re: Doubting the Fed (and the Department of Commerce)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Alberti <ip () sanction net>
Date: February 26, 2007 5:45:26 AM JST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] re: Doubting the Fed (and the Department of Commerce)
Reply-To: alberti () sanction net

On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 04:24 +0900, David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
> Date: February 26, 2007 1:22:51 AM JST
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] re: Doubting the Fed (and the Department of
> Commerce)
> Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

> > Then we vote the class-warfare dems into power, they
> > take money from people who earn it (e.g., me), and give
> > it to people who don't (e.g., my ne'er-do-well buddy Bill
> > back in WV).

> > By the way, I think the fed is a terrible thing.  I just
> > don't buy the particular class-warfare arguments used in
> > the post to drum up support for the thesis.

Due to the manner in which these messages were quoted I'm not 100% sure
who made these statements.  However they inspire me to point out two
things:

1) In a very enlightening and levelheaded discussion of economics, these
emotionally-laden comments stuck out like a sore thumb, and they do not
enhance the credibility of their author.  Rather, they suggest that
right-wing political correctness and ideology hold greater value with
the author than a dispassionate understanding of economics and
history.

2) By any measure, American families are tremendously more productive
than they were thirty years ago.  I say families, because most American
families have moved from single-worker to two-worker families across
that time, at the expense of the family system.  With more workers
working, and those workers producing many times more wealth-per-year
than a generation ago, a lot more wealth is being created every year.

But that wealth is not reaching the workers, whose standard of living
has changed little from thirty years ago.  Maybe we have new
rapidly-depreciated toys like handheld computer games, SUV's, and
Douglas Adams' digital watches. But actual concrete changes have been
scarce.  And some, like health care, retirement, educational and
childrearing standards have declined.

Meanwhile the division in wealth between the most wealthy and the
average worker has grown immensely, until the top people at a given
company earn more in one day than their workers earn in a year.  And
that's just salary: much more wealth is claimed in property or hard to
track bonuses and perquisites.

So...  to claim that complaints by progressives - call them "dems" if
you must, although many social progressives will argue that the "dems"
have not done all that they ought - are "class war" is such outrageous
slander and demagoguery that it must be addressed.  The Reactionary
Right works hard to make discussion of class issues taboo, particularly
by accusing anyone who brings up class issues of "class warfare," in the
same emotionally-loaded sneering tones that the author I'm addressing
directs at "dems".

The fact is that there has been a class war going on for the last thirty
years -- and it is by the Rich and the Right, it is against the Left and
the Poor, and the Rich and the Right are winning that class war, hands
down.

And part of the way that they are winning is by convincing their
opponents - the poor, the progressive - that talking about class war is
wrong, divisive, and shameful.

Unfortunately for the Rich, history shows us that class wars frequently
end with the Rich suffering dreadful, costly setbacks. So by continuing
to greedily consume the world's wealth they are setting themselves or
their progeny up for a very painful "market correction."

Unfortunately for the Poor, history shows us that the Poor tend to put
up with decreasing living standards for much, much longer than one would
believe possible. Untold millions live and die in misery and poverty
before the Poor finally move to "correct the market."  Like any
potential difference from physics, the greater the discrepancy, the more
violent the rebalancing of forces can be.

For the good of the nation and the world, then, it would make sense for
us all to learn from history that allowing the pathologically wealthy to
indulge their insatiable appetites indefinitely is to enable a dreadful
illness.  Instead, wise people ought to consider ways to bring some
justice and fairness to our socioeconomic system while there is still
time to take reasonable corrective action.

And both sides should be able to discuss economic and class issues in a
dispassionate manner, lest by failing to discuss what we are doing to
each other we end up facing yet another of history's dreadful market
corrections.

There is a class war in America, and there has been for decades, and the
poor and middle classes are losing.  To pretend otherwise is madness.



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