Blogs For Victory

This story in the New York Times is just so typical of the MSM coverage of the economy these days:

…The economy is strengthening. But millions of jobs lost in the recession could be gone for good.

And unlike in past recessions, jobs in the beleaguered manufacturing sector aren’t the only ones likely lost forever. What sets the Great Recession apart is the variety of jobs that may not return.

That helps explain why economists think it will take at least five years for the economy to regain the 8.2 million jobs wiped out by the recession — longer than in any other recovery since World War II.

It means that even as the economy strengthens, more Americans could face years out of work…

They speak as though the economy were some how separate from the people who live in it. Of course, to them – the elite – this is just fine. To them the economy is the means whereby they get to enjoy vast wealth with minimal personal effort. The editor of the New York Times just wants it to be possible for his lifestyle to continue – if that is happening, then the economy is fine.

But that is not the truth. The economy is the thing we, the people, live in. It is how we make our living, provide for our children and plan for our future. The economy is functioning only so long as everyone who is willing to work can do so. Right now, it is clearly a non-functional economy – and reports like this indicate that it will continue to be so. The jobs are not coming back.

Why should this be? Well, if you read the linked story you’ll find that there are a lot of explanations offered. At the back of all of them is this “global economy” thing – because there are people in China willing to make shirts, Americans will not be able to do so. That, boiled down, is the story we’re being told – the ultimate explanation for why a “recovery” will still leave millions of people unemployed.

The real reason that the economy won’t recover is because it isn’t supposed to. Not, at least, at the cost of discomfort to the ruling elite. You see, an economy for the people is all well and good, but it can also be quite a bother.

Factories are rather gritty things, and you certainly don’t want them within sight of your estate. Oil wells and coal mines are nothing but a bother. Farms take up land which could best be used for country get-aways for rich people. Cutting down trees can spoil the view at the ski lodge. It would also be terribly inconvenient to have to employ citizens or legal aliens as housekeepers, gardeners and such – they would want to be paid properly and where is the upside in that?

Meanwhile, having a fake-money economy based on usury allows the well connected to pile up vast sums of money without having to work – and being well connected means that if things fall apart in the financial world, the government can hit up the taxpayers for bail outs. If we returned to real money then one would have to get back in to knowing how to invest – researching wants and needs and seeking out persons and enterprises who seem likely to successfully provide such over time, thus paying dividends. Who wants dividends when you can just have your stock price run up 5% in a week and then sell the stock?

We can have a recovery – a real recovery of the real economy. All it takes is massive, revolutionary change in the way we do business. We can, to put it in a nutshell, make a shirt in the United States and sell it at a competitive price with any shirt made in China and then shipped thousands of miles to the United States. Whatever reasons we can’t are based upon our tax and regulatory environment – change the tax and regulatory environment and whatever advantage China has in cheap labor will be wiped out and the jobs will flow back in to America.

Nothing else will be of any use, or even matter. Unless we start getting farms, factories and mines running in the United States, all else we do is a waste of time. If regular folks are not able to support themselves, then there’s no point to whatever it is you’re doing. We can do this – our first step is in voting the Democrats out in November – and we must do this.