Apathy, indifference, coupled with entrenched status quo institutionalizes regression

Partisans promise deepening breakdown ─ except in aid of corporate profit
Editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett 

The truth is that both the Romney-Ryan and Obama-Biden tickets represent the interests of the capitalist ruling elite.  

“Whichever pair of millionaire politicians wins in the November election, the new administration will intensify the assault on working-class living standards and carry out unprecedented attacks on basic social programs.”  

Romney vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan “represents a definite social type,” Patrick Martin writes today at World Socialist Web Site, “someone who decided in college, if not earlier, to make a political career as an advocate of ultra-right policies and the interests of corporate America.  

“Ryan was an enthusiast for Ayn Rand, the glorifier of capitalist brutality and selfishness, and went to Washington as a congressional aide and later a speechwriter for 1996 Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, before winning an open congressional seat in southeastern Wisconsin in 1998.” 

Ayn Rand (b. February 2, 1905, St. Petersburg, Russia; d. March 6, 1982, in New York City) pushed a political philosophy of objectivism, a deeply conservative doctrine, positing individual effort and ability as the sole source of all genuine achievement, thereby elevating the pursuit of self-interest to the role of first principle and scorning such notions as altruism and sacrifice for the common good as liberal delusions and even vices. 

As are most members of the U.S. Congress and Senate, “Ryan is a multimillionaire, with a personal fortune of as much as $7 million based on his own family’s earthmoving company in Janesville, Wisconsin, and his wife’s Oklahoma oil wealth inheritance.” 

PATRIOTS LIKE THESE

“Promote the general welfare,” no 

Promote welfare of corporate profit, yes 

“Despite his posture as a ‘free market’ radical, Ryan backed government intervention to save the banks and the auto companies in 2008 and 2009, voting for both the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP (the Wall Street bailout) and the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.  

“He declared at the time that such efforts were necessary ‘to save the free enterprise system.’ 

“Ryan is invariably referred to in the corporate-controlled media as ‘an intellectual leader of the Republican Party,’ a description echoed on Sunday by President Barack Obama.  

“This dubious accolade means that he can propose to slash benefits for the poor and elderly in order to finance tax cuts for millionaires; and at the same time, claim that this will benefit society as a whole…all while keeping a straight face.”

Sources and notes

“Ryan pick marks further shift to the right in U.S. presidential campaign” (Patrick Martin), August 13, 2012, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/ryan-a13.shtml

Russian Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand (b. February 2, 1905, St. Petersburg, Russia; d. March 6, 1982, in New York City) pushed a political philosophy of objectivism, a deeply conservative doctrine, positing individual effort and ability as the sole source of all genuine achievement, thereby elevating the pursuit of self-interest to the role of first principle and scorning such notions as altruism and sacrifice for the common good as liberal delusions and even vices.  

Her creed “held laissez-faire capitalism to be most congenial to the exercise of talent; this doctrine underlay Rand’s fiction [We, the Living (1936), Fountainhead (1943), Atlas Shrugged (1957)] and nonfiction, including such works as For the New Intellectual (1961), The Virtue of Selfishness (1965), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966), Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1967), and Philosophy: Who Needs It? (1982). She also promoted her objectivist philosophy in the journals The Objectivist (1962–71) and The Ayn Rand Letter (1971–76). 

Rand began her writing career as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Before that 1931 she graduated from Russia’s University of Petrograd (1924) and later (1926) immigrated to the United States. Britannica 

Martin: Today’s partisans’ healthcare is the same: “using the vouchers (called ‘premium support’) to limit the federal contribution and shift the cost of health care from the government (or in the case of Obama, corporations) to the individual.”  

TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) Wikipedia 

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008. It was a component of the government’s measures in 2008 to address the subprime mortgage crisis. 

The TARP program originally authorized expenditures of $700 billion. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act reduced the amount authorized to $475 billion. By March 28, 2012, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated that total disbursements would be $431 billion and estimated the total cost, including grants for mortgage programs that have not yet been made, would be $32 billion.  

This is significantly less than the taxpayers’ cost of the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s but does not include the cost of other ‘bailout’ programs (such as the Federal Reserve’s Maiden Lane Transactions and the Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). 

The cost of the former crisis amounted to 3.2 percent of GDP during the Reagan/Bush era, while the GDP percentage of the latter crisis’ cost is estimated at less than 1 percent. 

While it was once feared the government would be holding companies like GM, AIG and Citigroup for several years, those companies are preparing to buy back the Treasury’s stake and emerge from TARP within a year. 

Of the $245 billion handed to U.S. and foreign banks, over $169 billion has been paid back, including $13.7 billion in dividends, interest and other income, along with $4 billion in warrant proceeds as of April 2010. AIG is considered ‘on track’ to pay back $51 billion from divestitures of two units and another $32 billion in securities.  

This Wikipedia article addresses the Treasury fund. For the legislative bill and subsequent law, see Public Law 110-343. For the legislative history and the events leading to the law, see Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

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