Defending the Rights of All Serves the Social Economy • Fight for Working Class Politics! Stop Paying the Rich!
• Public Continues Its Rejection of Bail Out
• New Yorkers Join Actions Against the Bailout
• Monopoly Bailout Trumps Public Right • From Coast to Coast: Health Care Not Wealth Care! • The Free Market Preachers Have Long Practiced State Welfare for the Rich
Defending the Rights of All Serves the Social Economy
Fight for Working Class Politics! Stop Paying the Rich!
The on-going economic crisis is making everything stand out more clearly. The owners of monopoly capital are going all out to save their own skins, even though this makes the crisis worse. Their narrow outlook as a class, and that of particular owners of capital looking out for their particular interests, are in contradiction with the general needs and interests of the modern social economy. The private ownership of the banks means these banks can now freeze lending and also make borrowing more expensive. It means they can be in “miser-mode” while the government hands over $700 billion more to those guilty of raiding pension funds, mortgage swindles, and CEO salaries more than 300 times the wages of an average worker.
As each monopoly follows its own narrow interests, the public good is harmed. And then hysteria about economic failure is promoted to divert from the problem of this private ownership. It is the private ownership of competing monopolies that are narrowly focused on protecting their private interests above all else that is the root of this particular crisis. Measures like the bailout, that strengthen private ownership and indeed increase the power of the most powerful, make the situation worse. What is needed are actions that defend the rights of the people, while restricting monopoly right. Government action to defend the rights to healthcare, housing, education and livelihoods would serve the economy and the general public good. Organizing for a people-centered economy against a capital-centered economy as now exists, is needed. It is these working class politics that can provide alternatives and need to be discussed.
Instead, more diversions are being imposed. The problem is supposedly not enough regulation, or not enough oversight, or too many taxes. All of these accept the starting point of a capital-centered economy serving the interests of private monopoly owners. They also ignore the reality that there already exist numerous regulations and oversight bodies, including Congressional committees and the Security and Exchange Commission. Reality, including the bailout itself, show that more regulations and oversight will not overcome the failure of the current system and its monopoly rulers.
It is also the case that legislation could be passed that serves to block monopoly right – but the existing Congress certainly will not do so. The current crises is making clear that organizing to empower the people and bring workers forward to become politicians is an immediate need. It is necessary to challenge the power of the rich, to contend on the issue of empowerment. Numerous rallies are expressing the sentiment that it is necessary to kick out those in power — which also means organizing to bring the people and their anti-war pro-social program into power. This growing spirit is also why the rulers are working hard to blame “politics” as the problem. Their attack on politics is to discredit the need for elected political bodies, and elected politicians. It is to try and eliminate politics when what is needed is to raise the level of political discussion, focused on the politics of the working class for alternatives that serve the people. What is needed is worker politicians representing working class politics.
The alternatives of the working class include the demands to: End War Funding, Cancel the Debts and Stop Paying the Rich!
The Pentagon funding just passed by the House is for $612 billion for just one year! The vote, with the Democratic majority, was 392-39. The hundreds of billions are for wars and aggression and military bases worldwide that the large majority of peoples oppose. Everyone has direct experience with the fact that the massive war spending harms the economy and takes public funding from social programs. Stopping war funding contributes to the economy and serves the public good. Yet no discussion on this alternative is permitted in the monopoly media, while they scream about how terrible things will be if immediate action is not taken to “save the economy.” We say immediate action to fund social programs, NOW!
The bail out robbery is at $1.5 trillion and counting. Together with the war funding there is more than $2 trillion available for social programs, for meeting the needs of the people. President George W. Bush, both presidential candidates and top leaders of Congress are all insisting that this massive amount of public funds be handed over to the rich while the public bears an even greater burden of the crisis. This is no solution! No more can governments cry “no money!” for social programs. Voice of Revolution urges all its readers and supporters to join in discussing the politics of empowerment and the alternative to:
Stop Paying the Rich! Stop War Funding!
$700 Billion for Social Programs Now!
Defend the Rights of All!
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Public Continues Its Rejection of Bail Out
From the day the $700 billion bailout of the rich was first announced, the public has opposed broadly. One website secured 100,000 signatures in 24 hours on a petition against the bailout. In their millions, people phoned, faxed and emailed their representatives, angrily denouncing the bailout for the rich and demanding funding for social programs. The claim that “there is no money” has been so clearly exposed that Congresspeople dare not utter it. This is particularly true given that in just the space of two weeks, the House passed a bill to fund the war machine with $612 billion for just this year and has another $700 billion for the Wall Street piranhas.
