some things (in economics)

The US Census Bureau's annual Poverty Report came out today, as President Bush tramped around Louisiana trying to "remember" the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The lovely media outlets would love to treat these as two separate stories. What happened in New Orleans (and continues to affect people all over the region) is intricately linked with poverty. The rich people lived in neighborhoods in higher grounds, while the poor and those in governmental housing programs lived below sea level. And all of those people likely felt that the levies were going to be okay. Part of a shared system of buying into the social safety net is that everyone plays a part of making a community safe. Safety is not and should not be a luxury item. It is a moral requirement and can absolutely be supplied to each member of our society based on our economy.

The other day while watching the Nightly News, I saw a reporter refer to me (the viewer at home watching on my stolen cable) and him (in a studio where he is paid thousands to sit and read) collectively as "we, the consumers." The exact sentence was "We, the consumers, won for a little while." This introduced a story about a gas station that temporarily sold gas for $0.36 instead of $3.60 because of a computer error. What a giveaway. So for nearly an hour we bought something we subsidize and primarily produce in the United States for a fair price. Brilliant.

Bush (ie Bush's minions who work to spin and spin to live) will likely argue that a static poverty rate is a good sign for the country. But what headlines are unlikely to reveal are the troubling signs of serious underlying problems. Consumer confidence continues to fluctuate, trending towards a lasting downturn. Lowest income brackets are swelling. Healthcare is becoming a major luxury. Those who are already poor are becoming more likely to stay poor and those working are barely earning a living wage. Educational gaps are becoming more and more apparent. And the rich are becoming fabulously more wealthy (productivity and shareholder profits remain at record highs.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in a lot of libertarian principles like good pay for hard work, smaller and more efficient government, and JS Mill-kind of freedom. I believe, like many Americans, that you should work hard in life and get rewarded accordingly. And I would believe, like most Americans, that the federally-funded construction of giant structures that I depend on for my life (such as the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio) would be sound and not cause my death. To refuse to accept this is to misunderstand the entire nature of shared resources.

Air is a shared resource. Trees are a shared resource. And (though in dwindling numbers), water is also a shared resource. When we pay our taxes, when we support the social security system, and when we do any of the thousands of things we do to exist in a community, we are sharing resources.

The protection of, care, and investment in these shared resources is dwindling too. As we pour billions into Iraq we are so obviously ignoring the needs of America. We are ignoring the effects of this abandonment and we are ignoring the people of poverty.


What these signs say to me is that this country is desperately and hungrily moving towards a kind of new feudalism, a political and economic system in which the ranks of the very rich and very poor increase while those in the middle (especially in the lower middle) scramble to keep above water.

And the Republicans are the rats on the sinking ships.

The Times August 30, 2006

_________________





just as a by the way...If you're not listening to Air America you're missing out hardcore. Shit, Bollini, you're right. I need to leave my office more often before 9pm and get a life.