In Sunday's NY Times, Frank Rich talks of the destruction of the "American Dream" in the now-institutionalized inability of current-day capitalism to give the middle class a fair shake in, "
Who Killed the Disneyland Dream?" And, where Rich leaves off, Bob Herbert picks it up in his column in Tuesday's Times: "
The Data and the Reality." Taken together, it's a theme that runs deep with me, on a very personal level, as noted in the signature line I've been using in my posts dating back to my very first diary here, in 2006.
Along with many others, presidential advisor Elizabeth Warren continues to speak truth to power in her ongoing statements concerning this travesty in, "
America Without A Middle Class--It's Not As Far Away As You Might Think," as well. And, if the status quo has their way in 2011 -- and there's little reason to think that they won't, as we learn in
an editorial in Monday's New York Times -- there's virtually nothing preventing the leaders of our corporate kleptocracy from shutting the door on any chance our government may have, anytime soon, to stem the tide of oligarchical greed that has brought our country to an economic point of (seemingly) no return which is alarmingly self-evident, even now, as we witness the greatest income disparity between America's haves versus the have-nots since the metric was first introduced to measure this current mass affront to our society, generations ago.
Rich tells us the story of Robbins Barstow's amateur, 30-minute movie of his family's trip to Disneyland in 1956, a prize the family won in a contest sponsored by 3M Corporation. Entitled, "Disneyland Dream," the film was admitted to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, in 2008. Rich writes of the theme of the Barstow piece, and how it conveys -- "from start to finish" -- the "sense that the American promise of social and economic mobility was attainable to anyone who sought it."
Who Killed the Disneyland Dream?
By FRANK RICH
New York Times
December 26, 2010
...How many middle-class Americans now believe that the sky is the limit if they work hard enough? How many trust capitalism to give them a fair shake? Middle-class income started to flatten in the 1970s and has stagnated ever since. While 3M has continued to prosper, many other companies that actually make things (and at times innovative things) have been devalued, looted or destroyed by a financial industry whose biggest innovation in 20 years, in the verdict of the former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, has been the cash machine.
It's a measure of how rapidly our economic order has shifted that nearly a quarter of the 400 wealthiest people in America on this year's Forbes list make their fortunes from financial services, more than three times as many as in the first Forbes 400 in 1982. Many of America's best young minds now invent derivatives, not Disneylands, because that's where the action has been, and still is, two years after the crash. In 2010, our system incentivizes high-stakes gambling -- "this business of securitizing things that didn't even exist in the first place," as Calvin Trillin memorably wrote last year -- rather than the rebooting and rebuilding of America.
In last week's exultant preholiday press conference, Obama called for a "thriving, booming middle class, where everybody's got a shot at the American dream." But it will take much more than rhetorical Scotch tape to bring that back. The Barstows of 1956 could not have fathomed the outrageous gap between this country's upper class and the rest of us. America can't move forward until we once again believe, as they did, that everyone can enter Frontierland if they try hard enough, and that no one will be denied a dream because a private party has rented out Tomorrowland.
# # #
In this morning's NY Times, Bob Herbert reminds us that there's a recovery for some, but ongoing despair and poverty for far too many left behind, in: "The Data and the Reality."
The Data and the Reality
By BOB HERBERT
New York Times
December 28, 2010
I keep hearing from the data zealots that holiday sales were impressive and the outlook for the economy in 2011 is not bad.
Maybe they've stumbled onto something in their windowless rooms. Maybe the economy really is gathering steam. But in the rough and tumble of the real world, where families have to feed themselves and pay their bills, there are an awful lot of Americans being left behind.
A continuing national survey of workers who lost their jobs during the Great Recession, conducted by two professors at Rutgers University, offers anything but a rosy view of the economic prospects for ordinary Americans. It paints, instead, a portrait filled with gloom.
More than 15 million Americans are officially classified as jobless. The professors, at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, have been following their representative sample of workers since the summer of 2009. The report on their latest survey, just out this month, is titled: "The Shattered American Dream: Unemployed Workers Lose Ground, Hope, and Faith in Their Futures."
