COLUMN: 10-03-2007

The economic policies of the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration are turning America into a third world country. This is an absolute crisis that is happening before our eyes without a mention by anyone in the media or public office. The Bush Administration has been touting the economic growth of the past few years, but they fail to mention that the growth has only happened in the corporate sector and the absolute highest economic class. Everyone else from the upper middle class on down has had no positive income growth in nearly 15 years. In fact, many of them have actually experienced income degradation during this period. The middle class has actually shrunk with many people moving downwards to the lower classes after being unable to find comparable work when their labor sector has shifted to cheaper overseas offerings. One of the biggest indicators of a third world country is when the population is comprised of a tiny elite holding the vast majority of the wealth and the remaining population is kept in the absolute lowest economic conditions. We are headed in this direction as the middle class, which is the foundation of the true democratic process, continues to shrivel to nothing. Another indicator is that the number of uninsured Americans has grown tremendously as many Americans have moved from jobs offering health care to those that do not.

Unrestricted free trade is the major culprit here. Free trade is a good thing, but not when it happens with countries that have no human or worker rights or political freedom that allows for growth. The best two examples are India and China. India is the world's largest democracy and trading with that country has led to the development of a robust and growing middle class, which in turn has helped to reduce government corruption and increase democratic freedom. The result is an approaching equalization of income and rights as India grows to be on par with the world's large industrial democratic nations. The contrast is China's growing economy, which has no true worker or civil rights and wage growth for the bottom sectors of the economy has been kept artificially low, resulting in continual cheapening of world labor as they compete with what is essentially slave labor. This is also one of the causes of the recent massive recalls of so many different products (toys, toothpaste, pet food, etc) from China as they have proven to care little about developing the institutions necessary for democratic development while they have focused on maintaining their dictatorial regime while pushing for economic growth.

We need an absolute turnaround to save America's democratic freedom from the obscene greed of those in power who are destroying our fundamental societal structures in exchange for unrestricted income growth. We must not elect a president in 2008 who will continue to destructive policies of the past two administrations.