Economy & Budget

This country is long overdue for some very good long-term news. This country wants to see a positive change from Wall Street and elected officials across the nation. Our president, Congress and nationally elected leaders can help usher in this necessary positive outcome if they stop the lying, greed, selfishness and finger-pointing. Instead of trying to blame each other for the recession by pointing out their “flawed words” to describe the economy, they need to set examples for real change.

In my column today I deplore the GOP war against jobs. Watching Mitt Romney in Ohio today, when he talked about American jobs, he was really advocating European austerity. Mitt Romney could be Nicolas Sarkozy, recently defeated in France, or David Cameron in Britain, or Angela Merkel in Germany. They advocate the austerity that is driving Europe into recession. Romney would do this here. Meanwhile, the global warming denial and birther wings of Republicans are acting like the National Front parties in Europe with a far right politics of anger and denial. When I heard Romney talk about Europe today, it all became clear.

Many will tell you that it is not taxation but debt that is financing the government spending; thus it is not crowding out private spending. I maintain that government debt crowds out private borrowing and investment. Many of my anti-capitalist colleagues say that government spending is not crowding out private investment because interest rates are low. Therefore there is plenty of money to finance private investment. Unfortunately, in an attempt to protect depositors, and the government guarantee of such deposits, the bank regulators have increased the credit underwriting requirements on banks. Consequently, they are not lending to small and medium-sized businesses.

Spain has requested and received a $126 billion bailout to become the largest country in the European Union to receive a bailout in this two-and-a-half-year-long economic crisis.

For now, they can breathe a temporary sigh of relief. The key word, however, is temporary, because no significant structural changes have been made to their financial philosophy and their actions have not changed.

Just because the European government put pressure on Spain to agree to an aid package ahead of the Greek elections on June 17 does not mean that the financial crisis is resolved. In fact, with the upcoming elections, this entire situation means that we will return to this beast of a financial disaster again after kicking the can down the road.

Can you believe President Obama said this at a press conference last week?
 
“The private sector is doing fine,” the president said during his Friday morning White House press conference. “Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. … If Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is, how do we help state and local governments?”

Mitt Romney has no reason to apologize about his wealth. The American Dream is to be a self-made, hard-working, prosperous individual in society, not just financially but intellectually and spiritually. According to the dream, this includes the opportunity for one's children to grow up and receive a good education and career without artificial barriers. It is the opportunity to make individual choices without the prior restrictions that limited people according to their class, caste, religion, race or ethnicity.

There are very few Americans who would not want to live this American Dream of prosperity and have their children achieve the same. It is part of the American experience to take risks and build a business. It is also part of the American Dream to empower others to do the same. Horatio Alger exemplified the American Dream in his many novels.

Europe’s global influence has serious implications for global financial markets, especially in the United States.

According to a recent report by Fox Business News, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress about the European debt crisis’s effect on U.S. banks and money market funds.

Bernanke announced that U.S. money markets hold “35 percent of their assets in European holdings as of February 2012 and remain structurally vulnerable to Europe’s debt problems.”

Given their prevailing 20th-century mentality and saddled with new and burdensome regulations, banks have little incentive to develop affordable credit options to serve the needs of millions of American consumers.

I’m not talking about the Warren Buffetts of the world; I’m talking about people who wake up every day worried about the future, which unfortunately accounts for most of us. A report released by the Corporation for Enterprise Development found that 127.5 million people are liquid-asset poor, meaning that a sudden loss in household income would leave them below the poverty line in just three months.

On the issues of fairness in finance, economics and consumerism, Elizabeth Warren and the Occupy Wall Street movement speak for the majority of Americans. This terrifies the right, frightens the Republicans, and worries a few Democrats who like that money from the 1 percent. In my column this week, “Karl Rove's Grand Slam,” I suggested liberals and Democrats can attack the abuses most recently seen in the JPMorgan trading losses and the Facebook IPO fiasco and attack the Supreme Court travesty in Citizens United, while also raising money from wealthy liberals and Democrats until Citizens United is overturned.

From msn.com: “Ireland's economy was once growing so fast it was dubbed the ‘Celtic Tiger.’ But the property bubble burst, the banks were thrown into crisis, the government got deep into debt spending billions to bail them out. Ordinary Irish people are now paying the price.

“New taxes — including a Universal Social Charge paid by all citizens — have been brought in and more are on the way, such as a new charge on water.

“According to the latest figures, the standardized unemployment rate was 14.3 percent — about 430,000 people — compared to just 4.5 percent in April 2007.”

Sound familiar?