The Girls' Guide To The Economy

Now that the U.S. House of Representatives has caved in and bailed out by signing off on the $700 and then some Wall Street bucket list, the economy is fixed, right? Apparently not, according to this headline that appeared the day after the ‘emergency’ legislation was signed, “It’s wait and see after Bush signs $700 billion rescue bill”. Translation: We threw a bunch of water on the fire and maybe it will go out, or not, in which case we got nothing but we had to do something. Which amounts to an economic policy that is about as nuanced as as playing poker in Vegas. Come to think about it, these days that might be a better bet.

As the Last Super-esqe photo ops make clear, the bailout plan was, with token exception the brain (if one could call it that) child of the usual elderly male white suspects. How unfortunate that women like Naomi Klein were not included in that conversation. While I confess that I have not read The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Klein’s dauntingly thick treatise on the economy, even I could understand her explanation of the economic crisis during a recent interview on The Colbert Report:

That last bit of the Klein interview about prison labor might be characterized as over the top left wing paranoia. Would that it were. As we recently pointed out on this blog,

(A) U.S. Army Brigade will now be stationed in the U.S. According to Army Times,

“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”

The notion of civil unrest at a level that could not be controlled by current law enforcement is unthinkable, yet as Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman points out,

“Talk of trouble on U.S. streets is omnipresent now, with the juxtaposition of Wall Street and Main Street. The financial crisis we face remains obscure to most people; titans of business and government officials assure us that the financial system is “on the brink,” that a massive bailout is necessary, immediately, to prevent a disaster. Conservative and progressive members of Congress, at the insistence of constituents, blocked the initial plan. If the economy does collapse, if people can’t go down to the bank to withdraw their savings, or get cash from an ATM, there may be serious “civil unrest,” and the “sea-smurfs” (the Army brigade’s nickname based on the initials of its name) may be called upon sooner than we imagine to assist with “crowd control.”

A dangerous scenario indeed, particularly while the current national economic wisdom seems hell bent on the equivalent of sticking chewing gum in the structurally unsound levees while the waters continue to rise, with both McCain and Obama voting for the bailout while muttering about change. One wonders how the discourse would change if Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney was allowed equal coverage of her platform. In a statement on the economy, McKinney writes,

“Too many times politicians have told us to support the “free market.” The unfolding news informs us in a most costly manner that free markets don’t work. This is a financial system of their making. It’s now past time for the people to have an economic system of their own. A reading of the full text on the Congressional “Agreement on Principles” for the proposed $700 billion bailout reveals the sham that this so-called agreement truly is. Today our country faces an economic 9/11. The problem that is unfolding is truly systemic and no stop-gap measures that maintain the current bankrupt structure will be sufficient to resolve this crisis of the U.S. economic engine.”

She then offers the following proposals for dealing with the economic crisis:

1. Enactment of a foreclosure moratorium now before the next phase of ARM (adjustable rate mortgages) interest rate increases take effect;

2. elimination of all ARM mortgages and their renegotiation into 30- or 40-year loans;

3. establishment of new mortgage lending practices to end predatory and discriminatory practices;

4. establishment of criteria and construction goals for affordable housing;

5. redefinition of credit and regulation of the credit industry so that discriminatory practices are completely eliminated;

6. full funding for initiatives that eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in home ownership;

7. recognition of shelter as a right according to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to which the U.S. is a signatory so that no one sleeps on U.S. streets;

8. full funding of a fund designed to cushion the job loss and provide for retraining of those at the bottom of the income scale as the economy transitions; 9. close all tax loopholes and repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of income earners; and

10. fairly tax corporations, denying federal subsidies to those who relocate jobs overseas repeal NAFTA.

11. Appointment of former Comptroller General David Walker to fully audit all recipients of taxpayer cash infusions, including JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG, and to monitor their trading activities into the future;

12. elimination of all derivatives trading;

13. nationalization of the Federal Reserve and the establishment of a federally-owned, public banking system that makes credit available for small businesses, homeowners, manufacturing operations, renewable energy and infrastructure investments; and

14. criminal prosecution of any activities that violated the law, including conflicts of interest that led to the current crisis.

It is notable that after the bailout package was passed by the House, the market continued to fall and reports of the negative impact on credit markets are mounting. Not, to say the least, encouraging after agreeing to spend all that money that we don’t have in the first place. We cannot afford to ignore the warnings from Klein and Goodman and we cannot continue to ignore alternative solutions such as the ones that McKinney offers.

While the subject of the American economy is quite a bit off-topic for the Feminist Peace Network, given the massive reverberations this crisis is having and will have throughout the world and that we have no doubt that women and children will feel the brunt of the current misguided policy as funding for schools, healthcare and food relief are further shortchanged, we feel it is critical that the voices of these wise women be heard and we will continue to blog on this topic to the extent that we can further awareness of these very important voices.