| WALL STREET VS MAIN STREET (OR) "CAPITALISME SAUVAGE" |
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Editor,
It keeps getting harder to ignore the wooly
mamoth (the prehistoric supersized elephant) in
the U.S. living room. It reminds us of its
presence with one catastrophe after another.
And everywhere we hear the phrase, "we just
don't have the resources necessary to avoid this
or that catastrophe. Where would the money
come from, we say, to keep bridges from
collapsing or to keep class sizes in public
schools from becoming unmanageable or to pay
security guards in schools?” Neither can we
afford to fly armored vehicles to the troops in
Iraq; it's cheaper to send the vehicles by boat
and let the additional service people who will die
from deadly IEDs go ahead and get blown up. It
can't be helped we say.
Is this nation really so poverty stricken that we
can't protect our travelers on highways, our
service men and women in Iraq or the students
in our public schools? And if it is, why? And
what about the Dow? Hasn't it been growing
pretty steadily during the past seven years?
How about the really rich in our country whose
wealth is counted no longer in millions but in
billions? Hold on, billions with a "B"? Is it
possible; can it be that our capitalist system is to
blame? Have we been wrong all this time? Can
IT be the wooly mamoth that is gorging itself on
our resources?
How come Great Britain, France, Germany,
Japan, etc., all capitalist countries that seem to
be able to take care of their captains of industry
and business people and still have money left
for health care, education, and security?
Where is our money going? Wait a minute!
Remember those Billionaires? It seems that
there is more than one model of capitalism and
indeed, the U.S. Capitalism of today is a far cry
from the capitalism of even the early post World
War II years. Until the mid 1970s U.S.
Capitalism acknowledged a responsibility to
workers and the communities in which they
thrived. At that time, however -- in the mid 70s
-- U.S. Capitalism became focused exclusively
on adding value to its management and
stockholders, its bottom line. This meant
downsizing, outsourcing, and lobbying for
reduced taxes. The result has been a massive
loss of good jobs, the practical extinction of the
middle class, and the burdening of private
citizens with additional taxes in the amount of a
33% increased burden over those levied on
individual citizens in 1943. As if this were not
bad enough, U.S. Workers have been placed in
competition with the lowest paid workers in the
world by various international trade agreements.
This new form of capitalism is called
"Capitalisme Sauvage" by the French. It thrives
on Wall Street by impoverishing Main Street and
we see evidence of that impoverishment
everywhere at home and abroad. In essence
therefore, changing the model of capitalism in
this country would not be an attack on the
capitalism of our fathers, but more like a return
to the capitalism of our fathers, a capitalism that
insisted on honesty and fair play for all U.S.
citizens, even those not super-rich. With the
wooly mamoth gone we could find the resources
needed to restore our infrastructure, and to
protect our citizens and our soldiers; there may
even be room in the living room for the middle
class once again.
John E. Carrigan
It keeps getting harder to ignore the wooly
mamoth (the prehistoric supersized elephant) in
the U.S. living room. It reminds us of its
presence with one catastrophe after another.
And everywhere we hear the phrase, "we just
don't have the resources necessary to avoid this
or that catastrophe. Where would the money
come from, we say, to keep bridges from
collapsing or to keep class sizes in public
schools from becoming unmanageable or to pay
security guards in schools?” Neither can we
afford to fly armored vehicles to the troops in
Iraq; it's cheaper to send the vehicles by boat
and let the additional service people who will die
from deadly IEDs go ahead and get blown up. It
can't be helped we say.
Is this nation really so poverty stricken that we
can't protect our travelers on highways, our
service men and women in Iraq or the students
in our public schools? And if it is, why? And
what about the Dow? Hasn't it been growing
pretty steadily during the past seven years?
How about the really rich in our country whose
wealth is counted no longer in millions but in
billions? Hold on, billions with a "B"? Is it
possible; can it be that our capitalist system is to
blame? Have we been wrong all this time? Can
IT be the wooly mamoth that is gorging itself on
our resources?
How come Great Britain, France, Germany,
Japan, etc., all capitalist countries that seem to
be able to take care of their captains of industry
and business people and still have money left
for health care, education, and security?
Where is our money going? Wait a minute!
Remember those Billionaires? It seems that
there is more than one model of capitalism and
indeed, the U.S. Capitalism of today is a far cry
from the capitalism of even the early post World
War II years. Until the mid 1970s U.S.
Capitalism acknowledged a responsibility to
workers and the communities in which they
thrived. At that time, however -- in the mid 70s
-- U.S. Capitalism became focused exclusively
on adding value to its management and
stockholders, its bottom line. This meant
downsizing, outsourcing, and lobbying for
reduced taxes. The result has been a massive
loss of good jobs, the practical extinction of the
middle class, and the burdening of private
citizens with additional taxes in the amount of a
33% increased burden over those levied on
individual citizens in 1943. As if this were not
bad enough, U.S. Workers have been placed in
competition with the lowest paid workers in the
world by various international trade agreements.
This new form of capitalism is called
"Capitalisme Sauvage" by the French. It thrives
on Wall Street by impoverishing Main Street and
we see evidence of that impoverishment
everywhere at home and abroad. In essence
therefore, changing the model of capitalism in
this country would not be an attack on the
capitalism of our fathers, but more like a return
to the capitalism of our fathers, a capitalism that
insisted on honesty and fair play for all U.S.
citizens, even those not super-rich. With the
wooly mamoth gone we could find the resources
needed to restore our infrastructure, and to
protect our citizens and our soldiers; there may
even be room in the living room for the middle
class once again.
John E. Carrigan
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