The Fleecing of America

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By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 8 of 11 page(s)

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Ruinous militarization is wrecking the nation. The insane amounts of spending on it. Military Keynesianism. A permanent war economy. Institutionalized after WW II. The current "Global Wars on Terrorism." The misguided notion that they promote sustainable economic growth. Mindless to their destructive effects. Eroding our social fabric. The national and human infrastructure. Looting the national treasury. Diverting productive economic efforts to war making. Ignoring vital re-industrialization needs. Instead doing the opposite. Losing our competitiveness. Eroding our political credibility, and leading the world solely in military might and the recklessness to use it.

It shows in waging perpetual wars. Allowing the destruction of our manufacturing base. Letting malls replace factories as the nation's engine. Amassing unsustainable current account and budget deficits. The former approaching $900 billion. The latter to exceed $400 billion, according to a September CBO Congressional Budget Office estimate. It excludes around $300 billion from the Social Security "Trust Fund." Without it, the deficit is $700 billion. Then add expected hundreds of billions of "bailout" dollars, and the total for FY 2009 skyrockets. Will way exceed $1 trillion.

Economist John Williams says the above numbers are grossly understated. Based on Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP), he calculates the FY 2007 budget deficit at $1.2 trillion. Down from $4.6 trillion in 2006 because of one-time actuarial assumption changes. It includes the year-to-year changes in the net present value of unfunded liabilities in programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Washington calculations are by "cash accounting" with no provisions for future payouts in years when they accrue.

By GAAP estimates, Williams also says that total federal debt obligations rose to $59.8 trillion in 2007 from $58.6 trillion the previous year and that FY 2008 numbers will be higher. He reverse engineers data. Reveals administration and congressional bookkeeping gimmicks, and gives what he believes is a more accurate picture of the nation's financial health. In deep trouble by all his measures, and reckless military Keynesianism is why. It's heading the nation toward insolvency and getting progressively closer each year.

According to Williams, America is already bankrupt, and Bush administration policies get much of the blame. The official national debt was under $1 trillion in 1981. In January 2001, it was $5.7 trillion. It jumped to $9 trillion for 2007. Williams, however, puts it at $14.7 trillion, up from $14.1 trillion in 2006. It'll easily top $15 trillion (by his calculation) for 2008 and go far higher in future years.

The culprit - unsustainable military spending. All the worse because of the productive investment lost. Sacrificed for unneeded weaponry and militarism. To pursue an imperial agenda and enrich war profiteers. At the expense of advancing the greater good. The public interest long ago abandoned. Any pretext that "we the people" matter. The ones who do are them, not us.

Transferring Wealth to the Rich

It's been long-standing but became policy under Ronald Reagan. Shifting wealth upward. Mainly to the top 1% and major corporations. Less substantially to another 10% from over 90 million middle-class, lower-earning and poor households. By what anthropologist David Harvey calls "accumulation by dispossession." It shows in the decline of organized labor from a 1950s 34.7% high to around 12% overall today and only 7% in the private sector. The lowest percentage since the mass unionization struggles of the 1930s and in the private sector in over 100 years.

The result of a bipartisan antipathy to workers. A one-sided pro-corporate agenda. Allowing the dismantling of the nation's manufacturing base. Along with it the outsourcing of high-paying jobs. Professional ones also. Wage and benefit losses as a result. Allowing essential government services to erode. Replacing permanent jobs with lower-cost part-time and temporary ones. Creating a reserve army of labor to hold down wages and benefits. An unfair tax code restructured for the wealthy and large companies. Forcing workers to bear a greater burden. Using devious ways to do it. One discussed below by the 1980s Greenspan Commission.

Establishing globalized market-based rules. Embodying them in repressive trade agreements like NAFTA, DR-CAFTA, and an alphabet soup from the WTO. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The General Agreement on Trade Services (GATS). The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and others for one purpose. To establish uniform global trade rules favoring capital over people. To privatize and commoditize everything and strip-mine the planet for profit.

America's 130 million working class families have suffered. Militarism and financialization replaced productive investments. Lower-paying service jobs in place of higher-paying ones. People now work longer for less pay, adjusted for inflation, and are increasingly denied benefits. Peoples' overall standard of living declined. Two household earners are commonplace. Struggling to get by. College degrees are more expensive. For many unaffordable and are no longer an assurance of good jobs and a bright future.

Wealth today is more unequally distributed than ever. Poverty levels are rising. Millions of households are affected. The 37 million US Census Bureau figure masks the real problem. Now exacerbated by today's financial crisis touching many millions more. The near-certainty that conditions will worsen before stabilizing and improving. In the meantime, a permanent underclass is growing. In the richest country in the world. Heartless and mindless to the problem. One-sidely supporting capital. Rewarding criminals for their crimes. Allowing the middle class to erode. The poor to suffer grievously, and millions of homeowners to lose everything and maybe hope.

For a generation or more, an astonishing wealth transfer up occurred and is ongoing. Income and benefit reductions. Payroll tax increases. Loss of pensions and now savings. Well over $1 trillion annually accruing to the rich. And without most people even noticing. The result is an unprecedented and growing wealth disparity. An engineered enrichment of society's richest minority.

Tax cuts for the rich. In Bush's first term, over $4 trillion. Ballooning to $11 trillion if his cuts become permanent. Well over another $1 trillion to corporations. For working Americans - eroding welfare, lost opportunity, and for many any hope for a better future. Compounded by letting trillions in wealth be stashed in offshore tax havens from the Caribbean to Cyprus to South Asia to the Pacific.

Neither party objects. Nor to letting corporations pay less than their fair share. From 28% of federal revenues in the 1950s. To 21% in the 1960s. About 10% and falling since the 1980s, and according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) 94% of major corporations now pay less than 5% of their income in taxes. In addition, payments are the lowest in 60 years. Many pay nothing at all. Some, including profitable ones, get large rebates on top of huge annual subsidies. Ones working people pay for under socialism for business and free-market, on-your-own capitalism, for most others.

For them, welfare as we know it is disappearing. Public education eroding. College for many unaffordable. Health care as well for nearly 50 million uninsured and many millions more underinsured. New Deal and Great Society programs are eroding at a time they're most needed. To enrich the privileged and for unsustainable militarism. Destroying the American dream and national solvency. A free society with it. One for "them," not "us."

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I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

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