Austerity: Why Capitalism Is Choosing Plan B

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/22-9

Last week, Democratic governors in New York and Connecticut repeated the austerity politics of Greece's Prime Minister Pappandreou and Portugal's former Prime Minister Socrates. In doing so, they likewise imitated the austerity politics of their Republican and Democratic counterparts across virtually all 50 states.

Austerity for labor and the public is everywhere capitalism's Plan B. Even capitalists now see that capitalism's Plan A failed.

You will recall that Plan A entailed a crisis-response program of bailing out the banks, insurance companies, large corporations and stock markets to achieve "recovery". The theory behind Plan A – we used to call it "trickle-down economics" – was that recovery would spread from financial markets and financiers to everyone else. It never did. So now the same servants of capitalism who imposed Plan A are dishing out Plan B.

Governors Cuomo in New York and Malloy in Connecticut had very similar Plan Bs. They threatened the public employee unions and the people of their states in nearly identical ways. Either the unions accept new contracts with wage freezes and raised contributions to their health insurance plans (and other declines in their basic remuneration) – or the governors would fire tens of thousands of unionized state workers. In Connecticut, the state workers first voted to reject and then re-voted to accept that contract. In New York, the state workers accepted on the first vote.

More at the link --

[DJ13]

1. To make Plan A work as intended they need Plan B

The point is that Plan A was meant to widen the wealth gap permanently, and Plan B is needed to insure it IS permanent.

Plan A (welfare for the already wealthy) cant be paid for without taking from everyone else.

[newspeak]

2. yes, exactly right on!

When are the majority of americans going to see through this BS?

[saras]

3. Unrec for bullshit.

The notion that these "plans" ever had any element of actually addressing the problems, rather than profiting from them by making them worse, is utterly untrue, and never had any pretension of being true.

It's all one plan. "Plan A" was to grab the money out of all the tills. Plan B is to force the safe open and finish the job. And the unmentioned Plan C is to gather up anyone who's still a functional, capable worker after all this (this ought to thin out the herd, leaving only the toughest, most amoral ones), and sell them into permanent slavery of some sort.

[Kaleko]

4. Rec'd for your insightful comment.

;)