It was not my intent nor is it my belief that we need to go through any suffering at all to rehabilitate those segments of the economy that are still viable. Nor do we need to suffer to develop a focus on real social needs to form new segments of the economy that will carry us forward. I’ll take responsibility for that outcome, since that’s the way my argument was taken by each of you.

However, we are doomed, in the real sense of the term, to go through some suffering because of the duplicity that underlies our political system. Bush wins; we go to war in Iraq. Obama wins; we ramp up for a bigger war in Afghanistan. Bush takes away individual rights and legal protections. Obama holds fast to some of those gains for the executive branch.

The elite do not care because they don’t have to. It’s difficult to see any real plan on their part either. Their actions represent temporizing to avoid any real assessment of their mismanagement and, according to candid authorities, scrutiny of their illegal acts. So the “program” to replace a broken system is nonexistent.

The suffering and deprivation are unnecessary outrages were there any degree of good will on the part of the “rulers.” But alas, there is a scarcity in that regard. That means that what’s already happened, will continue until the people wake up to realize that the notion of having “faith” in Obama or any other leader is one end of the absurd spectrum that also involves “losing faith” in a leader.

A combination of the economic mess and suffering plus leaders who look utterly foolish will create an opportunity for a new system to emerge, one that’s based on real work to produce useful products and services and that offers the basics that allow people to live in dignity.

You wouldn’t be expected to have read this, but I did address my concerns on the suffering that we’re seeing and experiencing at the start of Feb of this year. Economic Disaster. Are you Next?

Max Shields, I agree that FDR had more tangible elements of an economy to work with. I also see so many major tasks ahead just for our survival as a species. There could be plenty of work for everyone and huge benefits with a rational assessment of the needs that are abundantly clear. The structure for that isn’t present now, while, as you point out, FDR has factories and fields that were quite viable.

A Resource Based Economy is the only way the Human race can advance however pie in the sky that notion currently appears.

All we need is for the financial system (money) to collapse and for everyone to realise that the “for the good of all” system rather than the “profit for a few” system has to be the way forwards…

for example….http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

The Congress is filled with enablers incapable of raising their voices against the Wallstreet thugs. Most people in Congress either do not understand the complexity damage being inflicted on American people or are worshiping the Wallstreet guys paying for their elections.

Citizens on the left and the right need to realize that Washington DC is bought and paid for regardless of political party. There are a few good nuts, but they are very few and far between. Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Sanders come to mind.

I also went to a tea party and I will say that the VAST majority of people there were fuming mad at the republicans from the Bush era as well as the democrats who are continuing the Bush/Paulson plan on steroids.

The debt Obama and his cohorts are foisting on this nation are unsustainable.

Just where do you think his sympathies are now going to lie. With some goober who slugged it out on the line at Chrysler for 20 years and is now out of a job, out of a house and out of a future?

In the above piece the author pens the comment that “…yet too little public rage confronts them.”

And so it has been since the end of WWII. Don’t expect this to change.

A stimulus is meant to be like a refibulator. It only works when the patient’s heart can be re-energized. It does not provide sustained economic activity. The more you do it the less and less likely it will have any effect.

When billions were “sent” to New Orleans after Katrina, what happened? It was a “stimulus” to re-build. (What happened after the great earth quake in San Fransciso would have been a much better means to re-build – but that’s not how the evolved Amerikan empire “solves” its problems anymore.)

The US economy – very different from the one FDR presided over – has been hollowed out and turned into a what Phillips called Financialization. There was in the ’30 and ’40 a massive factory and manufacturing base that was the US economy then. That is NOT the case today. Stimulus on a cadaver results in a dead body.

New Orleans is more than a metaphor for the treatment of poor and minorities in Amerika, it is a mirror of the US economy, the atomization of community and the powerful statement of the beginning of the end.

Right Wing,

The tea party was rediculed because its organizers and participants
are only protesting the stimulus package which is really needed and
are ignoring the trillions of dollars of bail-out money that are being
shoveled to the banks and Wall St. without even a single question.
Just compare the struggle of the car companies to get help because of
the current economic conditions which was caused by Wall St. and
the banksters. They are being pushed to bankruptcy to bust the labor
unions and at the same time the banksters and Wall St. are here and without even a single investigation.??!!
And yes, where were you and your ilk when Bush piled budget deficit
over budged deficit to the tune of trillions in his 8 year presidency?!
Lay off listening to Hanity and Limbaugh and try to think and contemplate!!

A commenter writing that “we’ll emerge from this with a vastly improved economic system” invites readers to avoid specifics and project wishes onto the outcomes of the unfolding political/economic crisis. If the writer means we’ll return to normal patterns of material economic growth, he’s mistaken. The world is giving every indication that we’ve reached the limits to growth.

As long as we continue to pursue growth we will have Madoffs, Geithners, Summers, and Obamas, facilitating this now inevitable road to catastrophe. They support reflexively the notion that the economy’s power to produce wealth is merely out of kilter and can be restored. So a little bending of the rules or corruption to benefit those on top is the right path; some will trickle down to the rest of us. However, what’s good for General Motors may be good for America -bankruptcy. Our fundamental problems, however, are ecological: a scarcity of resources, oil prime among them.

I echo Synic3′s question to you about the time involved. You wrote, “we’ll emerge from this with a vastly improved economic system.” However, we are out of time, Micheal. So what makes you think we can emerge your way?

The real problem is that honesty and integrity are commodities foreign to those in power running this county.

Our Government and the major Banks are only running this country into the ground, and we are not just dead in the water…for the current is taking us backwards!

And Obama is putting the crowning touch on destroying us with his out-of-control spending, with most of it going to the bank crooks who caused this mess in the first place.

Anyone who examines in detail the derivatives and exotic financial instruments which caused this disaster can easily see that those who put these instruments into operation were clearly Out Of Their Minds since their devices could go nowhere but Out Of Control.

And they did.

And we are out of control with no leadership, no honesty, no ntegrity…

To do righteousness and justice is desired by the Lord rather than sacrifice. Proverbs 21:3

Michael,

How long will it take for that “vastly improved economic system” to emerge?? Is that means it is O.K. for tens of millions of people to be
crushed to dust till that happen??
Don’t you think that might be just wishful thinking of you that might
lead to ignoring the problem since no matter what happens, things
eventually will be OK.??!!

Your claim about Obama is accurate as long as the current policies are in place and Geithner and Summers are in place. That’s the 800 pound elephant in the living room that everybody ignores.

Black and Warren laid it on the line. They are intellectually honest people of some considerable authority who simply told the truth. It will be hard to ignore this as the fake recovery unravels.

The larger problem is the ability to finance debt by the federal government. Who will buy our bonds? Not many. So what happens when we hit the wall? Citizens won’t tolerate new taxes to pay for the criminal looting of the Treasury. Services will either stop or we’ll need to reinvent the economic system from the most fundamental level.

Denying the fundamental truths told by Black and Warren and failing to see that the “end is nigh” will only lead to catastrophe; albeit temporary since I’m convinced that we’ll emerge form this with a vastly improved economic system.