Herbert tells us of the survey's latest findings, which have been ongoing over the past 15 months by Heldrich Center director Carl Van Horn and his colleague, fellow Rutgers professor Cliff Zukin.
--only one-quarter of the workers surveyed in the report have found full-time employment, with nearly all of those jobs being for less pay and fewer or no benefits
As noted in the latest survey, "The recession has been a cataclysm that will have an enduring effect. It is hard to overstate the dire shape of the unemployed." Other report findings include:
--two-thirds of those surveyed have been jobless for a year or more
--over one-third of the survey respondents have been jobless for more than two years
Herbert continues, "There is a fundamental disconnect between economic indicators pointing in a positive direction and the experience of millions of American families fighting desperately to fend off destitution."
He notes that, according to a Motoko Rich report in the NY Times this month, temp workers "...accounted for 80 percent of the 50,000 jobs added by private sector employers in November."
And, Herbert brings us full circle as he quotes Van Horn:
"They're losing the idea that if you are determined and work hard, you can get ahead..."
--SNIP--
"...They're losing that sense of optimism. They don't think that they or their children are going to fare particularly well."
And, once again, we end up facing the same reality upon which Frank Rich was commenting, just 24 hours ago.
# # #
Over at Zero Hedge, blogger williambanzai7, someone with whom I concur on matters LESS than one percent of the time, had this to say about Rich's commentary:
...We are caught in a drunken national stupor. We are unable to collectively admit the direness of our economic situation and what is necessary to turn it around.
Moreover, our corrupt leadership is unwilling to put the finger on the culprits that have packed us off to global Palookaville...
--SNIP--
...At this point I am really feeling ripped off...and as each day passes, I am feeling more and more pissed off that all of the scumbags that made and are still making this sad state of affairs possible, are allowed to run freely and laugh at all of us in the comfortable confines of their publicly subsidized mini-homelands...
I read his comments, and I couldn't help but think of this story, from just last week, concerning Deutschebank's admittedly - criminal acts, wherein...
Deutsche Bank Agrees to Pay $553.6 Million to Settle U.S. Tax Shelter Case
By David Glovin, David Voreacos and Bob Van Voris
Bloomberg Media
Wed Dec 22 00:01:01 GMT 2010
...Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's largest bank, admitted criminal wrongdoing and agreed to pay $553.6 million to avoid prosecution in the U.S. over fraudulent tax shelters that generated $29 billion in "bogus" tax losses.
The U.S. Justice Department, under an agreement yesterday, won't prosecute the Frankfurt-based bank for fraud or tax evasion for enabling wealthy U.S. citizens to avoid $5.9 billion in taxes, after the bank admitted criminal wrongdoing.
The settlement includes a $149 million civil penalty, the fees that Deutsche Bank generated from the shelters, and the taxes and penalties the Internal Revenue Service was unable to collect from taxpayers because of the misconduct, according to the agreement.
From 1996 to 2002, "Deutsche Bank assisted high net worth United States citizens, who, through 2005, reported approximately $29.3 billion in bogus tax benefits on their tax returns," according to the agreement. "DB acknowledges that it was wrong and unlawful to have engaged in these transactions and regrets having done so..."
...and, then there was this story regarding Bank of America being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for municipal securities fraud, from just a few weeks ago.
...and, this article regarding BofA subsidiary Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo, before that.
...and, this piece from the Summer, wherein Goldman Sachs paid more than $500 million in fines, while they admitted "no wrongdoing," which is, IMHO, legalese for: "...even the commercial litigation process is loaded with get-out-of-jail free passes for a status quo gone wild."
...and scores, if not hundreds, of other chapters in "American Fraudemocracy," just like these few, above, from just the past 30 months. (Here's a link to a diary where I list scores of stories, all regarding Wall Street fraud, from this year, alone!)
And, where does this all leave us, as far as our current-day reality is concerned? I'll let Digby spell it out far better than I ever could...
