Dollars and Change

Well since we're all in this Leaky-Tiki together--some of our countries are in a recession, others are adopting austerity measures, still others are helping prop up those first two groups--I thought I'd throw in my "too, sense" as discussion; even a flawed or deeply skewed one can only be helpful as contribution.

I look at the crisis in the Americas, and on most of the other continents as well, as cyclical change. Think climate: period of relative sameness, then warming period, then ice age. For many of us, the last century began still enjoying the boon of an Industrial Revolution which propelled most of our economies forward for decades to come. We learned new skills and we created new machines to do new jobs to create new products. In short, we rose to the calling of the time.

Then, in the U.S., we suffered a Great Depression. We got over-extended, too happy, too punch-drunk from the high of the Roaring Twenties. We discovered that our economic immortality was a facade, falsely gilding our lifestyles, bank accounts, and investments. Sound familiar? Back then we had the sense to be progressive in order to extract ourselves from this predicament, but I dare say that today this country would sooner exile FDR than buy into another letter in his alphabet soup of recovery.

No, today's goons cannot even agree that anything needs to be done. They argue that a little does nothing so obviously more would do even less--the stimulus wasn't too small, just flawed. Oh, please! If you raise taxes on the top earners you'll kill jobs--even though those tax breaks over the past ten years have only served to lose us jobs and depress our GDP. Oh, and I love this one, the reason those "last ten years" numbers don't jibe with our low tax mantra is, well, Wall Street and the business community thought that some day those cuts would be repealed, so they couldn't hire or expand. So if we raise taxes we kill jobs. And if we lower taxes we kill jobs--unless we lower them FOREVER.

Here's what we need to realize. We are again at one of those points in history where we must change--reinvent ourselves--in order to rise to the occasion. The paradigm has shifted. We need to do the things the countries with money are doing: invest in infrastructure, create a "green jobs sector", and explore the natural resources of other countries through acquisition. (Yes there is more you can do abroad than vacation or invade.)

The U.S. needs to re-imagine itself as do many other countries. We need to look at our census data and realize that our demographic is shifting, is more diverse, is better. And we need to stop chasing the manufacturing jobs of the past and envision the green sector jobs of the present and future. It's just so obvious, and costly, and it requires a leap of faith that we are still as good--or better--than we used to be.

There are a lot of problems in our world, and people are suffering economically--and worse--all over. We know what needs to happen--in my view--but are unsure as to whether or not we possess the nerve to make those things happen. We have become entrenched in our political system and its machinations: the lobbyists, the PACs, the earmarks, and the never-ending election cycle. It was probably easier to be a Progressive in FDR's era, but it's just as necessary to be one now. Besides, alphabet soup always makes things better...chicken soup won't cut it with this "illness". ("Duck Soup" also works! Hey, Groucho...)