The Crash of 2016

by Thom Hartmann

  A pyramid standing on its base is stable, although unlike the Egyptian pyramids, the pyramids of economies and political systems are made of stuff that changes from generation to generation: agriculture and human/animal power, coal and steam power, oil and industrial power, solar and cooperative power.

  As you make the transition into a new world and a new economy, rising out of the ashes of the crash your generation of Economic Royalists brought you, always remember that they will still be there. They’ll be watching and planning and grasping for the levers that will bring them back on top. Be careful and—as Dwight Eisenhower warned my generation in his Farewell Address—be “ever vigilant” against that “misplaced power” that they are seeking.

  It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to stop altogether the rise of the Economic Royalists during the lifetimes of your children and grandchildren. They’ve always figured out a way to pull it off, all the way back to the era of Gilgamesh, seven thousand years ago in Uruk (what we now call Iraq).

  But please do your best to send a warning to your future generations. Don’t do like we did with Reaganomics and blow up the protections for your working people. Don’t jump into the equivalent of our Clinton/Gingrich/Greenspan experiment of deregulating the institutions owned by the Economic Royalists.

  Tell your children, and ask them to tell theirs.

  Maybe, just maybe, you and your peers can break these cycles of history, stop the boom-bust-war merry-go-round that this nation (and the world) has endured for more than half a millennium since Elizabeth I chartered the East India Company in 1601.

  Because, just as democracies will always have Economic Royalists looking for ways to subvert them to their own ends, they will also always have people who remember the lessons of history. People who know the possibility of a stable world at peace. People willing to sacrifice and work and put themselves on the front lines of history to build a better world.

  Find them. Celebrate them. Become one of them.

  Tag, you’re “It.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Thom Hartmann is a progressive national and internationally syndicated radio and TV talk show host whose shows are available every weekday in more than a half-billion homes in 104 countries worldwide. He’s the New York Times best-selling, four-time Project Censored Award–winning author of twenty-four books in print in seventeen languages on five continents.

  Thom has written extensively about culture, ecology, psychology, politics, and economics. His most well-known book on the intersection of ecology and anthropology, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, inspired Leonardo DiCaprio to make the movie The 11th Hour (in which Thom appears). His book Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception sparked a national debate, both in the psychology/psychiatry community and among the general public, on ADD/ADHD and neurological differences ranging from giftedness to autism. His book Rebooting the American Dream so inspired Senator Bernie Sanders that he wrote a cover letter to accompany the delivery of the book to his ninety-nine colleagues in the United States Senate and he read from it extensively on the floor of the Senate during his famous filibuster.

  In addition to being an accomplished writer, Thom and his wife, Louise, have also started a number of successful businesses and a community and school for abused children. Thom’s also helped start programs ranging from famine relief to medical centers to schools on four continents.

  He and Louise live on a boat in Washington, DC, with their attack cat, Higgins.

  Also by Thom Hartmann:

  ADD: A Different Perception

  ADHD Secrets of Success: Coaching Yourself to

  Fulfillment in the Business World

  Focus Your Energy: Hunting for Success in Business

  ADD Success Stories

  Think Fast! with Jane Bowman and Susan Burgess Beyond ADD

  The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century

  Thom Hartmann’s Complete Guide to ADHD:

  Help for Your Family at Home, School and Work

  The Edison Gene

  The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight

  The Prophet’s Way

  We the People: A Call to Take Back America

  What Would Jefferson Do?

  Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann Walking Your Blues Away: How to Heal the Mind and Create Emotional Well-Being

  Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle

  Class—And What We Can Do About It

  Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America’s Original Vision

  Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture

  Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became

  “People”—And How You Can Fight Back

  Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country

  As contributor:

  Air America: The Playbook: What a Bunch of Left-Wing

  Media Types Have to Say about a World Gone Right

  Imagine What America Could Be in the 21st Century, edited by Marianne Williamson

  From the Ashes: A Spiritual Response to the Attack on America

  NOTES

  1 Statement of Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich before the Subcommittee on Deficits, Debt Management and Long-Term Growth, Senate Committee on Finance, December 7, 1994, http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/reich/congress/120794rr.htm.

  2 http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500395_162-1293943.html.

  3 Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Pinkney, September 30, 1820, in The Declaration of Independence and Letters, Richard S. Poppen, ed. (University of Virginia, 1904).

  4 Asher Price, “Suicide Pilot Joe Stack Had History of Shutting Doors on People,” March 7, 2010, Statesman.com, http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/suicide-pilot-joe-stack-had-history-of-shutting-do/nRq6N/.

  5 Ibid.

  6 From a web posting authorities believed to be written by Joe Stack, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586627,00.html.

  7 CBS Los Angeles, “Newbury Park Woman Faces Eviction After Husband’s Suicide,” May 16, 2012, http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/05/16/newbury-park-woman-faces-eviction-after-husbands-suicide/.

