Occupy Wall Street: Neo-Liberalism has failed us

GLOBAL ECONOMICS

I am not a scholar of economics. I am, however, a recurrent recipient of bad global economic policies and one staunch opponent of neo-liberal ideologies which I think of as the greatest contradiction and blatant lies being sold to the poor peoples.

Until the insurrection of the masses in New York on September 17^th, 2011 with the now famed “Occupy Wall Street” led by Canadian activists, Adbusters, America, which has been economically robust, (so they made us to believe) has been portrayed as one of the victims of neo-liberal ideals.

America has been mortgaged to China, with Chinese debts ranging in multiple zero figures. According to the United States Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt (September 2011), the US foreign debt is $14.94 trillion with the bulk of it coming from China and Oil producing countries.

When the liberalization of the economy became a buzz word in the 90s, the US shamelessly benefitted from the stay of market protectionism and high tariffs for non-western products, most annoyingly, is the protection over Agricultural products that were restricted from accessing American domestic markets.

Because other countries opened up their markets, the allure of cheap labor exploits and good government incentives (lower taxes, state protection and other benefits) attracted a lot of American companies, most of which had benefitted enormously from the Bush era tax cuts, to developing countries. Most of these jobs left US for India, China, Vietnam and Latin America where the investors could procure cheap labour for maximization of their profits.

The problem is that, the countries where these jobs relocated were not benefitting either because the investors appropriated their profits and stashed the money away in foreign banks, in Switzerland or returned to real estate businesses back home. Americans at home lost their industrial job opportunities as jobs were being outsourced overseas or new and challenging opportunities were emmerging.

In essence, neo-liberalism has greatly altered global and regional wealth distribution. It was able to take away jobs from America, and this led to numerous foreclosures due to joblessness for home owners. Now, in America, you are either poor or not and this is because the middle class is shrinking and the super rich are making some frivolous annual profits unimaginable that they do not want to share through taxation.

The current Occupy Wall Street is a struggle I associate with as a form of social justice. Although the idea was wishy-washy initially, their message has now taken shape and proper form, in that it now represents the people’s resolution to demand for fair wealth sharing at a global scale.

The real enemy of the people are the Republicans in the US and ultra Conservative demagogues world-over. The American Republicans despise the poor and believe that the rich should not be taxed and that poor people should not be entitled to universal healthcare or education and should be taxed at any point of contact with government. They prefer to levy heavy taxes on the middle class and low income earners, and wish the destitute, homeless and vulnerable to vanish quick from the surface of the earth altogether.

Republicans believe that the rich should be given tax breaks so they can create jobs for the working class. The problem is, the profits made out of exploiting the working class is protected against any significant taxation. So when President Obama demanded that the rich be taxed more, the Republicans Paul Ryan, the chairman of budget committee and Sen. Mitch McConell, the Senate Republican leader, accused President Obama of initiating a class-war.

Diversionary as that is, Warren Buffet, a Billionaire businessman did attest to the fact that he pays peanuts and his fellow billionaires have paid peanuts in taxes in comparison to what the middle class guys pay. He even boldly asked that the taxe system be revised upward on the rich in the United States. This testimony is the bedrock of the current Occupy Wall Street that I am proudly associating myself with.

I believe that the global inequities in wealth distribution are a threat to the world’s population health. In 2012, the earth will host 7 billion people, majority live in developing countries where poverty is very prevalent. Unless the global wealth, which is accumulated in the Western Hemisphere, gets redistributed, the ecosystems will barely sustain this population. The poor will turn to exploiting the environment to eke for a living and the rich will continue to exploit the poor. The endgame is obvious - the conditions that have sustained depravity and vulnerability will thrive unabated.

Typical Republican argument would support the myth that the Earth’s ability to support a population is contingent upon those factors in society which facilitates “survival for the fittest”. This means that those who fail to adapt to the competitive world should quickly phase out to leave space for those who are better adapted.

END.