Obligatory "It's The Economy" Post
by Mark Adams
In the Rust Belt, it seems like it always has been, stupid! You don't have to tell us it's the economy.
We own the dubious distinction of living in the "fastest-shrinking big cities in the US."
The Steel Valley from whence I hail no longer makes much steel, which prompted the Wiki authors to deem the nickname "once-relative." Akron is a shadow of its former "Rubber City" self. While Toledo still claims to be the "Glass Capital of the World," others would differ. The subtle change is evident in this Toledo Blade Article describing the construction of the Glass Pavilion of the Toledo Museum of Art.
Before the project began, some individuals had a hard time accepting the involvement of global players rather than the talents of people in the Glass City, in what was once indisputably the glass capital of the world.
When I moved to Toledo in 2000, the future seemed bright. The surest sign that things were turning around from the malaise that had been hanging over the area since the late 70's was the "Help Wanted" signs growing like dandelions on every avenue. Now, after just six years of the same old trickle-down crap they've been feeding us forever, there are no jobs, just for sale signs.
Small wonder that Sherrod Brown's populist economic message resonates here. Last week's New York Times/CBS News poll summed up the feelings throughout the State with 65% of us declaring Ohio's ecomomy "bad." No doubt, if they just polled the northern half of Ohio, the number would be closer to 80%.
A plurality, 46 percent of voters, said the economy and jobs were the most important issues facing Ohio, while 17 percent cited health care, 15 percent said terrorism and 12 percent said the war in Iraq. Seventy percent said that both Ohio and the nation were on the wrong track, a number that often spells doom for the party in power.
The war is a distant fourth when it comes to Ohioan's major concerns, trailing just behind terrorism. If you lump health care in with the economy, it's bread and butter over guns and security 63% to 27%. This is exactly the opposite from the rest of the county, where the war is all consuming.
Nationwide, Gallup tells us 48% said that Iraq war is "extremely important," 38% said it's "very important," when they consider their vote next week. That's 86% who are voting on the war, while those of us in Ohio remember that there's not much Congress can do to change The Decider's course in Iraq. But Congress can do a great deal when it comes to economic policy.Look, I'm no economist. I just know that things were going great, and then we put another Bush in the White House. People who know a lot more than me are writing about this too, like Kevin Drum's post Explaining Income Inequality taking a common sense approach to Jon Chait's TNR dissertation on Bushonomics vs. Clintonomics.
Over the last quarter century, the portion of the national income accruing to the richest 1 percent of Americans has doubled. The share going to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent has tripled, and the share going to the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent has quadrupled.Whenever you hear someone propose an explanation for skyrocking income inequality over the past few decades, try to think about whether it explains the fact that inequality has gotten immensely worse not just between the top 20% and the bottom 20%, but between the top 1% and the 9% just below them.
Ezra takes a shot at condensing Chait's thesis as well, trying to explain to those of us who speak in terms of Constitutionality instead of financial reality what the hell happened our prosperity.
In a word, power. Or the distribution of it. Europe has strong unions and active governments; countervailing powers that wrest a portion of the pie for their constituencies. We don't.
There's a reason our government is a wholly owned subsidiary of K-Street and Wall Street. They bought the leaders who used to represent us, the people, because they don't like to share. It looks like money well spent. That top 1% we're talking about are the only ones who can afford to buy off politicians, and the only ones who stand a chance to hold on when the bottom drops out.
It's not just Joe Six-pack getting crushed by the decidedly non-conservative fiscal policies of the neo-con imperialists. The alarm bells being rung by Comptroller General, David M. Walker about what we're doing to the long-term stability of the nation's economic health should give us all nightmares.
If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. That's almost as much as the total net worth of every person in America - Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and those Google guys included.
Bush and his cronies continuously travel throughout the nation, trying to scare everybody that if we elect Democrats, our taxes will go up. What's scarier, is that if we don't raise taxes, combined with some benefit cuts, and don't start investing in ourselves instead of foreign banks who hold most of our debt, we're diving headfirst into "Macroeconomic meltdown."
Kanye West had it wrong when he said, "Bush doesn't care about black people." Bush doesn't care about anybody. Certainly not future generations who will be saddled with this enormous Fourth Entitlement he has grown beyond reason.
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