Nation-Building Should Begin At Home
I have been writing for the last two years or so that the strategy of the Federal Reserve has been to engineer a “soft landing” from the horrendous financial bubbles that were created during the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush. Since President Obama came to power in January 2009, his administration has been partners with the Federal Reserve in trying to do this.
It’s nonsense for anyone to say that the crash of 2008 had not been foreseen. A number of analysts, myself included, were predicting a crash by mid-2007. Actually, it was apparent that a serious decline would take place by the end of 2005 when the U.S. economy was still dependent on housing for half its growth over a year after the Federal Reserve had begun to raise interest rates. By early 2008 the economy was officially in a recession, though I actually dated it to December 2006 when the money supply measured by M1 became stagnant. That meant that consumer spending wasn’t even keeping up with inflation.
Now, over the last year, the recession has begun to bottom out due to the huge quantities of credit injected by the Federal Reserve into the failed banking system and by the relatively undersized economic stimulus asked for by President Obama and approved by Congress. A “recovery” has been declared, with stock prices making up for about half their previous losses, even though the official (and understated) unemployment rate is not likely to fall below 9.5-10 percent for the foreseeable future.
The current uptick has been projected by some analysts to continue through May-June 2010, when we will be in danger of another downturn that could be quite serious. Obviously the Democrats will be doing what they can to bolster confidence, at least until the 2010 Congressional elections.
The Republicans, with the victory of their candidate Scott Brown in the race for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts, are jubilant, even though they have absolutely nothing to offer as an alternative. How soon we forget that it was Republican policies, starting with Reaganomics and ending with the George W. Bush catastrophe, that has been the prelude to where we are today.
The prognosis for the U.S. economy is dim. From a larger perspective, we are at the end of the era of Keynesian economics, when the government thought all it had to do was run up more debt to stimulate the economy. When you add to that a generation of outsourcing of manufacturing jobs abroad, completely irresponsible and out-of-control behavior by the financial industry, and the cancerous growth of the military-intelligence-industrial complex and their pet wars, you have all the signs of an empire in precipitous decline.
For those who are habitually against everything the government does, I’d like to say that there are actually a few caring and intelligent people in authority these days who don’t want to see the total collapse of the U.S. as a nation, an economy, and a society. The U.S. remains the world’s largest consumer economy and the dollar the predominant currency. But the rest of the world has caught up. The Anglo-American Empire is seeing the sunset, and the choice now to be made is whether it will end peacefully or in a bang.
We can all hope for a peaceable conclusion, though it will take patience and hard work for the U.S. even to become a functioning economy on the same level as the rest of the world’s developed nations. So we can hope that the “soft landing” will work. But we still have a gigantic debt load to deal with, amounting to $60 trillion from all sources–business, government, and consumer.
We also have a gutted manufacturing sector, the huge overhead of a bloated financial industry (and their obscene bonuses), bankrupt governments at all levels, and way too many people with no real work to do like lawyers, health insurance executives, national security analysts, financial and educational bureaucrats, etc.
The short and simple answer is that we have to rebuild our economy, and our lives, from the bottom-up. We have to relearn how to do manual work like what we have mainly been asking immigrants to do for the last couple of decades. We should rebuild our local farming sector and get rid of bloated monstrosities like Monsanto. We should launch a major assault on the automobile culture and begin to revitalize cities and towns so that people can bike or walk to work or take public transportation.
It will not be easy to do these things. It may not even be possible. We have forgotten how to work because we have wanted our money to “work for us.” But that money, which only ever existed on paper, is gone. Our population is aging and not too healthy, making care of the sick and dying the only growth industry. And the young people who come out of our schools have few practical skills with which to earn a living. This must change too.
And what of investment capital? Loans are harder than ever to get. The small business sector, which could be an economic engine, is in dismal shape with lack of credit, high costs, and weakened markets for their products. Half of all new small businesses fail within one to two years of start-up.
Some say that a nation armed to the teeth and under this much pressure is likely to start a really big war out of frustration and not knowing what else to do. In other words, roll the dice. But World War II ended a long time ago. Since then, except for Vietnam, we have had our way bullying small nations. But that era has ended too. We won’t be able to do to China, Russia, and India what we did to Iraq and are trying to do to Afghanistan.
