Sold Down the Yellow River

The Great Recession officially began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, making the 18-month-long recession the longest since the end of World War II, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Cambridge nonprofit that declares the start and end of such downturns.

So there you have it. It’s just as the politicians, bankers, pundits and reporters have assured us. The economy is on a roll, we no longer need to worry about joblessness and home foreclosures, our home equities are rising again and the banks are lending again. That’s what the National Bureaus of Economic Research has said, so it must be an absolute certainty. You can take it to the bank.

Forget about it. The bank won’t even let you in the front door. Why not? Because bankers know that even though you may be one of the fortunate ones who still have a job, the chances are pretty good you won’t repay the loan because you’ll also be among the unemployed.

Those bankers are lying when they speak of an end to the “18-month-long recession”. They know full well that the housing slump is plunging to greater depths and that there’s no way to halt the slide. They also know that the unemployment rate isn’t declining – it’s skyrocketing – and because paychecks are becoming fewer as a result, a second disastrous Great Depression is inevitable.

And that National Bureau is lying, too. The “recession” began long before that December 2007 date. Who said so? Mr. Bernanke said so, that’s who. On June 19, 2006 he said that signs of inflation were “unwelcome” and the U.S. economy is “in a period of recession”.

That June 2006 date may be an indication of the acknowledged starting date of this economic downturn, but in truth, the table was set almost thirty years ago when Nixon and Kissinger “opened up” China. We were being told that more than a billion Chinese would become an enormous market for U.S. manufacturers. We were being told that China’s insatiable appetite for American-made goods would put us all on easy street. But we were just put out on the street – period.

Those two clowns had something else up their sleeves. They knew that with much lower wage scales China would saturate U.S. retailer’s shelves with goods priced far below what U.S. firms could charge. They also knew that a “piece of the action” would be available to those with enough clout to force those Chinese goods down the throats of greedy and unwitting U.S. shoppers. Pricing was one key. Clout was another. But greed and treason were the overriding ones.

That’s how and when the U.S. economy was sold down the river. That’s why millions of jobs have been sent overseas. That’s why millions of jobless Americans are now “on welfare”. That’s why the administration is now suggesting that billions of dollars should be directed to “infrastructure” projects – like the “make-work” WPA that was supposed to deal with unemployment during the Great Depression. That dream wasn’t the answer, though. Remember? It was FDR’s Emergency Shipbuilding Programs that created jobs and ended the Great Depression. Shipbuilding was the only possible solution then, and it’s the only possible solution now. Let’s set the table right this time.