{"id":38834,"date":"2011-08-26T10:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-08-26T15:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media.lclark.edu\/content\/hart-landsberg\/2011\/08\/21\/the-economics-of-politics\/"},"modified":"2012-02-20T16:13:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T21:13:57","slug":"the-economics-of-politics-why-both-sides-are-on-the-side-of-big-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/08\/26\/the-economics-of-politics-why-both-sides-are-on-the-side-of-big-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The Economics of Politics: Why Both Sides are on the Side of Big Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The mainstream media works\u00a0hard to convince us that Republicans and Democrats are locked in heated battle, with each side advocating dramatically different economic policies.\u00a0 Although\u00a0there are differences between the two sides, members of both parties generally share common ground in opposing any fundamental changes to the workings of our economy.<\/p>\n

A recent International Monetary Fund\u00a0report on the U.S. economy<\/a> sheds light on why this is so.\u00a0 The report includes the following four color-coded charts which compare economic recoveries (including our current one) according to various criteria (each recovery is along the left;\u00a0criteria of recovery are along the top; red = weakest recoveries,\u00a0green = strongest recoveries).<\/p>\n

\"imf-us.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see from the\u00a0red boxes in the first chart (the one titled \u201cReal GDP and components\u201d), our last two\u00a0recoveries have been quite weak compared with previous recoveries\u00a0in terms of growth in GDP, personal consumption, and investment in nonresidential structures.\u00a0 This indicates a growing problem with\u00a0our economic fundamentals.<\/p>\n

The red boxes in the second chart\u00a0(\u201dHouseholds and employment\u201d) indicate that our last two recoveries have also not been kind to working people as measured by the growth in nonfarm payrolls, unemployment, and disposable income.<\/p>\n

However, things look quite different in\u00a0the last two charts.\u00a0The green boxes in the third chart (\u201dBusiness sector\u201d) make clear that the last two expansions have\u00a0generally been good for nonfinancial corporations.\u00a0 And the dark green boxes in the fourth chart (\u201dFinancial\u201d) highlight the enormous gains made by\u00a0financial corporations in the last two expansions, and especially the current one.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0take-away from these charts is that\u00a0business leaders\u00a0experience our recent recoveries very differently than do the great majority of people.\u00a0 Despite the fact that growing numbers of workers\u00a0find it\u00a0hard to distinguish our expansions from our recessions, business profits keep climbing.\u00a0\u00a0And that is what matters to business.\u00a0Not surprisingly, then, our corporate leaders are\u00a0lobbying our political leaders hard not to change\u00a0existing economic arrangements.\u00a0 If some austerity is needed to maintain stability\u2013so be it.\u00a0 And, this lobbying has proven successful.<\/p>\n

The connection between deteriorating economic and social conditions and high corporate profitability deserves careful study as does the question of whether this is a stable relationship. Regardless, these charts provide important insight into our national policy-making nexus.\u00a0 As long as our large corporations are prospering we should not expect our political process to produce meaningful change.\u00a0 The problem isnt a lack of good ideas for how to strengthen our economy and generate jobs, it is the\u00a0lack of\u00a0interest\u00a0on the part of our elected leaders — on both sides of the aisle —\u00a0to seriously consider them.\u00a0 It appears that meaningful economic change will have to await either a further\u00a0unraveling of our economic and social infrastructure or the rise of a powerful social movement with a new economic vision<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mainstream media works\u00a0hard to convince us that Republicans and Democrats are locked in heated battle, with each side advocating dramatically different economic policies.\u00a0 Although\u00a0there are differences between the two sides, members of both parties generally share common ground in opposing any fundamental changes to the workings of our economy.
\nA recent International Monetary Fund\u00a0report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1853,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,36,12498,85],"class_list":["post-38834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-economics","tag-economics-great-recession","tag-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38834"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45107,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38834\/revisions\/45107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}