But bumf is bumf!
We can easily ask those who so fervently believe that corporate neo-liberalism is the wave of the future why it is that the USA are in such dismal economic straits just now. Certainly in either Republican or Democratic administrations the corporate types have had it all their own way for a generation now.
Taxes pared down on the wealthy, corporations left free to dismantle their domestic production in favor of out-sourcing to places where reactionary government can assure that workers can be made to work for basically nothing and shot or incarcerated should they object. All this and more have been the features of this wonderful "bi-partisanship."
Folks like President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela have not failed to point out what an unmitigated disaster has been the application of the failed Washington consensus in their quarter of the world. But its failures are no less manifest in the USA herself.
Our economic statistics speak so eloquently for themselves. Should we examine official statistics in the same way that they were calculated before we were consumed by wacky rightist economic theories beginning in 1980, we could see inflation rates of 12 or 13 percent, and unemployment rates at similar levels.
The share of Gross Domestic Product enjoyed by manufacturing would be a bit more than 10 percent, while manufactured imports account for about 17 percent.
So even were we to export all of our manufactures, under conditions of a weak dollar, we would still be unable to close the trade deficit!
We can see that we have been in recession for most of the period going back to 2000.
But don't take my word for it. Do your own research. All this information is no secret. It is readily available to anyone who wants to read and study. Honest financial reporters like Paul Craig Roberts or John Williams can help you. Most of all ask yourself if your own situation has improved.
The only real advantage that the right has here is its command of racial, religious and militarist chauvinism. Everything they say about objective matters has the same relationship to reality as has their opinions on evolution. It has been a fact that since Nixon's time the majority of the US electorate have allowed themselves to be controlled by more or less blatant appeals to the angels of their baser nature. And so what is happening to the USA could not, therefore, happen to nicer people.
This is also of course the ultimate source of the damage done to the candidacy of Barak Obama, who by reason of his race is compelled, against his inclinations to avoid outright repudiation of his liberal and even, in some instances radical base. He is forced to talk sense to a people who cannot bear to hear it.
I expect to win some substantial wagers in November on my position that come what may, the electorate will vote conservative yet again, as they promise to do tomorrow in our state of Pennsylvania, one of the most racially polarized in our country. A bet I'd surely love to lose, but one which seems safer than any investment in our "free market" banks.
One certainty: No one in Venezuela's Foreign Ministry should be expecting any change in their relations with the Empire anytime soon. But we may all take home a consolation prize. The Empire will also be unable to deal with its massive financial hemorrhage.
That makes it a race to see if the inevitable financial implosion occurs before the next administration, whoever leads it, can add enough troops to the army to deal with upstarts like your President Chavez.
That's the real meaning of this horse race.
From the imperial capital
Chris Herz
cdherz44@yahoo.com
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