LaRouche on Undoing the Bush-Obama Damage

EIR Founding Editor Lyndon LaRouche said today that “putting Glass-Steagall back into effect is the only way to start a revival of the U.S. economy. Let it bankrupt big financial institutions,” LaRouche added. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, recently announced for President, had just held a press conference to talk about “breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks” by some means other than legislation to restore Glass-Steagall, which is already in the House with nearly 50 sponsors. “If you don’t restore Glass-Steagall, it’s just not competent,” LaRouche said.

LaRouche’s view is that Bush and Obama have wrecked the U.S. economy to such a degree since Glass-Steagall was abolished, that there is no substitute for restoring it, “and then create the future credit system immediately needed to get production going again. We don’t have a solid, skilled labor force any more,” he said, after 15 years mass unemployment and misemployment under these Presidents. “But create skilled and productive employment, and people will have to get the skills on the job. Why is President Obama having so much trouble ramming his ‘free trade’ scheme down throats in Congress? The answer is not in Congress, but in important categories of constituents who know just how bad the U.S. economy has gotten under this President.”

“Hamilton is my war cry,” LaRouche said. “We have to create an economy the Hamilton-Lincoln way. The people have lost their skills and their incomes — they’re dying. We need a radical change, but a change certified by Alexander Hamilton’s successful policy.

“And we need to create a new Presidency around this. Not after the 2016 election — now.”

Behind the U.S. GDP zero-growth reported in the first quarter — which will be revised to negative growth as more data comes in — is the ongoing collapse in the vital area of business capital investment. It has stagnated with essentially no growth at all for seven years, negative net growth when depreciation of capital is taken into account. Big businesses can borrow at virtually zero interest; small businesses, not at all; and the big businesses, banks, oil companies, etc. are all using this borrowed debt to buy their own stock and buy other companies. Business capital investment fell in April for the seventh consecutive month, and the overall drop is 7% since last September. It is actually 9% lower over the year since April 2014.

No capital investment, no productivity growth. It fell by 2.1% in the first quarter; by 1.9% in the last quarter of 2014; and so on back. This is not even real productivity, but simple production or service performed per man-hour.

Productivity decline means real wage decline, the story of Obama’s “recovery,” and everyone, of course, knows it. Do they want to buy a “trade agreement” from this man?

The ADP Payrolls report on private-sector job creation in April, released today, was weak. It claims a 169,000 increase in private sector employment in the month. The March increase was revised downward to about the same, 174,000. This survey’s figures have fallen every month since last November’s 242,000; i.e., when oil prices collapsed.