Senate Seats and Obama Inaugural Dinner Plates

Guantanamo Bay Senate Retreat

The FBI Agent who cuffed Rod Blagojevich deserves Obama's seat in the US Senate. The Agent could cuff every Senator who passed by for shipment to Guantanamo Bay.

Governor Rod was finding it difficult to sell the Senate appointment. Apparently, the office has fallen in value with the low opinion of the voters. The Depression is affecting everyone.

Just as in the Great Depression, the banks have stopped loaning money to consumers and to small businesses. As their credit cards max out, the citizens must cut back on their spending. Businesses react by laying off workers forcing them to cannibalize their dwindling reserves for necessities. Jobless, they can't meet the mortgage payments and they face foreclosure. Sadly, they discover the market value of their homes has dropped below the amount they owe on them.

The economy spirals downward in every sector contributing to the fall. Real output and real wages drop precipitously. Auto dealer lots clog with unsold vehicles. Advanced electronic devices gather dust on store shelves.

Librarians, teachers and firemen stand in line at the unemployment office. Rocket scientists apply for jobs as nightclub bouncers.

The big difference from the 1930's is we have safety nets. We have laws and institutions dating from that sorry period, which will take the edge off the suffering for the people. There will be fewer hunger marches and 'Hooverville' shanty towns. The SWAT teams won't be shooting down rioters in the streets. With luck, a Prescott Bush will not emerge to lead Blackwater to overthrow the government.

I say "with luck" because all the tools of a totalitarian tyranny are firmly in place. The so-called democratic leaders can be bought for a song. They haven't the first idea on how to serve the public interest. Indeed, they hold the keys to the 'ready cash' to buy distressed homes and factories at rock bottom prices.Their benefits increase with the length of the Depression.

The media maintains information control over the populace. They manipulate the coverage to manage public mood swings. They can raise or lower expectations to inflame or to defuse popular sentiment according to the whims of the establishment. The military/industrial complex needs new enemies every few years or so. The first reports numbered Pakistani nuclear weapons at three or four. Recently, the estimated number of weapons of mass destruction has increased to one-hundred and fifty.

The old McCarthy shell game continues. "Gentlemen, I hold a list of 110 card-carrying Communists employed by the State Department. How did Mrs. Moss graduate from a cafeteria job to working in the Pentagon code room?" The method is to promote political, racial and religious hatreds. These serve to cloud men's minds to abjure rational thought. The ancient economic saw was supply creates its own demand. The producers could sell anything to the ignorant consumers, who would lap up anything.

Ancillary to this was trickle down theory. If the government massaged corporate desires such as concessions and bailouts, the benefits would trickle down to the masses. The productivity of the capitalist system ensured an endless supply of goods and services. Deluded by the media and mesmerized by advertising, the public bought into these myths. Almost everybody ignored the requirements of the capitalist regimen. There had to be competition.

The deluded old men went to aid the supply side the financiers who created the bubble. Nothing went to the demand side consumers and small business. Foreclosures and lay-offs do not encourage spendinof the factor markets. Laborers had to be free to migrate to the best jobs. Capital should flow to the most productive users.  These orderly and democratic processors became distorted through constant abuse and, especially after deregulation, criminality prevailed. The government became purveyors of war, pestilence, famine and disease. The public bought the program being--greedy on the upside as the stock market and house prices soared. The housing bubble burst to reveal the illegal financial practices that had brought it about. A nation that had grown to greatness through cheap energy and credit resources began the downward spiral. .

Rod Blagojevich had it right. Obama's Senate Seat is worthless [as well as all the others]. The smart play for Rod would have been an investment in Obama Inaugural dinner plates. Manufactured in China two-hundred thousand of them have been sold. More profitable than Senate seats, that's for sure.