Paul Krugman recently penned an insightful article where he argues that the 1999-2009 decade should be called the "Big Zero" decade because over the course of ten years there was no real job growth or notable "progress" in tackling any of the nation's problems. But Krugman's view, I'm afraid, is overly optimistic. What we had in the 2000s was far, far worse than a "Big Zero." The last ten years have been so miserable for the United States that a "Big Zero" would be an immeasurable improvement compared to what we got. If we could freeze time and move the country back to January 1999 it would be like hitting the jackpot! With all its squandered wealth, wasted lives, despoiled environment, growing inequality, and a Supreme Court stacked to favor corporate power, a "Big Zero" is a distant, unattainable goal.
Ronald Reagan was president from 1981 to 1989, leading many historians and journalists to call the 1980s the "Reagan Era" or the "Age of Reagan." George W. Bush served from 2001 to 2009, but is it fair to us to refer to the 2000s as the "W. Era?" I don't think so.
It was the decade when the country experienced the corporate take-over of everything -- every value, every human interaction, every institution.
Bush stacked the Supreme Court with two relatively young Justices who can be counted on, in perpetuity, to rule against people and in favor of corporations every time their interests clash. He also stuffed the federal judiciary with torture enthusiasts, religious fanatics, and corporate servants.
It was a decade when a new Gilded Age took hold led by Robber Barons far worse and rapacious than any of those associated with the turn of the last century. Goldman Sachs' CEO Lloyd Blankfein, without irony, told the press that his financial behemoth was doing "God's work," just like John D. Rockefeller said over a century ago: "I believe the power to make money is a gift from God."
It was a decade where corporate advertising reached new levels with "word of mouth" marketing and "reality" TV shows that are little more than commercials posing as "television shows."
In November 1999, President Bill Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act by signing the odious Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that deregulated, once and for all, the financial sector. Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Alan Greenspan, and Robert Rubin lit the fuse that exploded the American economy ten wretched years later traumatizing the nation and sapping its lifeblood.
There was a "War on Terror" and "video news releases" to manipulate the public. In the past ten years the nation's two dominant political parties finally merged to represent essentially the same corporate interests. It was the decade when the ideological viewpoint of the National Association of Manufacturers, which was formed in 1895 to trash workers' pensions as "handouts," came to dominate the economic policies of both parties. Labor unions took it in the chin suffering setback after setback as real wages declined, unemployment rose, and pensions dwindled.
It was the decade of Enron and Worldcom and Global Crossing and Tyco and all those other corporate criminal rackets. Joe Lieberman, who received campaign donations from Enron, held a hearing where he tisk-tisked the practices that his own cheerleading for deregulation helped cause. And don't forget Blackwater and Haliburton and all the other war profiteers that made a killing, and the wars themselves we'll be paying for in overt pay-outs and hidden social costs for many decades to come. Death on the installment plan we might call it.
It was the decade when the "race to the bottom" resulting from "free trade" deals like NAFTA and the WTO came to apotheosis. The outsourcing and international trade imbalances hollowed out the American economy, eliminated whole categories of manufacturing jobs, and pushed the U.S. on a trajectory less like Europe and more like Mexico. China owns us.
During the 2000 campaign there was a running joke that George W. Bush got so much record-breaking corporate campaign cash that he wasn't really a human being seeking the presidency but a corporation. We can call the 2000s the "Worse Than Zero" decade or the "Big Zero," or anything we wish, but what characterized it most for me was the near total control of corporations, especially over our civic institutions. All of the terrible economic and governing ideas from the Reagan era crested and then crashed in the last eighteen months leaving something far less than "zero" in their wake.
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Janine R. Wedel: Is the Government In Charge, Or Is It The Shadow Elite?
There was a time when Americans could have more confidence in the objectivity of the experts who advised government and pronounced on issues of vital importance.
We are now morally & financially bankrupt, in a complete & absolute fashion. Those thousands who took part in this theft, with enough dollars stashed, will be able to trade these dollars for unpolluted food, water & bullets. The rest will die slowly as salves fighting each other, so their masters will continue to live in comfort.
I know this sounds grim but our last hope has yet to turn the tide &, maybe much too late to the dance? Welcome to the New World, the one your for-fathers died penniless for, making sure it was secure for you. You & your offspring are now part of corporate America, whether you like it or not.
