Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Normally, when I work on a guest blog it takes me some hours of research and writing since I type slowly and try to be as accurate as I can be. This one will be a little different because it is written mainly to refer you to the transcript and/or podcast of a fantastic interview with the investigative journalists Donald L.Bartlett and James B. Steele. The interview was conducted by Rob Kall, whose OpEdNews website http://www.opednews.com/ is one that I look to for interesting insight into the political issues of the day. The interview deals with these authors’s current book which is called: The Betrayal of the American Dream”.
Rob Kall’s interview with the author’s is lengthy and so rather than my usual effort to provide a synopsis and relevant quotes of a position that I endorse, I’m going to give you a hint of what this interview contains and the provide you the links so that you can make your decision on the author’s thesis and hopefully be informed on some very important issues for all of us. Readers here know I supported President Obama for re-election, but have been critical of many of his policies. This interview and the book that it is about, demonstrate that the forces at play in the rapid decline of the American Middle Class seem beyond the power of our government to control, simply because they are backed by an elite that not only finances election campaigns, but that has also dominated the discussion with so much false propaganda, that today’s politicians who were born later than 1960 are not even familiar with the reality of how much our economic landscape has changed. Because of this unfamiliarity many don’t even have the conceptualization that things used to be different and why they’ve changed so drastically. In that sense this is less about conspiracy and more about the effect poor education, corporate media and propaganda can accomplish. When I say that the problem is beyond government’s power to fix, it is with the caveat that if the issues presented here were first understood, then maybe we could combat them. In some sense we are all blind men, hypothesizing the nature of an elephant by touching different parts. This interview and the book it is about can miraculously cure the blindness and start the discussion on how we can deal with this 3,000 pound elephant in the room we call America.
I will mention two, among many, of the major factors in the decline of the American Middle Class laid out by the authors. The first is that until the 1970’s our Income Tax was really graduated to the point that government had ample revenue to do its job. The second is that one of the major revenue sources for the Federal Government was tariffs. It was the dismantling of the graduated Income Tax and the proliferation of trade agreements reducing tariffs (and tariff revenue) that have been major pieces in the shipping of jobs overseas, increasing our national debt and destroying what was the greatest industrial economy in the World. For me, a child born to politically aware parents, before the end of World War II, I’ve lived through this history and watched in dismay as these changes took effect. Most Americans though, except for those most prescient, have no idea of what was done, simply because these changes took effect before they were born, or in their early youth. This election past and the polling of attitudes that went with it, show that the majority of Americans perceive that they are being cheated, but often their perception of how, has been skewed by the disinformation that is rampant to the extent that they blame it on the wrong source. If you read either the transcript of this article: “The Selling Out of the Middle Class is No Accident” at this link: http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/The-Selling-Out-of-the-Mid-by-Rob-Kall-121017-79.html or listen to the interview at this podcast: http://www.opednews.com/Podcast/Applying-Investigative-Jou-by-Rob-Kall-120915-680.html
I deeply believe that it will be time well spent.
Bron, Corporations have record profits and the top income groups have made record gains since the market crash. Why is that?
Mike Spindell:
are you saying the middle class is decreasing because the rich dont pay enough tax?
Isn’t anyone in a family that makes over 100k a year basically wealthy, depending where you live of course. If I made 100k and lived in DC or CA yes I’d be in worse shape than if I lived in Texas or Mississippi.
” IT makes sense that Mitt Romney and his advisers are still gobsmacked by the fact that they’re not commandeering the West Wing.
(Though, as “The Daily Show” correspondent John Oliver jested, the White House might have been one of the smaller houses Romney ever lived in.)
Team Romney has every reason to be shellshocked. Its candidate, after all, resoundingly won the election of the country he was wooing.
Mitt Romney is the president of white male America.
Maybe the group can retreat to a man cave in a Whiter House, with mahogany paneling, brown leather Chesterfields, a moose head over the fireplace, an elevator for the presidential limo, and one of those men’s club signs on the phone that reads: “Telephone Tips: ‘Just Left,’ 25 cents; ‘On His Way,’ 50 cents; ‘Not here,’ $1; ‘Who?’ $5.”
