Letters - Still in the Time of Economic Anxiety - NYTimes.com.
Wednesday's NYT has a series of letters, responding to four different articles published in recent days. I think they're worth sharing in their entirety. I commend to the writers of these letters the ideas of Henry George, which provide a way out of what many of us see as a dead-end street.
- joblessness
- insecurity -- financial, emotional and physical -- leading to health problems
- growing gulf between rich and poor
- trickle-down economics hasn't worked
- hedge-fund roulette
- lack of an effective safety net
- homelessness while we can afford to wage wars
- so-called conservatives mortgaging the country
- "Tax and Spend" Democrats have been upstaged by "Spend and Don't Tax" Republicans
The answer doesn't relate to tweaking the income tax brackets, though I must admit that under the current circumstances, I think we must increase the share of taxes which are coming from our highest-income compatriots, particularly the ones whose income has come from the FIRE sector who have not created much except for havoc in the lives of the rest of us. They've not created jobs; they've funneled into their own pockets the wealth of our economy. These paragraphs come from an earlier post about Joe Stiglitz's talks in Australia:
"Finance is a means to an end," he said. "The lack of balance between the financial sector and the economic sector was actually the real problem in this economic crisis (NOT the real estate bubble)."
Here are the LTE's:
To the Editor:
Re “Welcome to the Recovery,” by Timothy F. Geithner, the secretary of the Treasury (Op-Ed, Aug. 3):
Forgive me, Mr. Geithner, if I remain skeptical. Recovering? I think a very temporary remission is more accurate.
“We suffered a terrible blow, but we are coming back,” you say. No one I know went anywhere. Their savings went, their investments went, their jobs went, their homes went. And those who took them — and received obscene bonuses for doing so — are coming back for even more.
My question is, Where are we going? We, the public, the average person upon whom the health and well-being of the nation rests. The reality is that there are not enough good jobs for everyone, housing prices are still far too high, lenders are making it increasingly hard to borrow, credit card companies are still being allowed to charge exorbitant interest and no one that I know is saving; every penny goes to keep body and soul together.
Insecurity — financial, emotional and physical — is creating increasing health problems, yet crucial public services, which could at least help in the short term, are being cut to the bone.
What I have learned in the last few years is that the private sector plays fast and loose with the public welfare, and no one seems to care. The gulf between rich and poor is huge and getting wider every day.
Coming back? We’re still on the edge, and it’s still crumbling.
Susan A. McGregor
North Kingston, R.I., Aug. 3, 2010
•
To the Editor:
Re “Defining Prosperity Down,” by Paul Krugman (column, Aug. 2):
Maybe now we can finally admit that “trickle down” economics doesn’t work. We’ve had 25 years of tax cuts (cuts in income taxes, estate taxes and capital gains taxes) for the wealthiest Americans. The myth was that the wealthy would invest that money in ways that would create more jobs and prosperity for the rest of us. It’s not working, obviously.
Our return for trickling so much of our wealth upward was supposed to be good jobs and a solid income for the middle class. Instead we’ve got the wealthy playing hedge fund roulette on Wall Street, while one-sixth of American workers are unemployed or underemployed.
Trickle-down policies increased the wealth gap, but didn’t create jobs. The only time in the past decade that we’ve approached full employment was when the middle class went into debt and spent virtually 100 percent of its income or even more, as it did over the four years before 2008. That “mortgage and credit” bubble taught us that the real “jobs engine” is middle-class spending.
To get our economy running again (instead of wheezing along), we need to eliminate the Bush tax cuts, eliminate the tax break for hedge fund managers and establish a meaningful estate tax. Keep that money out of the Wall Street casino; invest instead in the middle class.
John Ranta
Hancock, N.H., Aug. 2, 2010
•
To the Editor:
Re “99 Weeks Later, Jobless Have Only Desperation” (front page, Aug. 3):
The story of Alexandra Jarrin’s odyssey from middle-class striver to unemployed and homeless graphically illustrates the terrifying underside of what’s left of the American dream.
A week after the 9/11 terror attacks, I was laid off from my position as head of public relations at a publishing house. For the next year and a half, with increasing desperation, I tried to claw my way back into a corporate life in which I had thrived for nearly 20 years.
As it turns out, I was actually one of the lucky ones. My skills were transferable to the entrepreneurial world, and I eventually started an independent public relations firm. But what I learned from that experience is just how far one can fall — and is allowed to fall — in the 21st-century United States.
There is very little safety net in this country. For those who make it, this can still be the land of opportunity. But for those who, for whatever reason, lose their grip on what we take for security — job, home, bank account — the drop is very long indeed, with no one or nothing to catch you.
Alan Winnikoff
Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., Aug. 3, 2010
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To the Editor:
In what state of callous cruelty is this country living when it can allow a sizable number of its people to live in cars or on the streets because their unemployment has run out during this long and protracted recession — all while it still manages to send expensive armaments halfway around the world?
Should we start a citizens’ emergency fund, or a clearinghouse where people can donate available housing, or a sponsorship program where you can help someone for six months, since the government does not seem to have the will to do any of this?
Forget about will, how about heart? Where is it?
Shameful, shameful, shameful.
Lynn Lauber
Bridport, Vt., Aug. 3, 2010
•
To the Editor:
Re “Four Deformations of the Apocalypse,” by David Stockman (Op-Ed, Aug. 1):
During the past 30 years in which Republicans largely dominated the White House and Congress, these so-called conservatives have mortgaged our country to the brink of bankruptcy via reckless spending, borrowing from abroad and giving tax breaks to the rich only to run up today’s obscene national debt and trigger our current deep recession.
And when President Obama increases deficits to stimulate the moribund economy — a strategy recommended by virtually all reputable economists — the irresponsible Republicans have the nerve to blame his administration for our national debt.
Will the American voters see through this charade? Given our propensity to run up personal debt to buy stuff we don’t need with money we don’t have, I fear that the answer is no. What a legacy we are leaving future generations.
James G. Goodale
Houston, Aug. 1, 2010
•
To the Editor:
To David Stockman’s perceptive analysis, one must add the basic Republican financial strategy dating back at least to Ronald Reagan: Pushing up the deficit makes it difficult or impossible for the Democrats to finance, increase or develop programs disfavored by Republicans. It’s that simple.
The Republican arguments for deficit reduction fly in the face of fact, as the Bush administration’s policies so clearly show. “Tax and spend” Democrats have been upstaged by “spend and don’t tax” Republicans. The cynicism exceeds imagination.
Doug Giebel
Big Sandy, Mont., Aug. 1, 2010
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