Regulations Are Necessary To Save Lives And Property

The following discussion of regulations is by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner:

Thankfully, we make it through most days without something going horrifically wrong. 

We drive to the store and don’t get into an accident. 

We sleep through the night without the smoke detector sounding an alarm. 

We are out for a walk and CPR is never needed. 

Most moments of life are not a crisis or a catastrophe. But some moments are, and when crises happen, we are much safer if we are prepared. So we invest in all kinds of measures to do just that. The math can be a matter of life and death: The one time we do need protections, we better have them. Because if we don’t, by that point it will already be too late. 

Our buildings, cars, airplanes, food, roads, appliances, and almost everything we come into contact with each and every day are safer than they once were because of government regulations. 

We have far too much evidence that a marketplace free of government involvement at some level will prioritize profits over protection. There is no way of knowing how many people are alive and healthy today who would not be had it not been for regulations. 

But the government doesn’t protect us just from the physical things we use and consume; it also plays a key role in defending us against natural disasters, disease, and, yes, bank runs. The idea behind regulations is not primarily to mitigate the damage once a catastrophe is unfolding — it’s to prevent that catastrophe from occurring in the first place. 

To go back to an example from above, seatbelts and airbags will save more lives than Jaws of Life (the tools first responders use to extract victims from car crashes). 

But regulations also come with a Catch-22 — when they work, that work is often invisible. It’s the absence of action, the prevention of tragedy. How do you count those? This phenomenon can lull us into complacency. So in good times, there is an understandable instinct to roll safeguards back. Who wants to pay for umbrellas when it’s not raining?

 

The folly of this mindset is now on tragic display. We saw it in the toxic train derailment in Ohio, and we are seeing it in the run on banks. Thankfully we have the Environmental Protection Agency and federal deposit insurance to try to clean up these two particular messes. But wouldn’t it be better if the train hadn’t derailed? Or the Silicon Valley Bank had remained solvent?

It is disappointing but as predictable as the sun rising that the bankers and corporate titans who have previously railed about how “big government” stifles innovation now sound like a bunch of latter-day Karl Marxes arguing for an influx of government action to protect the world from what they helped unleash. 

To be sure, some regulations are unnecessary, misguided, or outdated, across a host of industries. We should constantly be assessing what is necessary. But “let’s hope for the best” is not the way to do it. 

We also need to understand a delicate balance between safety and utility. If we limited speed to 10 miles an hour on our highways, the roads would be a lot safer. That would be great. On the other hand, it would also take us a very long time to drive even moderate distances. How do you weigh this tradeoff? 

Finally, it’s a lot harder to evaluate risk when it is theoretical. That’s why in the aftermath of a crisis there is often a groundswell of support for the government stepping in with both the short-term and the long-term objectives. The most immediate need is to stem the damage. Then the goal should be to try to prevent that damage from ever happening again.

In most cases, the only entity that can really do that in our society is the government. And it has to be big enough and powerful enough to have the resources and jurisdiction to step in when needed. 

These current bank crises will pass, but hopefully we can take the lessons learned and stretch them a little farther, toward some meaningful action. 

Regulations can be a pain. But the pain they are meant to protect against is usually a whole lot worse. 

Most Americans Want Stricter Controls On Guns

These charts are from a survey done by the Pew Research Center between April 5th and 11th of a national sample of 5,109 adults, with a 2.1 point margin of error.

Hillary Clinton's Stand On Gun Violence

(Photo of Hillary Clinton is from her campaign website.)

From hillaryclinton.com:

“I don’t know how we keep seeing shooting after shooting, read about the people murdered because they went to Bible study or they went to the movies or they were just doing their job, and not finally say we’ve got to do something about this.” 

HILLARY, AUGUST 27, 2015

While gun ownership is part of the fabric of many law-abiding communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. About 33,000 Americans are killed by guns each year. That is unacceptable. It is a rebuke to this nation we love.

That’s why Hillary supports sensible action to address gun violence, including comprehensive background checks, cracking down on illegal gun traffickers, holding dealers and manufacturers accountable when they endanger Americans, and keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and stalkers.

