Has America gone lazy?

Last week, President Obama shared his thoughts about complacency in America over the last two decades – and he used the word lazy. The words were barely out of his lips last Tuesday when Republican presidential candidates pounced on the morsel and regurgitated it on their blogs. Buried under the ludicrous salivations is a huge cache of truth.

From 2001 to 2003 while I was in China, I was questioned over and over by workers, college students and business leaders – whenever people gathered to practice their English on an American. The question they asked was so repetitive that in time it became nauseating – "When do you think China will overtake America?"

"In what?" I learned to counter. Sometimes I queried further, "In good will and civilized behavior to ethnic minorities?" They always had another agenda.

Beneath their anti-American rhetoric was the same truth. Chinese citizens know how to work with their hands, and Americans have forgotten how. However, this is nto the result of laziness. It's the result of a service-based economy and a focus on information jobs instead of growth in industrial and manufacturing positions that are more hands on.

It's true that the economy of China is rapidly overtaking that of the U.S. in practically every measure. It's been that way for almost a decade. Some measures indicate China is already ahead of America.

In September, an article in The Economist predicted China's economy would surpass America's by 2016. We have outsourced our "blue collar" jobs out of our borders. Actually, the wealthy one percent have outsourced our talented labor force. That doesn't make those of us who are out of work lazy, but it has almost fatally damaged our nation's economic engine — workers.

All this should give pause to the naysayers on talk radio defending the few skilled technical hand laborers left in this country in the face of computer driven and information technology skills. It's true, as Romney and Perry proclaim, that the working few of this nation are still the world's best. But those jobs are becoming more and more scarce.

Meanwhile, our children grow up not knowing how to use their hands.

It's not just because automotive technology has advanced to the point where tools and technical know-how are now too complex for any farmer to dig into engine overhaul or even replacing brake pads. While that's definitely part of the problem, there is also too much time spent away from learning about how "real stuff" works – that which can't be replicated on a computer.

Young people, by and large, no longer know how to move dirt with a shovel to block or open a field ditch, how to mulch potato plants, strip out the last of the milk in a back quarter, scald and pluck a chicken, let alone pound a nail or fasten a hose on a bib.

Here on the Back 40, family and friends have been joining us in building models of sustainable solar-assisted and energy efficient systems for heating, cooling, sewage treatment and farm production. Successes, mostly from borrowed technical information on the web, slightly overbalance failures.

But the greatest success has been the young people who come with zero experience working with their hands, yet end up with a strong value for learning such skills. They practiced with the stuff of vegetable, animal, metal, wood, rubber tire, soil and stone products and found they could be successful and useful with their hands. Stop in at the Back 40 and see the results.

This is a huge difference from when I was their age in 1960. Back then, I knew no one who was as ignorant about using their hands intelligently as most young people seem to be now.

No, President Obama and hopeful GOP candidates, laziness is not precisely the focal point. Greed is more the problem, and the hope of making more money with less physical and mental effort. It has been cultivated by the unfortunate collaboration of big government and big business, who do things for us we would be better off doing for ourselves, at obscene profits for the one percent.

So in this Thanksgiving season, I'm grateful for the young people who are moving out of the comfort of the corporate-government box to experience handling stuff with their own hands, in order to provide for themselves and their family. Work really does work, and it's enormously fulfilling when it connects to real stuff and builds real human relationships. The future of our nation depends on it.

Hardin, MT 59034

www.greenwoodfarmmt.org

The Economist gets it wrong.

The Economist pretends laissez faire economics is American as apple pie.

The Economist, along with the media from NPR to Fox, propagates the knee-jerk falsehood that a growing segment of world citizens are attacking American capitalism per se. I was expecting hard-nosed reality from The Economist, with Greece teetering on economic collapse and the biggest bank failure ever on Wall Street last week. Then I opened my mailbox and saw the cover caption, "Rage Against the Machine: Capitalism and its critics."

Sure, some are critical of capitalism, and a few Americans dislike apple pie too.

But it's not true for the vast majority of us who have learned capitalism can work for all of us. We've learned recently to distrust Wall Street and our government. We the people, even in Big Horn County, MT, have the savvy to see through their smoke. Our governing CEO's and elected representatives have failed to live up to the foundational principles of our capitalist economy laid down during out nation's infancy. We have been fed a dose of propaganda that laissez faire economics is the American way.

