Monday, April 24, 2006
Introduction to "Suckernomics"
We're coming up on final exams here--been swamped for several days now grading student papers, which means swimming through a sea of misspelled words, poorly constructed paragraphs, etc. This all means that it has been, and for several more days will remain impossible to update this blog every day. (Already a few good things have gotten away from me.)
Yet Dennis Cuddy's newest piece is an instant keeper. He forgot a small handful of things, among them the phony unemployment statistics that leave out the discouraged worker and are designed to convince the sheeple that the U.S. economy is in better shape than it is. Count the discouraged worker, and the actual unemployment rate in America is somewhere around 12 percent. The point of "suckernomics": keep America's masses illiterate and misled, using whatever resources are necessary (government schools will do, and where those leave off, employ mainstream media misinformation, and then think tanks and research institutes to pump out bogus "studies" and other forms of disinformation). This so they will not ask too many questions of those with money and power. Keep the sheeple spending, spending, spending, so they will end up broke and dependent.
Original here.
"SUCKERNOMICS"
By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
April 24, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
In my previous article, I introduced the term "Suckernomics." The reception to this new term was very positive, so I have decided to expand upon its principles. Suckernomics is the process whereby the American public is made, and kept, economically ignorant. It begins even in elementary school, and the following is a list of some of its basic principles. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, and I am sure that you, the reader, will be able to add examples to it.
1, Don't teach students basic reading and math skills, so they will not be able to compete economically against those of other nations.
2, Convince Americans that more money is needed to solve our educational problems, even though a tremendous increase in educational funding has occurred over the past 4 decades, with negative results.
3, Teach children that petroleum products come from decayed fossils, even though there is no evidence of massive numbers of dinosaurs or massive amounts of vegetation in Middle Eastern desert regions or in the North Sea or near Alaska where large deposits of oil have been found. Don't let them know petroleum products are plentiful and come from methane derivatives, available through deep-drilling techniques used by the Russians for decades. Otherwise, they won't believe there's an oil shortage, and pay continuously rising prices.
4, Require Americans to pay about 40% of their annual income in taxes, but tell them that they are still better off than the serfs of feudal days who paid a smaller percent of their production to the nobles.
5, Persuade Americans that they should pay taxes for government programs which operate less efficiently than if run by private enterprise.
6, Entice Americans to purchase items on credit, even though that increases the cost of the goods by 10-20%.
7, Have Americans place a large percent of their paycheck into a Social Security "Trust Fund," which Congress then raids, leaving future senior citizens wondering what happened to their hard-earned money for retirement.
8, Allow the federal government to get away with posting an inflation rate that does not include increases in the price of food and fuel.
9, Give authority regarding trade decisions to the World Trade Organization, run by unelected bureaucrats overseas who can tell Congress it has to change our laws. Convince Americans that this is "free trade" when it is actually "managed trade," because many nations still have trade restrictions and subsidize industries in their own countries.
10, Dismiss calls for "fair trade," claiming American workers can compete against slave and child labor.
11, Persuade Americans there are still such things as "American corporations" as ownership increasingly goes overseas (e.g., 97% of sound recording industries, 65% of metal ore mining, 64% of motion picture and video industries, 63% of book publishers, etc.).
12, Have Americans believe that profits from American companies still stay in the U.S. (e.g., Amoco's profits go to England, Random House's and Chrysler's profits go to Germany, Gerber's profits go to Switzerland, TransAmerica's profits go to The Netherlands, etc.).
13, Convince Americans that government incentives for American companies to locate offices/jobs overseas will not harm the job prospects of American workers (even comedian Jay Leno said President Bush went to India to visit the American jobs that had relocated there).
14, Persuade Americans that NAFTA and GATT would bring high-paying high-tech jobs to the U.S., while increasing numbers of high-tech jobs are outsourced to India, etc., and while President Bush and Congress propose dramatically increasing (from 65,000 to 350,00 annually) the number of H-1B visas so that high-tech foreign workers can come to the U.S.
15, Convince Americans that increasing numbers of guest workers working for minimum wage (because they are placed, for example, 10 in a house and pay only 1/10th each for expenses) will not undercut American workers in many industries (e.g., fast foods, construction, hotel and motel, grass-cutting, carpet-cleaning, etc.) who have to pay 100% of their own expenses.
16, Persuade Americans increasingly to purchase cheap foreign-made products here, leaving them to wonder why they cannot find a good-paying American job anymore.
17, Convince Americans that they have still gotten their monies' worth purchasing cheap products from overseas even though they don't last as long as American-made products.
