Unhappy America    ç

Jul 24th 2008
From The Economist print edition

 

“NATIONS, like people, occasionally get the blues; and right now the United States, normally the world’s most self-confident place, is glum. Eight out of ten Americans think their country is heading in the wrong direction. The hapless George Bush is partly to blame for this: his approval ratings are now sub-Nixonian. But many are concerned not so much about a failed president as about a flailing nation.”     

      

[…]

      

“ And it’s not just the downturn that has caused this discontent. Many Americans feel as if they missed the boom. Between 2002 and 2006 the incomes of 99% rose by an average of 1% a year in real terms, while those of the top 1% rose by 11% a year; three-quarters of the economic gains during Mr Bush’s presidency went to that top 1%. Economic envy, once seen as a European vice, is now rife. The rich appear in Barack Obama’s speeches not as entrepreneurial role models but as modern versions of the “malefactors of great wealth” denounced by Teddy Roosevelt a century ago: this lot, rather than building trusts, avoid taxes and ship jobs to Mexico. Globalisation is under fire: free trade is less popular in the United States than in any other developed country, and a nation built on immigrants is building a fence to keep them out. People mutter about nation-building beginning at home: why, many wonder, should American children do worse at reading than Polish ones and at maths than Lithuanians?”

Say What?!? 

Three-quarters (75%) of the economic gains during Bush’s presidency went to that top 1%?  That means the other ninety-nine  percent (99%) of us shared the twenty-five percent (25%) scraped off the priviledged table into our bowls on the floor.  Put another way between 2002 and 2006 the incomes:

·        of 99% rose by an average of 1% a year in real terms,

·        while those of the top 1% rose by an average 11% a year. 

   

It's funny that my Bu$hite neighbor toots her horn for the Bu$hite tax cuts, but when pressed cannot  tell me what percentage she got - if any.  That is a good Bu$hite ventriliquist dummy in the best of the tradition: an Average American that is being reamed, doesn't bother to realize it, applauds the reamer, and asks for more. 

 

When I think about it, I do feel left out.  Or maybe left behind would be a better description when we look at der New International Corporate Elite (NICE) world order.

     

It is NICE for the elite, but for the rest of us the fallout from these NICE policies is growing longer by the day, as noted by the conservative Economist:

·        American house prices are falling faster than during the Depression;

·        petrol is more expensive than in the 1970s;

·        banks are collapsing;

·        the euro is kicking sand in the dollar’s face;

·        credit is scarce;

·        recession and inflation both threaten the economy;

·        consumer confidence is an oxymoron;

·        Belgians have just bought Budweiser, ‘America’s beer’.   

   

By George, now there’s a legacy to be proud of!!       

  

   

Support Obama for President.

Flush the Republicans out of Congress. 

Impeach Bush and Cheney.