Fraternal Twins - A Story

Fraternal Twins, A Story

- to think about -

(This is s little long, but you may enjoy it)

Once upon a time, in the year 1776, twins were born, a girl and a boy.  Although they were born in a very humble home, they had a big back yard to play in.  Through the next 230 plus years they would have some tough times, but the things they accomplished are a shining example to all who came to know them.  You see, their home was the United States of America.  

The girl’s name is American Democracy, “Dema” for short.  She was born in the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.  The boy is American Capitalism, “Cap“.  Cap had his start as Adam Smith’s book The Wealth of Nations published in 1776.  It’s the classic description of Capitalism and makes the case that free markets are more productive and beneficial to people than other economic systems.   From the beginning Dema and Cap were very different, but they occupied the same home and they still do.  Down through the years, they have found ways to generally get along, although sister and brother fights have been common.

Dema is all about freedom and security, education, a comfortable and safe life for her people.  Dema has been committed to everyday people having an important say in their individual and collective way.  She knew that down through the years her people would hire some managers that may lust for power, so she divided governing into three parts, Judicial, Legislative and Executive. Her thinking is that no one part should gain too much power causing the people to become mere pawns.

Cap, on the other hand, is not so high minded, he doesn’t want any limits on his powers.  Cap is rambunctious, up for a challenge. “Go for it!“ “Just stay outt’a my way and I’ll get things done.”

Cap and Dema have both improved the day-to-day lives of Americans down through the years. For example, in today’s automobiles Cap has brought us a GPS on the dash and DVDs for the kids in the back seat.  Dema has brought us seat belts and air bags.  It is good to have both.  

Dema looks far ahead in time,  does long range planning and takes actions that may require decades or longer to pay off.  Our National Parks, Public Universities, the Panama Canal, Social Security, Interstate Highways, Center for Disease Control, and the Space Program are some examples of Dema looking far ahead and doing things that are for people’s good and eventually good economically.  Cap generally doesn’t plan more than ten or twenty years ahead.  That’s  because Cap needs to make money and the cost of borrowing money for long term projects prevents doing things that take a very long time to pay off.  Often Cap’s decisions are based on what will produce the greatest profits in the next quarter of the year.  This time-thing is a big difference between these twins.

They are an unlikely pair to grow up in the same house, but there they are.  

In those first years their big back yard (North America all the way to the Pacific) helped them each do their thing without getting in each others way too much.  Dema hung around the Eastern seaboard and slowly developed things she thought were important: schools, good roads, police, fire departments and rules-of-fair-play everyone should follow.  Cap was able to kick up dust, stomp on things that were in his way and pretty much do what he wanted on the frontier.  Money could be made on the frontier because there were lots of natural resources (good soil, forests, water,  minerals) to make things (farms, boards, metal) and not many restrictions on how to do it.  It went on that way for a while, Dema and Cap growing up, each pretty much doing their own thing.  Dema helped Cap from time to time, President Andrew Jackson moved the Cherokee people out of their home in Georgia to the Oklahoma frontier, that made the Cherokee’s land available for Cap. Dema fought a war with Mexico and gained Texas, that gave Cap a boost.  Dema and Cap were both growing, but not in each others way.

About the time American Democracy and American Capitalism were acting like they were in their early teens, in the 1860s, they had a terrible experience.  Civil War.  The War lasted about four years, there were terrible costs, but the American States stayed together and slavery was over - done - finished!  

After the War Dema was in a state of shock, needing rest and time to think.  Not Cap!  Farms, towns, cities needed to be rebuilt.  Railroads were headed out across the continent.  Many people who’s personal and economic lives had been shattered by war headed West for a new beginning.  American Capitalism boomed!  Once again there were few rules, a lot of natural resources to be conquered - as well as Native People.  There was  a whole lot of money to be made conquering the frontier.  It was great for Cap, Dema helped where she could, giving land to railroad builders, putting Native People on reservations and making treaties with them - which Cap ignored.

The American frontier was declared closed in the 1890 census.  That was a jolt, Cap didn’t have more land to exploit.  Cap turned on people, child labor, unsafe factories, unsafe mines, unsafe lumbering, long, hard working hours.  The money could still flow, “Things were getting done.” But, the money was flowing to fewer and fewer people at the tiptop of the money machine.  The common people were hurting.   Women still did not have the vote. 

Dema took notice.  Her manager at that time, Theodore Roosevelt, saw the people needed help, limits were put on Cap.  Slowly things started to get better for people.  Cap was learning to adjust to the limits and things were going good.  

As the twins grew into young adulthood their characters became more developed.   Dema seemed to be of two minds.  On the one hand (Republican philosophy), she wanted to support her brother and felt she would do anything for him.  When he got into trouble she would be there doing everything she could to help him.  On the other hand (Democratic  philosophy), she cares for the people and the things that are beneficial and fair to them.   

