September 18, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

SOUR NOTES ON THE MAESTRO

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is a Libertarian, a devotee of Ayn Rand, and a champion of the "free market." So Mr. Greenspan was on board with the economics of the Bush administration. Now that we're seeing the poison fruit from Bush's policies Greenspan is trying to disavow himself of any responsibility. What we've gotten the past six years under Bush is a dire lesson in right-wing Economics 101, which is about giving everything to the rich and leaving the rest of us to struggle. This article by William Greider is at www.commondreams.org:

The economic consequences of his rule are accumulating, and even the dullest financial reporters are stumbling on crumbs of truth about Greenspan’s legendary reign. It sowed profound and dangerous imbalances in the U.S. economy. That’s what happens when government power tips the balance in favor of capital over labor, favoring super-rich over middle class and poor, then holds it there for nearly a generation.

Things get out of whack and now the country is paying enormously. A pity reporters and politicians didn’t have the nerve to ask these questions when Greenspan was in power.

He retired only a year ago, but is already trying to revise the history - to explain away blunders that are now a financial crisis facing his successor; to rearrange the facts in exculpatory ways; to deny his right-wing ideological bias and his raw partisanship in behalf of the Bush Republicans.

SURE, THE FREE MARKET CAN POLICE ITSELF

One of the most ludicrous ideas conservatives bandy about is that the free market can police itself. You know, the market will correct itself when bad things happen. The "invisible hand" will be mending things. When he was Governor of Texas George W. Bush allowed polluters to police themselves and Texas got some of the worst air pollution in the country. Now we're witnessing more tests of free market evangelism. You wonder if the food you eat is safe. It just might have e. coli or some other deadly additive because food companies don't want to go to the expense of making it safe. The toys you buy might have lead paint or the tires on your car might separate and cause you to lose control and die. But then the free market will step in and correct things. But you'll be dead. Never mind. This article by Roy Ulrich is at www.tompaine.com:

The headlines read, "Lead Paint Found in Imported Toys." It's been easy to bash the Chinese and the toy industry for their failings. But missing in most accounts is the sorry state of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, the federal agency charged with the mission of warning consumers about potentially defective products.

The budget for the agency is a paltry $62 million this year though the industry it supposedly regulates sells $1.4 trillion annually. In the 1970's the agency had almost 1,000 employees. Now there are 420, 81 of whom are field inspectors. At the port in Long Beach, Calif., sits a single inspector whose impossible job it is to spot check incoming overseas shipments. The agency employs a single full-time toy tester at its cramped, poorly lit laboratory in Gaithersburg, Md., for the whole country. Astonishingly, by law, it can mandate safety standards only after voluntary measures have failed.

Six years ago, 100 people died in the wake of accidents caused by faulty Ford Explorer tires manufactured by Firestone/Bridgestone. Since 1980, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration —the federal agency responsible for overseeing traffic safety—has seen its budget decline by 36 percent in real terms to $392 million. During the same time frame, the NHTSA rule-making staff has shrunk from 103 people to 62.