World War III would be a really bad choice. What we should do instead is take a positive attitude and sit down together and figure out ways to work our way out of this mess. But it will take a heap of humility, leadership, and willingness to face the pain of starting over again. But it could also be an adventure. After all, nation-building should begin at home.
In January 1986 Cook became the first NASA official to testify publicly on the space agency's prior knowledge of flaws in the solid rocket booster O-ring joints that destroyed Challenger and took the lives of its seven astronauts. He told his story in the book Challenger Revealed, published in 2007. Publisher's Weekly wrote of the book: "Easily the most informative and important book on the disaster."
[...] Richard C. Cook Featured Writer Dandelion Salad richardccook.com January 21, [...]
Pingback by Nation-Building Should Begin At Home by Richard C. Cook « Dandelion Salad on January 21, 2010Good day sir:
I enjoyed your article immensely, I just read this and your “How Can Localities Cope if the Dollar Crashes?” Piece. Both articles are wonderfully written and shown a lot of insights. You shown great wisdom both from your age and your understanding of the problem at hand.
Keep it up. I just like to add one other thing to your advice. Reduce Personal Debt! I live a minimalistic life style, I live within my means. I do not buy things I can not afford by the cash I have in my bank account. I think a lot of people should learn to be happy with the things they have instead of always wanting more.
Comment by Yili on January 21, 2010Country needs a third party, rather than let two parties control our future.
Comment by Mark Sivad on January 21, 2010The nation building the author speaks of will never be possible as long as the parasitic government known as Federalism exists. It has replaced (with golden ticket invitation from the wealthy in charge) the constitutional structure that has and can again make the United States great. Federalism is a cancer on anything constitutional, on anything resembling a seperation of powers and rights of the people. It is a wolf in sheeps clothing, that wolf being the top down, pyramid scheme governments of monarchs, pharoah, and dictators from time immemorial. It has centralized all tax monies, all banks, all laws, all judges, all infrastructure, all commerce, all anything that can funnel more from the peons up to the fiefdom. It has crushed the diversity and power of the states seperate and united. It has taken away all representation by the people for the people. Federalism has insured that the very system of tyranny and oppression we supposedly sent back across the pond lives and reigns here again 10 fold. Every Federal law that contradicts the constitution and its ammendments in the least is a violation of the constitution and against the law. Every Presidential Executive Order that violates the rights of the states or the people in the least is a violation of the constitution and against the law. So what we have here is a pirate government, instituted by foreign and domestic wealth interests, that is almost entirely illegal in one form or another, dictating over the fearful, and run by the happy insatiable hoarders of wealth. This fight is not against a Democrat or Republican, but every elected and appointed offficial that is betrothed to the criminal Federalists monster.
Comment by ChewyBees on January 21, 2010Richard, I agree with everything you’ve written in this article and have thought many of the same thoughts, too. Mark Sivad is also correct about the need for a third – or more than that – political party.
Ralph Nader was partially correct when he said that there’s no real difference between the Democrats or the Republicans. Whoever first stated that the Republicans are shameless and the Democrats are spineless, spelled out the one difference. Both parties (with the notable exceptions of Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul) are in the pockets of Wall Street, large corporations, Israel, the military / industrial complex, and special interests.
It’s now more evident than ever during Obama’s first disappointing year in office, with the Wall Street bailouts, the health care “reform” bill, and the escalation of the wars. How do you expect Progressives and the left to feel? I know I’m probably not going to be voting any more. It’s a waste of time and energy with the current corrupt system in the whorehouse that the Capital has become.
The big deal being made about Scott Brown’s victory is also absurd. He just swings the political pendulum in the other direction. Our current government is just a metronome of misery for average American citizens.
Unless viable other poitical parties take advantage of these circumstances and make inroads, nothing is going to change. Even if every legislator was voted out of office and replaced with freshmen. The two party system is entrenched, broken, and just doesn’t work.
Change must start with working to build new political parties. Otherwise the pendulum will continue to swing back and forth from bad to worse.
