By Robert Singer

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October 8, 2008

2008 Debate: "It's the economy, stupid"

Barack Obama and John McCain clashed over the causes and cures for the worst economic crisis in 80 years in the debate last night.

Republican McCain called for a sweeping $300 billion program to stop mortgage foreclosures so they could continue the American Dream and get back to shopping. Yes, national politicians are still suggesting that if we just shop some more for stuff made in China, our economy will get back on track. What part of import/export economics do our elected officials not understand?

The current economic crisis, according to Barack Obama, is the result of the last eight years of the Bush administration. Not true, it is the final verdict of United States economic policies of the last six decades. Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living in the Western world based on our ability to import cheap, raw materials (thanks to the CIA) and ship refrigerators, cars, airplanes and military hardware to the rest of the world. When the rest of the world caught on, and the refrigerators, cars, airplanes and even our socks started to be produced elsewhere, we still had one more product to ship offshore, and, beginning in 1980 the Reagan administration embarked upon the greatest export of all: OUR DEBT. What we are witnessing in the economic crisis today is the final death march of the dollar. After the government printed an extra trillion dollars over the weekend, the huge drop in markets worldwide shows the extent to which people no longer believe the safest place to be is in U.S. dollars. Our economy also hinges on understanding our dependence on foreign oil. Both Obama and McCain were sure that if we just get out and start drilling we can get the economy out of trouble and back on track for everyone to experience the American Dream. Although drilling offshore or onshore is on the bridge to nowhere, there is a solution to our economic problems related to energy.

Does the following analysis sound familiar?

A weakening U.S. dollar is putting upward pressure on oil prices. The shock produced chaos in the West. In the United States, the retail price of a gallon of gasoline rose 50%, consumption dropped by 6.1% from September to February. Underscoring the interdependence of the world societies and economies, oil-importing nations in the noncommunist industrial world saw sudden inflation and economic recession. The energy crisis led to greater interest in renewable energy and spurred research in solar power and wind power as well as increased interest in mass transit.

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by Stephen Lendman

It's spreading nationally under Republican and Democrat administrations, but Wisconsin and Ohio are key battleground states. Wisconsin especially - ground zero to save organized labor, on the chopping block to be weakened ahead of eliminating it altogether, returning America to 19th century harshness.

Already a shadow of its peak strength, it's been gravely harmed under corrupted union bosses, betraying rank and file members for power and self-enrichment. Short of real change, working Americans face stiff headwinds for their rights fast eroding.

Nonetheless, Wisconsin public employees show heroic stamina, 17 days after protests began, rallying in cold and snow, sleeping on Capitol floors, staying the course for rights too important to lose, facing off against extremist governance wanting them stripped of everything.

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By Larry Pinkney

“History is the only true teacher, the revolution the best school for the proletariat...Marxism is a revolutionary worldview that must always struggle for new revelations.” -Rosa Luxemburg

“Industry required ever greater skills, thus closing their doors to the poor. Unions, fearing automation, warded off the poor; their predominantly White members often developed a paranoiac racism.” -Introduction by Franz Schurmann for the book, To Die for the People, by Huey P. Newton

Being euphorically oblivious to the inherent contradictions of class struggle in a corporate-capitalist society is a certain recipe for perpetuating hypocrisy and assuring catastrophe.

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Ian Fletcher

It is sometimes suggested that our trade problems (job losses, international indebtedness) will go away on their own once currency values adjust. Bottom line? A declining dollar will eventually solve everything.

In the short and medium term, of course, foreign currency manipulation will prevent currency values from adjusting. But even if we assume currencies will eventually adjust, there are still serious problems with just letting the dollar slide until our trade balances.

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Eric Walberg

There is a Russian proverb: only a fool learns from his own mistakes. As Georgia's foreign minister visits his Egyptian counterpart, there are lessons for Egypt in similar revolutions in eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union, notes Eric Walberg

Central to Egypt’s revolution was a tiny group of Serbian activists Otpor (resistance), who adapted nonviolent tactics of in the late 1990s and successfully forced Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to resign in 2000. Egyptian youth in the 6 April Youth Movement even adopted their clenched fist symbol, bringing Otpor once again into world headlines and TV screens.

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