And to the Banana, for Which It Stands

One of the hallmarks of a “banana republic,” according to Wikipedia, “It typically has stratified social classes, including a large, impoverished working class and a ruling plutocracy of business, political, and military elites.” According to CNBC.com (September16, 2013), the 400 wealthiest Americans are worth more than $2 trillion, more than the bottom 50% of the U.S. population combined, and “more than the annual GDP of Italy, Mexico or Canada.” With the bottom 60% of Americans owning 2.3% of the nation’s wealth just as the middle class is contracting, we do seem to have the markings of a plutocracy.

Add the Citizens United and the McCutcheon cases, Supreme Court decisions that let the rich pretty much pour as much money into any political campaign, often anonymously, as they wish, the markings seem to get a bit clearer. According to the April 14^th theDiplomat.com, “the U.S. defense budget accounts for 37 percent of global military expenditures while China only accounts for 11 percent of worldwide defense spending.” Think that there is actually a separation between the “military-industrial complex,” which tries to locate military bases or manufacturers in every Congressional district they can, and government? Our military elite is more the mega-vendors of military hardware, but they are very real and very, very powerful.

So we have lots of characteristics that define a banana republic? How does the international community look at this? To the People’s Republic of China, these numbers represent unequivocal evidence that the American system does not serve the vast majority of its citizens, that our “democracy” is a failed experiment, and that China, employing a party-appointed centralized bureaucracy appointed to maximize the well-being of its people, can accomplish much more. They have taken a billion people out of dire poverty in three decades, and we seem to be going the other way unless you are in the top 5% of earners and wealth-holders, in whose favor our tax code and regulatory schema are rather deeply slanted.

To the International Monetary Fund, we are just an embarrassment to the rest of the developed world. The IMF’s June growth forecast (a meager 2% for 2014) for the United States show 50 million Americans living in poverty as defined by U.S. government criteria for poverty. “[T]he labour market is weaker than is suggested by the headline numbers for people out of work. Long-term unemployment is high and many people are not even seeking work, which means they don't register in the official jobless numbers. Wages are stagnant and poverty is stuck at more than 15%. Seven years on from the onset of the financial crisis, the scars on the wider US economy - never mind some European countries - have still not really healed.

“[The IMF report] said a hike in the minimum wage would raise incomes for ‘millions of working poor’ and help to create ‘a meaningful increase’ in after-tax earnings for the nation's poorest households… The IMF said it only expected the economy to reach full employment by the end of 2017, with ‘muted’ inflation pressures… ‘Labor markets are weaker than is implied by the headline unemployment number, the IMF said, saying long-term unemployment remained high and wages were stagnant.” BBC.co.uk, June 16^th. Our minimum wages rates are the lowest for any comparably-situated developed nation, says the IMF, and the U.S. needs to address what have become never-ending cycles of institutionalized segments of poverty.

But we don’t care, we only run allocate big budgets for wars we lose or fail at, defense spending like no other that keeps getting us involved in conflicts, and there is a very old world minority (but controlling our governmental purse strings) that wants fewer government solutions for the vast majority of Americans and lower taxes and fewer regulations for the rich. The rich just don’t catch enough breaks to them, so they have created the completely disproven theory of the rich being the “job creators” and having their wealth “trickle down” to the masses. Not an ounce of truth to either doctrine, but it justifies stupid policies that support the plutocracy we have become.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as long as Americans sit on their hands and buy into this mythology, the plutocracy will only get stronger!