Running the Numbers

Leading pundits in the US mainstream media have been wondering why ordinary Americans are anxious about the economy and upset about the future. After all, Goldman Sachs is back to bagging billion dollar bonuses, so all is well... riiiight?

America was once the land of the middle class. But life in this country is becoming increasingly hostile to anyone outside the wealthiest 5% of Americans.

Land of the jailed: 2.3 million adults are locked up by a vicious, racist and punitive prison-industrial complex (5 million are under surveillance).

Land of bankster bailouts: Wall Street nearly blows up the world economy, is rewarded by the politicians it purchased with $3 billion in campaign donations with a $9.1 trillion direct bailout (with a set of implicit guarantees of $8 trillion, for a grand total of $15 trillion) from the Treasury-Wall Street-insco (insco = "insurance company") complex.

Land of the bankrupt: 25% of all Americans have bad credit scores, up from 15% just a few years ago.

Land of trillion dollar war spending. And what did we get for our criminal $1.024 trillion-and-counting failed colonial wars? Forty thousand US casualties, at least 1 million Iraqi/Afghani casualties, an Afghanistan spiraling into chaos, and an Iraq run by a pro-Iranian Shiite theocracy.

Land of malnutrition: 40 million Americans barely survive on foodstamps.

Land of debt: total debt to GDP ratio is 357% (not a typo -- three hundred and fifty seventy percent, about a third of it racked up by Wall Street banksters).

Land of the unemployed: the recession destroyed 8 million jobs, and the employment-to-population ratio is the lowest since 1984.

Land of crumbling infrastructure: the US investment to GDP ratio crashed to 15% in 2009, which means we're barely keeping up with repairs. Healthy economies invest between 20%-25% of GDP, booming ones at 30% or more.

The US desperately needs a massive green jobs/renewable energy/education program. The money is there -- it's just being spent on criminal colonial wars and asinine rentier bailouts. The US middle class must re-learn the art of class struggle it once waged during the New Deal: no struggle, no future.