The corporate media and politicians claim the US economy is in a “slow but steady recovery,” but the average person knows better. And the people are rightly asking, “Where’s our bailout?”
Wages and benefits continue to fall, the price of gasoline, health care and everything else continues to rise, and jobs are scarce.
By one estimate, the actual unemployment rate is about 23 percent, meaning some 35 million people are unemployed or underemployed. Only about 180,000 new jobs are being created each month, far below what is needed. Millions who are working can’t make enough to live on.
We are well in to a 40-year process of computers and robots replacing labor in the workplace. The combination of job-eliminating technology and globalization of production is permanently wiping out jobs and driving down wages for those still employed. The result is fewer and fewer customers for business—the market is being wiped out.
In addition, the US is heavily tied to Europe economically, and as Europe’s economy falls, it will drag the US down further. Far from being in a “slow recovery,” we are on the road to economic disaster. The current stock market bubble in the US is only more evidence of the catastrophe that is coming when the bubble bursts.
The capitalist politicians say we need “austerity”—cuts in government programs that feed, house and provide health care and other services to people—in order to get out of the crisis. But this will just pull more money out of people’s pockets and make the economy worse.
Austerity will guarantee that the economy slides into depression. Yet austerity isn’t just a choice that the capitalists are making; profits are falling as the markets dry up, and from the capitalists’ view, they need austerity to guarantee their profits. The money that is saved by cutting public spending will be funneled into the pockets of the wealthy and the corporations.
The people will fight, and fascism will be used to contain them. The drive toward a major war will accelerate as countries clash over potential markets in Asia and Africa. And of course, war itself provides a market, through destroying things and creating demand for weapons and other goods. War is the most profitable industry there is — the slaughter of human beings is much more profitable than the slaughter of cattle.
Right now, the people’s demand is that the government bail out the people, not the corporations and the wealthy. This is the only way to stabilize the economy in the short run. We must maintain public spending to provide for people’s needs and spend public money to directly create jobs. The money can be found by taxing the rich and cutting military spending. Austerity must be rejected.
There is no future for the people under capitalism. Labor-replacing technology is not compatible with capitalism—the elimination of jobs only fuels poverty, war and fascism. In the end, the people are fighting for a new society, where the people own society’s tools for producing the necessities of life, so that we can guarantee peace and prosperity for all of us