Hundreds of demonstrations have also been organized from coast to coast. Unions, religious and community organizations, immigrant rights and anti-war groups, all are standing together against the bailout. People are expressing their experience with bailouts, like those for the airlines and auto and steel monopolies. Pensions, wages and healthcare benefits were stolen while the rich got billions in public dollars. As one worker put it, “We’ve heard enough and we’ve paid enough and we can’t take it anymore.” Expressing the sentiment of many, he called for kicking rotten politicians out and putting workers in.
Across the country people expressed their determination to have public dollars used in the public interest. Funding now for public housing, healthcare and schools is being demanded. That is the immediate need, not bailing out Wall Street. Stopping war funding and bringing all troops home would also assist the economy. War spending is destructive to the people and the economy. Stopping foreclosures and ensuring government funding of interest free mortgages is another alternative. Canceling the debts to the financiers, who have been paid the principal over and over and over again, is also being considered. Simply canceling New York’s State debt of $53 billion would provide enough funds for eliminating the “deficits” in New York and 28 other states. Canceling debt and providing interest free mortgages and loans would immediately provide far more income for people than any of the “tax cuts” now called for. This would assist in putting money into the economy. It would also make Wall Street bear the burden instead of the people.
Whether or not the House now succumbs and passes the bailout bill, as expected, the anger and drive of the people cannot so easily be bought off. Organizing is going forward. On the agenda is discussion of alternatives and fighting for the empowerment necessary to implement them. The starting point is defending the rights of the people, which serves the social economy and utilizes the wealth produced by the people, for the people. It is our economy, our wealth, and it needs to serve our interests!
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New Yorkers Join Actions Against the Bailout
In Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca, Albany and New York City, New Yorkers took their stand against the massive government bailout for the rich. In Buffalo, the action took place at M & T Bank downtown. Among the demands were, We Want A Recovery Plan, Not A Bailout For Wall Street Fat Cats! and Don’t Bailout A Reckless, Unaccountable System; Build One That Works. People denounced the huge bailout for the rich while people in cities like Buffalo continue to face foreclosures, layoffs and cuts to schools, libraries and hospitals. Activists are also denouncing the war funding passed by the House.
Actions in Rochester included a demonstration and public forum to oppose the bailout and discuss alternatives. A banner drop was also done, with the banner demanding Let Wall Street Sink! No Bail Out!
In Ithaca a rally was organized against the bail out. People denounced bailing out for the ultra-wealthy and called for measures that assisted the people. This included increasing jobs, especially in the auto industry. They also urged more serious discussion, including calling on the government to debate the economists opposing the bailout, so as to provide the public with more information.
In New York City, the NYC Labor Council brought out more than 1,000 workers on short notice to demonstrate on Wall Street. Workers expressed their anger with the bailout and spoke to their own experience. Airline workers brought out that bailouts of the airlines invariably meant pensions and benefits were lost, while the airlines got billions. People also expressed their demand for an immediate freeze on foreclosures and a bailout for homeowners. One alternative being considered is for the government to use the $1.5 trillion it has now promised the financiers to instead provide interest-free mortgages. The actual value of the homes is still paid in the principal, while the rich cannot use interest rates to rob the people two and three times over.
And while New Yorkers across the state made their stand against the bailout clear, the Congressional delegation did the opposite. All but one representative, John R. Kuhl, voted for the bailout this time, compared with four the last time. The state has 29 members in its congressional delegation: 23 Democrats and six Republicans. Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Shumer led the push for a yes vote. Kuhl, a southern-tier Western New Yorker stuck with his no vote, saying “I cannot ask my constituents, who have worked so hard to keep up their obligations on their homes, cars, and college loans for their children to foot the bill for irresponsible lenders and borrowers.”
Despite passage of the bailout, people are continuing their resistance and are even more determined now to advance an anti-war, pro-social program.
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Monopoly Bailout Trumps Public Right
The U.S. government bailout of those holding illiquid debt is an egregious example of monopoly right trumping public right. Instead of standing up for the people and serving the public good, the Office of the President and leaders in Congress are channeling public resources into the pockets of the rich.
On September 26, Congress authorized a payment of $25 billion to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, and on September 28, leaders of Congress agreed to President George W. Bush’s $700 billion bailout of bad debt held by some of the most powerful U.S. monopolies. September 29, House representatives defeated the bill in its present form because many are up for election November 2 and they know the people are furious with the bailout. The White House, both presidential candidates and congressional leaders worked hard to twist the arms of enough members to eventually pass an amended version. The Senate stepped in and in an unconstitutional act, passed an appropriations bill for the bail out, with a 74-25 vote. The Constitution requires all appropriations bills to originate in the House. The final vote in the House on the revised bill was 263-171 on Friday, October 3. President Bush immediately signed the $700 billion bailout.
