THE DANGEROUS "D"S

Deregulation and the deindustrialization that
accompanied it really got rolling with Reagan in the
'80s, with the worship of the "free" market, the
attacks on unions, and the movement toward glo-
balization as well. Most Americans don't under-
stand the extent that deindustrialization has hap-
pened here, or the social consequences of the disap-
perance of the lower middle class resulting therefrom.
This leaves us with really only two classes: the haves
(a shrinking minority), and the have-nots, a rapidly
growing and embittered majority which does under-
stand that it is basically powerless and manipulated.
These have-nots are largely distracted by God, guns,
gays, gambling, sports and other entertainment. Re-
member when Obama caught hell in his campaign for
accurately pointing to these distractions? Denial is the
other dangerous "D" that completes this package.

As manufacturing (for the most part) moved overseas
(or next door) what took its place was "financial services."
That's banking, insurance of many kinds, investing and
related activities that now make up our leading industries
(in dollar volume). Unlike manufacturing, that used to
"make things" and provide jobs doing that, financial ser-
vices don't make anything but money. They do it by
gambling with other people's savings, especially pension
funds (p. f.s) These p. f.s own most of the corporate
stocks being traded, and have lost a $trillion or so in the
past year or two in the big casino. Even though they own
most of the stock (along now with tax payers in many
cases), they have no effective voice in the running of these
companies. So hired managers rule their fiefdoms with
absolute power and appoint cronies to their boards who
reward them with outlandish salaries, perks, stock options,
bonuses and golden parachutes. All this while, too often
the hapless companies are being run into the ground by
the petty tyrants! You really can't blame the coyotes for
stealing chickens. If you put them in charge of the hen-
house, that's what coyotes do!

Peter Drucker, the management guru who helped the
Japanese re-industrialize after WW II, wrote a prescient
book in 1993 entitled Post-Capitalist Society. Speaking
of the divorce between ownership (by P. F.s) and manage-
ment in our big corporations, he wrote: "We have no social,
political, or economic theory that fits what has already
become a reality." Noam Chomsky has also written often
about the totalitarian structure of our corporations, and
the damage this causes.

Drucker observed (in the same book): "It was the failure
of the production of capital more than anything else, that
brought about the collapse of the Soviet economy in the
end." Isn't that where we are today? Our capital no longer
produces goods like it once did. What we are mostly pro-
ducing now is debt. The rest of the world is noting this, and
is alarmed. What this mountain of debt will probably produce,
and it's already beginning, is the fourth "D," de-dollarization.

As we speak (6/15-16/09) the top officials of the six Asian
nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are meeting
in Yekaterinburg, Russia to discuss their economic vulnera-
bility resulting from using the inflated U. S. dollar as the
world's reserve currency. They are not happy about that,
and working with other rapidly industrializing countries
like India and Brazil, they are seeking alternatives to the
U. S. dollar as a medium of exchange. They have noted that
we are running a $2 trillion deficit this year, and will keep
printing money to finance it, along with our hugely expen-
sive military activities around the world (750 bases).

If the nations now seeking to do so can successfully re-
place the dollar in their economic futures, the dumping of
the dollar will have cataclysmic effects on our own economy
and on those of may others. Chris Hedges (Truthdig 6/14/
09) writes of this possibility: "The dollar will dramatically
plummet in value. The cost of imports, including oil will sky-
rocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at
a rate that will make the last few months look like a boom."

Chris' article in Truthdig, incidentally is titled: "The
American Empire is Bankrupt." And of course it will be if
the dollar is replaced as it should be. It turns out that
Washington (surprise!) is a whore house. Everything of
lasting value is for sale. Come to think of it, the "profit is
everything" mentality is whore house thinking too.

About the concept of "profit," Peter Drucker wrote this:
"There is no such thing as 'profit.' There are only costs:
costs of the past (which the accountant records) and costs
of an uncertain future. And the minimum financial return
from the operations of the past that is adequate to the
costs of the future is the cost of capital."

Yes, the costs of our future include the costs of a wasted
environment, a wasted infrastructure, the mounting costs
of wars still on-going, the clean-up of toxic wastes and
mining refuse, and on and on: all left for the taxpayers to
cover from their diminishing returns after the owning
class have taken their precious "profits," and run.

Jgoodwin004@centurytel.net