As my grandmother would say "you ain't never lied!" Completely true. But the fact of the matter is that the way the capitalism works is that there MUST be a limited number of people who are business owners and a MUCH larger percentage of the population who works either producing goods, selling goods or installing/maintaining goods. I'm not saying that government should provide those jobs. Just that a country that doesn't employ people at a liveable wage can't succeed, period. And we are rapidly approaching that.

In his recent speech the chairman of the Fed said that the U.S. is experiencing stagflation. This is a kind of recession that's defined by inflationary pressure on prices combined with a reduction in consumer wealth/wages. Price go up. No one can afford anything. Business' lose profits.

Now this is happening after nearly a decade of the most business friendly Presidential Administration and Congress in history. In nearly every way corporate taxes were slashed under the Bush Administration from capital gains to "income" tax (though we know corporations don't pay "income" tax in the tradiitoinal sense). We also saw record profits for major industries, how else did the stock market climb so steadily. So here's the question. Why can't the people employed by these industries make ends meet? How can you have sky rocketing profits AND inflationary pressure that pushes things like gas and groceries sky high. Where are the profits going? It's not going to the government, taxes have been cut. Has the cost of making Grape nuts somehow radically increased in the last 10 years? I'm not going to speculate where the money is going, cause I don't know. I DO know that American workers are being left behind in a way they haven't been since the 70s.

It seems that things have gone out of balance and it's time for the government to do again what it did in the 30s, 40s and 50s. Create structures of support that are funded by the entire society in small measure. The Federal Housing Authority, Social Security and Public Works Administration. Healthcare and domestic energy production are the 21st century of those kinds of programs.

Hold on. I know what you're going to say. "Government wastes. Government screws shit up. Governemnt doesn't do anything right."
You're actually pretty wrong about that. Let's return to the New Deal and Federal Housing Authority, two huge pieces of legislation that created the inter and postwar middle class in this country in three simple steps:

1. New Deal puts the nation back to work again creating the infrastructure that expands major industrial cities like Chicago, New York, etc and suburban areas. Often people associate works progress with "ditch digging" like people were just working to be employed. This was the vast minority of government employment during the New Deal. Even more importantly, FDR delineated employment to local governments. So mayors from big to small cities engaged in local mini New Deals that also employed people.

2. Federal Housing Authority. The most important reason the middle class exists. This law subsidized home ownership for MILLIONS of (mostly white) Americans. The protection of housing prices became the singular obsessoin of a generation of Americans whose savings and future children was based on home ownership appreciation. I have to also say that when people talk about "welfare" in the present day, they never seem to remember that nearly all of our grandparents or parents (mine included) bought their first home with a federal subsidy. Especially if you count yourself among groups who "worked their way up" from industrial labor in the 30s and 40s. If your dad was a factory worker and now you're middle class, you got federal welfare in the form of a subsidized home loan.

I say those things to point out that the government doesn't HAVE to fail and government programs along with business created a stable middle class that has endured pretty much until now. Right now we're sort of back in the 20s. Massive profits and workers getting screwed. It's time to recorrect things again.

No one in their right mind is interested in turning America into a communist nation. And that you fear that is so strange because think of the massive cultural change that would be necessary in order for that to happen. Like..seriously, that would be a HUGE change. And yet, this ridiculous and far off fear of the U.S turning communist for the first time in its 400 year history is somehow a logical argument against federal programs that help to stabilize the economy.

Yes the 70s and 80s were failed decades for government programs. And yes, it will be hard to fix the broken beauracracy.

But this is why the Obama campaign is SO important for America. One of the main thing he says in those speeches of his is that he wants Americans to be active, involved and to hold. their. government. accountable. The problem with liberal democrats since the 50s is that they were content to placify their base but then not deliver. They got reliant on identity politics and appealing to racial minorities (who they then ignored in office} and white guilt liberals. They would never want the people to hold them accountable. But Obama does. The guy, amazingly, is not a cynic. Agree with him or not, there's a genuiness.

So if people are as active and involved in holding his administration accountable as they have been passionate about the campaign, then government will HAVE to be more effective and really remake itself. I also think you need government employees to have pride in what their doing. This is why Obamas constant patriotic and nationalistic rhetoric is so vital for America. He doesnt wave the flag because he wants to go to war, like McCain. He waves the flag because Americans can't make the country better if they don't believe in the country. In this way he's like Reagan, though the two had diametrically different ideas about how to make the country better.


I one hundred percent agree! Have you compared John McCain's plans to increase the kinds of jobs that can support a family and which don't require a college degree with Barack Obama's plans. Please do they both have websites that detail their policy plans. I bet if you look at both of their economic plans with an objective eye you'll see that Obama has a real plan for increasing gainful employment among those without a college degree.

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Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys’ network in Washington.' I’m not making this up. This is somebody been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s gonna take on the old boys' network,” he said. “In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting!- Obama, 9/17/2008