Is Amerika Running on Empty?

Back when I was exploring property theory in some detail, I discovered that American capitalism had a reputation for shooting itself in the foot by doing profit-oriented planning on a short rather long term basis and also allowing corporate management to operate in its own personal interest rather than that of either its corporations (workers to stock holders) or the public interest. The Robber Barons at the turn of the century:

http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Econ_Articles/carnegie/DeLong_Moscow_paper2.html

set Teddy Roosevelt into corrective action through the introduction of anti-trust legislation:

http://www.bartleby.com/59/14/antitrustleg.html

that is currently being virtually ignored.

I was particularly impressed by the writings of such authorities on urban and other planning such as Charles M. Haar:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/facdir.php?id=88

who proposed in contradistinction to the right wing ideologues of those days (that 'planning' was 'socialistic' or even COMMUNISM) that the U.S. had better get its house in order to avoid a number of dire consequences ranging from a runaway population to degradation of our environment and natural resources. These 'New Deal' (or universal Western European) notions that governments should:

a) regulate runaway corporations,

b) make basic provisions for things that private enterprise can or will not do, e.g. provide affordable housing, assistance to those in need, guarantee medical care to all, in addition to the traditional policing functions of government,

are precisely what are under massive attack by the current Bush administration. Bush has been quoted by one of our CUNY faculty members who had him as a student at Harvard Business where he went after he was rejected by the Law School at the University of Texas (daddy could not pull strings everywhere) as having boldly argued against all of the New Deal enhancements of modern American life. Obviously our 'Jerk' wants to return us to the 'survival of the wealthiest' standards of the late 19th century, which very nearly led up to a revolution with the eventual Wall Street disaster of the Great Depression.

Needless to say American industry has not done all that well by us since we lost our post-WW2 edge. Our short-sighted steel industry made out like a bandit for a few years by not modernizing its plants -- until Japan, Germany, Britain reconstructed theirs properly and ran ours out of business with more than competitive prices. What we have been watching this past several decades since roughly 1973 has been simply more of the same. Our corporations have been able to slide along despite their miserable, greedy leadership -- CEOs who:

a) cheat on the figures.

b) cripple their corporations with layoffs simply to muster a short-term Wall Street stock bounce.

c) build dangerous and expensive things (e.g. SUVs) that kill people and waste energy.


d) con the pols into substituting costly and wasteful institutions for efficient ones, e.g. our rail systems which moved people and things efficiently (and still do in our competitor nations with easy energy conversions into electrify) replaced by costly trucking and automobile transport, which are run on expensive-to-maintain road systems and which also pollute our environment.

But the upshot, despite the right wing propaganda, is that American free enterprise is not the most efficient in the world. It has only been the luckiest with its dominance by way of the dollar (1.3215 to the Euro today). But that luck may be about to run out. Those supporting our debt may decide to pull out and if they do, we are in big trouble -- no jobs, no money in the bank, a veritable crippled giant done in by its own greedy nonsense.

Don't say you were not warned. Out best economists (e.g. Paul Krugman):

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5168864.html

have been telling it as it is. Better listen up before you set about investing your new 401(k). Amerika IS running on empty!