  8 Katie Moisse, “James Verone: The Medical Motive for his $1 Bank Robbery,” June 23, 2011, ABC News, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/james-verone-medical-motive-bank-robbery/story?id=13895584#.UaMiNY6hDzI.

  9 From press release: “New Pollution Report Measures Global Health Impact Across 49 Countries; Reveals Pollution to Be Critical Threat on Par with Malaria, TB; Identifies Top Ten Toxic Industries Responsible,” http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/press-release-2012-world-s-worst-pollution-problems-report.html.

  10 From Bill Moyers interview, July 20, 2012, http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-hedges-on-capitalism’s-‘sacrifice-zones’/.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Ibid.

  13 Dean Reynolds, “Chicago police sergeant: ‘Tribal warfare’ on the streets,” CBS News report, July 11, 2012, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57470618/chicago-police-sergeant-tribal-warfare-on-the-streets/.

  14 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, Washington, DC.

  15 William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning (New York: Broadway Books, 1997).

  16 http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/HOUST. http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2006/11/housing_stats_l.html.

  17 Barack Obama, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009, Washington, DC.

  18 Daniel Sisson, The American Revolution of 1800 (New York: Knopf, 1974).

  19 Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, October 28, 1813, in Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States, Volume 2 (London: Colburn and Bentley, 1829).

  20 Thomas Jefferson, Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the Unit
ed States, Volume 2 (London: Colburn and Bentley, 1829).

  21 Andrew Jackson, Veto Message, July 10, 1832, The Founders’ Constitution, Document 20, University of Chicago, http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_18s20.html.

  22 I.C.R.R. Co. notice published in the New York papers and signed by the railroad’s treasurer, J. N. Perkins.

  23 Grover Cleveland, 1888 State of the Union Address, December 3, 1888, Washington, DC.

  24 Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).

  25 Warren Harding’s campaign slogan was “Less government in business and more business in government,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/warrenharding.

  26 Paul Krugman, “The Mellon Doctrine,” New York Times, March 31, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/opinion/01krugman.html?_r=0.

  27 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936 Democratic National Convention speech, June 27, 1936, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  28 Morris Berman, The Twilight of American Cluture (New York: Norton & Co., 2000).

  29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960s, accessed September 5, 2011.

  30 Hyrum S. Lewis, Sacralizing the Right: William F. Buckley Jr., Whittaker Chambers, Will Herberg and the Transformation of Intellectual Conservatism (ProQuest, 2007), http://books.google.com/books?id=QviaoxgkmFwC&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=%22russell+kirk%22+%22social+unrest%22&source=bl&ots=6Ds8B9XwZq&sig=QTd_BdnI6lCEM8cafJ6_SouuOe0&hl=en&ei=6fdjTrz-OuLc0QHcq5i3Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22russell%20kirk%22%20%22social%20unrest%22&f=false.

  31 Jack Anderson, “Powell’s Lesson to Business Aired,” Washington Post, September 28, 1972.

  32 Ibid.

  33 Ibid.

  34 “The Powell Memo,” ReclaimDemocracy.org, http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/.

  35 Ibid.

  36 Ibid.

  37 Ibid.

  38 Ibid.

  39 Ibid.

  40 Ibid.

  41 Ibid.

  42 Tom Dickinson, “How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory,” Rolling Stone, May 25, 2011, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525.

  43 John Cook, “Roger Ailes’ Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint for Fox News,” Gawker, June 30, 2011, http://gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon+era-blueprint-for-fox-news.

  44 Lanny Ebenstein, Milton Friedman: A Biography (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007).

  45 Interview, Commanding Heights, PBS, October 1, 2000, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/int_miltonfriedman.html.

  46 Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago Press, 1962).

  47 Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: MacMillan, 2010).

  48 Orlando Letelier, “The Chicago Boys in Chile: Economic Freedom’s Awfull Toll,” The Nation, August 28, 1976, http://www.ditext.com/letelier/chicago.html.

  49 Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, “One Week in Stockholm,” Hoover Digest 1998, No. 4 (October 30, 1998), http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6969.

  50 The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 12, Federal Edition (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904–5).

  51 Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, in Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States, Volume 4 (London: Colburn and Bentley, 1829).

  52 Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, October 28, 1785, http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s32.html.

  53 “Analysis of U.S. Census Bureau Data” in The State of Working America 1994–95, Economic Policy Institute (M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 37.

  54 Michael Linden, “The Myth of the Lower Marginal Tax Rates,” Center for American Progress, June 20, 2011, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/tax-reform/news/2011/06/20/9841/the-myth-of-the-lower-marginal-tax-rates/.

  55 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936 Democratic National Convention speech, June 27, 1936, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  56 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1944 State of the Union Address, January 11, 1944.

  57 Teddy Roosevelt, the New Nationalism speech, August 31, 1910.

  58 Elizabeth J. Magie, “The Landlord’s Game,” reprinted from The Single Tax Review, Autumn 1902, http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/magie-elizabeth landlords-game-1902.html.

  59 U.S. Council of Economic Advisors, 2000, Economic Report to the President, 2000 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000), 279.

