I am struck every day by the incredibly bizarre world we live in, where "up" is "down" and "down" is "up". I think many people are angry and confused because what they see in their daily lives–upheaval, struggle, fear–does not match much of the rhetoric coming from the people who have their hands on the levers of the economic and government. This morning, it dawned on me that we can explain much of what we see if we just think of living in an era of the Neutron Bomb Economy.
The neutron bomb is a "nuclear weapon that maximizes damage to people but minimizes damage to buildings and equipment. It is also called an enhanced radiation warhead." The beauty–"beauty" used in a deeply sarcastic voice–of the neutron bomb is that it makes it more "attractive" to use nuclear weapons because the bomb can eliminate people but leave everything else standing.
Which is essentially the kind of economy we now live in. Look at the declaration from the Federal Reserve Board trumpeted with the headline, "Fed Forecasts Faster Growth as Economy Improves":
The Federal Reserve disclosed on Wednesday that policy makers had substantially upgraded their forecasts for how much the economy will grow this year, though they expect unemployment to remain painfully high for some time.
Top Fed officials now expect the output of goods and services to grow by 3.4 to 3.9 percent this year, up from the previous forecast, released in November, of 3 to 3.6 percent.
So, we increasingly live in an economy where "growth" is divorced from the ability of real people to survive. Stuff is being made–the Gross Domestic Product is growing–but people don’t have jobs, partly because corporations are figuring out how to use fewer workers. And, when they do, work, millions of people can’t make ends meet. So, the economy "grows" but the people do not prosper.
The Neutron Bomb Economy: maximizing damage to people, except the top one percent who employ the "bomb", and leave the new structure of the economy in place–lower wages, fewer workers even as corporate profits and executive pay and bonuses are on the rise.
Wall Street sees the economic crisis is receding so its compensation and benefits at banks and securities firms hit a record of $135 billion, while millions of people have no jobs and a declining living standard. Wall Street hurls the neutron economic bomb at the country and keeps on partying while the rubble is still smoldering.
Rather than demand that the rich pay a slightly higher tax so government can provide decent services and a functioning society, pensions for regular people get chopped . The Neutron Bomb Economy: leave the wealth of the rich intact but devastate the pensions of people who are trying to make ends meet.
Rather than see the budget deficits and longer-term debt as a direct consequence of Wall Street behavior, two immoral wars and a criminal health care system, the Neutron Bomb Economy wants to obliterate every shred of our societal safety net, leaving in place the greatest divide between rich and poor in 100 years. The Neutron Bomb Economy: Blow up the financial system and Social Security and impoverish millions of seniors but leave the Masters of the Universe sailing their yachts and buying their chauteaus in the South of France.
The Neutron Bomb Economy: allow a vast looting of money over the past four decades, draining the the economy of trillions of dollars, while leaving millions of people without jobs, in poverty or without their life savings. Blow up the economy for most people but leave the shell of the economy pumping out "growth" to be siphoned off into a few hands.
The Neutron Bomb Economy: create the facade of health care "reform" by handing hundreds of billions of dollars in future profits to the drug and insurance industries, and, thus, blowing up the standard of living for millions of Americans and destroying small businesses who can’t afford the immoral cost of health care. Leave the health care industry intact but blow up the middle-class and actually consign millions of people to death and illness.
The Neutron Bomb Economy: shovel the wealth of the country into the hands of a few but blow up the living standards of the people in part by playing the phony game of a minimum wage–which today should be almost $20 an hour if we take into account how hard people have worked over the past 30 years.
In this world, then, "growth" is good–even if the real world is a grim place.
