Of all the
divisive issues and divisive non-issues that will be brought forward during
this election cycle, the one thing actually affects all of us is the U.S. economy. As James Carville so succinctly stated 20
years ago during the recession left behind by an earlier George Bush: "It's the
economy, stupid."
President
Obama's economic record is easily verifiable, being forever etched in
government statistics. The U.S. Gross
Domestic Product (G.D.P.), essentially the sum of all goods and services, fell
off the economic cliff during President George W. Bush's tenure, declining 9%
in the last quarter of 2008 alone. Obama
took the presidential reins during the first quarter of 2009 and by the 3rd
quarter, our G.D.P. had climbed back into positive territory and has stayed
there ever since. This positive growth
has been in spite of the seemingly coordinated strangulation of the economy by
bankers, setting new records for not lending and American corporations, now
holding more cash than ever. The
bankers' previous record for excess reserves, that is, money available to loan,
was at $19 billion, due to the national financial paralysis which followed the
9/11 attacks. Today, it is nearly 100
times that prior record, translating into about $15 trillion missing from
circulation, prolonging this economic malaise and stifling employment. Unemployment
numbers have also remained persistently high and hiring has been anemic due in
part to increases in productivity as those of us with jobs work harder and
harder with less and less help. This
increase in productivity has caused corporate profits to soar to pre-recession
highs and is currently reflected in robust stock market averages.
In a February ABC News/Washington Post poll,
48 percent of potential voters said Romney's business experience was a major
reason to support him. The narrative that the Romney
campaign wants you to hear is that in 1984, Mitt and a handful of partners at
Bain Capital, gave $4.5 million to two guys running a successful office supply
store called Staples. That money allowed
them to expand and the rest, as they say, is history. Unfortunately, Romney's venture capital story
doesn't end there. Recently released campaign
videos document a pattern where Romney and his partners would buy companies,
borrow heavily on the company's credit, pay themselves millions of dollars from
those loans, and then let the company go bankrupt - leaving thousands of American
workers without retirement plans, healthcare, or jobs. You would think this type of Darwinist,
survival of the biggest scheme would fit well with Republican core values, but
even some Republicans have labeled Romney's anti-worker tactics "Vulture
Capitalism." Newt Gingrich said, "Look, I'm for capitalism,
but if somebody comes in, takes all the money out of your company and then
leaves you bankrupt while they go off with millions, that's not traditional
capitalism." If Romney's behavior were labeled
anything but "venture capitalism," his desecration and lack of concern for
thousands of American citizens would not be considered an astute business
practice deserving of self-praise on the campaign trail, but rather a
sociopathic illness requiring powerful medications, intensive therapy, and a
locked ward.
Far from
being an American success story, Mitt Romney's rise as the child of a wealthy,
politically well-connected father to potentially becoming leader of a country
is an only-in-America-and-everywhere-else-in-the-world tale that stands Horatio
Alger on his head. We've had two other
Republican "businessmen" as presidents: Herbert Hoover also made money in the
stock market before leading America into the Great Depression and George W.
Bush, who obtained his Master's Degree in Business Administration before he
administered us into our current mess.
Perhaps the third time's the charm?