Comment by Marks2Much on January 21, 2010We should also end Corporate Personhood Law, end the Federal Reserve, punish the bankster parasites and their political collaborators, reinstate Glass-Steagall, end the 1-World Order policy, end NAFTA, GATT & the WTO, end offshoring/outsourcing and send ALL VISA WORKERS/ILLEGAL ALIENS home!
Comment by Roxan on January 21, 2010From Pete Johnson, Roanoke VA
Thanks for the email article, and I looked at it on your site, too. Let me know if what I say below should be done via your blog, if there is a difference.
I fully agree with your remarks that the current US stage of Empire expansion is hazardous. We have millions of people being paid excessively well for doing unproductive, massively wasteful, and unsustainable jobs in the war, financial, medical, and government bureaucracies. They are largely isolated and cocooned, and unprepared for productive work in the local real economies. I find no reasons to believe that real change can come from the controlling hierarchy. (Consider the bankers. Is it true that three big banks are giving, or have already given, $43.7 billion in bonus payments? Such funds could only come from bailout sources.)
Only a deep national crisis can cause structural change, and this would induce panic among the highly entitled circles. The routine and traditional response to crisis and panic that may threaten authoritarian control is war, because it arouses the population to work harder (increases productivity), and distracts us from the real problems of exploitation. Empires are not introspective or corrective about internal domestic improvements.
In fact, the war for propping up the Empire has been under way for decades. This is the character and purpose of the war on terror, a perpetual war to keep an unsustainable bloated authoritarian bureaucracy in place. This controlling minority feels highly entitled to protect their wealth and other illusions at all costs, certainly including the sacrifice of the less wealthy majority population. Constitutional guidelines and democratic principles are now little more than a propaganda illusion.
As you say, grassroots activities are the only way for recovering and extending US democratic methods, but it is a skill-set challenge since massive outsourcing, beginning long ago with food, has deprived us of the resourceful methods with which this country was built. Local food systems are the best beginning, coupled with education for improved human communication and group work skills that lead to myriad projects of alternative energies, health care, construction, and all the other enterprises that enrich cooperative, enterprising ecovillages, and improve qualities of life for the entire web of life.
Such an effort was initiated by the federal government about seventy years ago, which resulted in the development of Greenbelt and two other people and nature friendly villages, but was quickly stopped by private developers. Today, such an experimental effort would never be supported from a high level of government.
The grassroots movement has begun in many areas of the US. Go Local Ecovillages Now! Create a life affirming Post-Empire USA! Local people working together can improve everything. We can and must regain and rebuild our own nation.
Comment by rcook on January 22, 2010Hello Richard…
I enjoyed this article very well thought out and presented…I have a couple of comments
Monsanto needs to be charged with crimes against humanity…and ordered to use some of their crimal monies to help clean up the damages they have done to our environment and our health…
yes, it will take grass roots trickle UP movements for change…demanding a life better for ALL…we ALL live by the rules we have allowed and it is time for some rule changing…
these criminal corporations cannot be tolerated any longer they parade around the globe with their senseless acts against humanity and our planet with no responsiblity or self honesty…
WE the people can make a difference and if they don’t hear us…we shout louder…until they do…we cannot sustain this evil lifestyle of killing each other and the planet much longer..
Comment by Laurie on January 22, 2010“YES!” Another “THANKS” for a great, great article. In short, we’ve been so involved and busy gathering hundreds of millions of dollars for Haitians (which is remarkable and needed). Haven’t we? But I’ve discovered when issues regarding our OWN homeless, suffering, tent-city persons in dire need of medical help, food, clothing, shelter, heat – persons trying to sleep in city parks, on the ground in grueling winter weather, snow and frigid temps, are approached by residentual citizens, agencies and government(s) are fast to turn away and ignore all aspects involved. In case you haven’t been made aware… Boulder, Colorado has been busy issuing TICKETS to their city’s homeless that have taken to sleeping in the city park. Each ticket comes with a HUNDRED DOLLAR FINE. To date – over thirty-five THOUSAND DOLLARS in futures revenue have been generated by Boulder’s law agencies and cousil members by ticketing their “Park People.”
Comment by Dennis White on January 23, 2010