Cap had always seemed to have bipolar tendencies, manic for a period of time then depression.  As he got bigger and stronger his bipolar swings were greater.  During up times, the factories were running full steam, farms were productive, cities were growing, industrial giants were making big money and it looked like the good times would go on and on.  Life was good.  Then there would be a down turn, a recession or depression,  and everything would be terrible for Cap.  He usually blamed everyone else for his problems, especially Dema because she hadn’t let him do everything he wanted without any limits.  But, together, they muddled on.

Another war, this time a World War I.  America lost many thousands of young men, but her cities, factories and farms were in tact.  Europe’s were in shambles.  Cap learned a big lesson, wars can be good for him.   It takes lots of money to make things that go “boom!”  After the war, those factories could make other things people in the destroyed countries needed.

Dema?  Not so much.  She had to increase taxes and borrow a lot of money to pay Cap for all those war machines.  That money didn’t educate, build infrastructure or much of anything else useful to her people.  All that borrowed money had to be paid back.

Smart people had been concerned about Cap’s bipolar condition for years, when he was in depression it was hard on everyone, rich and poor.  These economists were looking for ways to ease the pain when Cap had one of his down periods.  Dema listened to these wise people and put some limits on Cap here and there.  

But Cap was riding high after the big War -- until October 29, 1929, the bottom fell out. Cap went into deep Depression.   Dema did everything she could to help Cap and her people.  It was a grim time, most people were hurting - a lot!  Dema took some bold steps as a result of Cap’s big bout with Depression.  Cap would have to take some medicine, it tasted terrible, he didn’t think he needed it, but Dema insisted that banking had to be improved and the financial markets needed more rules and regulations and there had to be social security for people.  Cap should never fall into another bout of Depression like the 1929 crash.  

It was World War II that finally put the end to Cap’s big depression, a terrible remedy.  Again, Cap prospered by war.  After the War, Dema became involved  in developing ways to help the American people, The GI Bill that helped with home ownership and education for veterans were very big things.  

Soon, Dema and Cap united in a head-to-head battle against another economic system, Communism.  Their very existence was at stake and every American knew it.

Dema and Cap were always two separate individuals, sister and brother. They cooperated when necessary, they fought with each other over control issues, sometimes seriously, but somehow they had always worked things out.  Communism wasn’t like that, the economic system and the government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) were fused into one seamless entity.  The cold war with Communism was for control of the entire world, including survival of Democratic American Government and American Capitalism.  

During the Viet Nam War, a part of the Cold War, one of Dema’s managers believed America was rich enough to have both, “guns and butter”.   America wasn’t.  Her National Debt rose.   Dema struggled with how much to tax citizens, while, at the same time, dealing with civil rights for all Americans, The Feminist Movement, the Space Program, and how to improve the security, health, education and general welfare of Americans.  Each a huge effort.   Communism only dealt with the things that would promote the USSR’s Cold War goals.

Communism folded in 1989, defeated after 44 years of Cold War without a bomb exploding.  The workers in Communism couldn’t keep pace with what Dema and Cap could provide their people, even with all the diversions and conflicting issues Dema and Cap struggled to solve.  Fascism and Communism were enemies Americans could see, feel, hate, and we could fight them in factories, farms, schools and battlefields, we could eventually defeat them.

After that, Cap went on a manic spree.  Lots of Americans became millionaires and billionaires, regular people were making money in the stock market and many people were buying second homes.  Times were good.  Government had budget surpluses in the 1990’s.

Then - 9/11/2001!  Retaliation!  America would go to war against al-Qaeda  the country in the middle was Afghanistan.  Dema’s managers were right about that, but then they lost their way.  America would attack Iraq and there would be a tax CUT while fighting the two wars. 

Little by little, since 1980, the philosophy had crept in that Dema was the problem and Cap had all the answers.  With that creeping philosophy, regulations and limits on Cap’s activities were eased and done away with.  And why not?  Cap was working like a charm, people were making money.  It was hardly noticed that a greater and greater percentage of the money in America was being concentrated and controlled by fewer and fewer people and institutions at the top of the economic pyramid.  Big money hired more and more lobbyists and lawyers to control all three government departments, Legislative, Executive and Judicial at national and state levels.  Cap had the money to influence laws that would make him stronger by concentrating wealth.  This meant weakening  environmental protections, public safety, infrastructure and regulations to make finance safe, fair and transparent.

September 2008, Cap crashed again, it looked bad, maybe another Depression.  Important people, people we believed were smart and responsible, people we thought were taking care of things too complicated for us to understand began screaming, “The financial sky is falling!”  “Too big to fail is failing!” “GM may close!” 

Those who we trusted were telling us we have to pony up hundreds of billions of dollars and give it to big banks, big insurance and car companies. We’ll have to borrow the money and these banks, insurances and companies may or may not ever pay us back.  We were told we have to give these “Too big to fails”  hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars - OR ELSE!  Or else what?  “THEY’LL FAIL!”  “Oh.”  So, Dema bailed out Cap, again.  And now, no country in the history of the world has ever had this much debt for us, our sons and daughters and their sons and daughters to pay off.  IF we can even do it.  Maybe Americans can.  I hope we can.

How did this happen?

