Is the Economy So Great?

Trump supporters like to crow about the great economy that Trump has given us. But let’s not go quite so fast.

First of all, it is not at all clear that Trump is the one who has given us this economy. If we follow the data from Bush’s depression (2008) onward and through Obama’s planned recovery, it is clear that the economy has been recovering on a smooth track ever since Obama took office.

Second, it is not clear that we have a great economy right now in spite of the fact that certain measures try to confirm it. Unemployment figures and the stock market are the chief trumping points. But while the unemployment figures are amazingly low, another measure shows that the quality of employment is decreasing. Sure many more people are working but they are also earning less and working more jobs.

The stock market is super high but what does that really mean and whom does it benefit. I suppose it means that investment is strong, which is good, but strong investment does not necessarily mean good jobs for employees. What we have is a corporate culture that sees maximizing profits for investors and CEOs as its only true goal. That does not translate into good jobs, good working conditions, or quality products.

What Trump has done for the economy is to head toward unrestricted and unrestrained Capitalism, meaning that food safety and environments are at risk in ways they have not been in a century. He has also enabled a gross acceleration in the widening of the wealth gap. Indeed, perhaps the very best test of any economy is to examine the wealth gap. The best days in the American economy were, in my opinion, when there was a healthy middle class and, hence, a more-or-less smooth distribution of wealth. That is far from true today.

The Green Thing

The following little story was posted on the internet.

“Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment. The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days." The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." The older lady said that she was right our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day.”

“The older lady went on to explain: Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.”

“Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.”

“We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day. Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.”

“Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day. Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.”

“We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the "green thing" back then. Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.”

“But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.”

During the Second World War (1941-1945, for those that do not remember) American industrialization expanded enormously, but after the war when the production of military machines and arms was no longer needed, industries could not just shut down. Instead, productive power was turned in the direction of the homeland and the household. The 1950s saw production expanding in all directions — new automobiles, new refrigerators, new gas and electric ranges, new means of communication, new clothing fabrics, and on-and-on. Everything, more-or-less, was aimed at making life easier.

It is now 70 years later and life could not be easier, in most respects. Unfortunately, this has also come at a great cost, and no one foresaw that cost. The expansion of human presence on earth has taken a heavy toll on nature. Already by the ’60’s Rachel Carlson’s “Silent Spring” was documenting this. Meanwhile, even the oceans were being over-fished. So it is not very surprising that by the 21st Century these developments of human economies have begun to impact the earth itself.

The question is Where, along this line, could we have been smart enough to stop this? Today, the majority of Americans don’t even seem smart enough to realize that it MUST stop.

The basic problem is that we see something that we can make or do that will “make things easier.” A is considered as a solution for B. But we fail to look forward and consider that B is related to C. My favorite example of this short-sightedness is the case of leaded gasoline. Early gasoline engines were less efficient and were being beaten up by ordinary gasoline. Engineers saw a beautiful answer to this problem in the creation of leaded gasoline. Under high heat and pressure, the lead caused changes in standard gasoline that made engines run smoother and more powerfully. Great. But the lead was harming the engines. Solution. Add ethylene dichloride to the gasoline. In the explosive mixture of tetraethyl lead and ethylene dichloride, the lead was transformed to lead chloride, which is a gas at high temperatures and could exit the engine through the exhaust. Problem solved? No. Beginning in the 1940s when tetraethyl lead was introduced, the annual deposition of lead in the Arctic Icecap increased and continued to increase until lead was finally banned from gasoline engines.

This is only one example. Consider the wonderful creation of plastics. Almost anything of potential use can be made out of plastics. But we now have plastics everywhere and they do not go away easily.

I think it is wonderful that young people today are taking up the torch for environmental control and asking our leaders to seriously address climate change. But blaming it all on my generation is foolish and just too easy. It is a product of a mentality that still operates and that is as much embraced by the young as by the old.

Bread and Wine

I have been re-reading “Bread and Wine” by Ignazio Silone. I first read this in the 1960s, probably in Mudd’s senior seminar class, “Science and Man’s Goals”. Silone’s novel was first published in 1936 and it tells the story of the rise and impact of fascism in Italy. What is very upsetting is the close similarity between Italian Fascism and what is happening in America today.

The church, the banks, and the big corporations take over rule as embodied in an unlikely hero patriot. Mussolini was viewed as a great revolutionary who would “make Italy great again.” One of the first demands of fascism is absolute conformity and the abolition of criticism. Then, the heroic leader begins to explore aggressive moves around the world. All of this is in the  name of patriotism and returning to some classic era of the nation’s history. Meanwhile, both emigration and immigration are strictly controlled. Italy went to war in North Africa in 1936 and added Ethiopia to its list of colonies in Africa. Anyone who wanted to advance himself needed to show absolute support for the regime; the opposition was everywhere suppressed. Meanwhile, the peasants were driven further into poverty. The fascist hero wastes no time on liberal governments and seeks relations with the world’s totalitarian leaders.

We may not be there entirely yet, but give Trump another term and there will be no turning back, I am afraid.