Republican War on Consumer Succeeding

 Republicans have a penchant for declariing wars and thinking in martial terms - loving, apparently, the pomp and ceremony of vicarious participation in the courage and sacrifice of others.  They have declared many wars - The War on Drugs, The War on Terror, The War in Iraq, The War in Afghanistan.  Now, it is true that they never actually win a war - apparently these things go on and on forever.  So it is with a great deal of pride that I can report to you enormous success from the battlefield of the core Republican War - the War on the Consumer -

 My fellow Americans - Victory is at Hand:

  http://www.marketwatch.com/...

 More good news below

  Okay - this quote got me,  "this is incredibly awful",  reacted Ian Sheperdson, a chief economist.  Hmm - incredible implies some sense of surprise I would think and I confess that gets me.  For at least two decades now the driving imperative of Republicanism is to assault the consumer and that assault has been incredibly successful - just look at this good stuff:

 1.  Housing prices falling at record rates:  http://www.marketwatch.com/...

 2.  Dow Chemical presages coming inflationary spiral - UPS forecasts dramatic slowdown
 

   http://www.reuters.com/... and

http://www.bloomberg.com/... and

3. In the 1st Qtr of 2008 American households lost $1.7 Trillion - that rights - with a T - of value"

 http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/...

    So, there it is - we have the great good fortune of living in a time when the bumblng Keystone Cops actually achieved one of their purposes - they have succeeded in their struggle against the American consumer.  

   Now, it is true that few Republicans have actually called it a war on the consumer - instead they think up clever Orwellian terms to market their product - terms like Tort Reform,  Incentivizing Investment by Giving Welfare to Corrupt Incompetent CEOs - ooops - that last should read, passing the Enron loophole,  bailout of buddies profiting off of phantom value in the subprime mortgage debacle, etc.

 The one unifying thread that runs through Republicanism is that value can be separated from price - and that the power of the State used to order economic activity - in other words - pure, unrepentant, unadulterated socialism.  It used to be that when economic actors in a free market economy engaged in a commerical transaction - whether large or small, whether for car or house or a billion dollar deal - that the implicit but well understood assumption was that if one party sought advantage by wrongdoing or failed to deliver upon a promise as a result of negligence or incompetence - there would be a price to pay.  The day of reckoning would come, as it had for centuries, at the courthouse.  

 However, Republicanism put an end to all that.  Republicanism argues that in a consumer driven economy the consumer can be divested of his or her rights and that will be "good for business."  Just as an example.  One of the achievements of Tort Reform has been to replace jury trials of those who seek remedies for construction defects in their houses with mandatory arbitration and to eliminate any chance of an award for punitive damages.  Not surprisingly, since home buyers have been, solely by governement dictate, deprived of part of the value they once had when they purchased a home, home prices are falling dramatically.

 If economic history teaches anything - it teaches that attempts by the State to order economic activity inherently produce inefficiencies and dislocations.  

 So we are now reaping what the Republicans sowed - after 20 years (at least) of the so called pro-business Chamber of Commerce telling the consumer that consumer remedies were too severe - we are watching the economy begin a meltdown because consumer confidence is eroding rapidly.  

 But these glorious leaders will have one admonition for you - "you will work harder."