We need to go back to the early 1980’s when Dema’s manager said, “Government is the problem, not the solution.” He believed it and began to take actions.  Greed was said to be good and the basis for Capitalism, it was unleashed.  Accepting greed as “good” was like putting Cap on steroids.  Many politicians vilified government workers  as people who couldn’t make it in a “real” job, that they are a drag on real working people. (“Those who can’t do, teach.  Government workers are a liability on the taxpayer,” and many many more non-sequiturs.)  Air traffic controllers were fired because they wanted a pay raise.   Regulations that had been in place to limit the powers of Cap were deregulated, weakened, or loop-holed and the government employees who did the regulating were discredited.  Taxes were viewed as a bad  thing that limited Cap, so the Legislative branch, both national and state, handed out tax loopholes to lobbyists like candy at a parade.  America was losing sight of the basic fact that government is about service and government services are necessary for citizens and the general economy.  The annual Government budget went deficit (into the red), each year piling up greater and greater debt.  Americans were told, “debt doesn’t matter”.  The military was exulted and for several years was given a 10% budget increase each year.  Ten percent of hundreds of billions is a big bunch.  The $800 toilet seats the Navy bought is an indicator the military had more money than they could use wisely.  The Gulf War happened, more debt piled up. 

This game plan set Cap on a run like he’d never had before.  He was getting more powerful every day, huge amounts of money were accumulating  in fewer and fewer companies and people.   Cap could buy more lobbyists and lawyers to get Dema’s legislators to pass laws that favored him.  It was an upward spiral with fewer and fewer limits on what Cap could do, there was no end in sight.  It was great!  In the 1990’s Government budgets were in the black and the National Debt was being paid off - a good thing.

Dema, on the other hand, was deeply hurt by the “Government is the problem” attitude.  It takes exceptionally strong people committed to public service to suffer the criticism of being “a government bureaucrat” and still go out and do a good job every day.  Enough good people could not be found to fill every important government job.  Citizens were being hurt by all this and they didn’t realize it, even though there were signs along the way.   The Enron Company went down because of its greed and evil ways.  Contaminated peanut butter was sold to our schools because a company was filthy and greedy and regulators didn’t do anything about it.  Derivatives, designed to get around important financial regulations, were invented.  Bernie Madoff stole billions from the poor and rich, regulators didn’t challenge him. Then, there was the, “We don’t want the  smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,”  lie designed to lead us to war in Iraq.  And the, “Debt don’t matter” lie that led to a tax cut so Americans wouldn’t notice we were in two wars.  

All these and more brought us to September 2008 when the cries went up, “We are heading for the cliff!”  “Too big to fail!”  “Bailout!”  Cap was crying to be saved.  We still don’t know if they were crocodile tears or if they were real.  We’ll never know what the effect would have been on Dema and Americans if the big banks did fail. 

What we do know is, Dema, once again, bailed-out Cap.  The American people borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to save a gang of big banks, insurance companies and couple car companies.  Four years after the bailouts the car companies are making money, the big banks have gotten bigger and are again paying their managers immoral amounts of money that they certainly do not earn or deserve - and we don’t know why.  The big insurance company is crying about government controls over what they do, but they haven’t paid back the 160+ billion  dollars we people gave them to save their hides.  And, the common Americans are still hurting: the jobless rate was high for years, home foreclosures have hurt millions of people, homeowners and small businesses are intimidated and abused by banks, even with the Affordable Care Act passed Dema’s Legislative, Executive, and Judicial are playing a shell game, keeping Cap in control, making huge money on sick Americans. 

Can American Democracy and American Capitalism work together to save this country from huge debt; from concentration of wealth and power in the few, the greedy; from our inadequate education system; from unfairness to the common people; from environmental degradation; from our aging infrastructure?  

We don’t know yet, the story has pages to turn.  Dema and Cap have never been in a situation like this before.  Dema’s political structure is seriously broken.  Congress is being  short sighted, self-serving, stuck in opposing ideologies, unwilling to compromising.  It obviously lacks the character, intelligence and courage to do what is right for the people and the Nation.  Congress is simply not working.  Not much hope there.  The Executive needs more skill, intelligence, wisdom, commitment, integrity and clear-sightedness than we’ve ever seen.  The Judicial, that was  meant to be where wisdom resides, abandon that mantel when The Supreme Court went political in the 2000 election decision and the 2010 “Citizens United” decision.  The Citizens United decision gives Cap a huge advantage over Dema, MAYBE THE ABILITY TO CRUSH HER and turn America into an oligarchy (a state governed by a few people or families) disguised as a democracy.  

Cap has turned to shortsighted self-serving greed as a mantra, with J.P. Morgan Chase Bank setting the example, and he’s getting away with it, increasing his dominance over Dema in every way. 

America’s best hope is in the people, can we act unselfishly, with courage, determination, intelligence, with confidence in the long view?  Can we again make Dema’s institutions work “for the greatest good to the greatest number in the long run”?  Or, does our Congress accurately represent Americans?  I guess we’ll see.

Pogo’s words have come to reality, “We have met the enemy and he is us”