Can Obama save America?

Op-ed OBAMA'S "ROAD TO HELL"

That phrase originated with Mirek Topolanek, president of the European Union, but I agree with it fully. My essay below was written a few days ago and originally titled "Replacing Toxic Capitalism" and I still believe that is what Obama should be doing.

Capitalism is a wonderful system for a developing country with a growing economy. The U.S.A. is neither developing, nor can its economy grow much more. U.S. capitalism cannot be saved and more importantly, it does not deserve to be saved, even if it could be saved.

Capitalism is incurable. It is a one-dimensional system. Its essence is only two words long: profit maximization (now sugarcoated as "enhanced shareholder value" for easier swallowing). How profit is achieved is irrelevant. Human needs, environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, blatant judicial and political corruption, massive brainwashing by mass media and advertising are necessary concomitants to hang on to the obsolete capitalist fraud. It is not widely undertood that the main product of corporations is profit, not cars, not airplanes, not weaponry, not stuff.

Two important fallacies underlie all efforts to continue capitalism (and for not much longer). One prop is artificially enhanced greed to cover for the double meaning of profit: (1) papa-mama small business profit which is wages for work by papa and mama, and (2) corporate profit which is return on investment, since the payroll was deducted in the cost-of-goods sold. The distinction is not lost on the IRS: papa/mama pay tax on sales, corporations pay taxes on "profit" which is the difference between sales and cost-of-goods and expenses. Most Americans can readily visualize the papa/mama "profit" since without it papa and mama would starve. But most Americans do not understand that a corporation could as easily continue without "profit" as with "profit." Corporate profit is all gravy, not necessity. Were it not so, non-profit corporations could not exist.

The second and much bigger fallacy is that only two systems are possible: capitalism and socialism (regularly and intentionally confused with Marxism, communism, Stalinism, etc.), and capitalism is easily the lesser evil based on the brutality of socialism with its gulags, etc. But there is a better system and it is called economic democracy. The difference is that in capitalism, decisions are supposedly made by shareholders, while under economic democracy, decision making involves stakeholders, not just shareholders. To illustrate, potential accident victims from cars designed and manufactured unsafe but profitable is the single most comprehensible example. Even when the Big Three were profitable, capitalism's one and only requirement, some 40,000 Americans (and innumerable foreigners) died in profitable but unsafe-at-any-speed car accidents. Cigarettes kill if used as intended, but the legal- and-illegitimate drug wars futz with cannabis, etc. Interestingly, columnist Harold Meyerson mentions stakeholders but only as an addition to shareholders. No good. Most shareholders are powerless, and evil decisions are made by self-perpetuating executives and directors. And they have unlimited power, because corporate voting is by proxy which is voted by fund managers who maintain that they manage funds, not the underlying corporations and mindlessly support the incumbency. That is what I was taught in graduate school of business administration in the 1960s. To shred the electric car was a GM management decision, but now they are trotting it out to get more undeserved bail-out money from the taxpayer exploited by politicians bribed by lobbies greasing the skids with re-election slush which the judges refuse to recognize as criminal bribes. As a result, American capitalism is ruled by the moneyocracy, and it has a name: the Bohemian Club, an organization of the 2500 wealthiest and most powerful men. Only they make U.S. policy, not Obama or Congress. The president is a mere mouthpiece for the bohos, and the Congress and Judiciary are political theater for concealing the bohos. Google the club at www.sonomacountyfree press.com /bohos/ bohofact.html. For more about economic democracy, go to Wikipedia, and Amazon.com lists several books on economic democracy. Incidentally, economic democracy is merely the core of direct democracy where all voters (not bohos or their politicians) decide all big issues. Verily, U.S. "representative democracy" is anything but. The current economic downturn should facilitate the transition from vulture capitalism to economic democracy. By placing all personal assets in excess of $999,999 into blind trusts, the bohos' corrupting power would vanish. Since the bohos would still own the assets, the trusts would be constitutional, just as when we rent a car, we control it, but Hertz or Avis still owns it.

Perhaps I have been too hard on Obama. After all, he is only called Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, and Leader of the Free World. In fact, he is only a messenger and the blame rests with the bohos.

40a:\capitali.wpd -- 790 words -- 3-25-09

peter28moss@yahoo.com