In fact, it seems no media outlet is discussing this term I learned in 8^th grade Civics class in 1957. So I checked to see if my kids learned it in the 80's in Big Horn County schools. Sure enough, they did. And they knew it meant "let go" of government regulations of our economy. They also knew it was a major factor in the Great Depression.

To recover, our elected representatives in 1933 restored old rules for banks and mortgage institutions. Some provisions restoring the kind of capitalism our founders envisioned, counter balancing laissez faire were:

Glass-Steagall Act of 1933: This act separated commercial from investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to protect small deposits.

Farm Credit Act: This act refinanced a fifth of all farm mortgages and created the Farm Credit Administration.

National Industrial Recovery Act: This act created a massive program of public works, guaranteed workers the right to bargain collectively, established codes of fair practice and trade, and created the National Recovery Administration to carry them out.

Truth-in-Securities Act: This act requires anyone offering stocks, bonds or other securities for sale to make a "full and fair disclosure" of financial and other information relating to the issues involved. It also mandated that companies disclose the securities holdings of their officers and directors. This was after years of dishonest dealings by investors seeking to cut their losses short as the Depression worsened.

These provisions and more were nullified or disempowered during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and now we continue similar steps under Obama (look up huppi-kangaroo-timeline). We must return to those principles reaffirmed and clarified during the recovery from the Great Depression, principles spelled out with the warning that failure to keep them will bring on the next Depression.

I cannot understand why the October 22 issue of The Economist, the premier weekly magazine worldwide on economics, gets it so wrong. In four lead articles, the October 22 edition fails to mention laissez faire economics, and the subsequent abdication of our national economy to financial executives rather than elected governance. The Wall Street Occupation is not to protest capitalism but to call capitalism to it's proper role: to serve the economy of our great nation, for our common good.

The danger is not that we could be leaving capitalism, going Marxist, nor is it that capitalism itself is the big bad bugaboo. But corporations must put shareholder profit above all other considerations, including the stability of our national economy. And over the past decade we've seen the results of deregulation. Only our elected representatives in congress are answerable to the American people. Whom shall we trust?

At best, the lead article leaves unquestioned this mistaken bias in order to sound the alarm that Wall Street Occupations nationwide are unfocused and leaderless. At least this issue does cite the research proving that loss of a middle class brings social disorder to a nation. At least the congressional action under Clinton's administration repealing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 is mentioned (see my blog for info). There is some consensus between Occupy Wall Street and The Economist on this. But leaving intact the phony idea that this populist movement in America is anti-capitalism is irresponsible, even if some Wall Street Occupiers think they are protesting capitalism per se.

It's difficult to find the facts from the media. Wall Street's political insiders in Washington then as now propelled the government into fewer regulations against super sizing and secret insider trading. So the elected governance of our economy again continues shrinking and the un-elected governance of corporations skyrockets in power and wealth acquisition. At the same time, our elected government gets bigger and bigger punitive authority over governance of smaller and smaller units of human relationship, now down to mother and unborn infant. Witness the new personhood laws, and its explanations covering up the huge growth of government as promoted by the tea party and Republicans.

Recovery again requires reform of our American capitalism back to the intentions of our nation's founders, and repudiation of the singular focus on ending oversight and transparency regulations by the people of this country of our economy, labeled erroneously "big government." Our governing business-owned media flails against Keynes and "Keynesian economics" as the only option to their unnamed obsession with laissez faire economics. So now we have the growth of bigger and badder businesses we cannot afford to allow to fail, businesses that abuse and cheat masses of this country's citizens, wealth concentrations that dictate to Obama who dictates to Europe and Greece what must happen to save American banks—and citizens— from the emerging Greater Depression.

These occupiers are the ones taking seriously our history, and saying we should learn to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 30's depression. Why should we have to go to the independent media to read our history? Why cannot The Economist tell us the truth and connect the real dots? Does The Economist deliberately lead our departure from free, open transparent capitalism with the common good the bottom line? Does it support the distortions leading us astray by the elite's cronies who dominate talk shows and the media, financed and censored by their owners?

