The Slog engages in some indecent exposure

Rupert Murdoch rear-view. (Sketch courtesy of Prince Harry)

Why the myth of neo-conservative economic success is the biggest con since Hitler’s Volkswagen

I’m indebted to Professor Christopher Quigley for pointing out the following three graphs to me, which appeared in the context of a recent article by James Quinn.

They’re not new. They’re certainly not news. But they are the Truth – the empirical reality which proves beyond any doubt that neocon economics are destructive to the equality within, and thus fabric of, society. They are based on US data, but precisely the same findings are clearly apparent in the UK as well.

The first chart is mind-openingly simple. It shows that as American GDP has grown by 70% since 1990, household income has fallen:

Cue chorus from the Left of “it’s sooo unfair”. But it’s actually far worse than unfair: life is unfair, but we have governments who are supposed to keep an eye out for when the unfairness becomes criminal. What we should be doing with charts like this one is extrapolating a power-shift conclusion.

As citizen incomes fall, so too does Government tax revenue. But if GDP goes up at the same time, big business enjoys much higher margins, and shareholders thus get much bigger dividends. When shareholding directors sell out, they get humungous amounts of money. Quite often (like Mitt Romney) they stick it in tax havens. As the coroporate profits are stored, investment banks come along and say “Why not leverage it to take over a big competitor?” This duly happens, the bank directors get humungous bonuses, the market becomes more monopolous, and jobs get moved offshore. Oddly enough, Mitt Romney is kind of implicated in that process too.

The net result is more power to business and banking, less money for politicians. The latter become increasingly dependent on the former. Hence what we are seeing today: a friendly takeover of Washington and Westminster by global money interests, and the increasing influence of neocon economics in contemporary politics. You could say, in fact, that neocon multinational knuckle-heads have used their brute force to turn socio-economic failure into political success.

The evidence? Feast your eyes on this US chart about Labour force participation:

What this chart shows is that Reaganomics and Thatcherite policies have brought us back – via a briefly delusional ‘growth’ period in the two decades from 1980 to 2000 based on credit profusion – to precisely where we were. Except 90% of us are earning less in real terms, we are all infinitely more indebted, and our Treasuries are underwater. Ben Bernanke is, as I write, emptying America’s at the rate of $40bn a month via QE. His newly stated goal? To target the long-term unemployed. The Mitt Romney carpetbaggers truly are the most expensive citizens in the history of America.

There’s no upside to this picture: no sign, for example, of any of that wealth trickling down the leg of the banker onto the hands of the shoe-shine boy below. In fact, it continues to gush upwards:

Again, there is nothing new in this table beyond a further update on incontrovertible truth: the main tenets of Reaganomic, Friedmanite, and neocon thinking are complete bollocks. One tenth of one per cent of the population sees a near 400% rise in income, 1.5% of incomes go up by around 79% on average, and 90% – one hundred and thirty-seven million people for crying out loud – stay pretty much exactly where they were. Except there are fewer jobs, because Romney and his fellow rapists moved them offshore while ratcheting up their bonuses as payment. And of course, fewer regulations to keep Diamonds in check, less welfare protection, more fixed markets like libor and gold, more Zirp to destroy retirement income, more social violence, more hopelessness and reduced civic standards. Where is Elizabeth Warren when you need a Presidential candidate?

As a result, Mitt tells a rich donor-audience that half the population votes Democrat, and boy is he forever pissed about it. The bloke is either incredibly dumb, or certifiable. (Although he is right to think they’re stupid to vote for a President who has done nothing at all – not one single thing – to reform this economic bedlam.)

Greed makes for a very effective blindfold: almost, but not quite, as effective as media distraction. Money, power, media influence and political control enable the tiny minority of worshipful moneylovers at the top to keep the truth away from most of the People all of the time.

Few people understood this better than Nazi propaganda minister Josef Gebbels. In 1937, he wrote, “Our aim is to rid the world of the pestilence of Jews and communists. Therefore we tell the masses that all communists are Jews, and naturally they believe us”.

Reasonably intelligent people like Dan Hannan worship the ground Mitt Romney walks upon. The Mayor of London, the Secretary  for Education, and the Secretary for Health are all unalloyed cheer-leaders for Rupert Murdoch. Ronald Reagan remains the most revered US President of all time. Boris Johnson had a crush on Bob Diamond until he was revealed as a crook and a liar. The Prime Minister David Cameron has counted known Newscorp criminals as his friends for many years. Tony Blair works for JP Morgan, the latest bank to be charged with drug-money laundering.

I cannot think of a better description of their success in public life than ‘indecent exposure’.

Related: Why Jeremy Hunt is Alans Partridge and B’stard rolled into one.