist fashion by (world) central banks....acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences."
He was prescient, former high-level government and business insider, Catherine Austin Fitts revealing "a financial coup d'etat," including engineering a "fraudulent housing and debt bubble, illegally shift(ing) vast amounts of capital" offshore, and "us(ing) privatization as a form of piracy - a pretext to move government assets to private investors at below-market prices and then shift private liabilities back to government at no cost to the private liability holder."
It's a government-business cabal to suck wealth from the many to the few, and from the wreckage propose reform, meaning sweeping austerity and greater than ever top down control, in America and globally - a cynical scheme using populist rhetoric and "slow burn" tactics for what Michael Parenti described in his 2002 "Global Rollback" article, saying:
"Throughout history (ruling classes most of all have wanted) all the choice lands, forests, game, herds, harvests, mineral deposits and precious metals of the earth; all the wealth, riches, and profitable returns; all the productive facilities; all the gainful inventiveness, and technologies; all the surplus value produced by human labor; all the control positions of the state and other major institutions; all public supports and subsidies, privileges and immunities; all the protections of the law with none of the constraints; all the services, comforts, luxuries, and advantages of civil society with none of the taxes and costs. Every ruling class has wanted only this: all the rewards and none of the burdens."
