I. The State of Our Depression

Welcome to the State of Our Depression. Since you can not have an economic towering inferno without statistics, here are some numbers. According to the layoff tracker at Forbes , the nation’s Fortune 500 companies have laid off 684,531 since Nov. 1, 2008.

http://www.forbes.com/...

Funny choice for a starting date. It would seem that the good folks at Forbes intend to pin Our Depression on Obama, who is so all powerful that he began to shape U.S. economic policy two full months before he was sworn into office.

They are not alone. In this video, conservative talking points du jour chef, George Will proclaims that the current economic crisis was manufactured by the Obama administration which is guilty of overspending.

http://mediamatters.org/...

I guess Will missed this speech by former President George W. Bush from 2008. See if you can spot the key word, repeated 7 times in the first minute.

http://www.youtube.com/...

That’s right. Crisis. Way before Obama moved into the White House and started handing out nickels and dimes to the unemployed, Bush announced to the world that we were in a crisis And then he handed over hundreds of billions to the banksters, all in the name of averting the crisis . But nothing was averted, except maybe universal health care which we can no longer afford, because of our huge deficit. Just how much debt did W. buy us? According to MSN Money, $11.5 trillion . Almost half of that was money spent to prop up the banksters. The whole Afghanistan/Iraq quagmire only cost half as much. Tax cuts for the rich, which are the least effective way of stimulating the economy (even defense spending is better) racked up $2 trillion in additional debt.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...

Anyone who studies Bush era economic policy can see that there were two plans. One was to pump a lot of cash quickly into the pocketbooks of Bush buddies, like Ken Lay and Jack Abramoff. The second was to bankrupt the American taxpayer, following the template laid down by Grover Norquist way back in 2001 (yes, we were warned).

"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

http://www.thenation.com/...

Norquist uses a different dictionary than the rest of us. For him "cut government in half" does not mean cut government in half. It means increase government debt, as with the multitrillion dollar Bush tax cuts and free pork giveaway. The part about drowning the government in a bathtub means just what it says---

II. The State of Our Depression, Part 2

But I digress. Today, I am writing about Depression , which has two very different meanings that are related in a very real way.

Research has long shown that home ownership correlates strongly with good health — home owners generally have higher incomes, health insurance coverage rates and lower rates of depression. But — none too surprisingly — when homes go into foreclosure, homeowners’ mental and physical health suffers, according to new research. More than a third of people going through foreclosure met screening criteria for "major depression," according to a study from Craig Evan Pollack and Julia Lynch of the University of Pennsylvania. Their research also found that foreclosed-upon people were significantly more likely to lack health insurance or avoid filling prescriptions because of cost.

http://blogs.wsj.com/...

Thirty-three percent of folks that lose their home are depressed. That is three times the national rate for the disease. And many of these people can not afford treatment.

What does it mean to be depressed? Here is a description from the American Psychological Association webpage.

Depression is more than just sadness. People with depression may experience a lack of interest and pleasure in daily activities, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or excessive sleeping, lack of energy, inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide

http://www.apa.org/...

What does this mean for our democracy? People who lack energy are unlikely to volunteer for political causes. They are less likely to write letters to the editor or to phone their Congressman. People who can not concentrate will have a more difficult time being "vigilant", as Our Founders required.

"Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty"

They may not pay much attention to what is going on in Washington. If they take an interest in current events they may let the corporate media, Fox and Co., tell them what to think.

Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh continue to suggest that President-elect Barack Obama is to blame for the decline in the stock market, referring to the state of the stock market as an "Obama recession." In fact, analysts have refuted the proposition that the market decline has anything to do with anticipation of Obama's presidency

http://mediamatters.org/...

Note the date of the above Media Matters report. 2008 . If you let Fox be vigilant for you, then you know that Obama started the recession before he ever took office.

Folks who feel "worthless" probably do not believe that they deserve health care or better schools for their kids or decent work conditions. They are more likely to be grateful for the crumbs tossed down to them from their corporate masters’ tables.

Those who feel "guilty" may nod their heads when the corporate media tells them that they are to blame for the mortgage crisis. The bankster offered them adjustable rate mortgages, when they would have qualified for fixed rate mortgages, because he recognized some flaw in their character, i.e. gullibility. They may feel ashamed of receiving unemployment benefits, even though they contributed to the pool of money from which those benefits are being drawn. When Jim Bunning tells them that the nation can not afford to help them in their time of need, they may believe him---even though they are the nation, and their prosperity is the nation’s prosperity. For people who are depressed do not feel connected. They are alone, cut adrift. And as the Founders also told us

We must hang together or we will hang separately.

