Today Americans are doing everything they can to cut their spending and to save more. Considering the uncertainty of the times, no one can blame them. As a general rule, however, consumer spending accounts for approximately 70% of U.S. economic activity. So this reaction causes great concern from the macroeconomic overview. Yet why should ordinary Americans assume the brunt of the current economic collapse that in essence was caused by the banking and financial institutions? The US taxpayers have already taken on a 700 billion dollar government obligation. This condition is fundamentally different than the period following the 9/11 disasters. At that time as we faced a national shock followed by a potential major recession, George Bush cheerily exhorted the public to “just go shopping.” Now we face a liquidity trap that, according to Wikipedia, means “a situation in monetary economics in which a country's nominal interest rate has been lowered nearly or equal to zero to avoid a recession, but the liquidity in the market created by these low interest rates does not stimulate the economy.” In our monetary system, this means the Federal Reserve can stimulate the economy only by creating and injecting liquidity into the economy through banks as intermediaries. In our current circumstance, however, banks are unwilling to lend, so “the newly created liquidity is trapped behind unwilling lenders.”

 We Americans live in perilous times, the lies we’ve been exposed to multitudinous. Yet throughout this opening to the 21^st Century, the public has shown a principled commitment to the ideals of fairness and self-enlightenment despite a series of constitutional blowups and divergences. The ability to resist overt manipulation and protest economic scams has remained strong and consistent since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. But people are starting to lose jobs, income and self-confidence.
 Recently, our in-bred skepticism and spirit of revolt has been severely tested through ongoing assaults of sophisticated public relation campaigns and consistent use of messaging techniques that convey simple and appealing claims for otherwise dubious intentions. Rather than the creation of millions of jobs, as once had been asserted, the hard reality of today’s workplace consists of the wholesale destruction of millions and millions of jobs. And the corporate welfare that results in millions of more people looking for work foreshadows the collapse of any underlying web of security or infrastructure and culminates in the ultimate breakdown of the social network.
 In the final analysis, we might ask what has caused this almost total failure in the economy? Because our system places the profit motive so highly above everything else and the competition among “pure” capitalists to be the richest person is so fierce, the market can no longer sustain the huge disparity in wealth between the top 1-5% of the population and the remaining 95-99%. It is also the excessive accumulation of capital at the top that drives particularly wealthy individuals and certain influential families to believe that, by rights, our government seats belong to them.

 We must see that gratuitous power relationships and corporate welfare benefits almost always involve political profiteering and overall economic sabotage. We must demand new politicians, who support broad social systems that are universal, innovative, open, affordable, transparent and accountable to the public.

 With deficits steadily increasing to parallel the growing rate of unemployment and yet another senate vote for a bailout that allows the banking industry to grab still more of our taxpayer money, I propose we look more closely at our social values and the root causes of this economic condition.
 Bankers appropriate substantial profits gained from the workers with little or no interest in distributing anything in return to working people as a reward for their industry. When the social benefits such as a single-payer national health plan receive absolutely no consideration in favor of serving the interests of the wealthy, we have seemingly forgotten or consented to forgo basic services that should be considered as constitutional rights.
 While almost universally true that everyone wants services, it's also true that certain people want someone else to pay.
 The rich don't need that much money and are less likely to spend it as to increase their savings. So unless the new administration reverses its tax policy to restore tax rates to the level prevailing in 2000, we are headed in exactly the wrong direction and soon that will be overwhelming.

Unless one happens to grow up in an extremely stratified country such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait where the Saudis and Kuwaitis barely do any work and everyone else is essentially a lowly worker, or a person is involved in a criminal enterprise, generally people throughout the world tend to think a great deal about jobs, income and benefits (or lack thereof). At around age twelve, I was first asked to consider what kind of career I wanted to pursue, while some, of course, just start and continue to work wherever they can make money. I never even thought much about economics until I entered college when it took on a new dimension rather quickly.
Considering economics more closely from the perspective of growing up in the United States, I began to question why some people have so much money they do not have any real economic concerns while others have almost nothing. By comparison, in today’s reality this picture has worsened as we now have an economy with a significant increase in the gap between the haves and have not. This direction is antithetical to individual freedom, truth and the interests of the American people, though as Ralph Nader has pointed out, “most citizens align themselves with the haves, so they see class warfare as coming against them.''
The Bush administration seemed to value two things only: money and power in an elitist, oligarchical system. They and many of the outrageously wealthy senators do not care what ordinary Americans feel or think. I expect them to continue lying all the way to the day of Obama’s inauguration and beyond. http://www.pubrecord.org/nationworld/601-bushs-embellishes-record-on-veterans-issues.html.Unless a dramatically fresh approach takes place in Washington, D.C., however, a new administration will not represent a notable change to fundamental economic inequality. Yet a point of deterioration surely exists in this distribution of income problem in the U.S. where the negative consequences will lead to a complete destabilization of our democratic form of government. A depression, long periods of stagnation, political upheavals, and social conflict will cost the rich far more than higher taxes with many today experiencing a diminishment of their constitutional rights.

