|
Home| About Us| Background | Related Links | Issues | Events | |
LOUISA VIRGINIA
|
Home| About Us| Background | Related Links | Issues | Events | |
LOUISA VIRGINIA
The Problem:
In America today we see an ever expanding poverty class, a very struggling middle class and an increasingly wealthy upper class. Costs for health care, education and energy keep raising much faster than wages further exasperating the problems of the lower and middle class while untold wealth accumulates to the upper class. The root cause for this class disparity is unchecked capitalism. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Background:
We often hear people say they would like to see things return to what they were like in “the good old days.” The best “good old days” were back in the 50’s and 60’s. Post WW-II brought boom times to America. Our economy was booming, home ownership was expanding like never before, the GI Bill provided millions of vets with the opportunity to go to college and we as a nation were providing aid to Europe and Japan to help recover from the war. We were confronted with the “Cold War” but ALL of the free world were glad to see America be the superpower opposing the totalitarian communists of the Soviet Union. With the exception of a few minor recessions, our over all economy remained strong through the 70’s and 80’s largely because of expanding markets over seas and technological advances here at home. American agriculture was able for the first time in history produce enough food to feed a world’s expanding population. American manufacturing prowess was supplying a developing world with unlimited products. We were conquering space, we were making dramatic gains in health care around the world and won the cold war. In the 90’s another major technology advancement – computers – brought even more strong economic growth.
In the early 21st Century, things start going badly. First the dot-com bubble burst. Then the artificially inflated real estate market burst. Developing countries start becoming competitors instead of just customers. Massive US jobs were being out-sourced overseas where they could be accomplished at much lower labor rates. Finally, with the US economy leading the way, the whole world economic bubble burst! Recession bordering on depression ensued.
In the mean time, over the last 20 to 30 years, China’s economy has enjoyed unprecedented growth. China, over the past 30 years, has lifted more people out of abject poverty to a moderate middle class (about 300 million) then the rest of the world combined in all of history. Today China’s economy continues to explode ever as much of the rest of the world struggles with the “Big Recession.”
Why? What is China doing right that we are doing wrong?
The answers to these questions require that we look at where each of us is coming from. Thirty years ago, China was a poverty stricken, totalitarian communist country with ever increasing population growth. Post Mao Chinese leaders saw one of their biggest problems to be their mushrooming population. They instituted the “one child” policy. While many in America decry this action as anti-human rights, reality shows that it was the single best thing that could have happened for China. At the time, China’s population was about 3.1 billion. If they had not implemented this population control mechanism their population today would be over 6.5 billion severely starving people. Instead, their population has only increased to 3.2 billion and have now achieved a zero growth rate.
The next major step China took to develop their economy was to allow “a little bit” of capitalism. It started on their “collective” farms where they allowed the farm workers access to small acreage where they could produce and sell the fruits of their labors. Then they allowed manufacturing plant managers to make more money dependant of the over all profits their plants would produce. Things were working so good that eventually they initiated a hybrid capitalist system where individuals could actually own the businesses they were running. Both the government and the new capitalist surveyed the world’s markets and they devised plants that could easily compete in an expanding world economy.
Meanwhile, back in the “good old US of A” we not only had full fledged capitalism but, under the Bush administration, government regulations and controls that had been imposed in earlier time to check abuse were either dismantled or ignored. Fat cat greedy capitalists had free reign to rape the US economy. The result was ‘the poor got poorer and the rich got richer.” These fat cats moved our jobs over seas and with the resultant jobs lost and their hiring illegal immigrants to force even greater pressure on American workers, our workers were forced to accept ever more stringent wage and job benefits. Meanwhile, our insurance driven health care system was taking more and more of premiums as profits and spending less percentage wise on actual health care resulting in higher and higher health insurance rates. The pharmaceutical industry start spending billions on advertising telling patient what high price medications they should ask their doctors to prescribe. Then the big “credit splurge” began. People were buying cars and houses at prices they could not afford except with “easy” credit. Our government was “borrowing” money from China instead of living on a balanced budget. Special interests were buying government policies that enriched their pockets at the expense of the American people. For example, the oil industry was getting government subsidies to prospect for more oil even as they were making record level profits.
While China’s economy was expanding based on increased productivity, ours was "ballooning” based on lies and corruption. Pop, our bubble burst!
The Solution:
In a word – socialism!!!
What? Ain’t that the same as communism? Ain’t that what they have in Europe?
Communism is totalitarian socialism. Both Russia and China proved that economic system don’t work. Cuba and North Korea are still trying to make it work. Look what shape their economies are in. In Europe they have democratic socialism. The people elect what degree of socialism they want to have. Year after year, surveys have shown that people living in The Netherlands are the happiest people in the world. They love their socialism in The Netherlands! Yes, they pay an average of 65 percent income tax. But for that tax burden they get completely free education from a robust preschool program through totally paid for college. They also have free universal health care and an early retirement program – all free. Even businessmen in The Netherlands like the hybrid capitalistic/socialist economy. They don’t have worker health plans or retirement plans to worry about which levels their playing field so that the most efficient businesses make the greater profits.
Rampant Capitalism has proven itself just as unsustainable as has totalitarian communism. The solution lies somewhere between. An economy that improves the lives of all citizens is the ideal and most sustainable approach.
To achieve this goal, we the people have to wrest control of our government away from the special interest complexes and truly make ours a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Fat Cats be damned!