A rash of letters with a perspective similar to this column is posted on line at The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/node/21536537

What happened to our nation's economy since 1970 is fortunately well documented: http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/152811/

A timeline of events leading up to the depression of the 1930's and the recovery into the 40's: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Timeline.htm .

Michael Hudson, at UMKC.edu, tells the truth in detail with the evidence in his latest book : Super Imperialism - New Edition: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance. See it reviewed on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Imperialism-Origin-Fundamentals-Dominanc/dp/0745319890/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I19B9M2MEC46GX&colid=2UL2N592BVKVD

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David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org

The Wall Street Sandbox

Who doesn’t like toys? A newly installed sandbox with bulldozers and backhoes was tantalizing for our flock of neighborhood children. Two strong-willed three-year-olds set the tone—the more I have, the more I want, and you can’t have it. The scene degenerated until sand throwing and tears turned the attention of my neighbor and me from tractor repair to our children. With a few firm words, parity in the power to acquire equity was restored.

Our nation has lost that parity. This is the second time in our history. A century ago it led to the Great Depression. We have become so accustomed to greedy children acting out in the Wall Street Sandbox that we as a nation simply roll our eyes and repeat, “That’s Wall Street.”

The year Ronald Reagan was elected, the wealthiest 1 percent collected 10 percent of the nation’s income, and the rest of us shared the remaining 90 percent. Now that 1 percent owns more than the bottom 50 percent of all American citizens. Since 1980 we all contributed to a great national success of our GNP, but the upward redistribution of wealth, because of rule changes, “translates into a trillion extra dollars a year for the richest 1 percent.” (Josh Holland in Alternet.org, October 4, 2011, “If the Top 1% hadn’t ripped off trillions…”)

We adults used to monitor the Wall Street Sandbox. Our oversight through our government stopped unregulated accumulation before it started. Back then, we knew we owned Wall Street and took responsibility for its role in our economy.

Such government intervention after the great depression led to a fairer economy, highways, airports, schools, a safe banking system, libraries, a common defense, etc. and all benefited. Even more importantly, it led to a progressive system of taxation to pay for these priorities and discourage the escalation of massive wealth accumulation that has now made our society unstable.

When Wall Street rolled in crisis as our nation’s biggest banks threatened to collapse, Obama didn’t regulate, he conceded. When the profit-driven medical insurance machine protested Obamacare, Baucus and Obama conceded again to exclude the public option. Like in the Savings & Loan Scandal of the 80’s, we now need a government take-over and jail time, not just a few weak threats, for those who grab our citizens’ earnings and put our nation at risk.

I hoped in vain to hear someone in congress or in the presidential debates speak the truth of what’s gone wrong. Instead they either attack each other, or, following the finger pointing of Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh, attack designated whipping boys like Frances Fox Piven. The really patriotic Americans are those who speak the truth our Wall Street Sandbox children need to hear, without personal attacks.

Just last Monday, a poll was released saying a majority of citizen Democrats, Republicans, and Tea Partiers would agree on Obama’s plan to restore some of the Reagan era tax rates on the 1% richest. Yet the Republican congress maintains its opposition to Obama’s jobs bill, because they can attach the label “tax raise.” They don’t want our American president working to fix that sandbox fracas causing not just a few eye scratches, but massive human deprivation and death world wild.

Some three weeks ago, for the first time in my life I heard massive numbers of grownup citizen voices speaking this truth about Wall Street. Amazingly, these are mostly college kids, or kids who dropped out because they couldn’t get jobs or afford college.

So we can take hope. Not only has the Arab Spring become the American Autumn, we are also building a new private sector on values of “Social Entrepreneurs.” Our private sector with worldwide support is leading the way to restore grownup rules to the world economy, which is similarly in shambles. There really are large international corporations bringing corporate interests of the world back into adult responsibility in our world economy. One of many credible organizations facilitating this revolution is “Bioneers.” Look them up on line, or find

greenwoodback40.blogspot.com

(the following is continued from the shorter version in Big Horn County News)

As the economic equity of our nation is increasingly concentrated among fewer of our citizens, consequences more dire than sand in the eyes threaten our nation and the world. This is hidden from our awareness in America by subtle but pervasive censorship. The institutions of a fair economy, a free press, law-abiding armed forces and police, our system of jurisprudence, and even our capitalist democracy are in trouble, and we are left in the dark as to how and why.

