"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." -- Warren Buffett

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." -- Warren Buffett

When I hear the word austerity, I think of something else: class warfare.

It is not really about budget deficits or government debt; it is about cutting workers' wages, taxes, social programs and environmental regulations. And, last but not least, it is about selling off the commons -- our public goods like hydro, hospitals, schools and roads, often in the form of public-private partnerships.

This is done all in the interests of corporate profits, regardless of the impact on workers, citizens and the environment.

$3 trillion in tax cuts

Cutting corporate and upper income taxes means they are free to spend more of their unearned income on things most important to them. If we are corporations we can take this money and invest it in China or buy hedge funds with it. If we are wealthy individuals we can get on line for one of those new private submarines so hot in the upscale market or put it in a bank, stock or bond somewhere on earth where we can get the highest return.

A crisis brought to you from the people who ask you to vote for tax cuts (mostly for the rich and corporations) deregulation and privatization. Our job as citizens is to free the corporate world of any responsibility other than to provide us with the opportunity to work for them and consume their products. When necessary they must be protected from their own excesses, in the current U.S. case, by potentially handing the corporate sector a sum of taxpayer dollars equal to the entire GDP of Canada.

Deregulation began in the United States in the 1970s. Some two decades (2002) after it began, Consumer Reports (CR) evaluated deregulation in the US. According to CR consumers have lost ground since deregulation began.