As a kid, I remember that while growing up in Trinidad, there was a very popular song on the radio, which simply -but deeply- dealt with “economics” in a populist way. I always found it intriguing, and maybe that was because I grew up on the left side of the political spectrum. Anyway, part of it went like this: “there’s nothing surer, the rich gets rich and the poor gets poorer; in the meantime, in the springtime: we got to have fun.”  And maybe we poor and middle-class working-folk do need to have fun; if only as a way to avoid facing up to the reality that greedy rich people daily screw us over and over; as they arrogantly exploit how this capitalist economic system works in their selfish interest and benefit. Often times they illegally drill the screws in to booth. But it isn’t funny anymore; it really isn’t. And maybe it is again time in US history, for ordinary folks to stand up and say: enough. 

So I took a two week hiatus from writing any columns here: whoop dee damn doo. And now I am back; but I am still pissed. I think my editors here (Ben Smith and Gur Tsbar) are making big mistakes that could eventually lead to this site’s decline in popularity; but who am I to say? I already believe that our continuous failure to attract new and younger writers isn’t positive, as it relates to our future well being. I also believe that we need to recruit political activists from all over the state, who are willing to come up here, and write about what’s really going down in their respective areas; stuff that you won’t find on mainstream media sources/entities. We also need to recruit writers who are unafraid to speak out on salient issues of the day. Yet, I am committed to this writer’s colony, and I am hopeful that we can one day build this site, to one where serious political thinkers and activists come to express themselves and to inform others. Politics is the only game in town folks.

According to Bloomberg News, a former advisor the Chinese central bank is calling for leaders Asian nations to get together in cooperate in managing the collapse of the bankrupt United States. "Japan, China and other holders of U.S. government debt must quickly reach an agreement to prevent panic sales leading to a global financial collapse," he said. He also wondered "why are we piling up these IOUs if they may default?" China's "export-growth strategy has run its natural course" since Chinese who worked and saved may end up with nothing in return from Americans who borrowed and spent.

Just imagine the consequences of this for a country where everyone's entire value of life depends on spending 6% more than they take in every year. Today, there was a wild rumor that the Chinese government had ordered Chinese banks to stop lending to U.S. banks, to stop the losses. The next President will have to travel on his knees to places where people save money, and beg for loans, and then to oil producing countries, to beg for oil. This isn't over until we no longer have a federal budget deficit, no longer have a current accounts deficit, and are no longer able to issue no state and local bonds.

'The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book." —John McCain

Well thank goodness he hasn’t read it. As Dubya’s MBA has proven, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and McCain has not yet attained even that level.

Nonetheless, in a society where the public yearns to have a few aspects of their lives protected in some manner from the vicissitudes of the marketplace (things like their retirement and their healthcare), the McCain platform and the McCain record is one of advocating that market forces be unleashed in the manner of a mad and rabid dog to render their magic and transform our society in ways unimaginable to those not suffering from acid-induced nightmares.

The $700 billion financial industry bailout now being debated is in addition to the $200 million for Fannie and Freddie, which some people have said will actually cost $100 million more, for a total of $1 trillion. How much is $1 trillion? According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, federal expenditures on family assistance programs (ie. "welfare"; Aid to Families With Dependent Children AFDC and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families TANF) during the period from 1958 to 2005 totaled $568 million dollars. Now lots of those dollars counted for more than today's shrinking dollars, as a result of inflation, but the inflation-adjusted federal expenditure on "welfare" over nearly 50 years is apparently about $1.1 trillion.

Four years ago I was so outraged by the way the state legislature in Albany was selling out our collective future, to hand out money to privileged interests today, that I ran against them as a minor party candidate. Had I known what was going on in business, and in many people’s own lives, I wouldn’t have bothered, because what has been going on in Albany is what has been going on in our culture. We have had a long national orgy, a white collar riot, and the participans are going to make the non-participants and their children pay for the fallout.

There are a lot of Andrew Jackson quotes rolling around the internet now, mostly because of his opposition to privatized profits and socialized losses in the financial sector, and the government-backed organizations that facilitate this. Intrigued, I came upon a veto message from 1832 that, at its end, provides some general principles beyond the particular issues of his day, one that speaks to the past decade of federal and state legislation in Albany and Washington. The man on the twenty dollar bill sensed the country was going wrong because its institutions were being corrupted by special interests, and were threatened as a result. The veto message was posted by a well known Furman University professor of history, and taken from Messages and Papers of the Presidents, also posted here. In light of recent events, and the diminishment of our collective future by public and private actions over the past decade, it is well worth reading.

Kevin Powell 11,046 32.84%

Edolphus Towns 22,586 67.16%

“That is why I am proud to say I will be a candidate for Congress again in 2010. The campaign has already begun because of you”

—Kevin Powell 9/12/08

“Anybody else, I'd say what's gonna happen to you would be a lesson to you. Only you're gonna need more than one lesson. And you're gonna get more than one lesson.”

–Boss Jim Gettys in “Citizen Kane”

This is the second time (here’s the first) the opening of one of my pieces on the political travails of Hip-hop philosopher and boy genius Kevin Powell has contained a quote from the cinematic legacy of Orson Welles, a man whose talent for genius had much in common with Kevin Powell’s ego; both were exceeded only by their owner’s talent for self-destruction.

In 1775, Samuel Johnson wrote "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundel"

Reading Sunday's NY Daily News, I think I learned what the first refuge is now.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/queens/2008/09/13/2008-09-13_anthony_seminerios_arrest_could_hurt_gop.html

The story speculated about how the recent indictment of Assemblyman Tony Seminerio could affect the State Senate race between Republican Seph Maltese and Democrat Joe Addabbo.

Do either of these two candidates realize what is going down? Do they have any idea what the financial situation of the country will be in when they take office? Or do they just not want to talk about it?

Perhaps by the time the debates roll around, it will be obvious enough that even the moderators will get it. Whoever wins had better work fast, because they’re only going to be there for one term. If we’re lucky, very lucky, things will be no worse than they were under Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush. Because as bad as the 1970s were, the U.S. was a net creditor at the time. Not a