- No one has done more to ensure the ultimate demise of
the American middle class than Alan Greenspan.
-
- No one.
-
- In the stately pantheon of class-warriors, Greenspan's
spectral-image looms larger than any other; the foremost proponent of
hardnosed social-Darwinism and exclusionary economics. Even his carpet-bagging
consort, G.W. Bush, pales in comparison.
-
- In just under 5 years the Fed-master has engineered
a coup so vast and devastating that $1.3 trillion of borrowed revenue has
been adroitly shifted from the beleaguered middle class to the privileged
1% that Greenspan represents.
-
- Whoa!
-
- It is the biggest heist in the history of the planet,
and it was designed and executed within the leather-bound citadel of the
Federal Reserve.
-
- Thanks, Alan.
-
- The partnership of Bush and Greenspan has been the moral
equivalent of the sacking of Rome; maxing out the nation's credit card
until every last farthing has been drained from the public till. Greenspan's
tenure has left America bobbing atop an ocean of red ink ready to capsize
with the first gust of recession.
-
- Greenspan was a key player in facilitating the Iraq
war, pushing interest rates to their lowest level 6 months before the
war to keep the economy on life-support while the propaganda campaign
burst from the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
-
- It worked like a charm.
-
- The American people were hoodwinked by White House fabrications
and anesthetized by cheap money. They began a borrowing frenzy that sluiced
zillions into a hyper-inflated housing market that is timed to detonate
just as wistful Alan picks up his gold watch and heads for the exit.
-
- Good thinking, Alan.
-
- Now, after years of mismanagement, Greenspan is offering
caveats about the chaos he's leaving behind. In his typical gibberish
the chairman has warned of "painful" adjustments if deficits
are not brought under control.
-
- "Painful" or life threatening?
-
- It was Greenspan, the budget-busting tote for the patrician-class,
who defended the lavish Bush tax cuts that put the country on the fast-track
to doomsday. Now, he's joined Grover Norquist and the "privatization-kooks"
who want to dismantle the tattered ruins of the social safety net and
christen the new epoch of predatory capitalism. Alan is a big supporter
of "survival of the fittest" economics; the notion that people
at the bottom of the societal food-chain deserve to be there so their
Nietzschean overlords, like the Fed-chair, can rule supreme.
-
- As Greenspan applies the last few turns of the screw
(raising interest rates twice more before he leaves) we're bound to see
the credit-shackled middle class begin an orderly march towards the nearest
cliff where they will quickly disappear lemming-like into the sea.
-
- Seriously, the American people have no idea of the economic
firestorm that's just around the corner.
-
- The economy is underwritten by $8 trillion of debt,
requiring massive $2 billion infusions of foreign capital EVERY DAY. As
former Fed-chief Volker noted, "It can't go one for ever."
-
- No it can't. Besides, it's all part of a neoliberal
plan that has been successfully executed throughout the third world; plunging
the host nation into insurmountable debt with the help of crooked regime
(Bush and Co.) and then pulling the rug out from under the shocked public.
The massive and calculated deficits are intended to create a crisis of
insolvency, resulting in the same type of "shock therapy" and
"structural readjustment" programs the IMF applies to bankrupt
nations around the world. Greenspan has moved the country closer to his
goal of dismantling popular social programs so the captains of industry
can privatize the public's assets.
-
- So, how did Greenspan pull it off?
-
- How did he keep the somnolent American public from noticing
the widening deficits and the alarming transfer of wealth from one class
to another?
-
- The answer is; low interest rates, the toxic elixir
that can incapacitate an entire nation, leaving its people drowsy and
indifferent to imminent disaster.
-
- Recently, Greenspan has begun warning of the difficulties
ahead, cautioning that our problems will only be "compounded by a
protectionist reversal of globalization". In other words, prepare
yourself to compete with the lowest paid worker in Canton province. The
hemorrhaging of high-paying jobs that sustain the middle class doesn't
bother the Fed-chief. Greenspan has the same irksome sense of equity
as his ideological-twin at New York Times, Tom Friedman. Friedman has
been preaching the gospel of "free market" capitalism for years.
Neither one tries to conceal their contempt for organized labor or the
redistribution of profits. Friedman's Brigadoon is identical to Greenspan's;
a land of milk and honey where 99% of the denizens live in abject poverty
scraping to get by and where the not-so-invisible hand is savagely affixed
to the throat of a permanent underclass.
-
- Welcome to Greenspan's nirvana.
-
- Greenspan also warned that the budget "will substantially
worsen in the coming years unless major deficit-reducing measures are
taken."
-
- "Deficit-reducing measures"? You mean, like
rolling back the Bush tax cuts?
-
- Hell no; class-warrior Alan said "he did not believe
that major increases in taxes were the solution".
-
- Of course, not. Why should the fat-cats in the silk
suits and Ferraris have to pay their share? After all, we can just raise
the payroll tax again (Greenspan's earlier plan) and take another pound
of flesh from the middle class? No one will notice.
-
- Baby boomers retirement?
-
- Not to worry; Greenspan suggests we extend the age of
retirement to some imaginary date when the wealthy will stop fleecing
the poor and the national ledger will magically balance.
-
- Cradle to grave; Americans are being prepared for the
slaughter. The chances for upward mobility or even subsistent living are
being eclipsed by the day. The yolk that one shoulders at birth will follow
him until his death.
-
- Greenspan's racketeers have absconded with the nation's
bounty behind a smokescreen of low interest rates. They lulled us to sleep
with soothing words of "no-interest loans", no down payments,
and a real estate windfall for anyone bold enough to sign on the dotted
line.
-
- Now, the grim reality has begun to set in. Interest
rates are rising, the dollar is reeling, energy costs are skyrocketing,
consumer confidence is plummeting, and gold is shooting through the roof.
When China and Japan decide to jettison their worthless US Savings Bonds;
Greenspan's mighty fortress will collapse in a heap.
-
- The American people are crazy to think that a privately
owned institution like the Federal Reserve will ever function in the public
interest. The Fed operates behind an iron-curtain of secrecy to protect
the interests of its primary constituents; the parasite class. It was
authorized under executive order by Woodrow Wilson who was coerced into
putting the country's future into the hands of its central bankers so
he could finance World War 1. Bankers have always understood that the one
who holds the purse-strings calls the shots. This explains what Thomas
Jefferson meant when he said, "Banking establishments are more dangerous
than standing armies."
-
- While Greenspan teeters off to retirement, he can be
confident that his trap has already sprung. The country is dead-broke
and will be forced to comply with the demands of its creditors. The impending
"austerity measures" will be used to reshape the fabric of American
life; a complete reordering of society to meet the standards of a modern
capitalist utopia; Greenspan's paradise, the United States of Destitution.
-
- Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached
at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
-
- http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney12062005.html
|