Hillary has a record of advocating for commonsense approaches to reduce gun violence:

• As first lady, she co-convened a White House Summit on School Violence after the Columbine tragedy. She also strongly defended the Brady Bill, which instituted federal background checks on some gun sales.
• As senator, she co-sponsored and voted for legislation to close the gun show loophole by requiring criminal background checks on all transactions taking place at events that sell firearms.
• She voted against the dangerous immunity protections Congress provided gun dealers and manufacturers that prevent victims of gun violence from holding negligent manufacturers and dealers accountable.
• She also co-sponsored and voted for legislation to extend and reinstate the assault weapons ban.

As president, Hillary will increase the number of gun sales subject to background checks:

• Comprehensive federal background check legislation. Background checks reduce gun trafficking, reduce the lethality of domestic violence, and reduce unlawful gun transfers to dangerous individuals. It is reprehensible that bipartisan legislation supporting background checks failed in Congress after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But Hillary is not giving up—she will continue to fight for legislation to build on the Brady Bill’s success.
• Closing the “Charleston Loophole.” Hillary will push Congress to close the loophole that allows a gun sale to proceed without a completed background check if that check has not been completed within three days. This loophole allowed the alleged Charleston shooter to purchase a gun even though he had a criminal record. 
• Tightening the gun show and Internet sales loophole if Congress won’t. If Congress refuses to act, Hillary will take administrative action to require that any person attempting to sell a significant number of guns abide by the same commonsense rules that apply to gun stores—including requiring background checks on gun sales. 

To ensure that the safety of our communities is prioritized over the profits of the gun lobby, Hillary will also:

• Repeal the gun industry’s unique immunity protection. Hillary believes the gun industry must be held accountable for violence perpetrated with their guns. Hillary will lead the charge to repeal the so-called “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” a dangerous law that prevents victims of gun violence from holding negligent manufacturers and dealers accountable for violence perpetrated with their guns.
• Revoke the licenses of bad-actor dealers. Hillary believes we must do more to crack down on gun stores that flood our communities with illegal guns. As president, she will provide funding to increase inspections and aggressively enforce current law by revoking the licenses of dealers that knowingly supply straw purchasers and traffickers.

Hillary will fight to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, other violent criminals, and the severely mentally ill:

• Support legislation to stop domestic abusers from buying and possessing guns. Although federal law generally prohibits domestic abusers from purchasing or possessing guns, this protection does not apply to people in dating relationships or convicted stalkers. Hillary will fight for legislation to prohibit all of these domestic abusers and stalkers from buying guns.
• Make straw purchasing a federal crime. When an individual with a clean record buys a gun with the intention of giving it to a violent felon—only so that felon can avoid a background check—it should be a crime. Hillary will fight to make so-called “straw purchasing” a federal crime. 
• Close loopholes that let persons suffering from severe mental illness purchase and possess guns. Hillary will fight to improve existing law prohibiting persons suffering from severe mental illness from purchasing or possessing a gun. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives should finalize its rulemaking to close loopholes in our laws and clarify that people involuntarily committed to outpatient treatment, such as the Virginia Tech shooter, are prohibited from buying guns.
• Keep military-style weapons off our streets. Military-style assault weapons do not belong on our streets. They are a danger to law enforcement and to our communities. Hillary will work to keep assault weapons off our streets and supports reinstating the assault weapons ban.

Warren Responds To Wall Street Attacks On Her And CFPB

The financial moguls of Wall Street have recently funded some ads attacking Senator Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Warren helped create the CFPB to protect American consumers from the financial shenanigans of Wall Street and the giant banks. Now she is eager to defend it from efforts by Wall Street to weaken or eliminate it.

Here is her reply to those attacks, and the effort to weaken the regulations:

When is the last time someone mentioned to you that they really wished banks could load more fine print on credit cards? When did someone say they hoped Wall Street would get another chance to blow up the mortgage market? When did you hear that customers were hoping for another chance to get cheated by a payday lender?  

Never?

So why is a right-wing group spending $500,000 to attack me and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? And why right now?  

Think about this: Before the end of the year, Congress must pass two pieces of legislation, a highway bill and a government funding bill. That’s like ringing the dinner bell for the Wall Street banks. The lobbyists are swarming this place.

Two bills are moving in Washington, and the big banks see a chance to weaken the CFPB and the Dodd-Frank oversight rules. Their plan is to quietly slip the rollbacks into the legislation that must pass, like the government funding bill. That way Wall Street gets what it wants, and their friends in Congress get lots of cover when they vote for it.

