EDITOR: The following are edited notes taken by the Watchdog during a forum on the American economy, and subject to error. Van Jones speaks to the immediate challenges of this decade. William Greider, perhaps thirty years older, directs his attention to innovations for a sustainable and rewarding future.
Van Jones observed: Last economy failed because of three fallacies:
1) Based on consumption rather than production. Both political parties convinced public we didn’t need factories. Just send them overseas. Our economy was to be based on going to the mall, shopping on line. Neo liberalism
2) Based on credits rather than smart savings and thrift like our grandparents. Not just the government, but individuals. Credit cards were being tossed at people. People used houses like ATM. Borrowing but not building anything.
3) Based economy on ecological destruction rather than ecological restoration
Next economy must be the reverse of the above. That is called the Green Economy, based on production, thrift and respecting the earth. (WATCHDOG: These three points and the “Green Economy” concept can discussed in depth by Jeffrey Sachs in his recently published “The Price of Civilization.”)
We thought in 2008 that we would be able to start reforms with 60 votes in the senate, Pelosi as Speaker in the House and the presidency. But we ran into the 1%. For example, the big polluters stopped Cap and Trade.
Much of the current liberal agenda is based on earlier, now abandoned, conservative suggestions:
Cap and Trade idea originated with conservative Heritage Foundation. The idea is that no country should be allowed to pollute for free. “You can’t just dump trash in the street.”
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created by Richard Nixon and the Clean Air Act was signed by Nixon.
Cap and Trade: You tell polluters to ‘Cap’ your pollution and then ‘Trade’ tax benefits among yourselves. (WATCHDOG: This encourages picking of ‘low hanging fruit.’) Another way is to have a carbon tax.
Now polluters want to mine tar sands, shale, anything that can be burned in disregard of damage to the environment when it doesn’t run up their individual costs.
Banksters, war profiteers, and big polluters…the obstacles to progress.
Don’t write off the country. This is a turbulent period, not right wing or left wing. We don’t know how long it will last. The team that continues to innovate, to work hard, to learn, and to adapt, and keep fighting will prevail.
WILLIAM GREIDER:
At pivotal point in this country. Ideas for the future:
Debt forgiveness is the cure of our global economy problems. We have a huge mountain of debt lying over the entire economy, both public and private including consumers. For the most part, debts will not be repaid. Who is going to eat the loss? The creditors made the loans or the debtors who borrowed the money. Politics dictates that we dare not erase any corporate or consumer debt because it is immoral and a violation of capitalist principles. (WATCHDOG: Yet that is precisely what the Federal Reserve has indirectly done to save banks ‘too big to fail’ and the European Union is arranging for Greece sovereign debt.)
Concerning the jobless, orthodox perspective is: As painful as it is, it is working itself out. We cannot really create jobs. In time unemployment will come down to reasonable level.
Greider thinks that is wrong, especially for people 50 or older who may never be able to work again.
He asks: Young people who didn’t get the brass ring of good schools and degrees are never going to get the brass ring of a decent job. What is our responsibility to them?
Greider’s answer: We must guarantee a job for anyone who wants to work. It is common sense since otherwise they are unproductive and it is also morality.
In five to ten years people will understand that the private economy will not provide work for everybody willing to work, so government must do it.
He asks: How to get people through this period of austerity which will be severe for many? Urban and rural towns are in total deterioration. Build a program for the young which combines part time jobs restoring and improving infrastructure with education. Provide a ladder to start on.
Unemployed veterans have knowledge and can become trainers and leaders in the new system of public work.
USA is not poor. We are the richest country in the world. We can rebalance our fiscal picture in a way that does all the things that other advanced countries do if we just get over the pernicious propaganda that government employment programs are illegitimate.
Return to a truly progressive income tax. ‘Unearned income’ is the return on money rather than labor. Currently we favor unearned income over earned income. This needs to be reversed. We should tax earnings on capital at the same level as taxes on earned income. Or allow investments in America rehabilitation projects in exchange for a lower tax rate.
We need to cleanse our minds of propaganda of the last decades and present ‘new ideas’ even though they are from the past. Everybody who wants to work should be given a job.
Housing boom will not return, in part for ecological reasons. We overinvested in housing. What replaces it for an investment for the typical family? A new ethic of ownership which says that workers should share in the decision making and a portion of the ownership of firms for which they work.
When workers retire or leave their accrued stock is purchased back by the company, probably at higher value. In a couple of generations we could re-balance the ownership of the nation.
Through ownership of stock, family equity will be built up and have the same benefits as used to be with housing purchases.
Globalization. Wage pressure from foreign competition pulled down wage levels over past decades. Obama has urged other nations to rebalance world economy. We cannot be consumers of last resort. We must encourage industry through wise tax policies.
Observes Chinese wages are rising in their industrial segment, a long term hopeful trend. This threatens Walmart and current cheap prices for consumers. It is a natural process.
Greider notes the huge propaganda campaign on part of energy industries to convince people that climate change information is not taking place and, if it is, it is not because of human activity. This flies in the face of evidence to the contrary. The Big Lie sometimes work.