The Ross Perot/Pat Buchanan/Lou Dobbs criticism of NAFTA is misguided; U.S. manufacturing output was higher during the nafta era than before it, unemployment lower after NAFTA than prior to it (up till the financial collapse). Its makes a nice headline, NAFTA and free trade responsible by our woes, but it is simply erroneous. Automation combined with productivity increases are largely responsible for the decline of manufacturing jobs; it takes one third the number of auto workers to produce a car as it did 25 years ago.
The last decade sequentially.
big corps to the point the government works for the big corporations now
And it seems that they perfectly happy and condent to work for big business
Their behavior ,and their words lately, shows that what
they want to accomplish, all a long was just that. Corporations our masters...
And now they team up with teabaggers , religious nuts, racists, bigots,and they
try to scare the senior population so can be elected in power again to finish the
the destraction of AMERICA
take-over of everything -- every value, every human interaction,
every institution." --as an example
Actually, it would seem to me that it was the decade in which these
events and the circumstances that allowed them to happen, became
more transparent, more obvious, to the majority of the people instead
of remaining behind closed doors! I don't remember such a onrush of
criticism "while" they were happening. But then, perhaps the current
discontent and the blogs and articles about the current discontent
isn't as great, numerous and continuous as I've been led to believe
by the respondents on Huff 'n Puff. !?!
And worse, we have a forty percent component of our population whose nostalgia for John Wayne and the virtues of "manifest destiny" will slow ideological progression for decades to come.
How does it work that payola is controlling so much? If it's true that corporations are exerting such a huge influence, how are they doing it? How is power being manipulated and what can the public at large do to regain a voice in the national interest?
I have a theory: When communism was defeated at the end of the Cold War, a shift happened: State power, which had defined the 20th century to that point, was replaced by business power, as it was perceived that capitalism had triumphed over its antithetical economic enemy (when, actually, democracy had triumphed over totalitarianism.) Look at it: Is there any difference between corporate power in China or the US or India? This is the new transnational power structure we've created.
I don't have answers, but I would say this: The world-wide communications web we've created gives ordinary people the means to organize that can conceivably counterbalance the huge concentration of power that we, also, have created.
Uh, payoffs? Bribes? (Oh, I meant "campaign contributions") Promises of bright futures as lobbyists or even corporate officers after retirement from politics?
"...what can the public at large do to regain a voice in the national interest?"
That's trickier. A revolution would do it but that's a last, desperate act, a cure far worse than the disease. I don't recommend it.
We could rely on the ballot box; maybe if we vote every incumbent out and make it plain that we'll continue to do so until the politicians start working for the people, not the corporations, things will change. Meanwhile, we could bombard our so-called representatives with our opinions, by e-mail, snail mail and, when possible, with marches. But this is all Utopian. Aside from a very small minority people just don't do these things. We'd rather watch "reality" TV and sports, and play with Chinese electronics.
A much better solution would be a new political party. Clearly, neither major party is serving our interests.
But that idea, too, is Utopian. As long as some nut can scream "death panels" and get headlines and even quotes from US senators, we're screwed. As long as one party works only to prevent the other party from governing, we're screwed. And AS LONG AS PEOPLE DON'T VOTE, WE'RE SCREWED!
We DID wake up. Remember all those "citizen outrage" blogs mid-2009, warning the Dems that we were pissed?
And what about all the protests against the corporate health care bill? And the bank bail out?
And what is all the Leftist ire against Obama about? --His indebtedness to corporations.
As I see it, we are moving toward the "new political compass" that was predicted at the beginning of this decade, notably by Paul Ray: corporate politics versus people and planet.
I'm with Shunga on this: the decade was about finally getting it -- getting what deregulation cost us. getting what globalization really means -- corporations owning the world. getting that our congress is a corporate congress.
Hard to hope?
Consider this, Joe: This is the moment when everyone is screaming that there is a fire in the tunnel.
If we didn't scream, we wouldn't know we have to get out.
hahahahahahahahaha
are you just waking up Rip
Business is what makes Capitalism go round.... Made America the strongest Nation on the face of the Earth.... and it's been around for a lot longer than the past Decade...... what's new to the decade is the spin you guys put on it now..... Before you only herd you tripe in Pravda now it's standard fare in the NYT
roflmao
There is no free-market with capitalism. It always needs the state, and that means other people's earnings to prop "it's too big to fail" businesses up. The biggest welfare queens are big corporations.
Take away tax-payer support, legal personhood, and overseas govt. antics done for their interests of your too big to fail corps.
Tax-payer support and lobbyists and coups in "vital interest" countries are what make "Capitalism go 'round."
Also, learn the difference between "herd" and "heard."
unfortunately this will occur at the point of no return.