That’s what those crazy, Commie dictator attack ads are all about. Wall Street knows that if they can soften up support for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Republicans – and honestly, some Democrats – will feel a little safer voting to weaken the rules that protect consumers and hold big banks accountable. Since closed-door discussions are going on right now, this is the time.

If Republicans really think it’s time to talk about financial reform, then let's not do it through shady attack ads funded by secret, unnamed corporations. Let’s put it all out on the table. And let’s have everyone in Congress – Democrats and Republicans – declare publicly where they stand.  

I say: Bring It On.

If the financial industry wants to push rollbacks, then I want to make it easier to send bankers to jail when they launder money for drug cartels, or rig foreign exchange markers, or cheat pension funds out of desperately needed money. If the financial industry wants to chip away at the CFPB and financial oversight, then I want to have a serious, on-the-record conversation about breaking up the biggest banks.

Let’s put it to the American people: Are you ready to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Dodd-Frank, to give the biggest banks in the country more chances to take more risks and leave you holding the bag? Or is it time for a little more accountability – accountability for large financial institutions that month after month are in the headlines for breaking the law?

We need to vote on a highway bill. We need to vote on a government funding bill. And if there’s anyone in Congress – Republican or Democrat – who thinks they can slip goodies for Wall Street into these bills without a fight, they are very, very wrong.

Elizabeth

Another Shooting - And Our Politicians Still Do Nothing

The media is now focused on another mass shooting -- this one in a theater in Louisiana. Two innocent women were killed and several people were wounded. This makes three politically motivated shootings in the United States in just a little over a month.

It should bring home to Americans that radical muslims are not the only terrorists we have to worry about in this country. I know that right-wingers are hard at work trying to pass this latest shooting off as the work of a madman, but even the Louisiana police are not buying that. They have come out and said the shooter was not legally insane, but knew exactly what he was doing and had it planned out. It's just a fact of life in America that right-wing white terrorists are every bit as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than muslim radicals.

I don't doubt that all three of the recent shooters had some kind of psychological problems -- but they all were acting out of hate. And all three of them got their hate from ideas being floated by others -- one from muslim radicals, and the other two from racist right-wing radicals.

Another fact is that it was far too easy for all three of these hate-filled men to get a gun. In fact, any terrorist, criminal, or otherwise dangerous person can buy any kind of firearm they want legally in the United States. In fact, at least 40% of all the guns sold in this country each year are sold without performing any kind of background check. That's just crazy. The least we could do is prevent these dangerous people from legally buying a firearm.

Now I know that some of you are going to say they'll just get a gun illegally, and that is probably true for some. But buying a gun illegally is a lot harder than people think, and the very act of doing that could land them in jail (before they use that gun to kill an innocent person). Even if we just prevent some of the killings, it will be worth it.

I'm not talking about taking guns away from honest law-abiding citizens. I may be a liberal, but I know the Second Amendment prevents that -- and guarantees the right of law-abiding citizens to own a gun (or many guns). But it does not guarantee the right of terrorists, criminals, or the dangerously mentally-ill the right to own a gun. The Supreme Court has been clear about that. Preventing these people from buying a gun is not a violation of the Second Amendment.

Most Americans know that, and they want background checks to be done on all gun sales in this country. Consider this quote from a recent Public Policy Polling survey:

Virginians are resoundingly in support of background checks on all gun purchases. . . 86% favor background checks to just 8% who are against them, including 91% support from Democrats, 84% from Republicans, and 81% from independents. In the last month we've also found 86/10 support for them in North Carolina, 85/9 support for them in Michigan, and 90/9 support for them nationally.

So why won't our politicians do what the vast majority of Americans want -- plug up the holes in our background check law? Because they think the National Rifle Association (NRA) will spend money to defeat their re-election effort if they do -- even if the NRA has to lie to do it (and accuse them of trying to outlaw guns for everyone). And they are probably right -- but considering the overwhelming support for plugging the holes in the background check law, I have to believe such an effort could be stymied. Sadly though, most politicians are more interested in easily getting re-elected than in fighting to protect the lives of innocent citizens.