# # #
"Republican Shamelessly Tries to Rewrite History of Financial Crash, Pushes 'Austerity Measures'"
Digby
Hullabaloo
December 26, 2010, 2:28 pm
Tom Coburn put on quite a show today with Chris Wallace and everyone should pay attention:
Senate Republicans' "Dr. No" spending hawk warned Sunday that America would experience "apocalyptic pain" with 15-18 percent unemployment and the "middle class destroyed" if it didn't get its fiscal house in order.
"If we don't fix the problems in front of us everybody's going to pay a significant price," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said on "Fox News Sunday."
And, here's Digby telling it like it is...
...I'm starting to get really nervous here. These people have finally made it happen: they have convinced themselves and God only knows how many others that the economic downturn is the result of government spending and the deficit. (We knew they were trying, but this is the best example I've seen of someone who just states it right out with no caveats or disclaimers.)
There was a good reason to play the blame game and look in the rear view mirror over the last two years, aside from the simple political calculus, which was to offer the country the real story of the meltdown and counter this ridiculous right wing theme. This may be the most pernicious effect of the huge money in politics at the moment -- the ability to seduce or blackmail political leaders into weaving a disaster capitalist storyline in the wake of financial catastrophe. This is how it unfolds...
Which provides another great segue into what's really going down with faux financial reform on Capitol Hill in coming weeks, from none other than the editors of the NY Times, on Monday: "How to Derail Financial Reform."
How to Derail Financial Reform
Editorial
New York Times
December 27, 2010
Ever since the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was signed in July, the question has been whether it would actually lead to a stable financial system. If the Republicans who will control the House next year get their way, the answer will surely be "no."
--SNIP--
In particular, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission -- which share the all-important regulation of the multitrillion-dollar derivatives market -- have proposed rules that are tough and sophisticated. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is ramping up. The Financial Stability Oversight Council, led by the Treasury secretary, will report in January on how to implement the "Volcker rule" to restrict proprietary trading by banks.
The process is painstaking, and the outcome is uncertain. But progress is being made -- and the House Republican leaders want none of that. Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the next chairman of the House Financial Services Committee told The Birmingham News that "Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks..."
The Times' editors tell us of a letter to the S.E.C. written by Bachus and soon-to-be House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California. In it, they opined that "...Dodd-Frank would do little for economic recovery and warned against rules that could curtail growth."
The editors also point out McCarthy and Oklahoma GOPer Congressman Frank Lucas, who is slated to head up the House Agriculture Committee come January (and which shares oversight responsibility with the House Financial Services Committee on derivatives reform) "...have urged regulators to avoid 'overly prescriptive'; rules on derivatives speculation. He [Lucas] has also warned the Financial Stability Oversight Council that a strong Volcker rule would impose 'substantial' economic costs, without making the system safer."
The editors continue on to note that some GOP congresswhores want to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and they infer that the Rethugs could simply undermine the budgets of the SEC and the commodities commission and achieve similar results.
In closing the Times' editors caution that President Obama "...cannot let financial reform become a bargaining chip and must make the case that it will not help the federal budget -- or the nation in general -- to shortchange reforms that could prevent another crisis."
# # #
Unfortunately, as Bob Herbert points out in today's edition of the Times, for 15,000,000 of us still without work, that's just adding insult to injury. And, for the record-breaking scores of millions of Americans that have been victimized by three decades of unbridled Wall Street greed-gone-wild--those barely getting by on food stamps, living from day-to-day without health insurance, and at or near poverty, as we experience the greatest disparity between the haves and have-nots in our society in the past 100 years--the concept of using financial reform as a "bargaining chip" may end up representing the greatest failure of our government in generations. (If it hasn't already.)
As we now see a clear theme emerging among many pundits in the MSM and throughout the progressive blogosphere, it is not an exaggeration to say this could very well turn out to be, IMHO, nothing less than the final straw in our corporate kleptocracy's mass theft of our hope.