"Going Down to Liverpool" - The Bangles
Somehow the most cheerful song about long term unemployment seems an appropriate choice for this week. I went with the cover by the Bangles rather than the original by Katrina and the Waves, because we seem to be importing complacency about joblessness as part of a new political culture. Plus, really, where else are you going to see such an aggressive use of hairspray?
I was all set to write last night and my DC neighborhood got hit with a post-storm power failure. By the time the electricity was back on, I had lost myself in bad TV, which seemed vastly preferable to thinking about what is going on at the moment.
One of the things that has kept occuring to me over the last couple of weeks -- and with particular potency on Thursday as the stock market tanked -- is the consistent uselessness of the American business community in matters of policy. Business groups like the Chamber of Commerce continuously push to elect Republicans to office despite the fact that they are committed to harmful cuts in government expenditures, cuts that will ultimately harm the Chamber's own constituency. The Wall Street community, which got its collective nose out of joint over the all too tepid criticisms levelled at it by President Obama, helped to elect Republicans so out of touch with financial reality that they allowed the prospect of a governmental default to spook the markets. All of this despite the fact that historically the economy experiences much greater job growth under Democratic administrations and that the stock market has performed far better under Democratic presidents.
Business leaders could have played a useful role in the recent debates over both the move towards austerity and the debt ceiling. It would have been extremely helpful to have arguments made for expansionary policies posited by the business community, which rightly or wrongly, continues to have a ready microphone in the mainstream media, particularly on cable television. They chose instead to sit on the sidelines and let the crazies in the Republican Party have their way. Only after the fact have they reacted to the bad policy decisions foisted on us by the extreme right, past the point where they could have any positive input in the debate.
What's pissing you off?