And we are already starting to see these cowardly politicians moving to protect their own butts. Louisiana governor Jobby Jindal is parroting the NRA line -- that now is not the time to talk about regulating gun sales. If now is not the time, then when is the time. The truth is that they don't ever want to talk about it.

That's just sad. Our politicians have decided that American lives, even the lives of innocent children, are not as important as getting elected. They have betrayed the American people -- and undoubtably will continue to do so.

Warren Says Banks Shouldn't Gamble With Your Money

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) is still fighting to protect consumers from the avarice of the giant Wall Street banks. She wants to re-institute a form of the old Glass-Steagall Act, which would make sure that banks can't gamble on Wall Street with taxpayer money.

Here's what she had to say in her latest missive to her supporters:

Seven years ago, Wall Street’s high-risk bets brought our economy to its knees.

We’ve made progress since then. The Dodd-Frank Act was the strongest financial reform law in three generations, and it gave regulators a number of common-sense tools to prevent future crises.

But let’s get real: Dodd-Frank did not end the “too big to fail” problem – the problem posed by financial institutions that are so large that their failure would threaten the whole economy. Last summer, both the Fed and FDIC reported publicly that eleven of the big banks were still so risky that if any one of them started to fail, they would need a government bailout or they would risk taking down the American economy – again.

That’s not a statistic that should make anyone sleep well tonight.

That’s why I’ve partnered with Senators John McCain, Maria Cantwell, and Angus King to reintroduce the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act, a bill to reduce taxpayers’ risk in the financial system and decrease the likelihood of future financial crises. Sign up now to show your support.

Four years after the 1929 Wall Street crash, Congress passed the original Glass-Steagall Act to build a wall between boring, commercial banking – savings and checking accounts – and riskier investment banking.

The idea was simple: If banks want access to government-provided deposit insurance, they should be limited to boring banking. If the banks want to engage in high-risk trading, they can go for it – but they can’t get access to insured deposits and put the taxpayer on the hook for some of the risk.

The Glass-Steagall Act laid the groundwork for a half century of financial stability that helped create a robust and thriving middle class. But the commercial banks wanted higher profits and the investment banks wanted access to all that cash in checking accounts, so they starting lobbying Washington to end Glass-Steagall. Finally, in the 1980s, regulators began buckling under pressure from the banks and began poking holes in the wall between investment and commercial banking. In 1999, after 12 separate attempts, Congress repealed most of Glass-Steagall. And in 2008, "too big to fail" was born.

The bill we’re reintroducing this week will rebuild the wall between commercial banks and investment banks – with new protections to fill some of the holes punched in the original bill and to cover products that didn’t exist in 1933. It won’t end “too big to fail” all by itself, but it will reduce risk in the system and make financial institutions smaller and safer.

The big banks and their executives have recovered handsomely from the crisis they helped create, while too many other Americans are still scraping to get by.

We weren’t sent to Washington to work for the big banks. It’s time for a banking system that serves the best interests of the American people.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

(Note -- The caricature above of Senator Warren is by DonkeyHotey.)

Our Politicians Lack The Courage To Fix A National Tragedy

Even 40 years later, Americans consider Vietnam to be a tragedy. And they should. Far too many were wounded and killed in that war -- a war that never should have been fought by this country. We have even built a memorial to the brave soldiers who died in that conflict.

But Americans kill each other with guns in far larger numbers than the deaths and injuries of the Vietnam War. In the last 10 years, 750,000 Americans were wounded by guns (while 304,000 were wounded in Vietnam), and 130,000 were killed by guns (while 58,000 soldiers were killed in Vietnam) -- and that number has recently risen to about 30,000 gun deaths a year. Why is this not considered a national shame, and a tragedy worthy of action by our political representatives?

The answer of course, is that the gun manufacturers have a very effective lobbying organization -- the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA used to be an organization that promoted gun safety and reasonable regulation, but no more. Now the organization is just the propaganda arm of American gun manufacturers, and opposes any effort to reasonably regulate guns -- even efforts to keep guns from being sold to convicted criminals. They paint any responsible effort to do that as a government effort to confiscate guns from honest and responsible citizens.

That propaganda campaign isn't even remotely true, but it has been effective. The truth is that NO ONE -- not the president, not the Democrats, and not even most liberals -- want to take guns away from responsible and honest Americans (or prevent them from buying guns). What we do want is to make it as hard as possible for criminals (including convicted domestic abuser) and the dangerously mentally ill to buy a gun.

