POLITICS AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE

POLITICS AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE

I've come to believe that the National Football League is more relevant to improving the quality of my life than both major political parties combined. Further, if one were to be eliminated, (You know who the bad guys are) nothing would change.

It's important to distinguish between the parties and government. Our government does a reasonably good job of reacting to threats: WW2, lung cancer, natural disasters (effectiveness depending on local governments), terrorism etc. But major changes to our standard of living come from large groups of citizens acting in unison: suffrage, prohibition (not good), civil rights, environmental improvement, and others. Only when a large number of citizens push hard enough do politicians jump in to lead the parade.

We spent an estimated $10B, that's ten billion dollars, most of it for negative ads on TV during the 2012 election, and who knows how much time and effort by volunteers and ordinary citizens--all in an effort to get the best politicians in office so that we could deal with our problems and concentrate on improving the lives of all our citizens. What a colossal waste. But it was fun, right? Rooting for your party, booing the bad guys?

In a new book, Dollarcracy, the authors, John Nichols and Robert McChesney, detail how special interest money has destroyed our democracy. The book tends to a bit of hand-wringing and confusion as to what to do. A better bet is to Google Dollarcracy and watch the Moyers interview.

Another new book, Crony Capitalism in America, by Hunter Lewis, is more specific and leads to better understanding of what's going on.

Shades of Lawrence Lessig (www.rootstrikers.org)

With our attention concentrated on the dysfunction in DC and the resulting frustration, few of us seem to have a grasp of the underlying conditions and how they will impact every citizen. We seem to see them as separate problems, each to be solved in turn.

Consider our debt, not our deficit, our debt. It's a little over 100% of GDP and, as more government promises come due, climbing. This means that, if interest rates return to normal, 20% to 25% of our entire federal budget will go for interest expense alone. Also, consider the recent series of missteps by federal bureaucracies: the NSA, the IRS, and the healthcare rollout. Isolated problems due to incompetence in this administration? Hardly, over ten years ago, my old company was contacted by the IRS, seeking help to fix an internal computer system they'd been working on for TEN years. It was millions over budget. Fortunately, we don't have a federal agency actually building our roads and bridges.

And why aren't small to medium size businesses borrowing any of the $85B, yeah that's 85 billion dollars per month being printed by the Federal Reserve?  They're up to $4 Trillion. I know how to find out--why not ask the business men?

We have a massive, systemic problem consisting of the above problems and more. Most of them fit under the umbrella of Crony Capitalism. Collectively, they seem to be feeding on each other--the combination increasingly beyond solution, and this will continue to worsen as long as we pay more attention to politics than to Crony Capitalism.

I wonder if the Greeks, the Irish, Spaniards, Portuguese, So. Africans, Venezuelans, Brazilians, Argentines, Russians, and Indians still believe that all they need to do is vote for the right candidates? What are they wishing they'd done sooner? 

 

STRIKE, is now available in paperback. You can obtain it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble (use title and my full name). Or, from me $12.00 post paid.

 

Joe Bakewell