Monday, August 6, 2012

Scrooge McDuck Goes to Washington - Again

Have you ever noticed how the ones who are crying the loudest for more money are the same ones who aren't gonna spend it anyway, not because they're scraping by, mind you, but because they're FILTHY RICH?



If you haven't, notice it now.

Remember back in the middle of the recession (OK, Krugman says it's now a bona fide depression) we found out that corporate America was sitting on a mountain of cash they'd accumulated - over $1 trillion -  and were not creating any jobs, just holding onto it.  Still are.  Same in Europe.  They told us this was good, because soon 'the floodgates would open'.  When?  Where are the jobs?  Real unemployment is over 10% almost everywhere in the US.

Yet the rich need more.  All the trade deals and cheap monetary policy in the world's not enough to quench their insatiable thirst for your and my hard-earned stuff.  The Democrats, for a change, are making some tiny inklings of sense: proposing to extend the Bush era tax breaks to the rest of us, but not to the super-rich.  The Republicans think the rich need their tax breaks, too, and they're willing to risk another recession for the showdown.  Economy held hostage.  Again.  Smells like 2008.

Meanwhile, back at the smokehouse...  Demand remains low, which mainly means regular folks aren't spending their money because they aren't making any.  The jobs aren't really there.  The jobs that are there are paying less.  Even public employees, usually shielded somewhat from these sort of famines, are feeling it.  Police and firefighters in Scranton saw their pay cut to minimum wage this year.  Teachers and other state workers around the country are getting cut, and so are their pensions, their union rights, anything the bosses can get their hands on.

And when demand is low, well, what's an economy gonna do?

Wanna get the economy back on track?  Get money in the hands of people who spend it (not the rich).

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