National Rage Blog
..I'm listening to the Republican reaction to President Obama's speech to Congress. I'm amazed at how they never really say anything new, but "lower taxes, stimulate the economy" and "we need less government" - naturally.

Well, we just had less government in the form of deregulation of banking, look at the result. We may as well have handed all those executives blank checks in the name of their companies, "here's billions to play with, and no federal oversight - go stimulate the economy". Of course, a lot of the money went overseas, stimulating other economies at the expense of our own. Call it "outsourcing", or simply investments in emerging economies, the simple fact is our money flowed out, not much came back.

If we leave it all up to capitalists, the results would have been even worse, and quicker. We have public committee oversight of utilities to keep them from making mistakes with energy we all need to survive. Why NOT the same for the banking industry? We act like they must be responsible fiscally, they have business or economic degrees. Well, the federal reserve had 1600 economists (with degrees) working full-time before this crisis occurred, and it still happened.

One side blames Congress, the other the President, but the simple fact for decades has been that the Republicans argue for more and more de-regulation and when they get it, it simply fails. They tried in England, and Prime Minister Thatcher had to end de-regulation after U.S. corporations raised water and utility rates 200-300% and go back to basically nationalization of the utilities. They tried it in Argentina, through pressure from the IMF and World Bank who was refusing that government loans unless they went with de-regulation, let U.S. corporations in and concurrently cut the average wages by 25%. Argentina gave in, got the loan, the result was massive demonstrations, rioting, martial law, death squads, and the 'disappeared'.

The facts have always proven out that capitalists will always seek the most profit for the least cost, and the public pays. Ironic, because the corporations need the public as consumers, else no sales, no profits, no corporations over time. They need to realize a healthy, well-paid consumer equates to successful sales and profits, and capitalism succeeds.

This means, higher costs paid to workers would benefit them overall, but no one company wants to raise wages. Less taxes for workers, more taxes for corporations would also increase consumerism, but how many do you hear say that works. Corporations say they pass on the taxes to consumers, so you're raising prices on them, but how about they simply make less money per year, instead of more and more? A healthy but sustainable profit is more valuable over time than ridiculously high profits that bankrupt everyone, such as when oil was $145 per barrel.

They can't charge us more and more annually for the same stuff and think that a six-hundred dollar rebate makes up for the daily gouging we go through on both sides: higher prices and wages that don't keep up. This is the real root of the problem, the system as it is operating doesn't work over time, more of the wealth produced has to be given to the working class, the consumers that pay for all the profits with purchases.

Having a few more millionaires buying expensive boats doesn't stimulate the overall economy, it's time we gave up that ridiculous pipe dream: most of us will never get wealthy from capitalism, we'll simply work for a wage all our lives and hope to live comfortably, and that should be enough.