I think I may have finally realized why I am not making any progress in explaining how I think the  economic mess needs to be corrected.

Here is my letter addressed to a middle-class proponent of austerity.

It is my fault for failing to acknowledge the point you are making.

You are right in blaming some of the problems of the faltering economy on the excessive borrowing of the middle-class.

It is a mistake for me to argue my side, without first agreeing to the part the middle-class played.

When I do that, I lose the audience for hearing that the ultra-wealthy played an equal or even larger part in the debacle.  My real point is that I do not want the discussion to focus on the price the middle-class has to pay for past excesses without having a discussion of the part that the other party to the excesses has to pay.

My problem with Germany is that they played a large part in encouraging the excesses of the other countries to borrow money to buy goods and make profits for Germany.

Now Germany wants to keep everything they gained by their taking advantage of the naivete of the other countries, and they want the other countries to pay for it with resources they just do not have.  This formula cannot work, and nobody is going to come out a winner if this is the way that the solution is sought.

Both sides have to come together and admit they both played a part in the mess.  It will take both sides to give up some of the gains they made during the bubble, to create a non-bubble, stable economy.  So far, only the middle-class is weak enough to be forced to give up their gains.  But economic reality will force the lower rungs of the ultra-wealthy to give up their gains, too.

Only when society wakes up to the fact that there is no solution until we get together to solve the problem will this nightmare end.

In trying to make a strong case for Keynesian solutions, I have failed to emphasize that I do understand that both sides of the economic struggle for gain have made huge mistakes.  This leads me to make strong arguments only against the one side that refuses to take responsibility for their mistakes.  I assume that it is a foregone conclusion that the side that is taking all the hits right now does deserve some of it.  I see that I have to pay more attention to making clear the part that I am assuming.

In the article Higher Taxes Are Already Here: Rick Newman, Adam Task interviews Rick Newman.

In many interviews, Adam Task seems to have a clear view of the big picture. Occasionally he does interviews where he plays along with the interviewee, and does not challenge their point of view. This seems to be one of these occasions.

I cannot fault the analysis of what the average voter may be thinking and why they react the way they do. I actually think the interview does show great insight there.

The problem comes in part from the analysis of how we got to this situation. More importantly, the analysis falls down in trying to describe how the problem must be solved. I agree on their analysis that the attempted path to the solution will most likely take the form they describe. Where they fall down is in describing what the true solution ought to be.

It is the game plan of Karl Rove and his wealthy sponsors to starve the government of revenues so that the size of the government will have to be cut. This in turn will force such moves as cutting government employees pension, thus breaking the promise made to them when they were hired and dangled in front of them during their whole working careers. Cutting government employee pensions will remove the last vestiges of what a well society looks like, so that it will be easier to sell the idea that the current race to the bottom in the private sector is just the way things ought to be.

The current fiscal problems of the states are due to the faltering economy and the the blockage by the Republicans in the U.S. Congress of any attempts by President Obama to tide the states over by giving the states any more stimulus money.

The trillions of dollars in tax giveaways to the wealthy at the federal level makes it look like their are not enough resources to go around to support the necessary functions of government. This and the fact that the top 1% have garnered over 90% of the economic growth that occurred before the bubble burst is the proximate cause of our current problems.

The attempt by the top 1% to keep the gains they made during the bubble and make everyone else pay for it seems to be working. They have convinced the middle-class tax payers to take it out on the middle-class government employees rather than ask the wealthy to contribute to the rescue of the country.

In the end, nobody is going to walk away from this unscathed. The sad part of this is that it is all so unnecessary.

In recent posts about Krugman and Stiglitz, there is a description of what the true solution will eventually be. The middle-class has been convinced by Karl Rove and his minions, that we must suffer for the excesses of the ultra-wealthy. Apparently we believe that our suffering is payback for our own excesses. This may be true to some degree, but we fail to notice that the ultra-wealthy don’t feel that they have any duty to pay for their own excesses.