Our economy, that is, the economy owned by the one percent, is no longer centered on production and consumer purchases. It is no longer a part of employment. It is increasingly centered, controlled by credit creation which, in turn, is used to create profits and income in the form of interest payments until any economic surplus and stock of property becomes obligated to debt service. ( My understanding of our economy as discussed here is provided by reading Michael Hudson, a real economist).
Like the organized criminals that they are, most big banks and their lobbyists, those who are the greatest perpetrators of fraudulent activities that have led to the extraction of trillions of dollars from the ninety-nine percent, those brokers of corruption, continue to load up the economy with debt, leaving little for investment in public services. The result is the decrease in public demand which not only shrinks markets but causes unemployment to rise. Wall Street financiers pressure our legislators to vote for increasing asset surplus for banks while inflicting austerity on the middle class and poor to pay for the surplus. By squeezing market demand further, governments fall into further financial malaise and the demand is made by bank-owned lawmakers for all public sector assets (the common weal once protected by a government seemingly by and for the people) to be sold off.
This, in turn, provides banks with huge earnings on interest by financing privatization loans. Corporations and billionaires are provided loans with interest lower than is available to the rest of the 99%. And that’s why there is a corporate gold rush on such underfunded government assets like public schools. Corporate ownership is now backed by the financial sector owned by the one percent, who’s aim is to privatize the entire economy of a country, of a planet.
And the owners of our economies will never go willingly into that good night. Privatization of everything, managing everything that can be measured, promotes their ownership of everything through debt leverage. I read Chris Cirrone’s recent post on this site with concern. He’s right. Since we know who’s behind high-stakes testing, that they even have the support of the very governments they wish to control wholesale, opting out of high-stakes testing is a first and important step toward a change in ownership of our country as well as providing an enriched education for the common weal, for public schools.
Education is but one credit-derived profit center for the rentier class. But it is one of the largest within the pubic good. As Cirrone correctly remarks, waiting for the testing madness to end incurs great harm to our children. Opting out of unnecessary testing is a huge first step.
What’s the next step? Lending no aid to the enemy? Teachers refusing to participate in corporate controlled education? Does ‘not going down without a fight’ while working within corporate Common Core extend the time it will take to regain control of our public schools; to live without enriching opportunities within our schools; to live beyond all things measured? As daily reports on who did what to whom continue for the uninitiated, the time for the conversation regarding next steps must continue also. And widen in scope and vision.
The enemy is greater than corporations seeking profits. It is the debt leveraging of our country by an ownership class that is the real enemy. A class that now has complete power to extract rents without limit and with impunity. There is no Fiscal Cliff. There is only the manipulation of wealth by the owners of our economy. The one percent hold everything hostage through indebtedness. The next steps educators and parents take will be a forceful part of a popular majority of Grand Dissension yet to come.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2012/11/25/do-you-live-in-a-death-spiral-state/ This is the enemy… they are redefining doctors, teachers, firemen, police, respite care workers, (anyone who is not motivated by the pursuit of money for its own sake) as “takers”.
If you TAKE tax money, according to this article, you are a “taker”; nevermind that society cannot function well without you.
This is like the myth of “job creators”. We must change the vocabulary BEFORE it takes hold. Remember how “liberal” was turned into an insult in the 1980s?
I have not read the report you did, but is it safe to assume that the large banks and corporations that engage in these debt creation strategies are NOT “American” corporations, but entities owned by international investors, and boards of directors, whose loyalty is to their own needs, and not to what is good for any specific country?
Americans seem to be scared of being controlled by the UN, but don’t worry about owing the shirt on their backs, and the school on the corner to international conglomerates whose mission is the make a profit by hook or by crook.
Debt leveraging is the essence of banking in America. Of course this is international in scope (e.g., Greece), but not limited to ” … international investors, and board of directors … ” And American banking is clearly a leader in international banking. Those “conglomerates” include American ownership as well as foreign, and reside globally. Most people don’t know what the hell the UN is all about. They might have an inkling that the ultra-wealthy banking class has been trying to do away with the UN for some time.