The Recession Has Ended - Yeah!!!

"Poverty was a wonderful thing everyone enjoyed, we were eating grass - not smoking it, wasn't like this when I was a boy, wasn't like this when I was a boy"!  Ian Hunter's tongue -in-cheek poke at what it was like to be poor in an earlier time, when so many were just hanging on but oddly accepting of this fate.   The "this" is, of course, the economically advanced times of today where we are still eating the grass only it's been processed through a cow first.  So many things are different, as Ian points out in the rest of the song.  But the poverty difference, the poverty now versus then, is somehow dark and growing darker.  For many in poverty today were once the smokers, not the eaters, and they are less able to game the public assistance system as the White's of West Virginia have done for generations, living off social security disability for simply being certifiably crazy.
Consider......  In July 2008, the cost of living for Americans hit an all-time high.  It then receded a bit with the Great Recession and just repeated in February 2011.  This isn't a measure of inflation, which tracks the rise in wholesale costs of all kinds of shit many people never spend money on.  This is simply what it costs to live - food, shelter, gas, clothes, etc.  Millions of us are falling into poverty from what was once higher ground despite the fact we have jobs.  College tuition increased 63% in Arizona in the last 3 years.  Medical costs are through the roof and unsustainable.  For the unemployed, it's foreclosure and bankruptcy and then what the hell happens to these people?  Moving in with friends/family?  Homelessness?   Suicide?
This recession is far from over.  The middle class of America is on the endangered list.   The trickle down idea of Reaganomics is a miserable failure as the rich didn't allow it to trickle, but rather invested their windfall in real estate, boats, planes, you name it.   To keep the trickle moving sideways, companies swallowed each other up through leveraged (borrowed) money buy-outs, shedding millions of jobs in the process but concentrating borrowed wealth in the hands of the top dogs and their deal-makers.   Sometimes the new companies were run into the ground (Harry and Davids) due to the suffocating debt, then put into bankruptcy and everyone laid off.  The owners walked unscathed with all the loot.  Or the debt load was too much for shareholders who demand constant and ever increasing profitability, resulting in lay-offs to cut costs or sending production overseas where people will work for pennies.  
For a while, the middle-class soldiered on by borrowing.  The great debt binge of the last decade allowed people to maintain a lifestyle sold to them by mass-marketing consumption, even as their wages and buying power plummeted.   Now, for many, poverty looms only they've already smoked the grass, and quite enjoyed the experience.   What then will bring about a better, brighter and higher day for so many who have inhaled?  Next week, after viewing a movie that opens in a few days, I will offer an idea to consider.  Right now, however, I need to go smoke some grass.

Tectonic Shifting

As the disaster in Japan unfolds, I am constantly reminded of both the power of nature and the frailty of humans and our technological advances.  Sure, very few large buildings tumbled due to foundations designed to absorb earth's energy and sway with the shifting of the ground.  But these buildings were in Tokyo, a relatively long way from the epicenter.  Nearly all buildings close by were initially damaged and then swept away or, at the least, flooded by the 30' wall of tsunami water that followed.  The local nuclear reactors, a marvel of engineering in many ways, are trashed and resulted in unavoidable releases of radioactive gases.  There will be fall-out from this development (pun intended), but not even close to the carnage and death brought on by the tsunami.  I will delve into nuclear energy and the absurd hysteria gripping people and politicians alike in a future rant.  Suffice to say, I believe it's a colossal mistake to unilaterally declare all future reactors a menace and shelve the plans for these very clean and reliable sources of electrical power.   

But it was the earthquake.  Japan lies near the Pacific ring-o-fire, an area where the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates constantly shift, grind, and, occasionally, release destructive amounts of energy to add to the misery of mankind (CAUTION:  analogy ahead!).   Sounds a lot like Washington D.C.  Here, the destructive shift has been RIGHT, and man has it resulted in a lot of misery.  The examples are endless, but allow me to list just a few:  1)  "Obamacare" is much less socialist than the plan offered by the Nixon white house in the 70's; 2) Ronald Reagan, speaking about the Polish unions fighting the communists in an '80's speech stated "where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost"; 3) Eisenhower warning of the power of the military-industrial complex in the 50's and the US Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that private companies have the same rights as citizens and can provide unlimited campaign funds to candidates.  I offer as additional proof the continuing growth of registered independents who were once Republicans but can no longer take the far-right bullshit spewing from Repube politicians - guns on college campuses, investigation of representatives who's patriotism is suspect (Michelle Bachman, please take a bow), criminal laws for simply being in the country illegally, and on and on.  Current centrists views used to be Republican.  Obama is a far-left loon when viewed from the right fringes.  Anyone with a fucking brain can clearly see he's a centrist and just trying to get along.

And what about the Democrats and the far-left shift of their types in this country!  Well, did single-payer healthcare happen?  Did the Bush tax cuts get axed?   Is abortion still as accessible and hassle-free as it was in the 30 years ago?  Have ANY far-left policies been shoved down the collective throats of the citizens of this country in the last decade or two?   Oh, yes, there is one - the socialist take-over of a company that was once the largest in the world and instead of letting hundreds of thousands of working people lose their jobs, that commie Obama saved General Motors only to have it rise from the ashes, turn a profit and start paying back the taxpayers of America - with interest.  Damn left-wing loons!!