These massive payments to the rich expose the U.S. government as a dutiful instrument of the richest and most powerful owners of capital. These actions bring into contempt the entire U.S. government and its cartel-party political system of choosing leaders and representatives from two business-parties. Power is concentrated in the executive branch and business-party leadership. It highlights the necessity and urgency for political empowerment of the people, to bring political authority into harmony with the will of the people.
The Democratic Party especially has gone all out to “sell” this bailout to the U.S. public but the people want none of it. Many want an alternative but the two business-parties, mass media and so-called expert economic opinion have suppressed any discussion of a people’s alternative that would trump monopoly right. Opposition has been reduced to detached cynicism.
“It doesn’t deal with the fundamental problems that gave rise to the problem — or alleviate the credit crisis,” said Peter Morici, an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland. “The same problems will recur in four or less years.”
Does Mr. Morici offer an alternative to restrict monopoly right and put initiative into the hands of the people? No. He capitulates and agrees with Bruce Bartlett, another economist who was a Treasury official under the first President Bush who repeated the blackmail, “The plan is flawed, yet the alternative of doing nothing could be catastrophic.”
On the contrary, an alternative would be to take a bold step forward in defense of the rights of all and challenge monopoly right to dominate the financial and credit system for private gain and privilege. Why are the gods of plague from the financial oligarchy being bailed out? Many of them should be arrested on charges of defrauding pension and mutual funds of billions of dollars. Why not use the $700 billion as seed money for a public not-for-profit banking and credit system that prohibits usury and serves public social programs, small and medium sized business and individuals?
Some members of Congress admit they have no idea what these assets are that the government is buying or why a $700 billion bill is being pushed through Congress in one week without hearings or broad discussion. Some of those who again voted no, like Representative Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland, Ohio are demanding Congressional hearings and public accounting. They have emphasized that the bailout bill does nothing for homeowners, that the oversight body has no enforcement power, and that there are no guarantees for government to get even a cent of the $700 billion back.
Failure of Democrats
The Democrats were elected as the majority in both the House and Senate on expectations they would stop funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What have they done? Not only have they continued to fund those wars of aggression, they have led the charge to rob the Treasury to pay the rich. On September 24, the same House passed the Pentagon funding bill of $612 billion for one year. That means more than 1.3 trillion for war and paying the rich, while social programs are being drastically cut across the country.
This situation reflects the degeneracy of the ruling elite in the U.S. Power is concentrated in the hands of an executive that directs public affairs on behalf of a privileged elite. Pragmatism and lack of democratic principles lead representatives from the business-parties to capitulate to fascism, war and paying the rich. That is exactly what has happened in this economic crisis with a smiling Democratic leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, looking foolish and pathetic while characterizing the bailout as “not a bailout but a buy-in” and “the end of an era for Wall Street greed.” Rather than an end to anything, for many U.S. workers and their allies this bailout, like the refusal to end the war and support for the spy-bill, will further smash illusions about the Democratic Party.
A commentator even turned the “lipstick on a pig” allegory back on Barack Obama, John McCain and Democratic and Republican congressional leaders who are awkwardly trying to portray the bailout as something other than a scheme to pay the rich. Obama, McCain, Palin, Paulson and Pelosi have painted lipstick on this bailout-pig, but it is still a pig.
The crisis reveals the lack of an effective working class opposition both inside and outside Congress. This problem must be taken up for solution and is the next step in the work for political empowerment. Without a clear articulate working class opposition, those who pretend to be with the people capitulate in the face of every crisis and block the people from discussing and formulating real alternatives such as outlawing usury and creating a public not-for-profit banking and credit system.
The continuing wars and pay-the-rich schemes show that the political system is fatally flawed and needs democratic renewal. As it stands, it is almost impossible for workers to be elected in the U.S. The system is organized to block the people from power and bring business-parties to power. The business-parties act as gatekeepers keeping workers and their allies out of power with the mass media acting as their shrill accomplices.
Succumbing to the dictate of the business parties only further secures their power, when the time is now to challenge it. Vote for independents or third party candidates as an act of defiance of the rich and a stand for empowerment.
Organize Together for Political Empowerment!
Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Funding for Social Programs!
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From Coast to Coast: Health Care Not Wealth Care!
