The American Challenge: Twenty-One Winning Strategies for the 21st Century
Many of the failures of government in dealing with the economy can be traced to attempts to solve minor problems piecemeal. Since many problems of this sort arise from demands of particular groups for special government assistance or for government regulation, the resulting patchwork of ad hoc solutions and quick fixes often makes such fundamental goals as price stability and economic growth more difficult to achieve… in the [thirty years] since we served on the front lines of economic policy…The demographic time bomb means that attention to economic realities and fundamental principles is more important than ever. - George Shultz, former U.S. secretary of labor, treasury, and state. The above quote is representative of the “old” George Shultz, before he became a crazed CEO at Bechtel Corporation. The “new” George Shultz, a plutocratic neo-con of the first order, helped invent the new neo-con capitalism: Trickle Down-Gush Up. Available in May 2003, this book offers a blistering critique of the Bush administration.
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Contact:
Bob Zimmerman
One Blackfield Drive
Tiburon, CA 94920
Tel: 415-383-8481
[email][email protected]
As excerpted, in part, from Bob Zimmerman’s
The American Challenge: Twenty-One Winning Strategies for the 21st Century
Trickle Down-Gush Up: The New Neo-Con Capitalism
Many of the failures of government in dealing with the economy can be traced to attempts to solve minor problems piecemeal. Si ce many problems of this sort arise from demands of particular groups for special government assistance or for government regulation, the resulting patchwork of ad hoc solutions and quick fixes often makes such fundamental goals as price stability and economic growth more difficult to achieve… in the [thirty years] since we served on the front lines of economic policy…The demographic time bomb means that attention to economic realities and fundamental principles is more important than ever.
—George Shultz, former U.S. secretary of labor, treasury, and state.
The above quote is representative of the “old” George Shultz, before he became a crazed CEO at Bechtel Corporation. The “new” George Shultz, a plutocratic neo-con of the first order, helped invent the new neo-con capitalism: Trickle Down-Gush Up.
Under the new neo-con capitalism, first, the bombs trickle down on invented oil-rich enemies like Iraq; then the oil revenues of the conquered nation gush up to friends of the Bush administration.
Well before the bullets stopped flying in Iraq, the super-connected Bechtel, with George Shultz still sitting on its board, received a $658 million starter contract to help rebuild Iraq. The contract was concocted by the Bush administration under an obnoxious closed bidding process that has left honest capitalists (not necessarily an oxymoron) aghast. One can only stand awestruck the specificity of the $658 million Bechtel windfall. We are truly shocked and awed.
Instead of continuing along the ugly path of Reaganomics, economic theorists and policymakers must reverse course and recognize that domestic consumption and not economic globalization is the key to prosperity in America and in developing nations. Steady growth in consumption is the surest way to stimulate new investment, economic growth, and the spread of real equal opportunity and prosperity.
America’s inept economic policies have led to highly distorted flows of national income, with less and less income flowing to low and middle-income earners, whose marginal propensity to consume are high. If this trend is not reversed, our economy w ll deflate and implode.
America’s economic theorists and policymakers must come to grips with the contradictions inherent in blindly promoting economic globalization without due regard for the potentially disastrous impacts of unfettered capitalism around the world. The workers of developing nations are growing increasingly sophisticated and will not long tolerate the plundering of their economic vitality by foreign giant corporations. Whatever short-term profits do accrue to the giants, will come back to haunt us in the long-term—the so-called Japanese economic miracle is a perfect example of how narrow, nationalistic, international economic policies eventually lead to prolonged economic deterioration. Our current form of economic globalization is really n othing but economic exploitation that negatively influences American values and living standards, while causing little but havoc, suffering, and deprivation in the developing world.
Bob Zimmerman, is a peace researcher, political scientist, economist, and author of The American Challenge: Twenty-One Winning Strategies for the 21st Century (ISBN 0-932555-04-7). Available in May 2003, it offers a blistering critique of the Bush administration and concrete proposals for transforming America into a peaceable, caring nation, with liberty, social, economic, and environmental justice for all.
Contact Information: [email][email protected], [email][email protected]
Tel: 415-383-8481