F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:10:15 -0800, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:
snip

You appear to be correct in your observation that the only thing
the "rescue" programs have accomplished was the immediate and
total economic collapse (which may be justification enough). As
you observe, unemployment continues to increase

It isn't the increases in the unemployed that are troubling.
What's bad, and beyond a point can't be recovered from, is the decreasing
percentage of the adult population on a payroll.
There is a difference. You might not have considered it but yuo certainly
understand.

We are now well beyond the point where a recovery can come organically from
the private sector.
The numbers just don't work, especially if you consider changes in things
like the savings rate and the efect on consumption.

and the
commercial real estate bubble is beginning to explode bringing
down the regional and local banks that financed much of the
commercial expansion.

I don't attribute the significance to this that you do.
Not in terms of the future of the American economy. Those bank failures
impact the shareholders but not depositors and any business they were doing
gets done by the survivor/purchaser.
In the long run, it's a self licking ice cream cone because the banks pay
premiums for just this eventuality.
That the FDIC/FSLIC might run short of cash isn't anything but a short term
issue that Congress and thr Federal Reserve can, and will deal with.


IMNSHO the corporations have captured the U.S. government and
they ain't letting go. What is now causing the "problems," other
than those staged as diversion and entertainment for the masses,
stems from the fact that there are several groups of
corporations, with divergent interests. For example, some groups
with extensive foreign operations benefit from a weak U.S. dollar
while a strong, even overvalued, US dollar is in the interest of
other, primarily financial groups, with U.S. dollar denominated
assets.

It appears that the financial and traditional heavy industries
such as automotive and mining/refining have captured the
Republican party while the new industries such as information
technology, biomedical technology, etc. have captured the
Democrats. Thus you are seeing the corporate blocs using the
nominal political parties as surrogates in their power struggles
to set governmental policy.

This is not a new insight, but an old method/technique of
socio-economic macro analysis called "interest group analysis."
While this methodology appears to have always been useful in the
more centeralized/oligaricial economies, it does not appear to
have been particularly useful in the U.S. until the mid to late
90s when the corporate takeover of the U.S. government became
significant.

Not new but in the current circumstance, 30 years behind the curve.
One of the interesting and unintended consequences of the health care debate
is that 73 percent of the population of the US has become convinced that
corporate America really doesn't have the peep's best interests at heart at
all.

Corporate America, in fact, is beginning to suffer the consequences of GW
Bush disease. They aren't believed even when they speak the absolute and
unvarnished truth.

That isn't something that can be recovered from except through catharsis.
Americans currently have little faith in their Congress but it's interesting
to note the plunge in that same measure when business leaders are concerned.

It's results, good and bad, that really form opinion George, and they are.



--
John R. Carroll