Manhattan Spring?

A new youth movement appears to be organizing and calling for freedom from oppression. While we might immediately attempt to identify what new Middle Eastern nation is in the throes of jubilant turmoil, this youth movement is closer to home. It’s in Manhattan.

          Young people, and some not so young, are converging on major cities such as New York and Washington DC to protest economic and social inequality and an unheeding government they feel is hijacked by corporate interests. Hundreds are being arrested in these protests daily, but are usually released in a few days. The movement has been organizing for about a year but now seems to be spilling out into the streets.

          The movement has no leaders and makes no demands, but seeks to inclusively tap into the general sense of frustration permeating our nation. Those in the movement (not sure if it has a name) voice diverse objections to the status quo. Some major themes which emerge are:

• working people need to benefit from corporate profits
• working people need a voice and need politicians to listen
• the jobs Congress is most concerned about keeping is their own
• corporate money keeps Congresspeople in their jobs and runs the show
• more and more people are in poverty and nothing is being done to improve our national situation (it is true that nothing will be done until next November as Congress tries to get one guy fired)
• Wall Street and corporations are greedy (duh) hence the current Manhattan/ Wall Street protests

          It appears to me that people are finally connecting the dots beyond the illusory political realities crafted by media outlets, spin doctors and thought police (if you join the movement, you’re up on Glenn’s board). Apparently people across the country are making the connection that the rich are getting much richer and the rest of us are increasingly struggling. The protestors are voicing opposition to a government hijacked by Wall Street. For them we have become a nation of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation.

          These sentiments reflect much economic and political reality in my opinion. Within the last three weeks several socioeconomic analyses of census data were released, as well as reports on 2010 corporate profits. Here’s how a picture is shaping up from a number of studies compiled over the last two months:

·         80% of Fortune 500 profits are made overseas (These are no longer American companies in my opinion).

·         Fortune 500 companies are making lots of profit (the most since such records were kept- over $3 trillion) and are creating lots of jobs…overseas [Now to be fair, corporations HAVE to go overseas and do anything for a buck. It’s the LAW. It’s written into their articles of incorporation they HAVE to MAXIMIZE profits for shareholders. This means that the mighty engine of free market capitalism is socially constructive IF there is a connection between corporate profits and the upward mobility of the people who work for those companies. One goes up, the other should go up. This connection created the Middle Class and the American Dream. Is there still a connection between business profit and social mobility?

·         Nope. The US continues to slip in terms of social mobility. This means if you’re born into poverty you’re likely to stay in poverty. The smart ass UN study concluded that if you want to economically and socially advance yourself, move to Denmark or Finland. Hmmm….but there aren’t that many Americans living in poverty, right?

·         Sorry…highest rates of poverty among Americans since these records began to be kept (DOH!). BTW poverty in government speak is $12k for an individual and $22k for a family of 4. It breaks down like this: Top 1/5 of the population owns 83% of the wealth (financial assets & real estate). Bottom 40% of the entire population owns .3% of the wealth. It used to be 11% 30 years ago (some of the “conclusions” of studies are debatable opinions….these census data numbers are not…they are simply math). Sounds like a redistribution of wealth to me. If redistribution from the top down is called “socialism” what is it called when done in the opposite direction (please submit your answers and the best will be published).

·         Every month more and more families slip below the line of poverty and many others don’t make enough income to pay their monthly bills, so are in functional poverty and in thrall to the tyranny of the credit industry.

·         Wages have long been flat (for over a decade)….while costs for things like health care premiums and education have increased literally over 1000% since 2000. Wages are now falling. A Brookings study showed incomes down in 83 out of 105 major metropolitan areas. Lower incomes mean lower State income tax revenues. Lower property values mean lower local property tax revenues. 2/3 of cities report plans to suspend infrastructure projects and spend less on public safety (while making accountant happy, this is counterproductive to stimulating the economy & getting people back to work).