What is the result? From November, 2009:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday morning indicates that 38 percent of the public blames Republicans for the country's current economic problems. That's down 15 points from May, when 53 percent blamed the GOP. According to the poll 27 percent now blame the Democrats for the recession, up 6 points from May. Twenty-seven percent now say both parties are responsible for the economic mess.

"The bad news for the Democrats is that the number of Americans who hold the GOP exclusively responsible for the recession has been steadily falling by about two to three points per month," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "At that rate, only a handful of voters will blame the economy on the Republicans by the time next year's midterm elections roll around

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...

You got that? Voters chose the Democrats overwhelming in 2008, because they blamed the GOP for our financial crisis. If they accept CNN's message and blame the newly elected Democrats, they are really blaming themselves. Guilt, confusion, helplessness.

This is the America of J P Morgan's dreams.

III. A Method to Their Madness

The banksters are crazy. They have to be crazy. There is no logic behind their actions. They beg for handouts, promising that this will free up credit, and then they keep credit tight. They foreswear big bonuses and then they pay out big bonuses. They cut deals with Washington to keep us in our homes and then they kick us out of our homes. Do they think that no one is watching? Do they they think that our political leaders will not feel the voter backlash and check their greedy habits?

Yeah, that is exactly what they think. For "leaders", as J P Morgan meant it, is not the politicians who are elected or selected to public office. W. was never the Decider. He was just the errand boy assigned to take all the hate. "Leaders" refers to the nation’s elite businessmen, the Rockefellers and the Morgans, the ones who direct Washington from behind the scenes. Their voice has become more powerful, now that we have the corporate media rather than many small independents sources of news. For instance, Time-Warner/CNN, which tells us that we now blame Democrats just as much as Republicans for our current economic woes is one of the "leaders". Everything it whispers is a variation of We have always been at war with Oceana ---we are just too depressed to notice it.

So, what is the Big Lie 2010? We will destroy our economy if we try to fix it. If the corporate media tells Americans that they are suffering because someone in Washington is trying to alleviate their suffering (through unemployment benefits or universal health care), the majority us will still recognize this for the bullshit it is. But an increasing number of us are growing tired, dispirited, confused. Too weak in spirit to quarrel with our unelected leaders. And with elections in this country as close as they have been in recent years, only a small percentage of Americans have to buy what Fox News is selling to completely change the direction of our country.

J P Morgan Sr. would be proud of what he wrought. According to this story from 2009, Chase Morgan subsidiaries continued to foreclose on homes even after they (pretended to) agreed to a foreclosure freeze.

So now, in addition to using TARP money to buy jets, throw parties, redecorate offices and bailout the NBA before lending money to struggling small businesses and helping homeowners (the purpose of the TARP funds), it looks like the greedy fathers of the financial industry in America are looking the other way as their wholly-owned subsidiary children continue to rob us blind

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Since then, things have only gotten worse.

For nine months, Deb Franklin said, she did exactly what JP Morgan Chase and President Barack Obama told her to do. She made her mortgage payments on time, delivered via Western Union, after they were reduced from $1,433 to $1,233 through Obama's Making Home Affordable program. After three payments, the mortgage relief was supposed to become permanent, but a maddening string of paperwork headaches landed her in limbo. Then, on the day after Christmas, a "bomb dropped" on her life.

A letter from a law firm representing Chase said the bank had begun foreclosure proceedings against her.

snip

Some 4 million American homeowners qualify for the Making Home Affordable program, and around 850,000 of them have been offered lower payments on a trial basis, according to the Treasury Department. Enrollees see their mortgage payments reduced to 31 percent of their income through interest rate reductions, fee waivers and lengthening of mortgage terms. Entrants are told that if they make three "temporary" modification payments on time, they will qualify for permanent relief. But as of December, only 66,000 had seen their mortgage permanently modified – a number dwarfed by the 2.8 million foreclosures completed last year.

http://redtape.msnbc.com/...

Almost 3 million foreclosures in one year. That is an extra 600,000 depressed citizens of voting age. The margin in the 2000 presidential election was only 500,000 (in Gore's favor). More than enough to tip an election.

Wake up America. The banksters, including the criminals at Morgan Chase, do not want to keep us in our homes. They want us out of our homes and on the streets, up to our eyeballs in medical debt that we will pay off with credit cards. It is all spelled out in Morgan's manifesto. A nation of homeless, starving, undereducated workers is the key to success if you are a corporate fascist who wants to "govern the world".

IV. Prescription for What Ails Us

By now, we all know how to save our democracy.

Campaign spending limits and publically financed elections.

Universal healthcare.

A truly public broadcasting network like the BBC.

Prosecution of corporate criminals.

Straight talk from our elected leaders.

We have had this prescription in our hands for literally years. When will we get around to filling it?