This blog was initiated to focus on the concern of jobs and the economy during the time of the congressionally approved $750 billion bailout. Since then, it seems we have all been affected by the downturn in the economy. Senator Barbara Boxer concluded a recent email by stating: "My top priority - in fact, my only priority right now - is to stabilize the housing market, create new, good-paying jobs, and get our economy back on track. Too many Californians are suffering to accept delay."

 The numbers that have evolved from Treasury and Banking during this period of time are dizzying, especially when we know that we are being fleeced by spending trillions on bank and business bailouts while individuals are becoming bankrupt and the mega-rich in our capitalist system businesses are being rewarded. This trend of tax giveaways to Wall Street speculators, corporate executives and self-interested politicians must be reversed.

 By raising our voices, we can turn our government's direction on its head so that people's interests may be placed over the greed of those individuals taking advantage of the capitalist system. If that happened, then our labor, land, resource management and treasury would belong more to the community as a whole. This approach would seem to be the best long-term solution in order to right the wrongs that are inherent in the capitalist system.

 Many democratic countries such as France, Germany, Sweden and Japan understand the advantages of mutual governance of corporations partially owned and managed by the government. They develop economic planning to protect and promote the interests of the people, not the rich and powerful. We must make a major investment to put millions of Americans to work, rebuild our country and regain control of our rights and interests in several key areas.

I sincerely hope my recommendation would be a major part of our recovery package that collectively we are financing. A significant majority of Americans now want a government-run health insurance system such as Medicare that is controlled and regulated by the government.

Given the realities of today’s job market, a medical insurance policy available to every U.S. citizen paid for by our tax dollars should be a top priority in a meaningful economic recovery. As we have already witnessed, Henry Paulson has done everything he can to enrich the top one percent, but our country and government will certainly fall if the real needs of all citizens, the large majority of whom are working people, are not met so when they lose their jobs they will certainly suffer unjustly. In 1946, President Harry Truman pushed for national healthcare, but was unable to enact it through the system because the reactionary forces, insurance companies, Big Pharma and the super-rich who created our present financial crisis blocked this meaningful reform.

Still, we must receive basic education on health-related matters, participate in regular exercise and fitness routines, eat healthy and follow certain guidelines that have been shown to prevent disease. Yet we also need basic healthcare insurance that includes routine examinations for medical, mental health, vision and dental care, immunizations, treatments for acute injuries, prescription drugs and medical supplies. By participating in such a system where everyone is covered in their basic health needs, patients would have their choice of doctor and hospital, and it would be what many doctors now want for optimal patient care. http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php

As a country, now that we are facing huge layoffs and many more millions are losing their employer-based healthcare, the time is ripe for beginning serious work to demand and implement an effective restructuring of our healthcare system. A conversion to single-payer insurance should focus on reducing medical costs, providing treatment for all health essentials, and ensure that the government strictly regulates the program. Health insurance should not be a moneymaker, but should exist to protect citizen’s health. A government health program with federal funding also would be an excellent way to meet our goals of job creation, increasing salaries for the worker majority and provide economic stimulus. Many people today are asking Obama to include $40 billion for Medicaid in his economic stimulus package so lets join forces in this worthy goal.

This decision by Bush in effect depleted $350 billion of the $700 billion congressionally approved taxpayer bailout of the financial institutions. His Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, responded almost immediately to this executive order, however, by asserting that Congress should now release the remaining $350 billion to the leading banking and financial institutions, yet again with no oversight. Why, one might ask, weren’t the banks required to limit executive compensation? Paulson was also designated as the czar of the restructured automaker agreement, though Bush stated he “would be open to appointing a different designee in consultation with Obama.”

