No it doesn't. The wealth has accumulated in the hands of a global class of billionaires. Take India, for example -- touted as a success story by neoliberal shills like Tom Friedman. The average calorific intake has actually declined during the last twenty years. Just as disparities have been increasing in the USA, they have been increasing in other parts of the world that have gone along with the "Washington Consensus."
Bringing up unions -- do you bother to think about what you write or just type whatever tired old cliche comes to mind? Germany is a more heavily unionised country than the USA. The wages of its skilled workers are high. Why has manufacturing not imploded there? Why has unchecked outsourcing and transplanting of manufacturing not occurred there? If we take the logic of competitive wages at face value, American workers would need to be paid at levels comparable to Chinese and Indians. The USA industrialised behind a tariff wall -- and this was what made possible a middle class. The abolition of the tariff wall, coupled with unfettered movement of capital -- euphemistically called "free trade," "globalisation," etc. -- has benefited a small class of investors and speculators, but wreaked havoc on the American population at large. I might recommend Paul Craig Roberts' book, "How the Economy was Destroyed." Instead of incisive thought from the Tea Partiers, you have inanities like this coming from the likes of
Rand Paul:
But coming back to your question of what outsourcing has to do with small government: the process of "globalisation" -- outsourcing, transplanting manufacturing, the development of a global financial system that makes the other things possible, the military muscle to back it up with -- are all intimately connected with big government. Big government and big capital are tied together -- something Tea Partiers cannot understand.
*Sigh* -- the Pentagon has estimated there are not more than 100 Al-Qaeda people in Afghanistan. Why, then, is the US still involved there? The US government made a completely deceitful argument about WMD, and links between Al-Qaeda and Saddam to serve as a
casus belli. Again, do you think about what you write? The "war on terror" is open-ended, where the "terrorists" are never clearly defined, where the "objectives" keep changing according to expediency (Saddam has WMD --> Saddam was a bad guy --> We're engaged in nation-building --> We're restoring democracy). With regard to Afghanistan, Obama has given no clear reason for continued involvement. The point is a militarised empire like the US is now engaged, by the logic of its military-industrial complex, in unending warfare for no clear reason. Among other things, this is bankrupting the people who live in the empire. What the Tea Partiers don't seem to get into their thick skulls is that while they have this militarised, paranoid government, they can't simulataneously have a small government.
Watch, wait, listen. Nothing has changed. Neither side has ideas; both uphold the status quo. Something you don't seem to understand, making silly divisions, as you do, between the "liberals" and Republicans/Tea Partiers. As others have pointed out, if voting could change anything, they'd have abolished the ballot box a long time ago.
There is no movement, I reiterate. It's smoke and mirrors, red herrings. For a movement to exist, a clearly enunciated ideology would be necessary, coupled with a way to realise it. The Bolsheviks had it, the Nazis had it. The Tea Partiers don't. Wake up.
There is no "left" in the US. As Nader pointed out some years ago, both Democrats and Republicans are dialling for the same dollars. There are no ideological differences between them. The only difference is that the Democrats are hypocrites becaue they have a different electoral basis, which they have to deceive.
The healthcare "reform" was written by industry lobbyists. Obama is a moron who understands nothing except to be a good house negro. Reid and Pelosi -- whom I hold in greater contempt than any Republican -- are corporate puppets. Are these the people you call the "left?"
The "reform" isn't a disaster for those who wrote the bill. It's a windfall. In your mind, is this what it means to be "left?"
What the Tea Partiers don't have the cojones, the brains, the ideology, the organisation, the common voice, to say is that something more radical is needed. But this is what happens when you have corporate puppets like Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh heading this "movement." Pied pipers, I think. At least Buchanan has been openly hinting that politics as usual is simply not working.
get that. Banks were forced by the government to meet certain housing loan standards for the poor and down-trodden. Any bank not under control of the Govt would have NEVER give a home loan to someone KNOWING they would not be able to pay it back. Again, any company that does, on their own, screw up..goes bye bye.