Now, the clock continues to tick, and the time continues to move, and new time travels in. But the times of yesterdays and of tomorrows are not the same.
An old time talks of a passing phase, and a new time tattles a changing circumstance, and the world stage witnesses dramatic move as elements of change are turning bold.
The partial US gov. shut down presents all these: the clock, the time, the elements, etc. It took its cost in home, the US, and alerted the world, and shall come into compromise with increasingly changing world reality.
Costs in home
The standoff hurt the US economy, said US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. He was speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.
In the economy, the cost was at least $24 billion, estimated Standard and Poor’s, and it “shaved at least 0.6 percent off annualized fourth-quarter 2013 GDP growth.” Moody’s Analytics cited a similar number: a $23 billion hit to US GDP.
Citing IHS, US Travel Association, the National Park Service, ABC’s estimate of the costs of the shutdown included $3.1 billion in lost government services, $152 million per day in all spending related to travel lost. Washington DC was especially hit hard. Regional (DC/Maryland/Virginia) impact: $217 million a day from lost/deferred federal and contractor wages. Washington DC economic activity impact: $44 million a week decrease, and tax revenue impact: $6 million a week decrease. (October 17, 2013, Shushannah Walshe, “The Costs of the Government Shutdown”)
Something is told by press
Press, from People’s Daily to The New York Times, echoed an emerging reality: The US dollar’s weakened reputation and the state of related politics. In The Washington Post, Zachary A. Goldfarb reminded the fact of “weakened US economy facing new threats.”
People’s Daily did not fail to mention changes that “have started to occur” in the “currently unmatched” “status of the US dollar”, and said “countries are increasingly bypassing the US dollar and entering into currency swap agreements. These have all dimmed the aura of the dollar as a reserve currency.”
China’s The Nan Fang Daily suggested a reduced “role of the US dollar and the US debt in the global market.”
An editorial in The New York Times didn’t spare the right-right: “The Republicans pushed the nation to the brink of default”.
In Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Anna Fedyakina sarcastically said: “The congressmen’s debate looked like another episode of a political blockbuster, which, according to Hollywood traditions, should have a happy ending. It seems that the American legislators are used to living like they were in a movie: letting the situation reach a boiling point, making a decision at the last moment and then declaring that they once again have saved everyone.”
Anna tells at least a part of US politics, the part related to the elites. In Le Figaro, Philippe Gelie’s tone was more biting about “irresponsible leaders” in the US: “(T)he spectacle presented in Washington over the last few weeks goes beyond the excessive taste of the Americans for political drama. … A minority of Tea Party MPs dictating the law in the name of a lost cause … Parliamentary leaders unable to discipline their rank and file. A president … isolated, who is paying for years of absence of dialogue with MPs.”
The movie-like political act on the stage of Legislature has its roots, and also a destination.
So, Dan Roberts and Paul Lewis predicts in The Guardian: “[A] more lasting split is not inconceivable”. The assumed split is also not without roots and fruits. The roots are deep in elite interests, increasingly factionalized, and, the fruits are for different sections of the entire society with varying types and tastes, acting and reacting in areas of political lessons and experiences of the masses of people.
Function of dysfunction
The just concluded Washington-dysfunction, a political function, was spectacular. It raised question: Is this the beginning of breaking down of the political system?
Jack Lew described events leading to the standoff as a political crisis rather than an economic one.
It’s not always possible to ignore the political aspect. Recognizing the “event” as political crisis is significant as it tells level and depth of related contradictions.
Republican senator John McCain told the NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Those involved in it went on a fool’s errand, that’s just a fact.”
Everyone doesn’t prefer fruitless mission. Why and how they, those who understand, failed to prevent the “fool’s errand”? Are mindless characters more powerful? Or, was the travel a political necessity? In any of the cases, what’s there in future?
“This has harmed the lives of millions of people”, said McCain. One of the contradictions – an elite faction’s political stand harming people – has been identified, and acknowledged. At least the faction’s politics, essentially interests, turns clear: To have a chunk, quarrel, even at the cost of people.
Lew said: “We need some infrastructure. The farm bill needs to pass. The immigration bill is hugely important to the economy.”
Infrastructure and immigration are required for the interests of the elites, for their faster and bigger accumulation. Then, why the elites failed to prevent the shut down and move into the business? Was the tact more profitable? Or, was the incident their incapacity, failure in governance, a rupture, at least temporary, in collaboration among ruling factions?
In a White House speech, President Barack Obama scolded congressional Republicans. His observations, as news agencies reported, included: The US went to the brink of an economic calamity; “The American people are completely fed up with Washington”; events had inflicted “completely unnecessary” damage on the US economy; “There was no economic rationale for all of this”; “Nothing has done more to undermine our economy the last three years than the kind of tactics that create these kinds of manufactured crises”, the “spectacle” had hurt America’s credibility in the world.
Obama’s opinion tells the emerging reality elites face: a faction imposes its tact while another finds it hard to resist it.
There is factional fight within the US political right-right camp.
One faction – the Tea Party – imposes its will on its broader party. This means there are conditions conducive within the entire body that enables a faction to impose its tact – the government shutdown – on the whole. Their “maturity” inspires them to adopt a political tact that gives pains to the ordinary citizens and takes toll from the party. The party gains experience at a cost.
Greater inequality
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”: The shutdowns were a bad idea not consistent with conservative ideals. (The Christian Science Monitor, “McConnell vows no more government shutdowns. Does tea party agree?”)
The factional fight, political obviously, that denies ideological position goes to nowhere. It’s not immaturity; it’s a reflection of narrowed down scope for political fight. Harry Reid, Democratic Senate leader, expressed his feeling: I’m tired. (…L)et’s be honest: this was pain inflicted on the nation for no good reason. The political tact of a faction of the elites turns clear: take toll from people, which is essentially punish the people. And, what’s the condition of the societies in the country as people is the most important part of it?
Robert Reich, former US Labor Secretary said: “Of all the advanced economies, we are the most unequal and we are surging forward greater inequality at the fastest rate. The 400 richest Americans own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans put together.”
The richest 1% of Americans own more than 35% of the country’s wealth while the bottom 50% control just 2.5%; the annual income of the typical American household has fallen 9% since 1999; since the recession ended in 2009, incomes for all Americans except the top 1% have hardly changed.
Incomes grew by only 4% for the bottom 99% but surged by more than 31% for the top 1%. And last year the top 1% accounted for 22% of the nation’s income; the top 0.1% took home half of that. (Daily Ticker, October 18, 2013, Bernice Napach, “Income Inequality Is the Enemy of Economic Growth: Robert Reich”)
With this reality in the US, the ruling elites face difficult question: Whether to help people out of poverty or not.
Now, it’s an urgent issue. The ruling capital has to decide whether to increase minimum wage, invest in education and infrastructure, reform the tax system, keep finance gamblers in control or not. And, here lies incapability of the dominating capital. It can’t move to all areas. And, it can move to some areas, but with bickering within its camp.
These quarrels, rifts and incapability will weaken the system and continue exposing the system to the people.
Farooque Chowdhury is Dhaka-based freelancer.
Courtesy: COUNTERCURRENTS. ORG
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