In its delusional death spiral, the white male patriarchy was so hard core, so redolent of country clubs and Cadillacs, it made little effort not to alienate women. The election had the largest gender gap in the history of the Gallup poll, with Obama winning the vote of single women by 36 percentage points” Maureen Dowd NYT
lottakatz 1, November 11, 2012 at 7:57 am
Dredd, you are correct to call it an empire. If you’re not the monarch or one of the oligarchs running the show you are one of the peasants. And we know how well that work for the peasantry. When you start talking about concentrations of wealth and power at the level of the trans-nationals you can cast countries in the role (heretofore reserved for mere mortals) of peasants
I recall being frozen, awestruck, when the original study came out detailing who owns everything. I think you do a great service in pointing out that our generalized and sloppy thinking about corporations helps to conceal the actual truth about what the world is up against. There’s a world of difference between normal corporations and the trans-nationals; the trans-nationals as they are currently allied, eat countries and their respective economies for breakfast.
Good call Dredd.
========================================
I am only the reporter, but I can take the compliment in the sense that the critical information must be known before we can fix it, and so I try to put the critical information out there.
Fixing domestic corporations will not fix the international corporate problem.
In the book The Private Empire the author follows the fossil fuel industry pillar of the multiple pillars of the international temple that houses the priests of the international plutocracy.
The domestic face of these international corporations are just the tentacles we can see that are sucking the life out of the middle class.
The entities that control those tentacles are all here, not all represented by those tentacles in each relevant nation.
Here is a sneak preview just for Turley bloggers of tomorrow’s post in a series I have been doing:
(No link available yet).
Pete999 and LK,
Sharing PC problems.
Shortly, I duuno, but in my case I have to shut the thing completely off and then reactivate it. I mostly put it in “rest” overnight, and after somedays doing that it starts acting up.
Not even Gmail will work properly. Try pulling the big switch. (Too many open tabs can also do it too.)
“Our Congress no longer serves the people but instead caters to the narrow monied self-interests of corporations on a day to day basis. In many ways, this election was an indicator that Americans are tired to this, but expressing the will to change and forcing those who need to change are separates things. Will people in government start listening to the best interests of all or will their greed and egos keep us on a path of destruction? That remains to be seen.”.
Has it ever been without corrumption since 1789? Always needing extra saddle bags for the trip home.
And when does a zebra cast his stripes. A great number ofmiracles are needed. We need new instrmemts, the old ones are blocked.
pete9999
Except mad cow disease, srsly! Good joke tho’.
Mike,
Great article….. You might might to look at TEFRA …. That was a basic dismantling of the tax structure under the good ole boy Ronnie….. Eliminated the ability of have all municipal bond income tax exempt…. Granted an aim at the democratic wealthy…. But they provide for the basic infrastructure of the US…..state and local…..
On topic here but from the perspective o9f the Fiscal Cliff discussion on all the CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC mantra shows since the election. The media Yakkers like Wolf Blitzer et al allow someone like Boner to set the parameters of the discussionl. It goes like this. Somehow raiise revenues and cut entitlements. The Revendue aspect is put in terms of No tax increase of Rates but perhaps some deductions go by the way. The expnese cuts of Entitlements is of course limited to social security and medicare and things that the government purports to provide to people. What is left out of the discussion? On the expenditures side we dont have Romney’s agenda of 100,000 more troops and all those planes and ships at sea. But that is not even mentioned by the media Yakkers. there is no mention by Boner or the Yakkers of cutting so called “Defense” eexpenditures. I suppose that an unmanned drone that flies over a sovereing country and drops bombs is part of our National Defense.
there is not one Congressman in Washington who will broach cutting Defense because each Congressional District has entitlements in the form of air bases, factories etc.
A proper discussion of dealing with our fiscal crisis would include Defense spending. In the Vietnam War era we addressed those concerns. This tera is the Decline of the American Empire and Americas have no brains.