18, Have government severely regulate/limit the use of people's private property, but still require them to pay the full amount of taxes on their property.
19, Force/coerce people to turn over their private property to the government in the name of preserving a pristine environment, but then this same property is contracted out to developers/mining companies, etc., for exploitation.
20, Drastically reduce the United States manufacturing base, yet assure Americans that having missile parts, etc., made in Communist China or elsewhere will not compromise our national security at any time, especially during wartime.
21, Persuade Americans that building up the economy of Communist China via investment and trade will not strengthen their military with which they can threaten/attack us. Also convince Americans that giving the Communist Chinese advanced missile technology will not aid them militarily either, if they decide to attack the U.S., Taiwan, Japan, or some other nation in the future.
22, Assure Americans that genetically modified foods and animals are economically beneficial, even though the long-term health consequences of such genetic modification is unknown. In an experiment, half of a field was planted with unmodified soybeans and the other half of the field with genetically modified soybeans----geese refused to eat the genetically modified soybeans! Do they know something we don't know?
23, Spend millions of American tax dollars to build the Panama Canal and then hand it over to a Panamanian dictator who sells operation rights at either end of the canal to the Communist Chinese who could destroy it if in a war with the U.S. in the future.
24, Have millions of American tax dollars spent on political campaigns to oust Slobodan Milosevic as leader of Yugoslavia at the same time Americans are expressing outrage over Communist Chinese political campaign contributions to American candidates.
25, Spend millions of American tax dollars on textbooks teaching Afghan children jihad (holy war) against foreign invaders, causing the Afghans when grown to fight against the U.S. invasion.
26, Americans give millions of dollars in foreign aid to countries that give large amounts of money to terrorists who want to destroy us (this is the "sell them the rope with which they'll hang us" principle).
The result of suckernomics will be a further withering of the middle class, resulting in a techno-feudal society ruled by an elite. Not only will this be a return to feudalism, but the "suckers" have also been conditioned to accept "futilism"----the idea that it is futile for them to resist dominance by a power elite intent upon synthesizing Western Capitalism and Eastern Communism into a World Socialist Government under the elite's control (an updated, indexed edition of my book, THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER, will soon be published).
© 2006 Dennis Cuddy - All Rights Reserved
Order Dennis Cuddy's new book "Cover-Up: Government Spin or Truth?"
Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education.
Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited twenty books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.
Yet Dennis Cuddy's newest piece is an instant keeper. He forgot a small handful of things, among them the phony unemployment statistics that leave out the discouraged worker and are designed to convince the sheeple that the U.S. economy is in better shape than it is. Count the discouraged worker, and the actual unemployment rate in America is somewhere around 12 percent. The point of "suckernomics": keep America's masses illiterate and misled, using whatever resources are necessary (government schools will do, and where those leave off, employ mainstream media misinformation, and then think tanks and research institutes to pump out bogus "studies" and other forms of disinformation). This so they will not ask too many questions of those with money and power. Keep the sheeple spending, spending, spending, so they will end up broke and dependent.
Original here.
"SUCKERNOMICS"
By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
April 24, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
In my previous article, I introduced the term "Suckernomics." The reception to this new term was very positive, so I have decided to expand upon its principles. Suckernomics is the process whereby the American public is made, and kept, economically ignorant. It begins even in elementary school, and the following is a list of some of its basic principles. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, and I am sure that you, the reader, will be able to add examples to it.
1, Don't teach students basic reading and math skills, so they will not be able to compete economically against those of other nations.
2, Convince Americans that more money is needed to solve our educational problems, even though a tremendous increase in educational funding has occurred over the past 4 decades, with negative results.
3, Teach children that petroleum products come from decayed fossils, even though there is no evidence of massive numbers of dinosaurs or massive amounts of vegetation in Middle Eastern desert regions or in the North Sea or near Alaska where large deposits of oil have been found. Don't let them know petroleum products are plentiful and come from methane derivatives, available through deep-drilling techniques used by the Russians for decades. Otherwise, they won't believe there's an oil shortage, and pay continuously rising prices.
4, Require Americans to pay about 40% of their annual income in taxes, but tell them that they are still better off than the serfs of feudal days who paid a smaller percent of their production to the nobles.
5, Persuade Americans that they should pay taxes for government programs which operate less efficiently than if run by private enterprise.
6, Entice Americans to purchase items on credit, even though that increases the cost of the goods by 10-20%.