I have a copy on my desk of the most recent edition of Project Censored, released last week. See greenwoodback40.blogspot for a short review.

On Project Censored

Every two years a group of writers and scholars, inspired by reporters such as Walter Cronkite, have been gathering with editor Peter Philips, sociology professor at Sonoma State University, to assemble the research.

A wave of real reform in the worldwide economic institutions of finance and banking is escaping the attention of mainstream American business. Some of the biggest corporations are abandoning venture capitalism, hedge funds, and the modern wave of complex economic risk taking that has burst our American economic bubble. Well before any danger was detected in Wall Street, these reforms were burgeoning.

We are so entrenched in the profound changes in our rules, changes coordinated by the elite of Wall Street and confirmed by all three branches of our government, that we have forgotten the prosperity and freedoms we enjoyed prior to our departure from our original values of American capitalism and from the freedoms enshrined in our constitution and our form of government. The world has noticed, and reacted. Most of the reaction has been building on the writings and history of America.

On the Wall Street Occupation: If it’s like the first Wall Street Occupation of the late 1800’s, these young people will continue for decades to be routed, attacked and arrested by police, and an election will repudiate their dreams and voices until the next Great Depression decades later. I hope and pray this doesn’t happen for us. We Americans, at least 99% of us, need to act grownup about our ownership of that sandbox now. Newly grownup players like Warren Buffet and the Gates family will help us restore grownup rules to the economy now run by our Wall Street Sandbox. Unbelievably, Congress remains stubbornly opposed. Having failed to learn from our history with Wall Street and the Great Depression, we seem destined to repeat it.

On “Bioneers”

It’s not always been this way. The dramatic changes in rules facilitating greed in Walls Street are the focus of a paper by Economists Thomas Picketty and Emanuel Saez of UC Berkeley (elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/pikettyqje.pdf). Some of their recollections:

Rabobank International's Manager of Corporate Social Responsibility from Holland, which was voted World's Third Most Sustainable Bank; Meiny Prins, CEO of Priva, a leading Dutch environmental services company, who was voted "Dutch Businesswoman of the Year"; Michael Jacobson, Director of Intel's Corporate Responsibility Office; and Hugo Steensma, former director of Sustainable Asset Management and CEO of Rabobank North America.

"Business-As-Unusual: New Models of Enterprise, Ownership and Social Entrepreneurship" will survey the emerging topography of new organizational business and financial species to harness commerce and trade for the common good. Hosted by Michael Marx, Executive Director of Corporate Ethics International and Business Ethics network, the panel also features Steven Hill, leading political thinker and groundbreaking author of Europe's Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age; Deborah Hirsh of B Lab, a nonprofit supporting the community of Certified "B Corporations" with comprehensive social and environmental standards; Bodhi Garrett, eco-tourism entrepreneur and founder of North Andaman Tsunami Relief in Thailand; and Jenny Kassan, Managing Director of Katovich Law Group, and board member of the Sustainable Business Alliance.

Unlike the many pessimistic scape-goating pundits on talk radio promoting their side show interests, I believe many of the options we embarked upon in Obama’s election of 2008 are right. The way forward is clear. But overwhelmed by the size of the changes needed, by scary side shows pummeling the populace, the decision itself to move in the right direction has become stymied. We have ground the Obama administration and the nation to a stop.

Christopher Ketcham's essay "The Reign of the One Percenters," was published on Orion's website, is available on Alternet Oct 7, “the_reign_of_the_one_percenters” and is forthcoming in the November/December 2011 issue of the magazine.

Wall street criminals arrested to date: 0

“Occupy Wall Street” citizens protesting Wall Street crimes arrested: over 700.

The largest mass arrest in US history took place last Saturday, October 1, when citizens demonstrating against Wall Street CEO’s who have profited enormously through bailouts from citizen taxpayers while their insider trading and deceptive wealth grabbing schemes remains uninvestigated and not one arrested. There is evidence the NYPD entrapped the Wall Street demonstrators on the Brooklyn Bridge by clearing a traffic lane, then blocking both ends of the bridge and arresting everyone.

http://www.nationofchange.org/eric-cantors-hyper-partisan-hypocrisy-he-hails-tea-party-fighting-condemns-occupy-wall-street-mo