The economy, austerity and other ramblings to my brother

My brother Mark and I have diametrically opposite views on politics, economics, pretty much most things.... And, yes, I love the shit out of him. I love my brothers and sisters. I really appreciate how close we've grown as we've gotten older. But, Mark and I, we get into some heated debates. My brother Mark's worldview is colored by the prism of the Teabagger movement: A narrowly focused vision incapable of seeing that somethings are not necessarily black and white. Here's my response to his attempt to rebut my comments about why Obama's jobs bill is a good thing:

Mark, I’ll try to make it as simple as possible. Use your noggin for a moment and consider why austerity measures in a recession don’t work:

The government cuts back. It cuts back on employees. It cuts back on expenditures.

Cutting back on employees puts more people out of work. Simple enough, right? More people without government jobs, presupposing that the economy is still in a downward spiral, means more people looking for work. More people collecting unemployment. More people losing their homes. More defaults. More homes being devalued. More homeless. More people hungry. More people spending less money. Since a capitalist economy is built on the premise of supply and demand, more people out of work means less demand. Corporate America cuts back. More layoffs. More people out of work. A vicious cycle.

The government cuts back on expenditures.

Cutting back on government expenditures means less funding for transportation, education, defense, health care, research, investments in infrastructure. This means less money going to states for infrastructure improvement and health care. Less money going to student loan financing. Less money going to medical research. This means fewer contracts awarded. Fewer contracts means less business for corporate America. Less work for corporate America, means fewer jobs. Fewer jobs means more layoffs. More layoffs means more people collecting unemployment. More people losing their homes. More defaults. More homeless. More people hungry. More people spending less money. Since a capitalist economy is built on the premise of supply and demand, more people out of work means less demand. Corporate America cuts back. More layoffs. More people out of work. See a pattern here?

Corporate America is reluctant to start spending, because demand is not there. There is no faith that demand is going to increase. Austerity measures – in a time of recession – promote hesitancy.

Furthermore, you talk about the government taking wealth from one entity and redistributing it. You are REALLY brainwashed by the Koch Brothers, aren’t you? Taxes are a necessary requirement of living in a civilized society. This “taking of wealth” as you like to call it, is how we pay for roads, bridges, highways, our air traffic control system. It’s how we help kids get college educations, pay for medical research, put men on the moon, help people recover after an earthquake or hurricane, and yes, pay for our national defense. Social Security and Medicare, on the other hand, are ENTITLEMENT programs. PEOPLE PAY INTO THESE! What kind of country do you want? A country where the roads are unpassable? A country where you take your chances that the milk you drink doesn’t contain melamine? A country with air like China’s? (where only 1% of the population breathes air considered safe?) How do you think we pay for these things?

The wealthy class, and CEOs of corporate America are the ONLY ONES WHO HAVE SEEN THEIR NET WORTH INCREASE over these past years! The middle class has shrunk. Real earnings for the average American have been flat for more than a decade! What in the world are you defending? By the way, the Bush tax cuts did nothing to create jobs. All they did was to concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

Is there waste in government? Sure. Of course there is. There is waste all around. And yes, I do believe that removing waste from processes will create value. But don’t equate waste with a system now in place in America where the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few is somehow defended as being patriotic. The line told by the Koch brother clones is that taxing the rich less will promote more investment and more jobs. This is false, Mark. The rich have gotten richer, and still we have the worst economic crisis in 80 years!

But, you know what the real tragedy is? Not only that fewer people are accruing more wealth at the expense of the many; but that people like you are defending it! This is what’s truly insane!

Kerry Killinger ran Washington Mutual into the ground… It was the 3^rd largest bank in the US, headquartered here in Seattle. He encouraged crazy sub-prime mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, to the point that WaMu’s assets were predominantly toxic. Washington Mutual folded. 43,000 employees lost their jobs. Killinger walked away with over $100 Million. Why isn’t he behind bars?

Why do all Seattle area non-profit hospital CEOs receive more than a Million dollars in salary, while nurses have to fight for a 1 or 2% pay raise, and pediatric critical care physicians make less than $200K, and have had their salaries frozen for 3 years?

Why is the University of Washington football coach the highest paid public employee?

Why does the administrator of WDS (Washington Dental Services, a dental insurance company) make a salary of over $1 Million a year, and he just announced that WDS is cutting back reimbursements to Washington State dentists (who have an average salary of less than $167,000 per year?

Why are these Wall Street people who made a fortune knowingly selling toxic mortgage-backed securities which resulted in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression not serving life terms in prison?

How did we get to this place? And why aren’t more people angry?