In the meantime, Obama maintains that his first economic priority is to “create jobs and get businesses back on their feet.” This priority relates directly to the rapidly rising problem of layoffs and unemployment as evidenced by this document from the Economic Policy Institute, www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict_20081205. California’s current unemployment rate of 8.4% may well be double considering the number of people who have now dropped out from actively even looking for work due to the marketplace being in such a mess.

In an attempt to ameliorate the economic burden placed on the taxpayer of diminishing consumer confidence, jobs, wages, healthcare and retirement benefits, President-elect Obama is proposing an economic stimulus package of up to $850 billion over the next two years (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081218/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_stimulus).

So what can we do to help realize such a taxpayer bailout? In addition to managing our own job situations as effectively as possible, I believe we must also increase our roles as citizen activists and forcefully let all of our elected representatives hear from us about the situations of average working Americans. We can make it known that we do not want Congress to release the second $350 billion now being requested by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to give to unregulated, fat-cat bankers. This money should be used an as economic stimulus to save jobs that include developing better models for automakers, creating public works projects and supporting local government with their priorities, thus relieving the taxpayers of some of their pain. We should also press for a quick withdrawal from the Iraq war and the war profiteering that costs U.S. taxpayers close to one billion dollars per day. Lastly, we can attempt to induce the Federal Reserve to restore the money to IRA and 401K accounts lost because of Wall Street and Bank greed.

Throughout this time, I have witnessed people aggressively forge ahead and seek new positions regardless of being laid off, terminated or simply looking for better opportunities. Because of no certainty of long-term employment, today people realize they have to manage their own career just as though they were managing their own business. After developing their resumes and successfully marketing their skill-sets, through a concentrated effort on their part, they usually received new offers that could also include an increase in salary or the possibility of finding more fulfilling work. If their career interests and self-motivation were generally strong, I expected as much for them.

Since most Americans understand that democracy is a form of government based on the will of the majority to determine policies best serving the common good, we should use our collective will as taxpayers to structure appropriate settlements that benefit “we the people” and protect us from the greed of the same people who created this financial crisis. We must recognize that in a free-market system, any organization can fail, and that neither capitalism nor socialism is referenced in the U.S. Constitution. Yet this financial dilemma that clearly originated because of de-regulation seems to reward the financial sphere in favor of meeting the real, often-critical needs of the middle class. Employers have cut jobs continuously throughout the 2008 year to the point that a staggering 760,000 jobs have disappeared. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081003/economy.html

In this state, fear becomes the operative word and the ongoing process of de-leveraging only intensifies the sell-off and the fear.

We are fortunate that Barack Obama, the democratic president-elect, won yesterday because from WWII on Democratic Presidents have presided over the greatest increases in Gross Domestic Product, jobs, personal disposable income, industrial production, and hourly wages. We must also motivate ourselves to find jobs and get back to work if we’re unemployed. And this effort can be accomplished by seeking out new job listings daily, posting résumés on-line and finding beneficial career advice.

Today, with the dark outlook of the U.S. financial markets affecting both our national and the world economy and possibly heading us toward a severe recession, we are facing more difficult times and employment continues to create great problems for people. Now, a worst-case scenario for the bank bailout may result in the possibility that recipient banks may hoard the 750-billion plus taxpayer-funded bank bailout or use it to buy-out other banks.

Since most Americans understand that democracy is a form of government based on the will of the majority to determine policies best serving the common good, we should use our collective will as taxpayers to structure appropriate settlements that benefit “we the people” and protect us from the greed of the same people who created this financial crisis. We must recognize that in a free-market system, any organization can fail, and that neither capitalism nor socialism is referenced in the U.S. Constitution. Yet this problem seems to have reward the financial sector in favor of meeting the needs of the middle class who were generally unaware of the credit crunch until it unfolded.

Whereas the rate of personal savings has recently increased because people are concerned about their immediate financial condition, if consumers continue to cut spending and nothing else takes the place of that spending, the recession will worsen and eventually everyone’s income will be reduced. Sound economics requires jobs and higher salaries so people can spend money and buy products.

Yet it seems the government intends to provide our money to banks, where the wealth will be shared among the privileged few, while the general public scrimps and saves and works hard to keep the machine running.

If you have a job at this time, you are possibly able to hold on a while longer, but if you are a victim of layoffs or long-term unemployment and relying on your unemployment insurance or investments, your decisions have become more difficult. In this state, fear becomes the operative word and the ongoing process of de-leveraging only intensifies the sell-off and the fear. Instead, we need to have the very rich pay their fair share of taxes, which they did not do under de-regulation, so that everyone else will face less of a tax burden.