If You Won't Get Rid Of Our Economic Enslavement, At Least Reform It

As the country is divided on and debating the health care bill in congress, little attention has been given to the real problem of our country. “It is not about whether the government is too little, or too big, it is about if government works,” Barack Obama cleverly put it during his inauguration speech in January. I completely agree, but unfortunately our government cannot work unless we rid money from politics. It is possible, but would take a huge grassroots effort. Nonetheless, money in politics is not the prime focus here. In my wonderful world where money is eliminated from politics, and the laws are not given to favor big corporations, banks and insurance executives we could not only have a functional public health care system for all, but also a banking system for all that would simplify our economy and create more time for social and as well as scientific progress.

This may come off as being incredibly Marxist, but the whole idea of banks, loans and interest is absurd. Banks make a profit off of collecting interest. This contributes absolutely no wealth in real terms to the economy: Nothing is produced, nothing is bought or sold. It does not take very much research to understand how the banking system has caused, or exacerbated recessions and depressions. In fact, our entire financial system was at the heart of last year’s economic meltdown. Maybe it is the result of greedy individuals trying to manipulate the system, but if we are all inherently greedy in some ways how could this crucial aspect of our economy ever be a function of social good?

Maybe capitalism is the root of the problem. I am personally not prepared to go that deep. I suppose I take a strict Keynesian approach to this issue and will suggest that there are certain functions of our economy and society that should be run by the public. This is not to propose that the federal government run our banking system. Instead, I believe local public institutions can effectively provide the essential services that banks do. In this way, people who need loans and have decent credit can get loans from these public institutions without any interest and a reasonable payment plan. This would allow people to spend their money on other things, which would in turn stimulate the entire economy.

One of the biggest reasons the United States got into so much trouble last year were subprime loans. These were loans given to people who had horrible credit, but given to them with enormous interest rates that they would never be able to pay off. A public banking system would prevent loans to people who have such bad credit, but would allow room to improve easily. Therefore, we would be smart with the treasury stored for these loans, and also set up some support for those with bad credit. Since it would also boost the entire economy, those with bad credit would have more opportunity to build up their funds and improve their credit situation.

Furthermore, a public system would help create a less volatile economy. It would lessen the effects of big recessions. For instance, India’s Congress party, which had previously denounced their public banking system, praised the institution and said that nationalization was one of its greatest achievements. Congress president Sonia Gandhi argued “Public sector financial institutions have given our economy the stability and resilience we are now witnessing in the face of the economic slowdown.” (http://www.stwr.org/india-china-asia/the-importance-of-public-banking.html) Banking, and the entire financial institution for that matter has become an increasingly complex sector that as a private profit seeker does not serve any practical use for society. All it does is further our enslavement to the current economic system.

Where would the money for this program come from? Well our federal government recently gave the private banks over $750 billion dollars because they were about to collapse (from their own incompetency I might add!). Thus, we can assume that with a public system, there would be an elimination of a middle man and there would be little need to increase taxes.

Our economic system is large and complicated, but most of it is needlessly intricate. The financial institution is one of those structures in our society that only benefits the few who have been in charge for a long time. I write this to merely provoke some thought. Many people have protested the bank bailouts. In fact, most people on the left and right opposed the bailouts in some way. Yet, they continued, under the guise of “too big to fail” Indeed, they might be too big to fail. So why should we continue placating a system that in the end screws over the mass population? I don’t think we should, I think we need to drastically reformat that system. Unfortunately, if we do not get money out of politics we won’t be able to successfully reform anything.

Why We Are Not Getting Real Health Reform: Financial and Political Capital

It’s rather fitting that I am writing a piece about health care while I am fighting a cold and unable to sleep at 2 in the morning. So, I apologize in advance if any of this is incoherent. The following is a product of my inability to sleep as well as the failure to breathe out of my nose. Fortunately for me, I am in the middle class and can afford to go to a public college that gives me decent health insurance for very limited costs. Regrettably, most of the country is not this well off.

According to a recent study Harvard University linked 45,000 deaths in the United States to inadequate health insurance (http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/harvard-medical-study-links-lack-of-insurance-to-45000-us-deaths-a-year/?scp=2&sq=harvard&st=cse). That’s roughly three September 11ths a year. I’m not too sure how anyone can read this study and not be outraged. It is an apparent indication that we need serious and pragmatic health care reform in this country, and very quickly. Instead of honest debate and legislation we have gotten the same political jabbering and lobbying that is at the core of all of our Country’s problems.

