Back Talk

On a roll, this person said, “inequality is pounded into the system by the corporate crowd,” and “Americans are without the clout of strong unions and are arrayed against the mighty power of the corporations,” and “Americans have exhausted their power to tread water.” He really likes this water treading metaphor. Not finished, he said, “the American mythical dream is on life support, and there are dark clouds of possible recession,” and “workers are filled with anxiety about the economy,” and “American workers are looking with dread toward 2008.” I know what you are thinking; the writer must have been a Socialist/Communist hater of capitalism. No, the writer was not Karl Marx, not Vladimir Lenin, not Leon Trotsky, not Nikita Khrushchev, not Hugo Chavez, and not even a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Our very own leftist New York Times writer, Bob Herbert made these remarks to describe our very good six year economic boom in spite of the war and the home mortgage problems. He said earnings of men in their thirties have remained flat for four decades which is, of course, a flat out, bare faced lie. He thinks it’s bad for the top earners to increase their earnings because, like all socialists and economics-challenged journalists, he thinks it’s a zero sum game where one person’s gain is another’s loss. Either he has no clue or is not willing to accept that the high-end earners invest, produce capital investment, and hire workers. Herbert gleefully reported that 80% of Americans think our economy is in trouble, a laughably ironic statement since he and his ilk are largely responsible for that negative attitude. It is nothing short of amazing that our economy is so healthy given the constant negative slant that our mainstream media pushes upon us.