The Peril of Excessive Individualism

The historian Page Smith cited in his history of the United States the "disintegrative effects" of rugged individualism on society. His contention was that all these people acting as independent units was not good for society, but that was exactly what America trumpeted as her most celebrated virtue. Sister Simone Campbell of the Nuns on the bus cited excessive individualism as our greatest peril now when confronted with Bill OReillys rant about giving money to poor people. The sister later told Lawrence O'Donnell that rich people like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney prove the dangers of excessive individualism. Rich people who want to pull up the gate behind them while the poor drowns.

And that is Paul Ryan of course. The Atlas Shrugged rich boy whose father died and he hardened up with a view of the world not unlike Charles Lindbergh after his baby was kidnapped and murdered who then  went to Nazi Germany and sung the praises of fascism over democracy. He saw the lack of control in America as a reason his baby was murdered and formed America First. He turned a cold heart on humans and saw them as dangerous creatures to be controlled right up to Pearl Harbor. And Ryan seems to have that same cold heart.

Against women's rights. Against welfare. Against Medicaid. Against Medicare. Calling progressivis, a cancer when he was on the Glenn Beck show. Against gun control. Against student loans In favor of tax breaks for the rich and tax increases for the middle class. His budget is a bitter old mans blueprint of Victorian severity. Spare the rod and spoil the child.  He is Scrooge who becomes bitter after the death of his sister and declared, " the world is a cold hard place Mr. Marley and one must steel ones self against it." Certainly Paul Ryan, the scion to millions, steeled himself against the world after his father died and decried the world was a cold hard place and only those worthy should survive.

And I am sure he sees himself in that mode as he eviscerates Medicare and pensions. A man who has done what he had to do. The individual is pre-emient in Paul Ryans world of practical austerity and goverment has no place. Excessive indiividualism is indeed the chemotherapty to the cancerous progressivism. And only the strong shall survive.

Or the rich.

www.billhazelgrove.com

The Coal

The problem with the stimulus bill is there is nothing in there for coal. Steam engines need coal. Big sleek ships and trains and even cars once upon a time ran on steam. You didn't really care about the men in the bowels of the ship shoveling all that coal into the boilers because you couldn't see them. You were far above eating your dinner or enjoying a cigar in the bar or lounging topside while the men sweated down below. So when the ship pulled into dock they loaded it up with food, champagne, caviar, fruit, cigars, wine, all the necessities for life and then tons and tons of coal. Because the ship's captain and everyone else knew that without coal the rest of the food, booze and cigars didn't matter much. Seems like there is one thing missing on the good ship's Obama's manifest for the stimulus plan--COAL. Middle class people are the coal of the economy lest you forget this go into Home Depot or Menards of Best Buy. There are no people. The employees outnumber the customers two to one. There are mountains of inventory and one cannot help wonder who is carrying the cost of all that inventory. So the steam engine has stopped. We know from our oligarchy who has taken all the coal. They are still in Washington and on Wall Street laughing their asses off that the American public bought into Tarp. See the one page article in the New York Times by Wells Fargo explaining why employee junkets are still necessary for the great work their employees do. The masters of the ship are tweaked someone would mess with their cigars and fine champagne. But even as the gilded glide far above us top deck, they too our a little worried that maybe the reluctance to order in coal might bring the good ship Lollipop to a halt. So how do we get our coal bins replenished? Bite the bullet and bypass the banks and make a national bank and start lending. Or...shock..shock...give money directly to the people. Not six hundred dollars, thousands. Prime the pump directly. It is interesting that the great populist nation is quite willing to take thousands of dollars in tax money, but recoils at the thought of giving it back. If income tax was never intended to be a permanent institution, let's make good now and give back some of the money. Nebulous promises of jobs will not replace the directness of giving credit to the middle class. Infrastructure jobs will put people back to work, but how many, how soon, remains to be seen. Our bins have been empty a while now and a bold President needs to take bold steps. Throw out the play book. Don't even look for precedent. Do the bold thing and put coal into the boiler now. The hard fact is you cannot operate a ship without coal, providing only for first class passengers. You really need some fuel.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com

Titanic and the Economics of Class

Titanic hit an iceberg and sank. When they rescued the fifteen hundred people from the icy Atlantic they found a disproportionate amount of first class people. There were some from second class, further down in the ship, but very few from steerage down in the bowels. It seems the Captain and his crew had concentrated on saving the wealthy over the the middle class and lower class passengers. When a crisis occurs there is a run for the boats and those of privilege usually get in. Recently, there was an interesting quote from a banker in the New York Times. He said they were going to use the bail out money to shore up their accounts and invest in "banks of interest". In other words, the bankers are going to buy other banks with the bail out money and make sure they have enough reserves to weather the storm. They are going to make sure they are in the boats and well away from the ship. The real tragedy of Titanic was the fact that over a thousand people drowned in the frigid waters in range of people sitting in half filled boats. Yet, no one returned to help them. They were afraid, they later said, of being swamped. At the Bankers Association Meeting other bankers reiterated the mantra that they were going to concentrate on opportunities but that they had no real plans to lend the bailout money to consumers. So the American middle class, strangling on a lack of credit and asking for this needed money, will not get it. The boats will not return. When the inquiry into the sinking convened in New York, there were many who cried class warfare. The immigrants in steerage mostly died while the upper crust of the world managed to get into the few lifeboats. The officials of White Star said there was no choosing between classes of passengers, but there were simply not enough boats. The banks are still hemorrhaging. Bank of America just asked for another twenty billion and experts say that still won't be enough. Seems all that speculating in derivatives and mortgage backs was kept off the books. So they will continue to suck up all the bail out money and the middle class will get none of it. The gilded top will sail through for a while but will falter because the coal of any steam engine is the lifeblood and the middle class is the coal of our economy. Even the bankers must know their ship is taking water faster than they can bail now. Like Captain Smith, who asked his ship's architect about Titanics fate with four of her watertight compartments gashed open, the bankers know the words floating up from the depths of our economic distress...she will founder.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/