I have to blame the continued (and growing) unemployment and economic doldrums on the current Bush administration. The climate of hostility toward individuality and the everyday person that has been engendered by the Bushies, especially Ashcroft, is keeping the entreprenurial spirit out of business.
The only winners in this environment are the big companies (and their upper management) that can afford to bring in indentured servants (H1b workers) to toil in their high tech salt mines. Even the shareholders see little of the profit from this practice, as all of the "savings" goes into executive salaries and political payola.
The average worker and/or entrepreneur is saddled with high startup costs, skittish investors, and no market. The entire cultural climate in the US has changed from one of opportunity to one of paranoia and suspicion - both of the government and IN the government.
Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing are classic examples of the attitude that the Bushies exude. It must have hurt them a lot when their darlings couldn't succeed even with massive infusions of legal hornswoggling and political favors. I'm sure we will find more, if we manage to get rid of the culture of secrecy and deception that surrounds the Bushies. They certainly have made an effort to render whisteblowing impossible.
Legislation like the Homeland Security Act has plenty of pork and favors for big businesses like Lily and Pfizer. It even grants favors to companies that have gone offshore to shirk their tax responsibilities by making them eligible for government contracts! Talk about unfair advantages, and return on payola. It also sets up the federal workers in it for harassment, hostility to unions, and draconian punishment for whistleblowers. There is virtually NO accountability, no public oversight, and it takes a butcher knife to the Freedom of Information Act! And our elected "representatives" passed the abomination with almost as little debate as the hideous "USA PATRIOT" act (which is anything but patriotic - idiotic, maybe, but not patriotic.)
The little guy has no lobby. The various small business organizations in the country are often backed (and have their agenda dictated by) big companies that are using them as shills. Those that aren't big company mouthpieces have no budget, and sure can't afford massive "campaign contributions" (read bribes) to senators and presidents in order to be heard.
One of the historical voices of the common man, a free press, has been subsumed by the corporate media. These supposedly independant publications print (or broadcast) only what their corporate masters tell them to - the Bushie party line. When the White House press secretary Fleisher says, in essence, "any publication that criticizes the administration will lose their White House press credentials" and receives only acquiescence, instead of howling outrage, the press becomes nothing more that a spoon fed, lap dog administration sock puppet. The big broadcast and print publications are just regurgitating the lies that they are told by the Bushies.
I blame Bush, Ashcroft, Fleisher, Cheney, and all of their tame lapdogs in the congress and the press for the sorry state that the economy is in. The American people know when they are being fed a line of baloney. Maybe not consciously, because they are afraid to see the truth (it isn't safe), but in their guts and in their wallets, they know. We haven't hit bottom yet.
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Posted by ljl at December 2, 2002 12:25 PM | TrackBack