Loser nation
It seems that the inappropriately named “US” Chamber of Commerce has a real problem with the commie idea of “Buy American.” Having gotten rid of nearly every middle-class manufacturing job in these United States, along with their commie unions, the plutocrat lobby is all of a sudden shedding crocodile tears for state and local governments, whose noble, newly valuable pursuits would be hobbled by buying, say, windows, that weren’t made by child labor paid in rice.
You’ve got to hand it to them, really. They see no relationship betweeen the collapse of the middle class and the collapse of the economy, and they think the answer is to impoverish more people. You know, if the second home market were to improve, a lot more maids could find work…..
The problem, as I see it is taxes. Here in the US, whether you’re having an operation or buying a jar of mayonnaise, you have to pay a tax, not to the government for something you might get back, but to pay for some rich nincompoop to fly his daughter’s mattress to France. Our rich cost us a hell of a lot of money, and for some reason, we’re all proud to pay. CNBC said so.
Too bad we can’t all work there.
It’s just tragic here in Cleveland. It has been like a ghost town for a long time. Once a manufacturing-rich city, there are abandoned factories everywhere, all along the highways, where I used to do a lot of business back in the 80s and early 90s.
Ironically, however, we had already been hit so hard with the steel industry and GE and much of the manufacturing leaving town back in the 90s that this latest depression only affected the white collar banking, insurance and financial professions. The Last Mohicans, so to speak.
Back in September, I saw it coming and jumped off the train (so I thought) by changing jobs and going to work for a company that was making money and was affiliated with the mass transit industry. Unfortunately, the division I was employed by was totally dependent on sales to school districts, and, well, as you might imagine, the school districs all across the country (especially in California and Texas, the two biggest states) are broke.
So, I got laid off recently. It’s not so bad, since it’s summer and I can enjoy a little time off, but my job search has been horrible. I have never had such a low response to my resume in any previous attempt. Back in October 2001, in a crappy economy, I found a job in 2 weeks. In 2006 when I went looking again, I had umpteen offers, and in September, I only had two interviews before I was hired.
Today? Crickets.
Well, I’ve been in the remodeling business for almost 20 years, and I’ve been through all this before. Back during the boom, I could pay all my bills just doing drawings and permits, now I’m back to the old getting paid for actually building stuff, which I’ve always done and know how to make it work. Too bad I’m so old it doesn’t feel as good as it used to…..
Here in Little Beirut, we put in streetcars (to partially replace ripped-out old ones…) and had to buy them from the Czech Republic; we were too busy making Excursions to have a single American company who knew how to build them. That’s smart industrial policy.
I could go on, as I’m sure you could, too.
You aren’t putting up any of that Chinese dry wall are you, hag?
I understand it strips electrical wires, causes cell phones to ring in the dead of night, makes washers dry and dryers wash, sticks the electric stove on high, rots rugs, kills cats, makes dogs fart all day, forces couples to argue far more than they’re used to (for no good reason), freezes cable on Fox, melts all the ice cubes for the big party, blows light bulbs before their time, curdles cream, flattens angel food cake, causes chandeliers to crash on dining room tables, and … generally fucks up estimates for new home construction, additions, and rehabs to the laundry room, thus creating huge liability headaches for contractors.
Word is the shit is being sold by “reputable” American wallboard manufacturers; and, right now, the dead zone for this disaster is Florida.
Don’t worry, Dirigo. I may be promiscuous in other ways, but not with my suppliers. I stick with what I know… Mostly.
Well that makes me feel better because this stuff causes life to ebb, even plants to die: i.e. “dead flowers.”
Talk about hard times. I’m about to see my Cal grant for school go up in smoke. It really does come down to an issue of hard choices, which here in California, our electorate seem always hesitant to make. Back when Kindergarten Cop won the recall election, he did so riding one issue–he would repeal an increase in the DMV registration fee. That one step, though a bitter pill to swallow for car addicted swags here, would have gone a long way to solve our budget issues. And then here we are, with no money for schools, roads or infrastructure.
The perversity of Prop 13 (1978) is really the problem from which all others are born. Old people keep their houses until they die, paying $1500 in taxes where the next owner will pay $15,000. Hello, housing shortage and negative economic mobility. Here in Oregon, Measure #5 did the same thing in 1990. Not coincidentally, the corporate share of property taxes in both states went from over half to almost nothing, everyone’s bills went up, and “gummint” became the new enemy.
