Senate grants Obama big win with fast track trade authority

Almost sounds like you think corporate interests are nullifying the last bits of real democracy.

We might not be able to get an exceptional president in the next election or even the one after that.However, if we are careful to always choose the lesser of two evils, we can shift the field and may eventually end up with leaders who aren't half bad.

No room left for anybody not well funded.Until that fact is changed, American politicians will always answer to the wealthy first and to their constituents second.

Indeed. In The Price of Civilization (thread), Jeffrey Sachs describes the disconnect between popular opinion regarding health care reform and what we got with the ACA. Having explained Obama's loyalty to the insurance lobbies, he goes on to say:

quote:

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Jeffrey Sachs in The Price of Civilization (2011):

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The entire health care debate then took on a surreal air for the next fifteen months. Obama could not table a plan because the outlines of the implicit agreement with industry ran counter to the views of much of his own party, and indeed a majority of the public at large. During 2009, the public repeatedly indicated in opinion surveys that it backed the option of a government-run plan to compete with private plans. According to CBS/New York Times polls, the margin was 66 percent to 27 percent in favor of the public option in June—July 2009; in a Pew survey, it was 52 percent to 37 percent. (p. 122)

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If by 'efficiency' you mean most exploitable, then I agree.

In What Went Wrong? (the book I am still reading that continues to give me things to think about), George Tyler discusses the impact of globalization on the economies of northern Europe and Australia (what he calls the 'family capitalism' countries) and America (home of Reaganomics).He shows that globalization can actually benefit an economy, as it did Europe, or hurt an economy, as it did America, depending on the steps taken to either profit or fail.If an economy focuses in training workers and providing new skills, it can maintain good levels of employment with the added bonus of the jobs being better. If an economy does not prioritize these things, it will see jobs disappear and workers sit idle.While the American system has taken the latter path, the northern European countries have taken the former. The ratio of skilled jobs to unskilled jobs in these economies has increased faster than in the U.S. (where there has been no real difference between the increase in skilled vs. unskilled jobs). (The exact figures are in the book, which is at work; I will add them to the post sometime this weekend.)[ABE]The figures, as I promised: Starting with 1980 values as 100%, the 'Index of skilled labor employment' increased to 125% in the U.S. and 157% in Europe. Again, starting with 1980 values at 100%, the 'Index of unskilled employment' increased in the U.S. to 121% (almost the same increase as skilled jobs) but decreased in Europe to 86%. (pp. 320—321). While the U.S. was treating jobs as jobs and sat around losing them to foreign labor markets, Europe was taking advantage of globalization's displacement of unskilled workers by training them to meet the demands of skilled positions.[/ABE]What it amounts to is some economies choosing to take advantage of globalization as an opportunity to pass off low-skilled, less-desirable jobs to others and utilize the freed labor force for more desirable skilled work (= more profitable).While America continues on its path of Reaganomics, globalization will offer it nothing but more misery. But if American's choose family and societal welfare over corporate welfare and the welfare of the few, the world of globalization could be an amazing opportunity for prosperity and the ushering in of another golden age of American economic dominance and leadership.Edited by Jon, : No reason given.