One way to do this, a way that is both constitutional and reasonable, is to close the loopholes in the background check law required of gun purchasers. About 40% of all gun sales in the United States are done without any background check at all. That is ridiculous, because it means that any criminal can legally purchase a gun anytime they want (without having to resort to the difficult and dangerous world of underground illegal gun sales). There is no legitimate excuse for allowing that.

Polls have shown that between 75% and 90% of the public would support closing the loopholes in the background check law. So why haven't our politicians acted to do what the public wants done? Because too many of them have sold out to the NRA for political donations, and too many more are afraid the NRA will spend large sums to defeat them on election day. In short, they are political cowards.

How many more massacres like that at Newtown (Connecticut) is it going to take to give our politicians some backbone? I shudder to think.

"Full Speed Back To The Late Nineteenth Century"

Libertarians and conservative Republicans (and their "think tanks") agree on one thing. They both believe in "free enterprise" -- a free and unregulated market (a capitalism with no rules). The Libertarians can't do much about it, but the conservative Republicans have been trying to force their free market utopia on this country for decades (since the Reagan administration).

And they have been fairly successful in that effort, by giving unregulated capitalism a new name -- "Trickle-Down" economics. They had a lot of Americans fooled into believing that removing regulations on corporations and financial institutions, destroying (or at least weakening) labor unions, and cutting taxes for the rich and corporations would be beneficial for all Americans.

They lied. What it really did was shrink the middle class, stagnate wages for most Americans, induce the exporting of good American jobs, increase poverty, and cause the biggest recession in this country since the Great Depression (a recession that many Americans still haven't recovered from). That doesn't matter to the Republicans -- who only care about putting more money into the pockets of their rich friends and donors. They could care less about ordinary Americans, and because of that, they still cling to their failed economic policy.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says they are sending America back to the late Nineteenth Century, and he has a point. The Republicans would love to replay that time in American history -- a time when Big Business ruled, and workers had no rights. Here is what he had to say:

My recent column about the growth of on-demand jobs like Uber making life less predictable and secure for workers unleashed a small barrage of criticism from some who contend that workers get what they’re worth in the market.

A Forbes Magazine contributor, for example, writes that jobs exist only  “when both employer and employee are happy with the deal being made.” So if the new jobs are low-paying and irregular, too bad.

Much the same argument was voiced in the late nineteenth century over alleged “freedom of contract.” Any deal between employees and workers was assumed to be fine if both sides voluntarily agreed to it. 

It was an era when many workers were “happy” to toil twelve-hour days in sweat shops for lack of any better alternative. 

It was also a time of great wealth for a few and squalor for many. And of corruption, as the lackeys of robber barons deposited sacks of cash on the desks of pliant legislators.

Finally, after decades of labor strife and political tumult, the twentieth century brought an understanding that capitalism requires minimum standards of decency and fairness – workplace safety, a minimum wage, maximum hours (and time-and-a-half for overtime), and a ban on child labor.

We also learned that capitalism needs a fair balance of power between big corporations and workers. 

We achieved that through antitrust laws that reduced the capacity of giant corporations to impose their will, and labor laws that allowed workers to organize and bargain collectively. 

By the 1950s, when 35 percent of private-sector workers belonged to a labor union, they were able to negotiate higher wages and better working conditions than employers would otherwise have been “happy” to provide.

But now we seem to be heading back to nineteenth century.

Corporations are shifting full-time work onto temps, free-lancers, and contract workers who fall outside the labor protections established decades ago.

The nation’s biggest corporations and Wall Street banks are larger and more potent than ever. 

And labor union membership has shrunk to fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers.

So it’s not surprising we’re once again hearing that workers are worth no more than what they can get in the market.

But as we should have learned a century ago, markets don’t exist in nature. They’re created by human beings. The real question is how they’re organized and for whose benefit.

In the late nineteenth century they were organized for the benefit of a few at the top. 

But by the middle of the twentieth century they were organized for the vast majority.

During the thirty years after the end of World War II, as the economy doubled in size, so did the wages of most Americans — along with improved hours and working conditions.