  60 Grover Cleveland, 1888 State of the Union Address, December 3, 1888, Washington, DC.

  61 Elizabeth J. Magie, “The Landlord’s Game,” reprinted from The Single Tax Review, Autumn 1902, http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/magie-elizabeth landlords-game-1902.html.

  62 Charles J. Adams III, “Monopoly: From Berks to Boardwalk,” HISTORICAL REVIEW OF BERKS COUNTY WINTER 1978, Volume XLIV, Number 1 (Winter 1978–79), http://landlordsgame.info/articles/berks2boardwalk.html.

  63 Chrystia Freeland, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (New York: Penguin Press, 2012).

  64 Henry George, Progress and Poverty (Gloucestershire, UK: Dodo Press, 2009).

  65 “Essay: The FUTURISTS: Looking Toward A.D. 2000,” TIME, February 25, 1966, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835128,00.html.

  66 Richard Wolff, “The Keynesian Revival: A Marxian Critique,” October 23, 2010,http://rdwolff.com/content/keynesian-revival-marxian-critique.

  67 Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981, Washington, DC.

  68 Jude Wanniski, “Taxes and a Two-Santa Theory,” National Observer, March 6, 1976, http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1701/jude-wanniski-taxes-and-two-santa-theory.

  69 Interview with David Stockman, The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, September 21, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdZpOMpFf18.

  70 Bill Clinton, the New Covenant speech, October 23, 1991, Georgetown University.

  71 Bill Clinton, 1996 State of the Union Address, January 27, 1996, Washington, DC.

  72 Marie Diamond, “On the 15th Anniversary of ‘Welfare Reform,’ Aid Is Not Getting To Those Who Need It Most,” ThinkProgress, August 22, 2011, http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/22/301231/tanf-15-anniversary/.

  73 Bob Woodward, The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005).

  74 Dwight Eisenhower, Letter to his brother, November 8, 1954, http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/ike.asp.

  75 John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929 (New York: Mariner Books, 2009).

  76 Tom Philpott, “Foodies, Get Thee to Occupy Wall Street,” Mother Jones, October 14, 2011, http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2011/10/food-industry-monopoly-occupy-wall-street.

  77 Ibid.

  78 Interview with Susan Crawford, The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, March 4, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlO2IGTCHiU.

  79 Interview with Chris Hedges, The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, December 20, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By88H5vNMqk.

  80 John Ralston Saul, The Collapse of Globalism (New York: Viking, 2005).

  81 “America, Wake Up!” Americawakeup.net, http://americawakeup.net/.

  82 Ibid.

  83 David Wessel, “Big US Firms Ship Hiring Abroad,” Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704821704576270783611823972.html#project%3DMULTINATL0419_part2%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive.

  84 Dustin Ensigner, “Economy in Crisis,” February 2011,http://economyincrisis.org/content/trade-deficit-south-korea-autos-continues-rise.

  85 US Census, http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5330.html.

  86 Eamonn Fingleton, In the Jaws of the Dragon (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009), 66.

  87 Ibid., 67.

  88 Ibid., 294.

  89 Ibid., 27.

  90
Chrystia Freeland, “The Rise of the New Global Elite,” The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/308343/.

  91 James Goldmsith, The Trap (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994).

  92 Jeff Bercovici, “Why (Some) Psychopaths Make Great CEOs,” Forbes, June 14, 2011, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/.

  93 Pub.L. 97-320, H.R. 6267, enacted October 15, 1982, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.97hr6267.

  94 Matt Taibbi, Griftopia (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2011).

  95 Ibid.

  96 Ibid.

  97 Frederick Kaufman, “The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away with It,” Harper’s, July 2010, http://harpers.org/archive/2010/07/the-food-bubble/.

  98 Ibid.

  99 Ibid.

  100 Noah Mendel, “When Did the Great Depression Receive Its Name,” History News Network, http://hnn.us/articles/61931.html.

  101 Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).

  102 Ibid.

  103 Ibid.

  104 http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi.

  105 Interview with Steve Keen, The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, March 18, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n-X4RQqJcs.

  106 Saskia Scholtes and Michael Mackenzie, “Hedge Funds Hone In on Housing,” Financial Times, September 27, 2006, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b78c0fdc-4e40-11db-bcbc-0000779e2340.html#axzz1NfIFsOZS.

  107 James Mackintosh, “Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Bankers,’ ” Financial Times, June 23, 2011.

  108 Ibid.

  109 Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, September 6, 1789, http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch2s23.html.

  110 Thomas Jefferson quote revolution.

  111 John F. Kennedy quote, violent revolution.

  112 Robert Draper, Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives (New York: Free Press, 2012).

  113 Daily Kos member keepmehonest, “Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan & Kevin McCarthy: Plot to Sabotage US Economy with Frank Luntz,” DailyKos, June 8, 2012, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/08/1098434/-Eric-Cantor-Paul-Ryan-Kevin-McCarthy-Plot-To-Sabotage-US-Economy-with-Frank-Luntz.