Economic Bottom Line

Vice President Dick Cheney is telling us that the “economy” is in great shape: 4 million jobs created in the last 2 years, unemployment under 5%, low inflation, cheap interest rates, corporate profits on the rebound, the Dow Jones over 11,000. “It is getting pretty hard for the critics to make the case that the tax cuts weren’t good for the economy,” the VP said at a Harley-Davidson plant in Kansas City. But that assessment depends on what factors are included in the philosophical equation that is the “economy”. According to what Dick Cheney and Corporate America include on their balance sheets the “economy” is booming and so are the privileges and perks of the shareholders. But if your equation for the “economy” includes things like the well being and health of ordinary Americans, the environment, and security and peace in the world, then our “economy” is in the toilet.

Those new jobs are mostly in service, temp work, restaurants, big-box retail and other low-paying work. High-paying jobs have been disappearing in every category except corporate executives.

Unemployment numbers do not include the under employed or those who have stopped looking for work in their fields.

Much of the Dow Jones numbers are propped up by the $2 Trillion Dollars the Bush Administration has moved through corporate contractors. And that money is not accounted for in the 2006 Federal Budget and has mostly been borrowed from foreign governments such as China and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile we export war to the Middle East and threaten additional military action against countries such as Syria and Iran even as Iraq slips increasingly into civil war and the death count increases, none of which makes Americans any safer from terrorism. Yet the Administration uses terrorism as an excuse at every turn to amass more power in the hands of the President while abusing Civil Rights and the Constitution.

And the Media, being owned almost exclusively by the Corporations that are profiting by this highly myopic and exclusive method of accounting for the “economy”, have turned business journalism into the same kind of soft porn that is entertainment journalism. Only corporate values are accounted for and reported on with a large dose of hero worship for those who have made their billions. Social values and moral values, the quality of life for average Americans, is ignored.

This focus on profit and loss ignores the larger questions of right and wrong. And as a result, reports on the “economy” do not accurately describe the quality of our lives. And this trend will continue until we find a way to factor human interests and environmental interests into the corporate balance sheet.