7, Have Americans place a large percent of their paycheck into a Social Security "Trust Fund," which Congress then raids, leaving future senior citizens wondering what happened to their hard-earned money for retirement.
8, Allow the federal government to get away with posting an inflation rate that does not include increases in the price of food and fuel.
9, Give authority regarding trade decisions to the World Trade Organization, run by unelected bureaucrats overseas who can tell Congress it has to change our laws. Convince Americans that this is "free trade" when it is actually "managed trade," because many nations still have trade restrictions and subsidize industries in their own countries.
10, Dismiss calls for "fair trade," claiming American workers can compete against slave and child labor.
11, Persuade Americans there are still such things as "American corporations" as ownership increasingly goes overseas (e.g., 97% of sound recording industries, 65% of metal ore mining, 64% of motion picture and video industries, 63% of book publishers, etc.).
12, Have Americans believe that profits from American companies still stay in the U.S. (e.g., Amoco's profits go to England, Random House's and Chrysler's profits go to Germany, Gerber's profits go to Switzerland, TransAmerica's profits go to The Netherlands, etc.).
13, Convince Americans that government incentives for American companies to locate offices/jobs overseas will not harm the job prospects of American workers (even comedian Jay Leno said President Bush went to India to visit the American jobs that had relocated there).
14, Persuade Americans that NAFTA and GATT would bring high-paying high-tech jobs to the U.S., while increasing numbers of high-tech jobs are outsourced to India, etc., and while President Bush and Congress propose dramatically increasing (from 65,000 to 350,00 annually) the number of H-1B visas so that high-tech foreign workers can come to the U.S.
15, Convince Americans that increasing numbers of guest workers working for minimum wage (because they are placed, for example, 10 in a house and pay only 1/10th each for expenses) will not undercut American workers in many industries (e.g., fast foods, construction, hotel and motel, grass-cutting, carpet-cleaning, etc.) who have to pay 100% of their own expenses.
16, Persuade Americans increasingly to purchase cheap foreign-made products here, leaving them to wonder why they cannot find a good-paying American job anymore.
17, Convince Americans that they have still gotten their monies' worth purchasing cheap products from overseas even though they don't last as long as American-made products.
18, Have government severely regulate/limit the use of people's private property, but still require them to pay the full amount of taxes on their property.
19, Force/coerce people to turn over their private property to the government in the name of preserving a pristine environment, but then this same property is contracted out to developers/mining companies, etc., for exploitation.
20, Drastically reduce the United States manufacturing base, yet assure Americans that having missile parts, etc., made in Communist China or elsewhere will not compromise our national security at any time, especially during wartime.
21, Persuade Americans that building up the economy of Communist China via investment and trade will not strengthen their military with which they can threaten/attack us. Also convince Americans that giving the Communist Chinese advanced missile technology will not aid them militarily either, if they decide to attack the U.S., Taiwan, Japan, or some other nation in the future.
22, Assure Americans that genetically modified foods and animals are economically beneficial, even though the long-term health consequences of such genetic modification is unknown. In an experiment, half of a field was planted with unmodified soybeans and the other half of the field with genetically modified soybeans----geese refused to eat the genetically modified soybeans! Do they know something we don't know?
23, Spend millions of American tax dollars to build the Panama Canal and then hand it over to a Panamanian dictator who sells operation rights at either end of the canal to the Communist Chinese who could destroy it if in a war with the U.S. in the future.
24, Have millions of American tax dollars spent on political campaigns to oust Slobodan Milosevic as leader of Yugoslavia at the same time Americans are expressing outrage over Communist Chinese political campaign contributions to American candidates.
25, Spend millions of American tax dollars on textbooks teaching Afghan children jihad (holy war) against foreign invaders, causing the Afghans when grown to fight against the U.S. invasion.
26, Americans give millions of dollars in foreign aid to countries that give large amounts of money to terrorists who want to destroy us (this is the "sell them the rope with which they'll hang us" principle).
The result of suckernomics will be a further withering of the middle class, resulting in a techno-feudal society ruled by an elite. Not only will this be a return to feudalism, but the "suckers" have also been conditioned to accept "futilism"----the idea that it is futile for them to resist dominance by a power elite intent upon synthesizing Western Capitalism and Eastern Communism into a World Socialist Government under the elite's control (an updated, indexed edition of my book, THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER, will soon be published).
© 2006 Dennis Cuddy - All Rights Reserved
Order Dennis Cuddy's new book "Cover-Up: Government Spin or Truth?"
Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education.
Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited twenty books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.