Oh, notice how many of the politicians and media Yakkers pronounce Fiscal as physical?
“Went in dumb, come out dumb too,
hustlin round Atlanta in their alligator shoes.. We’re keeping the n guys down,
We’re Rednecks, Rednecks, we dont know our arse from a hole in the ground.. etc
–Randy Newman, Good Ol Boys album..
Dredd, you are correct to call it an empire. If you’re not the monarch or one of the oligarchs running the show you are one of the peasants. And we know how well that work for the peasantry. When you start talking about concentrations of wealth and power at the level of the trans-nationals you can cast countries in the role (heretofore reserved for mere mortals) of peasants
I recall being frozen, awestruck, when the original study came out detailing who owns everything. I think you do a great service in pointing out that our generalized and sloppy thinking about corporations helps to conceal the actual truth about what the world is up against. There’s a world of difference between normal corporations and the trans-nationals; the trans-nationals as they are currently allied, eat countries and their respective economies for breakfast.
Good call Dredd.
link to general info about regarding the study:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-control-everything/
Final comment to show that the 147 corporations the academic study names, are on the radar screen of the folks Mike S has cited to:
(Op Ed News, page 5, emphasis added). The academic scholars, in the study I cite to, name those international corporations by their legal names.
Those entities are, at the core, the fossil fuel interests, whose money goes into the international banking corporations for camouflage purposes, which have ownership in each other, and thus through the application of money power they control governmental dynamics of individual nations in the direction of their interests.
For example, global warming induced climate change was not mentioned in our presidential debates this year for the first time since 1988, because it is not in the interests of the fossil fuel industry (A History of Oil Addiction – 2).
And as I say, the fossil fuel interests are the main pillar of The International Private Empire composed of international corporations.
Single nation corporations are orders of magnitude less dangerous to the middle class.
It seems like so many things are described by “code words” these days.
The authors in the article Mike S cites to over at op ed news uses a code word to describe the phenomenon:
(OpEdNews, page 4). The code word “globalization” is too amorphous in my opinion.
That is why I call in The International Private Empire, a group of 147 defined and named corporations that are international in makeup (not of or from any one nation), which like a slime mold, has individual “cells” that work towards a common goal (domination of global power and economy).
Each of the 147 corporations owns and/controls the others, indicating that they have tried to form an entity which is camouflaged to a high degree, and an entity that is difficult to get the details on in one sitting or one book.
“This interview and the book that it is about, demonstrate that the forces at play in the rapid decline of the American Middle Class seem beyond the power of our government to control, simply because they are backed by an elite that not only finances election campaigns, but that has also dominated the discussion with so much false propaganda, that today’s politicians who were born later than 1960 are not even familiar with the reality of how much our economic landscape has changed.”
The words “the government” describe what is really the ebb and flow of power that has an influence on our lives.
The words “the government” describe things which take place that seem to come from national sources yet negatively affect the nation.
The feeling that “our government” is unable or unwilling to do the bidding of the public in general is expressed more often as time goes on.
It is expressed because it is becoming all the more obvious, and thus more difficult to ignore.
A recent study by academic scholars confirms the suspicions of many commentators that “our government” has changed such that it seems to be more interested in itself than in the people, or as you say Mike S, interested in the middle class.
Very detailed studies and some recent books team up to show that the force we have traditionally called “our government” is composed of international players now, not exclusively American sources.
Thus, some of “our government” seems strange to us because it is not exclusively American any more.
For real, the documentation names names:
(MOMCOM: The Private Parts – 4, emphasis added). It is good that this changing nature is detected by a broad base of investigative journalists and sociologists.
Good work Mike S.
Thanks for sharing another source that helps us form a broader understanding of this strange phenomenon that has caught our eye.
Pete, Thank’s for the report, I’m running an old version of windows that is buggy and broken- it needs to be re-installed. I am never sure if a problem I am having with the internet is “mine” or a problem at a site.