Yet since around 1980, even though the economy has doubled once again (the Great Recession notwithstanding), the wages most Americans have stagnated. And their benefits and working conditions have deteriorated. 

This isn’t because most Americans are worth less. In fact, worker productivity is higher than ever. 

It’s because big corporations, Wall Street, and some enormously rich individuals have gained political power to organize the market in ways that have enhanced their wealth while leaving most Americans behind.

That includes trade agreements protecting the intellectual property of large corporations and Wall Street’s financial assets, but not American jobs and wages.

Bailouts of big Wall Street banks and their executives and shareholders when they can’t pay what they owe, but not of homeowners who can’t meet their mortgage payments. 

Bankruptcy protection for big corporations, allowing them  to shed their debts, including labor contracts. But no bankruptcy protection for college graduates over-burdened with student debts.

Antitrust leniency toward a vast swathe of American industry – including Big Cable (Comcast, AT&T, Time-Warner), Big Tech (Amazon, Google), Big Pharma, the largest Wall Street banks, and giant retailers (Walmart).

But less tolerance toward labor unions — as workers trying to form unions are fired with impunity, and more states adopt so-called “right-to-work” laws that undermine unions.  

We seem to be heading full speed back to the late nineteenth century. 

So what will be the galvanizing force for change this time? 

This cartoon is by Tom Toles in The Washington Post.

Public Still Wants More Background Checks For Gun Buyers

The charts above were made with information from a recent YouGov Poll -- conducted on July 24th and 25th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, with a margin of error of 4.7 points.

Even after the tragic mass murder of twenty 6 an 7 year-olds in Connecticut, Congress has refused to do anything to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, domestic abusers, and the dangerously mentally ill. Most Republicans (and a few Democrats) bowed to pressure from the NRA, and killed a bill that would have closed the loopholes in the background checks for those wanting to buy a gun.

Currently about 40% of all the guns sold in this country are done without performing any background check on the purchaser -- at gun shows, on the internet, and through private sales. The NRA and right-wingers have tried to convince the public that such a law would be unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court has decided more than once that government has the constitutional right to ban gun purchases by criminals and other dangerous individuals.

Despite all the propaganda put forth by the NRA and other gun groups, more than three quarters of the American people still want those loopholes closed (77%). They are still convinced that such a law would save many lives. And the people go even further. They would restrict from gun purchases those who have a temporary (64%) or permanent (68%) domestic violence restraining order, even if they haven't been convicted of that domestic violence. And they want those convicted of stalking (66%), even without a conviction for a violent crime, to be banned from buying a gun. And finally, they would be happy to see the ban on domestic abuse violators extended to couple who are dating, but not married (68%).

A substantial majority of the American public is still very serious about curbing gun violence. They know that closing the loopholes in the background check law would not infringe on the right of law-abiding Americans to buy and own a gun, but would keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and save thousands of lives. It's time for our politicians to show a bit of political courage and pass this law.

Green Party Wants A Debate On Capitalism

The current "third rail" of American politics is capitalism. The Republicans want an unregulated version of capitalism, and the Democrats want some regulation of it -- but neither party will debate capitalism, or consider whether it is the primary cause of the vast economic inequality in the United States. Both parties cling to the mantra that "capitalism is good, and everything else is bad".

They do so because the capitalists, through many decades of propaganda, have convinced many Americans that capitalism and freedom are synonymous. They are not. Many western nations have thriving democracies with socialist economies. These countries know that democracy is better when their economic system is fairer to all of their citizens.

The Green Party believes we must have a debate in this country on capitalism. While not necessarily opposed to the idea of capitalism, they think a capitalist economy must be adequately regulated to be fair to all citizens -- and to prevent a vast gap in wealth and income between the rich and the rest of the country's citizens (like the huge gap that currently exists in the United States).

Here is what Green Party Shadow Cabinet member Richard Wolff had to say about this in a post released on October 22nd:

The latest theatrics over the shutdown and debt-ceiling was a reminder that the economic aim of both major US political parties is, in the end, the same: to protect and reinforce the capitalist system.

The Republican party does so chiefly by means of a systematic, unremitting demonization of the government. They blame it for whatever ails the capitalist economy. If unemployment grows, they point to government policies and actions, and attack particular politicians for what they did or did not do to stimulate the economy, directing criticism away from the employers who actually deprive workers of their jobs.

