More Good News

Today more good news. The economy is expanding over 2.5 percent and corporate profits in the United States set a record for the past 60 sixty years these statistics have been kept.

So the economy is definitely rebounding, right?

Wrong! Unemployment still hovers over 10 percent in most states and worse in others. Extension of unemployment benefits are being held up by Republicans, allegedly because of deficit concerns. The Fed is frantically trying to find ways to spur employment because demand in the United States for goods and services are at all time low. Republicans keep saying no to any attempts to develop jobs, while saying they are for jobs; a classic P.R. trick.

A depression gets its name from depressed consumer demand and prices. The United States hovers on that precipice right now.

Meanwhile, newly elected tea party Republicans are taking pledges to not vote for a raising of the Federal debt ceiling in the spring. This will have the effect of putting the United States in financial default, not able to pay its bills, and shut the government down.

An immediate effect will be suspending Social Security payments, Medicare payments, payments to loans the United States has made with China; etc. This will mean large scale economic pain and suffering, especially for seniors. Republicans will offer to raise the debt ceiling in trade for massive permanent cuts to entitlements, Social Security and Medicare. They just might succeed.

If you want a preview of what this will mean for the world economy check out Ireland right now. Ireland is essentially in default, and is depending for its very economic survival on emergency loans made by other countries. The ripple effect of this, like Greece previously, has seriously damaged world financial markets.

If the United States does the same thing, thanks to the mindless tea party run Republican Party, the effect will be catastrophic. Ultimately, Wall Street financial gamblers could lose billions, as the financial system essentially grinds to a stop. That would be poetic justice, but for the fact that millions of Americans (senior citizens) will lose everything as well.

And the middle class, angry white voter, put these fools in office to punish the over-spending Democratic Party and the President who did not do enough for the unemployed.

What? Are you kidding me? What planet do these people occupy?

Read Wendell Potter’s “Deadly Spin” and the answer will become very apparent.

The middle class in the country has been "Public Relationed, or P.R. ed" to death.

It is all in the message. Republicans began this effort with the “Astro Turf” tea party movement, that never came from the grass roots, but was organized and financed by fat cat corporate conservatives. They were successful in discrediting the President during the Health Care “debate”. Actually there was no real debate. Republicans just said no, and did not even engage. For profit health insurance companies (I left out the word care because these companies do not worry about care, only profit), spent almost a billion dollars in a clever campaign, pretending to be for health care, while working hard to kill it.

The result was a law that is flawed enough that Republicans may even be able to repeal it. More importantly, the public was propagandized to the point that a majority still have serious concerns with the law, even though they know very little about it. In short, the public was massively fooled!

And who wins: The insurance corporations who spent billions defeating an effort to provide decent health care to the American People. And remember, the United States ranks low in the actual quality of our health care system. Basically, the richer you are the better the care you can receive, with over 50 million uninsured. If you are poor, you can use the emergency room as President Bush so famously suggested. And, during the health care debate, the poor using emergency rooms was pointed to by the insurance corporations as a major reason for the increase in health insurance premiums. So, they blamed the poor for their greed and the middle class bought it!

Nancy Pelosi, a favorite whipping boy/girl of the conservatives, recently responded to a question about her taking responsibility for the conservative tide in the 2010 elections and she responded, “How would you do if 70 million dollars were spent against you?”

The comment went right by the media; most things do. The point was the Supreme Court’s decision that allows corporations to contribute unlimited amounts anonymously to political campaigns has irrevocably changed the political equation in the United States.

The P.R. efforts of the Health Insurance Industry, the P.R. efforts of the tea parties, are based on misrepresentation, lies and greed. Their collective efforts are having the effect of reducing the United States to Third World Status. The middle class has been so fooled, that they actually carry the signs and attend the rallies that are destroying them.

So we probably will see an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, at least in the short run. This will be followed up with a refusal to raise the debt ceiling, which will lead to massive cuts in Social Security and Medicare, as a ransom by the Republicans. The Health Care law will be gutted, and we may be looking a Sarah Palin as President in 2012.

Along the way the United States will be in a full blown depression by 2012 (for the middle class and below), and if Palin gets in as President, nuclear war by 2013.

Oh, I forgot, if we do by chance happen to survive these things by incredible luck, within 25 years global warming will have decimated most of the civilized world, flooding vast areas, making other uninhabitable, because the Tea Party does not believe in it.

God help us!

And the United Stated insurance and other corporations will still be making record profits, shared with the top ½ percent of the people, the rest will be left literally in the dust.

I would close with a plea for people to wake up, but that has already been tried to no avail. We proceed as a sleepwalker toward the precipice.