During their debate, Vice President Joe Biden accused Paul Ryan of supporting fifties’ ideas. Actually conservative ideology is more representative of twenties or nineteenth century economic philosophy.

Voters forget that the 1929 stock market crash was similar to the one in 2008 in that Wall Street gamblers were buying stock on margin. If there was any regulation, it wasn’t enforced. When stocks went down, banks called the loans on these stocks, and much like the mortgage market, these stocks became worthless, but the banks still wanted their money. In 2006-08, whenever it happened, mortgage companies were loaning money to people who were bad credit risks on houses that were inflated in value. Banks still haven’t agreed to renegotiate those inflated loans. Maybe that’s why Attorney General Holder is finally going after the big banks. Last week it was Wells Fargo; this week Bank of America, suing them for a billion dollars. Conservative politicians would have you believe that it was all Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s fault. Well, Freddie and Fannie have to rely on the lenders in order for the system to work; if they’re not telling the truth, the whole thing comes unglued. Besides, Freddie and Fannie were mostly private at the time, run by the same people who were wheeling and dealing on Wall Street.

Now let’s talk about modern capitalism, shall we? Corporations are beginning to look more and more like 19th century capitalists. Of the 114,000 new jobs last month, 500,000 were part time. That’s not an accident. It falls in line with running the unions out of business by exporting jobs to China. I know a guy who was sent over there to help build a factory. Methinks, Wall-Mart and other companies have a monetary stake in Chinese factories. In other words, they’re buying products from themselves. Some economists claim corporate America is sitting on four trillion in profits, waiting for a Republican president. Corporate leaders make such excuses for not hiring as former employees are no longer qualified for their jobs or that those who are still working are much more productive. Sure they are; they’re scared to death. I just read an article that said the stress level is at an all-time high. Business leaders have been blunt with President Obama about their main concern: make money for their stockholders. That’s John D. Rockefeller, James J. Fisk kind of thinking. Sure Rockefeller gave away dimes and his son founded a charitable foundation, but he had billions and billions and that foundation is a drop in the bucket compared to what the family still has. Corporate raider Carl Icahn gave his son three billion dollars to start his own investment company. How much did George Romney give Mitt? And conservatives complain about 47% of Americans not paying any taxes, not pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, instead of relying on the nanny state. They do pay taxes; the government withholds it from their paychecks; they get most of it back when the file their tax returns, just like Mitt, who still hasn’t released his records yet. If the polls are right, he’s going to get away with it.

Conservatives love the nineteenth century and the twenties and the fifties.
Those not familiar with history need to check the Haymarket riots and Andrew Carnegie hired guns who murdered strikers during an extended strike. Above all look up the Triangle Shirt Waist fire. We just “celebrated” the one hundredth anniversary. Seamstresses worked there for two dollars a day. If they broke a machine or ruined a blouse, they had to pay for it; a floor walker looked over their shoulders all of the fourteen hour day. They were not allowed a break, not even a bathroom break. One of the doors was locked to prevent women from stealing, which got a lot of women killed when one of those foremen dropped a cigarette in a waste basket. Here’s another tactic. You’ll find it in THE JUNGLE by that muckraker Upton Sinclair. The meat packing magnates would not pay their workers a living wage; they thought if they did, the workers would move to a different company, playing them off against each other.

George Pullman of railroad sleeping car fame was another piece of work. He founded a model community for his workers, but he acted more like Big Brother than a benefactor. His inspectors could enter a home and check for cleanliness and terminate a lease on ten days notice. Newspapers and public speeches were prohibited. The company town operated on a profit. When he laid off workers, the rents remained the same.

In 1920 Americans elected Warren G. Harding as president, instigating the Roaring Twenties. Harding, a newspaper editor by profession, admitted he wasn’t qualified to be president; he promptly died and was succeeded by somebody worse, conservative favorite Calvin Coolidge, know as Silent Cal, probably because he didn’t have anything intelligent to say. Coolidge deregulated everything. Americans have blamed Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression; some even blame FDR, because he didn’t leave well enough alone. But anybody who can read and think would lay the problem at Coolidge’s feet. Sure hindsight is twenty-twenty, but how do you keep your hands off Wall Street when you had people betting on stocks they didn’t own with somebody else’s money? And so we had three GOP presidents in a row in the twenties and they blew the place up, mostly because of deregulation. In 2000 we did it again. This guy took eight years to crash the economy, about the same length of time actually. Our present GOP challenger, Mitt Romney, also recommends deregulation. We once had a Secretary of the Interior named James Watt. He was a born again Christian and he once said that since we were in the end times anyway we didn’t need to worry about using up our resources or protecting the environment. He was appointed by the conservative God Ronald Reagan.

In the fifties American politicians were paranoid about Communism. A senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, was the instigator behind the Committee on Un-American activities. He saw a communist behind every bush, much like present Fox News commentator Michelle Bachmann (actually Sixth District congresswoman from Minnesota) sees a Moslem on every DC park bench. The 2012 media caters to this kind of thinking, giving in to the “liberal press“ indictment. I’ve heard Bachmann called a conservative rock star. While she was running for president she somehow confused John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy. Edward R. Murrow stood up to Joe McCarthy; it seems like the 2012 media is afraid they’ll lose readers and viewers if they stand up for journalistic principles. Fox News’ ridiculous “Fair and Balanced” claim is typical of a conservative tactic. Use the other side’s claims against them. Hence we have Mitt Romney talking about “trickle down” government. Which is it, trillions of dollars spent on the nanny state or trickle down government, huh? Does not compute.

In the fifties we had Southerners lynching black men and boys for looking at white women. These days conservatives are after affirmative action and welfare. One would think we owe it to blacks for building the White House while slaves if nothing else. Lincoln also promised them forty acres and a mule they never got. In the fifties women barely had the vote. If they worked they were paid less than men (Less than the 76% they’re paid now for the same work). Their employers’ excuse was that men were the bread winners. The Civil Rights Act also hadn’t been passed in the 1950s, which would have kept Obama out of the White House. And yet . . . 63% of white males say they will vote for Romney in 2012. 70% of those white males who never graduated high school will vote for him. How is this not racism? And Glenn Beck has the gall to call Obama a racist. Blacks were slaves for three hundred years; we’re the racists.

Find a history book, voters, and not the Texas School board kind. The democrats have passed all the major legislation. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaide, the G.I. Bill, The Marshall Act, The Child Labor Act. They also pushed for the eight-hour day and the forty-hour week. Democrats gave women the right to vote in 1920, and they turned right around and voted for Warren G. Harding.

BTW, how in the world has the gender gap closed? Actually it’s an ABC poll that says it has. ABC also published and pushed a Gallup poll that had Romney ahead last week, 52-45 percent. Has Rupert Murdock bought them out? Women who are confused about the economy, really need to read the Lily Ledbetter legislation Obama passed, the intent of which was equal pay for equal work. Do you really think you’ll get that from a man who needed a “binder full of women” to staff his administration in Massachusetts?

Dave Schwinghammer's novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available at Amazon.com, new and used.