This is a book intended to help the average voter sort out the constant stream of misinformation and rhetoric emanating from political candidates, media, talking heads, and talk shows in order that they can formulate their own strategies about what's best for our country and intelligently exercise their most precious asset to support those who agree with their position, their vote. What is suggested here is nonpolitical in terms of party or ideology and does not argue whether any economic theory offers the correct solution. It is concerned with the economic condition of the country and what political policies best impact the economy, but does not support any party or radical group and the ideologies they promote to accomplish their solutions. Although a long-term member of the Republican Party, I claim no current party affiliation. This book offers methods of determining how political entities use tools designed to mask their true intent and gain the voters support. This is accomplished by identifying tactics used by parties, talking heads, and politicians to achieve their ends and by giving some basic economic training and review techniques to assist the voter in finding the factual information necessary to rebut the constant flow of rhetoric and fallacy with which they, the voter, are constantly bombarded. Conversations with friends, family, and business colleagues have convinced me that because we are continuously subjected to this rhetorical bombardment by all these groups, we are confused. This confusion was clearly demonstrated by the November 2010 elections where, as a nation, we voted for individuals running on policies that will most likely make our major problems of GDP growth, unemployment, and deficit spending much worse. The worst part is the Tea Party and others told us they were going to cut social benefit programs but wrapped it up in a rhetorical blanket of fear: "We're going bankrupt, but we'll s

POLITICAL ECONOMICS UNDERSTOOD

A Voter Understanding of Lies and Tricks of PoliticiansBy Thomas E. Bird

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2012 Thomas E. Bird. A.B.; MBA
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-2302-7

Contents

Preface.........................................................................viiChapter 1—Overview and Purpose............................................1Chapter 2—Obfuscation.....................................................6Chapter 3—The Political Economy...........................................20Chapter 4—Control.........................................................35Chapter 5—The Major Problem...............................................44Chapter 6—Budgets, Spending and the National Debt.........................52Chapter 7—Dealing With Ideology and Political Parties.....................68Chapter 8—Who Are We?.....................................................77Chapter 9—What are "They" really Saying?..................................86Chapter 10—The Purpose of Political Parties...............................94Chapter 11—Some Ideas on Candidates.......................................100Chapter 12—So Where Are We Now?...........................................108Chapter 13—What Do We Change?.............................................115Chapter 14—The Process of Change..........................................122Chapter 15—Into Action....................................................132

Chapter One

Overview and Purpose

My father and mother were typical hard working "blue collar" people marrying in 1926 and raising a family during the Great Depression. Although limited in schooling they had a deep appreciation for education and instilled it in their three children. My older sister, Betty, completed a college nursing program and became a Registered Nurse; I was the first university graduate in the family with both a BA and MBA followed by my younger brother, John, who completed the same basic education and earned similar degrees. All of us worked our way through college. As a result of my own experience I believe the tools to make sense out of our current problems are within the reach of all of us if we understand where these tools are located and how to use them.

My roots are working class and I know and understand the working family economics; the dedication to improving the lives of our children; and our tremendous patriotism and loyalty to our country. I have also worked as a senior manager in three Fortune 200 companies, as a CEO to two smaller firms and management consultant to over one thousand large and small businesses. I am fully conversant with business and economics and convinced the average working family is fully capable of making sound decisions given the truth. What we are experiencing today is deliberate obfuscation and distortion of that truth by individuals and parties with their own agendas and those agendas are not what is best for the United States.

What I am offering is a methodology to get past the misinformation to the truth supported by facts and history and will demonstrate some simple methods to show you how to separate the policies of left and right, find the solutions that will benefit our country and help us strengthen it. Only by doing this will we be able to pass this country of ours on to future generations as the land of opportunity and freedom for them as it has been for us.

I want to make clear at the outset I embrace no political party; I am concerned with the rhetorical "talking points" the leaders of all the parties consistently pound at us as the "right" course for our country even though these "talking points" are often nothing more than expressions of illogical thinking, prejudiced rhetoric, dishonest representation of the facts and attempts to re-write history to support their positions.

For more than forty years I was member of the Republican Party dutifully voting for most Republican candidates from Eisenhower in 1956 to Bush in 2000. I resigned from the party in 2001 when I saw what Bush was doing and the Party's absurd shift to the right that he was advocating. When I looked at the Democrats response to what was occurring I saw they were no different, except their shift was to the liberal left. Each group in its own way causes as many problems as it fixes and because each party has its own agenda that supersedes the peoples' business, we thus pay extra to conduct the people's business when it is conducted at all. The only reason congress was organized in the first place was to do the peoples' business and now, more often than not, what is done is either counter to the best interests of the people or nothing gets done at all. As a result we ordinary citizens pay a huge price because each Republican, Democratic or Libertarian political agenda has a large price tag for us as a nation. Alas, we must now, in 2012, buy into a long-term government created political-economic program to get out of this mess, or the hole if you prefer, in which we currently find ourselves. The congress and the last administration created most of it and now they offer the same old programs that got us in this mess as the vehicle to get us on the road to recovery and prosperity. If we choose programs and representatives incorrectly the hole will become so deep we will never be able to dig our way out. The price for that failure will be to lose the nation we love and end up with exactly what our founders tried to avoid.

The goal of these parties is political and economic control of our country in order to re-shape it into their respective versions of utopia, ignoring the fact that the world at large has already judged our country as the world's the most admired nation. If we listen carefully to the messages of the parties' leaders, interpreted by reference to unbiased facts, the liberal left version means more social programs like a National Healthcare plan; tough regulation of business; rebuilding America's infrastructure; green energy and tax reform aimed at redistributing wealth back to the middle class with elevation of the lower class poor through education and job training. The goal is more rapid growth and improved jobs for all economic groups; in other words to build a larger, stronger middle class and improve upward class mobility. The probable price is larger government, higher taxes on the rich and deficit spending for the next decade at least.

If we analyze the messages coming from the right wing conservatives they tell us they want much the opposite: low taxes for the wealthy to continue the shift of national wealth to the super rich, assuming it will "trickledown" and restart the economy and not simply increase business's and the super-rich's economic and political control. Additional goals are reduction of government through outsourcing and reduction of government services; outsourcing and reduction of Social Security and Medicare—so called "privatization"; and privatization of education and elimination of controls on business. The probable outcome of such policies will eventually result in a two class economy of rich and poor with few in the middle according to most economists. We may pay lower taxes but give up social programs and have slower growth as a result. Given the recent Supreme Court decisions the political/corporate complex will have all the money it needs to control federal elections not only of the President of the United States and Congress but of State Governors and State Legislatures as well. Elimination of class...