Now, what makes this debate even more frustrating is the combination of public and media controversy. We have seen people on the right going to town hall meetings, marching in D.C., opposed to any reforms put out by the Democratic Party. At the heart of all of this I do not see angry American’s fearful about “socialism,” rather, I see a bitter Republican Party, and Conservative movement trying very hard to get political vengeance. Let’s think back to the eight years prior to Barack Obama’s presidency. In the white house was George W. Bush, who was perhaps one of the most controversial and impugned presidents in United States history. He was slammed by the left at every opportunity, conceivably, most of all regarding the war in Iraq. From the start of that war, the left had used similar tactics that the right is currently using against the Democrats about health care (with smaller numbers indeed, but with the same, if not more media attention). In my opinion, Afghanistan is not “Obama’s war” right now. Although later Afghanistan might be his defining foreign affairs moment, it is health care that has taken national stage and will define the beginning of Obama’s presidency.

With that in mind, look at what the right is doing. Some on the far right have berated the President as a Nazi. Joe Wilson, a member of congress, has interrupted a major political speech on reform. Last but not least, right-wing media personalities such as Glenn Beck have gone as far to call Obama a racist. All of this leaves me rather skeptical when I see genuine conservatives out on the streets, many of which are clearly uneducated about politics, and history. For instance take a look at this YouTube video documenting the 9/12 rally in Washington:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y&feature=topvideos

People referring to the president as “socialist,” “communist and “fascist” interchangeably reveals my concern. Even in the 1960s Obama’s proposed reforms would not have been chastised by the right with such false proclamations such as “socialist.” What these protests led me to think was how closely they resemble some of the protesting against Bush regarding Iraq. I was certainly part of those protests, and truly believe in such a right, but I find the root of the current protests to be very disingenuous.

I believe that those who lead the right are bitter about the Bush years. Bush was so widely scrutinized that it truly hurt the Republican Party. This is what I mean by political capital. Therefore, in an attempt to counter attack, the right has chosen to do the same that the left did to Bush, this time it’s about health care reform. The problem here is that Bush’s invasion of Iraq was based on clear lies, sent American troops into harm’s way, and killed countless innocent civilians. Obama’s health care reform, although far from perfect, is an attempt to save lives.

The Republican politicians, and leaders (not necessarily the people doing the marching, I don’t want to completely chastise them), are bitter about losing the election and about the left tearing apart its previous leader. In the case, the media has taken on a huge role in this. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’reilly, our good buddies, have thrown out disastrous lies about health reform. These include claims of death panels, socialism, destruction of Medicare, ect. In essence they have built a right wing army that hold up posters of Obama as Hitler, and call Obama a racist. This leaves the legitimate educated right who have real helpful concerns in the dust.

So why is this happening? Well, like I said before the right is bitter, but they also need to gain political capital. Unfortunately, the leaders of the right are TV and radio pundits looking for ratings, and people like Joe Wilson trying to get reelected. The right needs to be legitimate again, and this is how they are doing it: through hysteria, lies, and anti-intellectualism.

I do not believe that those on the ground actually protesting Obama are disingenuous. I believe they are misled patriots. They are misled by people seeking political capital in order to get reelected at a time when conservative ideology is not very popular in the United States. The Democrats are far from innocent in this debate. They had an opportunity to give us real reform proposals, but due to their own concern for political capital, and insurance lobbyists that fund campaigns they gave us limited reform proposals. I guess they did not count on the right garnering so much momentum, because now it seems like we are getting practically no reform. Personally, I wish to see a single-payer system, but the Democrats blew that one, so my hopes were for some step toward caring for every single American.

What breaks my heart about all of this is that intrinsically, health care should be about helping people. Instead, the debate has been run by corporate lobbyists, conservative celebrities seeking ratings, political capital, and left wing ineptitude. We are supposed to be the freest, most democratic, and wealthiest nation on earth, yet we allow nearly 45,000 to die each year because our politicians and corporatocracy have too much financial and political investment in our current system. Yet, there is hope. The left can fight back. The true left. Those who were always skeptical about Obama, those who pay attention, and those who desperately want real health care in this country must fight back