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Our Economic Crisis Must Become the Top Political Issue in 2008

By Danny Schechter

Source: AlterNet

Monday, January 14, 2008

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Barack Obama's Iowa win has forcefully put the words "hope" and "change" on the national media agenda. His dynamic personality and uber-organized charismatic campaign galvanized attention and support even as his positions on issues seemed less clear.

The primary marathon continues with a retinue of pollsters and pundits trailing behind a diminishing number of candidates. They never lack in inane commentary or a barrel full of predictions that are rarely as accurate despite sounding so authoritative.

But there's another barrel to consider that's a lot less fun. It won't take us over the falls but, in fact, may lead us to a fall. That's the rise in the price for a barrel of oil and a set of deep economic pressures that will affect the country, the world, and every political race as unemployment goes up along with rising prices.

So far, none of the debates are focusing on solutions for the growing squeeze. It's easier to denounce immigrants or even corporations in the abstract. The business press is now debating when the recession will hit, or whether or not we are already in one. The optimism one sensed on the night Barack's last name was spelled BAM in the headlines is slowing giving way to trepidation that any new Administration will have to revive an economy that may, before November, be on the ropes.

There is a reason that American Dialect magazine chose "subprime'' as 2007's Word of the Year." Bear in mind that for the first seven months last year, the problem was downplayed, ignored, and minimized. It was only when the markets melted down in late July that the press and the pols took note. Even then, there was denial -- and in our media and political discourse, there still is among those who have yet to feel the sting.

There may be a reason for that, too, because most of the progressive world has been more engaged with the war than with issues of economic justice, so there has been little activist pressure on most politicians. Except for a speech here or a policy paper there, economic issues are not on the top of their lists. Bear in mind also that main industries still funding our political races are -- surprise, surprise -- real estate, finance and insurance.

So even as the media reports on inflation and foreclosures, they often do so as, the International Herald Tribute put it," with a "bad news is good news scenario." The paper quotes a Bear Stearns executive with comparing the current U.S. housing crisis to a recent natural disaster.

"Areas like Florida and Las Vegas are devastated," he said. "It is like Hurricane Katrina."

And, like refugees of that whirlwind of destruction, the subprime victims will simply pick up stakes and make new lives elsewhere: "People will move out to areas like Alabama and Idaho, where there are jobs and there is growth and there is not enough housing. So they will build more and that will add to economic growth."

This naive silver-lining thinking is riddled with illusions. Avinash Persaud, chairman of Capital Intelligence, an investment advisory firm in London, calls the housing bust a catastrophe. "American consumer boom was financed with real-estate debt: Americans have spent 130 percent of their income over the past five years. "They borrowed money against their property," he said.

And now as a many as 2.6 million families face foreclosure, that's going, going, gone.

Many advocates are up in arms. Jesse Jackson, now holding a Wall Street Summit in New York, is leading a national movement calling for the jailing of "subcrime" white-collar criminals. He is planning a march on the Federal Housing Administration at HUD in Washington on January 22, the day of the State of the Union address and the day after the Martin Luther King holiday. He told the Summit that Dr. King, on his birthday in 1968 -- the year he died -- was planning a new March on Washington for Economic Justice. He is demanding government action to "restructure loans, not repossess homes."

Others present, like Congressman John Conyers, plan to pressure the Justice Department for action, while Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (who appears in my film In Debt We Trust) is organizing town hall meetings. Lisa Madigan, the Attorney General of Illinois described her investigation into discriminatory and predatory lending practices by Countrywide. David Patterson, the Lieutenant Governor of New York called for an investigation into the failure of regulators and the Federal Reserve Bank.

John Taylor, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition denounced rapacious "greed" and revealed that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan is now saying that the federal government has to act with a major financial intervention.

Jackson quipped, "Why wasn't he saying that when he helped cause these problems?"

Housing is not the only crisis. Credit card balances are at a record high, along with interest rates and fees. There are growing defaults on car and student loans. This will get worse with more job losses and less access to credit.

When you read the press outside the United States, there is even more alarm. The Telegraph, a conservative newspaper in London reports:

"As the credit paralysis stretches through its fifth month, a chorus of economists has begun to warn that the world's central banks are fighting the wrong war, and perhaps risk a policy error of epochal proportions."

"The central banks are trying to dissociate financial problems from the real economy. They are pushing the world nearer and nearer to the edge of depression. We hope they will eventually be dragged kicking and screaming to do enough, but time is running out." -Bernard Connolly, global strategist at Banque AIG.

