Our Crisis

As the corporate bought-and-paid-for Blue Dogs do their worst to ensure that health care reform is not universal, President Obama faces another problem: The economy and jobs are foremost on the public mind.

And the objective of providing universal care is akin to throwing a man falling from a building a steak dinner.

Health care needs to be done, if nothing else for the long-term fiscal health of the country, but the obvious threat to the project is that those who profit from making health care a commodity and product have a lot of money that can buy a lot of politicians.

Today's Republican Party and its Blue Dog allies have already proven that throwing the country into fiscal crisis is of no concern, and neither is health care costs.

As for the economy and jobs, Carl Ginsberg has a piece out in CounterPunch, Our Crisis, Their Gain, capturing the cause of the growing populist resentment.

There is no denying the inequitable manner in which the government is addressing the economic crisis. I have to believe that there is a political strategy in this, I just don't know what that would be.

Writes Ginsberg:

For some, joblessness is the antithesis of crisis. It is opportunity. People without work equates to competition for employment which means low wages which means enhanced profits. In case you haven’t noticed, the stock market is up. Bond sales by businesses were $570 billion in Q1, a record…. Net financial investment in Q1 was $340 billion, also a record. Go Go. ...

Back to your crisis: The banks are now aggressively pressing people who are delinquent on loans and mortgages in order to extract what they can, charge usurious interest and fees (thank you, Joe Biden), hound you --- to capitalize on your crisis. That is the business model Barack Obama invested in for all of us. Small wonder JP Morgan CEO James Dimon invited White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to visit with his board of directors.

Had President Obama taken our trillions and set up what William Greider calls for in the current Nation magazine, a development fund for long-term capital investment, or what Mike Davis has described, a national debt bank to relieve excessive consumer and mortgage debt, your government would be addressing your crisis. But of course there’s plenty of time for that.