Last week, I heard a lot about healthcare reform as I traveled from Washington, DC, to Boston and on to San Francisco. In just five days, I spoke to literally hundreds of people who believe as I do that if we have the money to provide wealth-care for the nation then we surely have the money to provide health care too. The problem is, those who want the wealth-care through bailouts are also those who would deny us healthcare — especially now.
But this week I am back home in Chicago and as the full blush of the economic drama unfolds, I find myself madder than I thought I’d be.
I called my senators yesterday before the failed House vote on the bail-out and told them I am fed up with the mess on Wall Street, fed up with the bail-out of the big boys, fed up with the wealthy ruling the rest of us. “Enough is enough” doesn’t touch my rage.
Senator Barack Obama’s office politely logged my comments and took down my address. Senator Dick Durbin’s office did not — they argued with me about the benefits for me of the bailout. They argued with me, and asked if I wanted to see more people suffer if there was no bail out. Oh my God! They argued with me!
Four years ago, my husband Larry and I declared bankruptcy because even with health and disability insurance and a healthcare savings account, we went belly up when our bills and expenses surged well past our ability to cover them. Larry has chronic health issues; I had cancer. There was no way for us to hang on despite our efforts to borrow and plead to stay afloat. We lost our house and most of our furniture and most everything we worked to achieve.
As punishment for going bankrupt in America, we will never again — never again — own a home or have a credit card that isn’t savings backed or have any of the nods of acceptance the “good” credit bearers have in this nation. People will look at that bankruptcy and judge us unfit, look down their noses at us and decide we are losers from now until forever. We got sick and we went broke and we are no longer among the valued folks in this nation.
But today, my U.S. senator’s office argued with me about how Wall Street needs this bail out to protect me. Come on. There is nothing directly in this for me, nothing to help repair the damage I sustained. I have lost everything. I will never have it back no matter if I work 100 hours a week or try 1,000 times harder than I did before. Nothing I can do will erase my failure in getting sick.
Next week, though, armed with my money from the bail out that will surely pass, the Wall Street leaders and the government leaders who now judge me unfit will sit fat and happy sipping fine wine and eating pate and giggling about the next trip to Europe or an evening at the club. Their lives will remain soft and pure and without the nasty judgments I have to endure every day. My bail out will have funded their greed and smug disdain for people like me. My money was good enough for that purpose, I guess.
I support single payer healthcare reform as the only way to truly fix the healthcare mess in this nation, morally and in a responsible way for the economy as well
It stinks to the high heaven in America today. I understand damn well that they’ve mismanaged this into a point of collapse and that without a fix from somewhere that there are dire things waiting to unfold worldwide. But by God no one was there to lift me up or put me back on my feet. And I will die without a home. I will die without ever regaining what I lost. And I will die with the bastards who I am bailing out today looking down their noses at me like I am a piece of garbage because I cannot shop at Neiman Marcus for my clothes or carry a Fendi bag...
I am sick to my stomach after talking with Durbin’s office. I can only hope that the polite and respectful response from Obama’s staff will reflect how I will be treated under a President Obama. Else, I am not sure staying alive under this sort of domestic and economic terrorist assault on my humble position in life is worth enduring.
This bail out reflects a much deeper and more difficult problem - a very fundamental disdain for democracy. You see, anyone in government who believes this is the way to treat the vast majority of your citizens certainly does not believe in the common good or the value of individuals within a democratic system. We are just depositors in their bank accounts - they need us to foot the bill for their party. And we’re not invited to any table at all. We can pick up the trash.
Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair, Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.
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The Free Market Preachers Have Long Practiced State Welfare for the Rich
According to Senator Jim Bunning, the proposal to purchase $700 billion of dodgy debt by the U.S. government was “financial socialism, it is un-American.” The economics professor Nouriel Roubini called George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke “a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America.” Bill Perkins, the venture capitalist who took out an ad in the New York Times attacking the plan, called it “trickle-down communism.”
They are wrong. Any subsidies eventually given to the monster banks of Wall Street will be as American as apple pie and obesity. The sums demanded may be unprecedented, but there is nothing new about the principle: corporate welfare is a consistent feature of advanced capitalism. Only one thing has changed: Congress has been forced to confront its contradictions.
One of the best studies of corporate welfare in the U.S. is published by my old enemies at the Cato Institute. Its report, by Stephen Slivinski, estimates that in 2006 the federal government spent $92 billion subsidizing business. Much of it went to major corporations such as Boeing, IBM and General Electric.
