When I read all this I
do wonder just what they are thinking. It is critical to the smooth operation of a
market economy that there exists minimal currency for all members allowing at
least subsistence participation. Without that, a contraction can take place
which can drive us into an actual depression.
After all, that handkerchief is always worth say twenty cents but for
lack of coin it is of no value at all.
Diddling with clear
subsistence measures undermines the real economy and brings about the mentality
of economic collapse such as has already been experienced in Greece.
This has nothing
whatsoever to do with tax revenues either.
If insufficient cash is available, such revenues must contract even if
owed. Thus even the wealthy can be
driven to the wall. Recall that in a
depression brought on by withdrawing liquidity alone, a $300,000 mortgage
originally supported by an appraised value of say $500,000 becomes an unsecured
debt covered only by a property now trading if at all for $10,000, leaving a
natural shortfall of $290.000. Nothing
remains liquid. Neither the borrower nor
the lender.
To avoid that it is
necessary to insure all members of society retain day to day purchasing
power. Otherwise the whole economy
dissolves into nothing else than a Ponzi scheme whose resurrection through
natural means will take decades.
Chomsky
Describes US Domestic Policy in Two Words: 'Pure Savagery'
Cuts to food stamps and jobless benefits
predictable result of 'neoliberal assault' on American people
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
(Photo via Flickr / tr.robinson
/ Creative Commons License)As Congress decides this week whether to
re-institute emergency jobless benefits for millions of Americans and closes in
on negotiations for a Farm Bill that could see billions of dollars cut out
of food stamp programs, renowned activist and intellectual Noam Chomsky summed
up the state of American politics in an interview Thursday in two words:
"pure savagery."
"The refusal to
provide very minimal living standards to people who are caught in this
monstrosity — that's just pure savagery," Chomsky said
during an interview with HuffPost Live.
"There's no other word for it."
The Washington Post reports that
current Farm Bill negotiations are calling for the elimination of roughly $9
billion in funding for food stamps through
the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program (SNAP) over the next decade, "according to several aides familiar
with the negotiations who are not authorized to speak publicly about the
details."
The changes would
decrease assistance for at least 800,000 households, with cuts of up to $90 per
month. “That’s the last week of groceries for the month,” Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) told the Washington
Post.
The GOP-controlled House had originally called
for $40 billion in cuts and the Democratic-led Senate had originally called for
$4 billion.
The negotiation,
expected to wrap up by next week, arrives two months after U.S. lawmakersallowed a separate stimulus
boost to SNAP to expire, cutting a universal $5 billion in funding
that gouged food assistance for 47 million food stamp recipients, 49 percent of
whom are children.
Meanwhile, last month
Congress let expire emergency long-term jobless benefits for 1.3 million
Americans, a "lifeline" for
many who have been looking for jobs for an extended period of time and depended
on those benefits to get by.
On Tuesday, the
Senate just barely passed a
vote to move ahead on a bill that would restore those jobless benefits. But
even if it the actual bill passes in the Senate, it will then head to the
Republican-led House of Representatives, where it is likely to face strong
opposition.
"Inequality has been a very serious
problem for a very long time," Chomsky said. "Inequality now is at a
level not seen at least since the 1920s...maybe further back. That is very
severe."
Any growth in the last recent years has gone
to the top 2% of the population, Chomsky said, adding that a large part of the
population is now living below the poverty line while at the very top of the
spectrum, profits are booming for the wealthy.
However, today's
congressional roadblocks to public service programs, that many say are
essential for those in need in the United States, have "nothing to do with
bad apples in Congress,"
Chomsky told HuffPost Live. "These are deep structural problems
having to do with, in effect, the neoliberal
assault on the population, not just of the United States but of the world,
that's taken place in the past generation. There are areas that have escaped,
but it's pretty broad."
Chomsky added:
It used to be said years ago that the United
States is a one-party state -- the business party -- with two factions,
Democrats and Republicans. That's no longer true. It's still a one-party state
-- the business party -- but now it has only one faction. And it's not
Democrats, it's moderate Republicans. The so-called New Democrats, who are the
dominant force in the Democratic Party, are pretty much what used to be moderate
Republicans a couple of decades ago. And the rest of the Republican Party has
just drifted off the spectrum.
_______________________
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Alike 3.0 License.
1 comment:
I stopped reading at the headline. Typical right wing "hate the us" /fear mongering. Though Chomsky is better known for left wing "hate the us" /fear mongering.
Anyway, he is supposed to be a linguist. In formal language what exactly is "pure savagery" as opposed to say "impure savagery" or possibly adulterated savagery. How about "messy bahavior that I do not like?"
Any screed that starts out with emotionally charged words, especially from an academic can only go down hill and quickly degenerate into immature name calling.
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