·         People are making less but working harder. Hours on average are longer and paid vacation days are shorter. The US ranks at the bottom of industrial nations with 13 days annually of paid vacation….and 59% of workers don’t take all these days. I point out that increased work hours and demands means increased stress…and increased sickness….and lower productivity (not as productive at 8pm as at 8am).

·         Data show that the socioeconomic erosion of the Middle Class has been slowly progressing for the last decade. This trend has accelerated since the financial collapse. Why, one may ask?

·         Why is this recession different from all other recessions (a very Jewish economic question)? Our current recession is unlike any in our history because of the convergence of a failed economy, a failed credit market, along with a failed housing market (never happened before). All of this is embedded and mired in debt…personal debt, corporate debt, and government debt. This debt generates strong downward pressure against efforts to stimulate and grow our economy. Foreclosures push down and keep down housing prices, which are the single largest assets most Americans own. Foreclosures also impede economic growh. This corrosion of debt is seen throughout the Western industrialized nations (although not in emerging nations or Asia/ South America. Japan remains the naughty exception with a debt to GDP ratio of over 200%). It is not surprising that global companies go elsewhere to pursue their buck making.

·         Minorities are most impacted by socioeconomic erosion since their personal wealth tended to be tied up in their home rather than a diverse investment portfolio. A Pugh study just released shows 36 million Hispanic children living in poverty, up 36% from 2007. This is contrasted with 4 million black children and 5 million white children.

·         Well, that’s the cheery studies emerging in the last couple of weeks. Just for the hell of it, I’ll throw in the findings of a 3 year bipartisan study on contractor spending during our foreign adventures. This is notable as there are more contractors than soldiers in the Middle East. Findings- One out of four dollars given to contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan was shown to be “misspent”, which means theft, waste and criminal fraud to the rest of us. It used to be called war profiteering and was a capital offense in the military. Now it’s business as usual. The report stated that because of a lack of Congressional and corporate oversight and accountability, quite a bit of the “misspent” money found its way into enemy hands. We’re paying people to kill our kids. There ought to be some sort of protest movement in the streets…….

          I advocate making a buck. Is our government really hijacked by corporations? It’s true that the health insurance companies wrote the health care bill, the banks wrote the credit card and banking bills (and publicly bragged about it,  only to be thwarted by the caped crusader Elizabeth Warren), and ….ok, the corporations write our bills…..and elect our Congress. BTW for gentle readers in the thrall of the credit industry, look for monthly debit/credit card utility fees now that Warren’s reforms reduced bank’s “swipe” transaction from 1000% profit to 500% profit. The new card charges is expected to ADD $1 billion to bank’s profits. Their momma didn’t raise no dummies.

          So what does all this corporate greed have to do with the direction of our country, God, mom and apple pie? Weren’t corporations always greedy? Although I am a fiscal conservative (balance those books dammit), I am a social progressive on moral rather than legal or political grounds, the whole “do unto the least of these” thing. But just as we discovered a few weeks ago that the recession was TWICE as bad as we believed it was for the last two years, the picture of socioeconomic inequality is for me getting WAY out of hand and is spilling over into the political arena. Eroding the Middle Class is nothing less than a threat to national security. Our greatest international leverage as a nation is upward mobility and a vibrant economy. We’re not likely to win hearts and minds with a broken political system, a few very rich folks lolling about, and the rest of us struggling to get by. Sounds like the third world to me. Maybe making the US a third world country is a strategy to stop immigration.

          Creating an economic underclass of disenfranchised Americans is not the “right direction” for America as I see it. We need to reconnect business profit to social mobility, to benefiting people as well as shareholders. We need policies and an economic climate which benefits “we the people”, not “we the corporation.” We the People need a voice, and this movement in Manhattan may be providing one. Now if only SOMEONE would listen. God knows the people responsible for listening appear asleep at the switch or squabbling over nonsense. Who will speak for the average American? It’s clear to me that the powers that be in Washington (both Parties) advocate for someone or something else. I’m not one to join movements, but this new one forming might be one I can get behind. Who knows, freedom might just sweep over the land of the free, IF we become the home of the brave.