The biggest money crop — $21 billion — is harvested by Big Farmer. Slivinski shows that the richest 10 percent of subsidized farmers took 66 percent of the payouts. Every few years, Congress or the administration promises to stop this swindle, then hands even more state money to agribusiness. The farm bill passed by Congress in May guarantees farmers a minimum of 90 percent of the income they have received over the past two years, which happens to be among the most profitable they have ever had. The middlemen do even better, especially the companies spreading starvation by turning corn into ethanol, which are guzzling billions of dollars in tax credits.
Slivinski shows how the federal government’s Advanced Technology Program, which was supposed to support the development of technologies that are “pre-competitive” or “high risk,” has instead been captured by big businesses flogging proven products. Since 1991, companies such as IBM, General Electric, Dow Chemical, Caterpillar, Ford, DuPont, General Motors, Chevron and Monsanto have extracted hundreds of millions from this program. Big business is also underwritten by the Export-Import Bank: in 2006, for example, Boeing alone received $4.5 billion in loan guarantees.
The government runs something called the Foreign Military Financing program, which gives money to other countries to purchase weaponry from U.S. corporations. It doles out grants to airports for building runways and to fishing companies to help them wipe out endangered stocks.
But the Cato Institute’s report has exposed only part of the corporate welfare scandal. A new paper by the U.S. Institute for Policy Studies shows that, through a series of cunning tax and accounting loopholes, the U.S. spends $20 billion a year subsidizing executive pay. By disguising their professional fees as capital gains rather than income, for example, the managers of hedge funds and private equity companies pay lower rates of tax than the people who clean their offices. A year ago, the House of Representatives tried to close this loophole, but the bill was blocked in the Senate after a lobbying campaign by some of the richest men in America.
Another report, by a group called Good Jobs First, reveals that Wal-Mart has received at least $1 billion in public money. Over 90 percent of its distribution centers and many of its retail outlets have been subsidized by county and local governments. They give the chain free land, they pay for the roads, water and sewerage required to make that land usable, and they grant it property tax breaks and subsidies (called tax increment financing) originally intended to regenerate depressed communities. Sometimes state governments give the firm straight cash as well: in Virginia, for example, Wal-Mart’s distribution centers receive handouts from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund.
Corporate welfare is arguably the core business of some government departments. Many of the Pentagon’s programs deliver benefits only to its contractors. Ballistic missile defense, for example, which has no obvious strategic purpose and is unlikely ever to work, has already cost the U.S. between $120 billion and $150 billion. The U.S. is unique among major donors in insisting that the food it offers in aid is produced on its own soil, rather than in the regions it is meant to be helping. USAid used to boast on its website that “the principal beneficiary of America’s foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80 percent of the USAid’s contracts and grants go directly to American firms.”
There is not and has never been a free market in the U.S.
Why not? Because the congressmen and women now railing against financial “socialism” depend for their re-election on the companies they subsidize. The legal bribes paid by these businesses deliver two short-term benefits for them. The first is that they prevent proper regulation, allowing them to make spectacular profits and to generate disasters of the kind Congress is now confronting. The second is that public money that should be used to help the poorest is instead diverted into the pockets of the rich.
A report published last week by the advocacy group Common Cause shows how bankers and brokers stopped legislators banning unsustainable lending. Over the past financial year, the big banks spent $49 million on lobbying and $7 million in direct campaign contributions. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent $180 million in lobbying and campaign finance over the past eight years. Much of this was thrown at members of the House financial services committee and the Senate -banking -committee.
Whenever congresspeople tried to rein in the banks and mortgage lenders they were blocked by the banks’ money. Dick Durbin’s 2005 amendment seeking to stop predatory mortgage lending, for example, was defeated in the Senate by 58 to 40. The former representative Jim Leach proposed re-regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their lobbyists, he recalls, managed in “less than 48 hours to orchestrate both parties’ leadership” to crush his amendments.
The money these firms spend buys the socialization of financial risk. The $700 billion the government was looking for was just one of the public costs of its repeated failure to regulate. Even now the lobbying power of the banks has been making itself felt: on Saturday the Democrats watered down their demand that the money earned by executives of companies rescued by the government be capped. Campaign finance is the best investment a corporation can make. You give a million dollars to the right man and reap a billion dollars’ worth of state protection, tax breaks and subsidies. When the same thing happens in Africa we call it corruption.
European governments are no better. The free market economics they proclaim are a con: they intervene repeatedly on behalf of the rich, while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. Just as in the U.S., the bosses of farm companies, oil drillers, supermarkets and banks capture the funds extracted by government from the pockets of people much poorer than themselves. Taxpayers everywhere should be asking the same question: Why the hell should we be supporting them?
Published on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 by The Guardian, Britain
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