"The kind of upheaval observed in the international money markets over the past few months has never been witnessed in history," says Thomas Jordan, a Swiss central bank governor.

"Where will it end? A fresh study by Morgan Stanley warns that the big banks face a further $200 billion of defaults in commercial property. On it goes."

On it goes, true, but, its not an issue that's going on TV much here or being raised in political debates. That's why activism is needed. We need a national organizing and education effort. We need to be reminded of Dr King's phrase: "The urgency of now."

News Dissector Danny Schechter directed "In Debt We Trust" (StoptheSqueeze.org) and wrote the e-book SQUEEZED (coldtype.net). Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org.

Comment On This ZNet Article See All Comments (1)

No - Top Political Issue for 2008 Should Really Be THE WORLD’S P

By Angie, Angie at Jan 16, 2008 00:44 AM

The title of the above article and its conclusion shouldn\'t be "Our Economic Crisis Must Become the Top Political Issue in 2008", it should be "The WORLD\'S PEOPLE\'S ON-GOING Economic Crisis Must Become the Top Political Issue in 2008." If you\'re going to invoke Martin Luther King, Jr. for the suggestion that the current state of the economy of the U.S. and a possible recession should be the top political issue worthy of television coverage and inclusion in political debates, you need to enlarge the scope of your suggestion because King himself cautioned all of us not to limit ourselves to mere national concerns and also not to ignore the on-going economic condition of ALL the world\'s people. He felt the United States\' responsibility towards the world’s people was the top priority. So, regardless of whether we’re in or headed for a recession/depression right now in the U.S. and whether that may expand, huge chunks of humanity are already, and daily, and still, as they were in King’s time, dying unnecessarily and that should be the Top Political Issue of 2008, as it should have been for 2007, as it should remain to be until that is no longer the case. From the speech King gave less than a week before he died (the complete text of which is linked to below):

“First, we are challenged to develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood. . . . Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. . .

We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they are shabbily clad. I’ve seen it in Latin America; I’ve seen it in Africa; I’ve seen this poverty in Asia. . .How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes evidences of millions of people going to bed hungry at night? How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes God’s children sleeping on the sidewalks at night? In Bombay more than a million people sleep on the sidewalks every night. In Calcutta more than six hundred thousand sleep on the sidewalks every night. They have no beds to sleep in; they have no houses to go in. How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of India’s population of more than five hundred million people, some four hundred and eighty million make an annual income of less than ninety dollars a year. And most of them have never seen a doctor or a dentist.

As I noticed these things, something within me cried out, "Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?" And an answer came: "Oh no!" Because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and every other nation. . .Not only do we see poverty abroad, I would remind you that in our own nation there are about forty million people who are poverty-stricken. . .this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.

In a few weeks some of us are coming to Washington to see if the will is still alive or if it is alive in this nation. We are coming to Washington in a Poor People’s Campaign. . . We are coming to demand that the government address itself to the problem of poverty. . . yes, it will be a Poor People’s Campaign. This is the question facing America. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. America has not met its obligations and its responsibilities to the poor.

One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power.

It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, "That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me." That’s the question facing America today."

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/sermons/680331.000_Remaining_Awake.html

41 percent of humanity still shit in the streets because they have no access to sanitation, 1/4 are forced to live without electricity, 30,000 kids DIE UNNECESSARILY EACH DAY (my website will give you the proof), so a new depression or recession shouldn’t make the economic conditions a top story – the existing economic conditions of humanity are such that they should always be the top political story.

King would want every day news coverage and political debates to concern issues of life and death to the largest number of people. That would be real news, like the news presented at my website: http://www.WhatNewsShouldBe.com Unfortunately, you rarely see this real front page news – that which affects the largest number of people in the most serious life and death ways – in the U.S. mainstream media or in political debates, or even, very disappointed to say, in the left alternative news media. Unfortunately, I agree with the author of the article above when he notes that “most of the progressive world has been more engaged with the war than with issues of economic justice, so there has been little activist pressure on most politicians. Except for a speech here or a policy paper there, economic issues are not on the top of their lists.” but also note that there are no articles at the author’s website, mediachannel.org, right now which address world poverty or this real people’s news. There is only a link to purchase a film about ‘giving slum-children in India free access to computer technology’. We all need to accept King’s challenge to develop a world perspective and seek out news which has it, front page center and all the time, current recession or not. It’s not easy to find. My website is one such place. http://www.WhatNewsShouldBe.com Email me if you know of any others, at Angie@WhatNewsShouldBe.com. Thanks.