Denial

It appears most of our leaders -- including most Democrats -- are in a state of denial about the problems facing our economy.

I'm afraid our "leaders" are far too insulated from the problems facing what's left of "The Middle Class", and "The New Poor" (former middle class).

The need to tap credit sources just to stay even in the face of raising costs and falling wages is being characterized as "sinful", "irresponsible", or "stupid" -- in the parlance of those still doing well, it is "loser behavior".

I find it interesting how many former "winners" have become "losers". Many of "The New Losers" are such true believers they buy into the entire concept. They don't seem capable of understanding that they are being affected by economic realities totally out of their control. They are still anti-union, anti universal health care, anti bailouts for the middle class, anti almost any government action that would benefit them. Many still demonize "the immigrants" -- esp Mexican and Central American -- with little concern over H1B Visas and just some grumbling about outsourcing.

As early as 2003, folks on H1B Visas have taken about 60,000 American jobs -- replacing scads of network engineers, etc. -- the very jobs folks were told to train for in the "new" economy.

Lack of power, lack of collective action, left these folks truly powerless. Many thought they were above the very IDEA of unionization -- and so were totally powerless against the power of our corporations.

The very idea of "the commons", "the common good", of people working together to improve life for everyone has been lost. Even the proper function of government has been corrupted (in every way possible).

For us to have a true recovery our entire population would have to be re-educated. Quite a few folks today do not even see infrastructure - public roads, bridges, etc. as a proper function of the "gubmint". They believe the lie that private enterprise is "more efficient" -- even though the experience folks have with HMO's should have proved that to be a lie. For us to have a real recovery, we need an overhaul of our values and basic premises.