LK
i’ve got the same gremlins taking me to the archive page since yesterday.
Mike
spot on about the libertarians. we are a society, not just a collection of individuals.
Mike, I can’t read the entire article, can’t get past page 5. It’s a computer problem I think- I’ll have to listen to it. I also get thrown onto a page titled “Archive Page 2” or “Archive Page 3” here at Turleyblawg about half the time when I hit the ‘back’ arrow and have to reload the site fresh. This started yesterday afternoon. I don’t need a tech, I need an exorcist!
Good article from what I read of it, thanks.
Thank you all for your comments thus far. I ‘m quite surprised that there were so many. The problem I faced in conveying this material was the length of the interview and the complexity of its nature. Most of the research done by Bartlett and Steele was into subjects with which I’m already familar.
The book spans a long range of time and topics, so much so that the best service I could do was present it and step out of the way. Leaving the reader to then decide if their interest dictated the time they would need to invest if any. It’s apparent that I believe it would be worthwhile, but others may disagree.
As too specific replies that were made, I believe that any kind of flat tax system is inherently unfair. As the authors explained so well, our graduated income tax rates were much steeper from the 30’s to the end of the 60’s and our economy was the strongest in the world. Although exceptions can be found, the wealthy in this country were made so by its infrastructure and so have a duty to pay more.
For instance the American oil companies became richer due to receiving the oil depletion allowance. They then rewarded our country by declaring themselves multi-national, thus freeing them from
responsibilty to the country that nurtured them. The majority of the elite have looted and polluted this country of its resources and should have to pay a premium to make up for what they owe. I’m retired living on a pension and SS alone. I pay a higher rate of taxes than Mitt Romneys 13%, yet this man who has added nothing for the economy of this country, other than using it as a cash cow has the effrontery to believe he is deserving of special treatment.
For those Libertarian commenters, like Judy Morris, you are correct there is the odor of Marxist theory that surrounds this issue in that it raises the specter of class warfare. Only it is the elite that is waging war on the 99% to try and push them into serfdom. Yet for themselves they demand socialistic treatment from the government.
The hypocrisy is exquisite and Libertarians simply have no understanding of the economics of being part of a community. That to me is tragic because unlike Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan, libetarians get the social freedoms correctly, its just they haven’t a clue about creating an economically just Capitalist society.
Gene, Agreed. This particular teacher made an impression on me for reasons unknown to me. He had to be born at or before the turn of the century and dressed well in an old-fashioned way. He was a gentleman in a very old-school way. When he talked about economics he talked about it as a tool of government and as a mechanism of government to fulfill the needs of the country. He was preoccupied with the tension and need of balance between business and the nation. He put nation first. He was of the mind (in retrospect) that what was good for America was good for business. The country and its needs had to be the master as well as the greatest beneficiary of economic policies.
Impact on the country and the country’s economic health was paramount and getting money into the hands of wage earners was a major component in the country’s economic health in his stated opinion. High taxes didn’t bother him in general because it kept money moving money was symbolic magic. He characterized himself as a conservative. He had an interesting take on the lower economic class too.
I did not appreciate how fundamental his concerns were, nor how the difference in approach to business could have such profound effects on the country over time.
Apparently, if my memories are even close to correct, I lived on a different planet with a much different economic reality. 🙂
“People in a democracy have the ability to vote into office politicians that represent quality morals, decency, and fairness.”
Do they really? On the national level you really only had two choices for President this time, one from each major party, because the systems are so gamed to keep the R/D hold on ballot composition. Two choices isn’t a choice. It’s the illusion of choice. Your choice this time was an out of touch vulture capitalist with a proven track record of both lying and catering to special interests versus the guy who said the President has the right to kill American citizens without judicial due process and making an even more unconstitutional power grab for a unitary executive than Bush did in ordering torture.
I don’t know about you, but that’s a choice that does not indicate any ability to vote into office politicians that represent quality morals, decency, and fairness because the game is rigged to prevent such candidates from appearing on the national stage (and most local stages).