California, during its heyday, built massive water projects, a free university system that was the envy of the world, and enough freeways to pave the way to the moon, and now it makes Darfur look fancy. Thanks, Ronnie.
Well, I’ve lived long enough to be an old fart who had to move from CA to AZ to find a place where a) I could afford a house, and b) where I’d probably be able pay the property taxes until I croak, so I do now have some sympathy for the folks who provided the votes for Prop 13.
Still, it was a terrible idea. California’s schools, once just about the finest in the country west of NY are now as impoverished as AZ’s. When I think about that, I think that maybe if the choice is between me eating cat food, and my grandkids being illiterate, I might actually be willing to get used to Fancy Feast, which I hear isn’t that terrible, even when heated over a hotplate in a studio apartment on the east side of Bakersfield.
Fancy Feast is a mighty upscale brand, WT, particularly for Bakersfield…
First, we’d eat the cat.
The power to tax is the power to destroy. I am of the working class and have been taxed at over 50% my entire life. (local, state, federal, direct, and indirect)
The most insidious tax is inflation. I had to take a 4% pay cut to keep my job next year. That was up front and honest. But if the expansion of the money supply makes the dollar worth 10% less (and prices rise by like amount) I will be in the street because my income is fixed for next year and I have nothing to spare.
But, the empire must be fed.
Well, it’s just your bad luck not to be a hedge fund or something…. Bush might have helped you make out like Dick Cheney, or the rest of his pals who make their money “offshore.”
This is true. Bush the Butcher was an unmitigated disaster. We can agree on that.
The power is now in Obama’s hands and he is inflating the money supply faster than ever before and throwing money away on a 3 front occupation. He is throwing money away on Wall Street and now is handing money to everything “to big to fail”.
When people wind up in the streets, they will remember Obama and the Democrats. The man is clearly more intelligent than Bush. Why is he doing this?
I have no idea. Clearly the corporatism and militarism is bigger than any President now, or worse, that’s why they run for it. Look at Clinton… No more living in Gov’t digs for that bad boy. A few rounds of golf with Bush Sr., and Animal Farm looks like Bugs Bunny.
At my employer, too, we’ve all just been given a pay cut.
That’s one form of deflation, and that’s a small indication of how deflation has been, historically, a more insidious tax than inflation. (Most Americans are well hedged against inflation simply by having massive debt. Admittedly, though, anybody with no debt and with megabucks in their mattress is hurt by inflation.)
We don’t have runaway deflation, and it looks as if we probably won’t get it.
Still, the risk of runaway deflation, in various forms, is currently greater than the risk of runaway inflation.
Here is a fair and balanced analysis:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e151612-4fa8-11de-a692-00144feabdc0.html
My concern is the sectors still keeping people employed with what’s left of the funny money, construction chief among them. I wrote a post, “Hung Over in Seattle,” about this. As in the late 80′s, the effects of overbuilding and the cessation of new construction has a time lag. Unlike the 80′s, though, the slump isn’t just national, but worldwide. I bet a lot of the soon-to-be unemployed wish they were “only” facing a pay cut.
Great article; I’m having difficulty reading the tea leaves at present, but my fears of inflation are still stoked by the fact that we still seem to “need” such massive military spending. “Change” has turned out not to be much of a change after all.
Verily, CH, your two mentions — “isn’t just national, but worldwide” and “such massive military spending” — are the ultimate points of contention.
sysprog’s Financial Times link to read entrails of Anglo-American monetary bondings and instrumented maneuvers, is all well and wise as far as it goes. Which is: the edge of the Anglo-American Empire. Which ain’t what it used to be.
Beyond it is, well, a wide worldwide-ness. Where, I think, smart money is at work and in play. And when I say ‘money’ that ain’t dollars.
But all I know is what I read in this paper, and that ain’t the half of it:
GlobalResearch.CA/index.php?context=va&aid=13969
De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire – The Yekaterinburg Turning Point, by Prof. Michael Hudson, Global Research, June 13, 2009
Prof Hudson gives good archive, also, for refining estimates of where he’s coming from.
Articles by Michael Hudson
Obviously, when Cheney said, “Reagan showed us deficits don’t matter,” he was lying (while sending his cash to Dubai and elsewhere) or a dimwit. I’m going with the former. The plutocracy is tied to no nation or currency. Only the war business is recession-proof, as we’ve found.
Great links… Thanks.