What do you do while you wait for the dark to finally succumb to the light? The opposing forces create a tension in the body. I experience it as weariness. I am good at deflecting negativity, but then it does get to me. However, I have gotten a lot done in the last few days. I mended a fence, fixed a gate, put bedding down in my turkey and chicken houses and, yesterday, I finished snugging up the chicken coop for the Winter.
While we are waiting for the final economic crash; I ponder why we don't do anything more to make life easier for the ones most victimized. We learned a long time ago that the best way to deal with an economic downturn is to put money in the hands of those on the lower rungs. When you give money to the poor or near poor they spend all of it on their welfare. Every penny goes to the grocery store, the drug store, the dry cleaners, the garage and, yes, some to the liquor store. The local community is enhanced and the economy stimulated. This is a fact not speculation. Study the course of every downturn and you can see how it works. It is especially evident in the Great Depression. Roosevelt's interventions clearly worked. Don't believe the conservative spin that things did not get better until World War 11. Sure some things stayed in the doldrums but the economy is a lot more than the stock market. Roosevelt's initiatives alleviated suffering and gave hope. They rescued our country from economic hell.
Why don't we use this method now? Extend unemployment to every person who needs it. Create work opportunities. Our infrastructure is in the toilet. What is holding up these simple solutions? We know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we need to find, every way we can, to get money in to the hands of the people in the lower echelon of the economic structure, if the economy is going to survive. [Quite a sentence] What is going through the minds of those who resist? Is it the belief that the working class is not worthy of the help? Is it some distorted morality like that? Are they anxious to be dragged down into the same economic oblivion for the sake of some ideology that hardly makes any sense. When people are suffering from of lack of money; how does austerity work? How can it work? I don't understand the resistance the conservatives have. It has no logic. It must be some distorted morality. Every penny you give to a poor person will eventually trickle up to the rich. It usually isn't a trickle, it is a river!
The other thing that would turn every thing around is universal debt forgiveness. But if we resent giving the poor unemployment insurance, it will be awhile before we see the wisdom in that. It is going to happen eventually. It is the only way to rid the economy of the trillions of dollars in bad debts; mostly gambling debts i.e. derivatives. We are either going to sink or we are going to have to wipe the slate clean. This time, however, debt forgiveness will have to be extended to everyone, not just to the bankers. Then the whole banking structure will have to be changed to outlaw the practices that got us in to the mess in the first place. I do know how to do this. I will discuss it in a later session.
It all boils down to, doing what's most loving.
Love and Peace, Gregg
Hi Gregg!
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with you about helping those in need, kick-starting the economy. Right now we seem to be making Herbert Hoover's mistake. It took a bit, but when FDR started the WPA and CCC, money filtered into the hands of those that were desperate and eager to work. Yes, it was deficit spending, but we had to get out of the depression! Those that argue for a balanced budget, like Clinton accomplished, overall are generally right, BUT NOW IS NOT THE TIME.
It galls me, that people forget the lessons of history!
Yours,
Scott from Klarstrom