Paul M Peterson

The material in this video is representative of the things the main stream media tell Americans about their economy. Shop For America! Take your stimulus package rebate money and spend it on an Ipod, or some “bling-bling”.

The most patriotic economic policy must by definition be the one which makes the American economy the strongest it can be. Most of the world understands this. The people of Burma, for example, generally understand that it is the mission of Burmese elected officials to promote the strength of the Burmese economy so that it is the best it can be. Here in America, the main stream media has taken the snobby, elitist laissez faire economic policies of Woodrow Wilson, one of America’s worst presidents, painted them red, white and blue.

I love money. I love the smell of a fresh crisp one hundred dollar bill. I love having money (when I do). I love the shininess of a brand new dime and the tangy odour of a copper penny. Money is great.

The litany of Reaganomics seems to run about thus: To stimulate the economy, you need to cut taxes and reward the most innovative and hardest working people in the economy. You do this by giving them back some of their own money so that they can invest it in the stock market. You wouldn’t want to reward, say, homeless people with a social safety net (welfare) because you would then reward the least innovative and laziest people in the country. You wouldn’t want to reward the average low income worker because by definition they are average and nobody wants to be that-least of all an ambitious conservative.

I believe this belief system is mistaken on several fronts and if you read the rest of this post, you will find out why. I challenge any conservatives out there to prove me wrong.

(video courtesy of satkuru )

It seems to me that the republican program of cutting the capital gains tax, lowering income taxes for the rich, repealing the inheritance tax (that’s the so-called “death tax”) and raising the national debt, and then deficit spending to expand the military budget is just a way of “change-raising” the working class (that is, those whose income is generated based on an hourly rate for their labor.) It shifts the burden of debt to future generations of middle class workers.

The working class, in this country, is in bad shape. Most of the jobs that are created in any given year do not pay enough for a person to save even a little bit of their money. You could have four jobs at McDonald’s and still not make enough money to invest a portion of your income. So the promise of being able to invest in the stock market simply does not bear out for most people. Most working people who do invest their money use the IRS to help them by having their employer overpay a set percentage of their income to the federal government.

Let me tell you about Enrique. Enrique is someone I met, who works at the Shell station I go to on my way home from work. He is a young man in his mid twenties who makes about eight dollars on hour. He speaks fluent English and Spanish. Whenever I go to get gas, He is there working the night shift, with his laptop open. He dreams of life as a profitable musician. At night, you can go to the shell station and listen to his latest edits of whatever music he is working on at the moment.

Let me tell you, he comes up with some brilliant compositions. He is also a part time DJ. He dreams of someday being rich and famous and he typically works a fourteen hour day and he is very, very innovative. But he probably will not make it. I hope he will. But probably not.

If you are a wage-slave, The federal government automatically takes a certain portion of each paycheck’s value even before you can convert it to hard currency. Then in order to use that money you have to give a portion of it to the bank you use. You are already third in line at the soup kitchen that is your “wealth” even before you see any cash!

And now it is time to pay your landlord for the shelter you use and then you pay Agribusiness by purchasing some groceries to live on. Now you can go party with your money Right? Wrong! Because the electricity fed into your hovel isn’t free and you need to keep warm at night and have a place to shower. And then there are the transportation costs associated with commuting that, for most people, include auto insurance, gas, maintenance, and paying your monthly car debt. I have not mentioned credit card debt, mainly because that is an optional debt whereas none of the other expenses listed really are.

How does conservative economics effect a person in this situation? The question is important even for someone that sees themselves outside of this economic class. Now if you cut government taxes, it is true that more people will have more money in their bank account. It is also true that the federal government will be less able to provide services due to the decreased revenue. The federal government uses the money we give them, to facilitate some pretty important services. It builds roads and highways and levees, elementary schools and colleges, provides us with an army to defend us. And occasionally these things even work.

American conservatism, and it’s economic belief system, rest on some core assumptions. One-that cutting the capitol gains tax rewards hardest working and most innovative among us. To believe that, you have to ignore all of the starving artists and inventors whose invention simply did not take off because of bad timing or lack of interest. Not everybody who is hard working and innovative gets a reward because of tax cuts. Who does get rewarded? Trust fund kids and CEOs.

Another assumption is that any economic policy enacted in America will effect Americans, primarily. This is just stupid on it’s face. If you cut taxes for the rich, the money they pocket will be that much more likely to leave the country. You might as well put your duckets in an envelope and mail them to Saudi Arabia, Europe and China. Why? Rich people can afford things from those places. Rich people jet all over the world spending money. They take their money and invest in non-American companies. This is called capitol flight.

In summary, to spend your money patriotically is to spend it in a financially healthy way. Those who want to do well should join a credit union and have their boss over deduct their paycheck then use the excess to invest in stock, rather than pay down their credit cards. That is how you do it.