Betrayed is right.

Paul Craig Roberts clarifies the implications of the New Economy,^[1] the one that has replaced the one most of us in some way or another still assume is operating as it did in the last half of the last century.

In the post-WWII economy, what the politicians and bankers did or failed to do either fueled the great engine of American productivity or failed to do it serious damage. However, the accumulated effect of huge numbers of illegal immigrants taking the jobs of Americans, illegal immigrant burdens on welfare and criminal justice agencies, massive entitlement programs, deteriorated education, affirmative action, off-shoring, out-sourcing, foreign war costs, foreign energy costs and adamant refusal to develop domestic oil and nuclear energy sources, the second highest corporate income taxes in the world, and the relentless drag on productive people engineered day in and day out by a Democrat Party captive of the far left -- and a clueless bunch of spineless Republicans -- has in this day and at this hour given us the New Economy with its perverse dynamics.

“Stimulus” money, to the extent it isn’t a payoff to leftist constituencies, stimulates little. What productive economic activity it stimulates is in the factories of China, which lends the money to the U.S. government to enable it to spend “stimulus” money in the first place. Spending on Chinese goods is spending that does not create jobs at home.

High levels of consumer debt reduces private investment capital that might otherwise be invested for non-political purposes. The banks have no one to lend to because consumers are too burdened by debt to borrow for new ventures.

As Mr. Roberts notes, “Policymakers who are banking on stimulus programs are thinking in terms of an economy that no longer exists.”

While this situation is the new reality, our Democrat president and Congress made crazed interference with health care economy their highest priority -- after devising insane spending schemes and pushing cap and kill measures, the latter rooted in corrupt science. Not one of the foregoing is remotely related to any kind of policies designed to revive the American economy. Is the U.S. corporate tax structure as much of a repellant force as the (artificially) low Chinese wage levels are an attractant? Well, one no-kidding-we’re-really-serious-about-this-jobs-thing initiative would be to test the effect of lower corporate taxes. Taxes get talked about a lot by the Democrats but so far as I know, no single politician is suggesting this be done. Apparently it’s considered an option for lunatics.

In 1941, if the present crew of Democrats had been running things -- even with 90 days warning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor -- Job Numero Uno would have been a feverish drive to triple the size of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Roberts is right when he says Americans are unrepresented and betrayed. We are betrayed by an economy whose structure seems to have been devised by an occupying power, and unrepresented by a leadership class that has precisely

• zero idea of what the true nature of our problems is,
  
• zero appreciation for the danger of excessive governmental power,
• zero appreciation for what it was that made the United States such an economic force, and
  
• zero concern for the welfare of the majority of its citizens.

Let the interests of illegal immigrants be threatened, however, and it will be Defcon IV. Yesterday.

But let the interests of the majority of citizens be threatened -- not to mention citizenship itself -- well, then it’s just nap time.

Notes
^[1] "America—A Country of Serfs Ruled By Oligarchs." By Paul Craig Roberts, VDARE, 2/15/10.