In avoiding a renewed global recession next year, we must know by now that we can’t rely on our dysfunctional Congress, a president swayed by the Kool Aid dispensed by a mainstream media owned by the rich and controlled by right-wing propaganda, and certainly not a court system overrun by right-wing appointments?
I’m speaking of our most immediate concern: the so-called fiscal cliff. Remember the fiscal cliff was set up by a very similar Tea-party-tainted House of Representatives, a super minority in the Senate, and a president who negotiates on the wrong side of right-wing talking points. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that the election solved anything. And don’t cock your ear for tiny slips of hope coming out of Boehner or McConnell.
About the most we can hope for out of Obama and Republican obstructionists is a deal avoiding the automatic raising of taxes, and it’s certainly not assured that taxes will be raised on the very rich.
What we need to do is campaign for a rescue by the Federal Reserve. It is led by one man who is not a direct chattel of plutocratic interest, Ben Bernanke. In fact he is somewhat of a lame duck Federal Reserve chair, serving until January of 2014. That should give him enough time.
Ben Bernanke seems to be the only adult in leadership with any authority who isn’t ruled by politics and has the inclination to use his authority to spur the economy. Republicans are using austerity to excuse themselves into obstruction and inaction, when stimulus is needed. I repeat stimulus is needed NOT austerity. Obama and the Democrats are still too timid and too willing to do the low-risk thing, negotiate with two gross politicians – Filibuster Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, who Cantor get the radical Republican House going.
With no compromise, we face a renewed global recession, with some $500 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect in January, in little more than a month. Even with a compromise, it is likely we’ll have only a modest increase in revenue and cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and social security. Pile on the contracting economies of nine Western European countries, many in the European Union. American private investment is already sagging, China’s growth is slowing, and even corporate profits are softening.
The usually conservative International Monetary Fund predicts great risk of worldwide stagnation.
The Nation, one of a few forward-looking magazines, has proposed in its article, “The Fed and the Silence of the Left,” that we contact the Fed’s office in Washington, DC, 202-974-7008, demanding stimulus, or a member of the Board of Governors in various regions, possibly by email, for example, Daniel.K.Tarullo@FRB.gov.
There seems to be a great deal that the Fed can do if the public can spur them into action. Conservatives are only critical of the Fed, and progressives seem too timid. Like the last election, it is up to the people to put on pressure.
The Fed actually has emergency powers to sidestep the big banks, which are doing only minimal lending, and provide lending funds to small businesses through smaller banks and other lending institutions. It can put pressure on banks to help those with underwater home loans and increase their disposable incomes. It can make money available for infrastructure spending. These are just a few suggestions made in The Nation.
Anyone with rational concerns for our future, notably economists, Joseph Stiglitz and Moody’s Mark Zandi, know that stimulus is needed. It will not happen through Congress, the President and the big banks which are sitting on their funds.
Let’s contact the Fed and get it done through them. The Fed worked very effectively during the 2007 financial crisis, and during the 1930s. It still has such emergency powers.
If you want real prosperity, jobs and are sick of the obstructionism and inaction of so-called leaders, bypass them and contact the Fed.
I will.
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