Republican solutions for capitalism's ills always involve reducing the government's demands on private capitalists – lower their taxes, deregulate their activities, and privatize government production of goods and services. Their program for the future is always: free the private capitalist system from government intervention, and you will get "prosperity" and growth.

The Democrats protect and reproduce the system by assigning to the government the task of minimizing the problems that beset capitalism. So, for example, they want the business cycles that are an inherent affliction of capitalism to be foreseen, planned for, minimized and overcome by government intervention. This is the underlying purpose of Keynesian economics and the monetary and fiscal policies it generates.

Beyond cycles, capitalism's more long-term problems, such as tendencies to produce great inequalities of income and accumulated wealth, lead Democrats to propose very modest government redistribution programs. Minimum wages, progressive tax structures, food, housing and other subsidies, and freely-distributed public services exemplify Democrats' Bandaids meant to protect capitalism from its own potentially self-destructive tendencies.

From the GOP, you will hear denials that such self-destructive tendencies even exist. Economic problems always reduce to pesky and unwarranted government tampering in the free market. The few Republicans who will admit that capitalism is responsible for its own ailments also see capitalism as a fully self-healing system. The best solution for capitalism's problems, they insist, is to let the system function and correct them. Anything else will just make matters worse.

Most Democrats will paint Republicans as slavish servants of short-sighted corporations and the few whom they make rich. These, say Democrats, threaten capitalism's survival by failing to utilize government solutions to problems that consequently become worse and increasingly dangerous, putting the whole global economy – and capitalism's reproduction – at systemic risk.

Republicans will disregard Democratic economic policy as steps toward what they call "socialism": socialism defined as government ownership and operation of what should be private enterprises.

Neither party, though, has figured out how to prevent capitalism's business cycles. Both consistently fail to make sure that cycles they failed to prevent would be shallow and short. So, today, Republicans blame the crisis since 2007 on government over-regulation and interventions in the housing and finance markets (and they blame Democrats for championing those policies). Democrats blame the crisis on too little regulation of those markets and insufficient redistribution (and – you guessed it – they blame Republicans for opposing those government policies). In short, crises, like everything else, are just opportunities to be explained and exploited politically to advance each party's characteristic policies and their electoral strategies.

In what were "normal times", US capitalism would reproduce itself with nice, calm oscillations between Republican and Democratic presidencies and congresses. For the minority of Americans who legitimately cared about which party was in or out, their interests focused on issues usually disconnected from any structural debate about the capitalist economic system. These included local and regional issues, foreign policy, social issues like sexuality, access to guns, flag-burning, draft protests, and so on. Capitalism rolled along, in part, because both parties functioned as alternative cheerleaders for it, treating it as beyond criticism.

Recent political gridlock, shutdowns, etc suggest a "new normal" has arrived. Political combat between the parties has become more intense and intractable, because capitalism has changed since the 1970s. By then, the post second world war boom in western Europe, north America and Japan – and also anxieties about the USSR, China, and their allies – had lofted real wages and government-funded social services far above their levels in capitalism's global hinterland, especially Asia, Africa and Latin America. Capitalists in western Europe, North America, and Japan were therefore eager to evade both the high wages and the taxes they faced.

Major technical breakthroughs at the time made evasion possible. The ubiquitous availability of jet travel made movement around the globe much easier, cheaper, and faster. Computer and telecommunications advances enabled enterprise headquarters to monitor, command and control production facilities anywhere on the planet. It suddenly became practical to move production and distribution sites from locations of high wages and taxes, to locations of poverty and weak government. Sharp competitors led the way as, first, manufacturing and then, service jobs were increasingly "exported" or "outsourced". Laggards suffered and so learned the importance of following their more nimble competitors.

Most Republicans and Democrats facilitated the process by endlessly promoting "free trade" and arguing that any constraints on free enterprises' relocations were unthinkable, inefficient and other synonyms for "really bad". As more and more jobs left the US, and formerly prosperous cities and states entered long-term declines, the two parties blamed their favorite targets: one another.

The idea that capitalism and capitalists were the problem was something neither Democrats or Republicans allow into their debates and talking-points. Yet, it was precisely capitalists' profit-driven, self-interested decisions to move that have caused our economic problems. And so they remain.