On May 8, 2013, Jackie Calmes and Jonathan Weisman write in The New York Times:
The nation’s unemployment rate would probably be nearly a point lower, roughly 6.5 percent, and economic growth almost two points higher this year if Washington had not cut spending and raised taxes as it has since 2011, according to private-sector and government economists.
After two years in which President Obama and Republicans in Congress have fought to a draw over their clashing approaches to job creation and budget deficits, the consensus about the result is clear: Immediate deficit reduction is a drag on full economic recovery.
Hardly a day goes by when either government analysts or the macroeconomists and financial forecasters who advise investors and businesses do not report on the latest signs of economic growth — in housing, consumer spending, business investment. And then they add that things would be better but for the fiscal policy out of Washington. Tax increases and especially spending cuts, these critics say, take money from an economy that still needs some stimulus now, and is getting it only through the expansionary monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.
The focus continues to be on redistribution through tax extraction and taxpayer debt to CREATE JOBS, rather than on self-financed capital credit to finance NEW wealth-creating productive capital asset formation and simultaneously CREATE OWNERSHIP opportunities for the vast majority of Americans who are capital-less or under-capitalized, and must rely on a job or taxpayer supported welfare to sustain their lives. Totally ignored is the reality that the non-human factor of production––productive land, structures, human-intelligent machines, super-automation, robotics, digital computerized operations, etc.––is increasingly replacing the need for human labor.
Also ignored is the impact of continued concentrated ownership of the non-human factor of production––productive capital. If we do not build broad-based ownership we are allowing economic power to be monopolized and concentrated, and therefore we are creating the corrupt society that naturally follows the concentrated power over the means of production.
See http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=7982 for a full explanation and action plan.
