Is America broken? If it is, will electing more progressives fix it?
In response to David Browning’s letter to the editor, I have decided that we don’t need more elected progressives or even more conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, or any other “banner bearers.”
We need more concerned Americans who actually take the time to filter opinions and innuendos like those within Mr. Goodman’s letter and become more factually aware. I don’t personally know Mr. Goodman, and I laud him for taking the time to express his views. However, his arguments are supported by generalizations, suppositions, and zero facts. Were the problems of the world, and their solutions, only so simple as he presents them.
He recalls that the recession was the “result of runaway Wall Street hijinks” occurring on President Bush’s watch, and that the rest of the world happened to be innocent bystanders as their economies faltered in the aftermath.
Not quite that simple. True, there were Wall Street excesses in the form of dodgy collateralized securities sold as sound investments. Also true that some of the large insurance companies like AIG overstepped their ability to cover the large number of credit default swaps they had sold.
However, some of the blame can go back to the Clinton Administration when President Clinton signed into law legislation that eased some of the banking regulation. It was also President Clinton who “encouraged” Fannie Mae to buy mortgages that were previously considered subprime, loans that are often mentioned in the post recession analyses. This by itself may have not been such a monumental occurrence, but there is always more to the story.
In the U.S., many of those subprime mortgages were being written for people without the means to repay them. Housing prices were also skyrocketing, and homeowners were securing second mortgages based on those inflated home prices.
European banks were doing the same thing in Europe. Ireland and southern Spain were experiencing their own overheated housing markets, and banks were pumping money into those locations.
Although regulations were more lax after the new banking rules, regulations still existed and fell under the aegis of the Central Bank and the Basel committee, a committee of central bankers and supervisors responsible for negotiating minimum capital rules for the international banking community.
However, those regulators were watching all of this unfold but doing little or nothing about it. Then the bottom fell out following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. We then went through a lengthy period of tight credit which certainly crimped our economic growth. All in all much more complex than the frivolity or “hijinks” of Wall Street.
Obviously there is even more to the story than I have included, but this is just to illustrate that pinning a calamitous political or financial event on one person, political party, or even country is usually ludicrous.
I can also recall deregulation of the airline and telephone industries. Since those deregulations we have seen airfares plummet and flight options soar, and telecommunications have moved from the realm of stodgy to sci-fi. In the “old” days making a long distance call was virtually cost prohibitive. Now the term “long distance call” is almost arcane. So, it’s difficult to affirm that deregulation per se is a negative for the American public.
On the one hand Mr. Goodman says that he wants to see a more progressive agenda for the country, and “make it a better place for all Americans.” OK, that sounds great, but by what means?
He also suggests that Republicans/conservatives are seeking a return to yesteryear. How could he know that? I consider myself a conservative, but I have never really felt the need to revert to a former time. I enjoy what present life affords me, such as air conditioning in my home and cars, advancements in medical care, expansive transportation systems, and technological gadgetry enjoyed by all sectors of the population.
Why do we worry about the rich and ultra rich? Take Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. At the time of his death Steve Jobs was worth approximately $10 billion, and Bill Gates is worth about $78 billion. But, is that a bad thing?
Combined, those two men started companies that employ a total of 170,000 people, with annual payrolls of approximately $13-14 billion. They have also enhanced the lives of those not working for them just by producing products that we can all enjoy. Not only that, but Bill Gates has donated $28 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Criticizing the rich is easy game, but again much more complicated than it seems on the surface. Many of these uber rich earned their wealth, they didn’t inherit it. On top of that the top 1 percent of earners pay over 45 percent of the annual tax revenue. The bottom 80 percent pay 15 percent of that total revenue, and the bottom 60 percent pay just 2 percent.
Maybe we should be looking at our education system in the U.S. Why do only 75 percent of our kindergartners graduate high school? Why don’t we provide more educational facilities that train non-college-bound students to learn an employable trade? How does the rampant drug use among our citizens factor into our increased poverty stats or runaway medical care costs?
Maybe we, as a nation, should concentrate on our individual responsibilities and not be so concerned with removing the wealth from those who earned it. And, please, fewer, not more pseudo-progressives.
Bill Feldman
Fayetteville, Ga.
