Dear Mr. Kettle,
I wish to thank you for your note
of October 9, as I was mightily amused by your skillful choice of words. Even
using a liberal interpretation of the word modern,
I could discern no instance in which the Federal Government forced labor
without the promise of pay. Still, to borrow a few worn phrases, we are in
uncertain times and uncharted waters where we have our worst possible
opportunities to repeat the mistakes of the past. By narrowing your reply
solely to modern times there is the implication that history does not repeat
itself and that the future is wholly uncharted and unknown.
In a separate conversation, an old
friend reminded me of the other rhetoric coming out of Washington that none of
us, our leadership included, can understand the true economic impact of what
lies ahead, should our elected officials continue failing us. My rebuttal then
and now is that we have plenty of modern, democratic economic models on which
to reflect and evaluate, as to what happens when governments fail to pay their
bills. They merely lack the “Made in the USA” tag that we seem to desire as
proof of validity. I fall into that trap often, as the America people continue
to live an insular life, even in the Communications Age, which we helped forge.
However, so as not to stray too far and remain germane to the kernel of our conversation, I make the following prediction. In the event that that small faction within our government should persist in pushing forward with its agenda, for perhaps only a handful of weeks, there will come a tipping point at which history will be compelled to repeat itself. The Capitalist private sector which lives and breathes by virtue of government contracts will start shedding unwanted burdens in earnest, as it slashes it payrolls, that it remain viable and profitable and of interest to its stockholders. As President Hoover discovered in the wake of events of October 29, 1929, private capitalists are not in the business of social stability, nor should they. For the private sector to truly be successful at such an endeavor requires a level cooperation amongst said capitalists – a cooperation of such a degree as to be view as collusive and monopolistic – to rival nation governments. If the American people at large care not for the calculating hand of such charity as would be dispense we would have no recourse, for these people answer not to the American electorate but rather a board of directors and their stockholders.
Additionally, the bulk of Federal
workers will have long since been furloughed, with those in critical posts,
deemed necessary for social stability, being told they will man same whether
money flows to them or not. If the situation becomes sufficiently dire,
creative accounting will be applied with a wink and nod of Congress and the
Presidency, to stuff with IOU’s whatever escrow accounts have not already been raided,
that the lights may stay on and requisite, critical contracts honored. In other
words, the Government will break further with common sense and begin doing
whatever is necessary as does the man, who by choice or circumstance, lives
paycheck to paycheck, job to job.
I grant you that the Government
will make good on wages for those who stood their posts. However, it is
doubtful that it will go any further than that. In other words, it is unlikely
that the Federal government will recognize its secondary debts or the true
degree of interest that it owes those in this period of fiscal limbo. Even as
the Federal Reserve doles out money at zero percent interest, the going rate of
interest for short-term, unsecured debt hovers at 36%, or better, in the
private sector, thanks to the United States Supreme Court ruling on Marquette
National Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corporation, 1978, and
Congress’ refusal to address the issue in the thirty-five years since. It is
unlikely that Congress will even recognize this obligation, even though every
government employee and contract worker who stood his post or returned when
granted access saved the American taxpayers tens of thousands in replacement
and retraining cost. For you see Congress will look upon this impact on labor
as a casualty of war, for “patriotism…bought and paid for is not patriotism.”
After all, service to one’s country as serviceman, civil servant, or contractor
is as much an obligation as a career and those who earn their bread and butter
at the table of government will be the first to sacrifice, mostly.
In light of events in recent
years, I am reminded of the Hoovervilles which sprung in the wake of 1929. The
one that may have been forgotten by most with the passage of time includes that
of the Bonus Army. For those who may have forgotten, the United States Veterans
who served in World War I, were paid a differential allotment over and above
their military pay as means of recognitions of their financial sacrifices in the
service of their country. This differential pay was award in 1924 during the
heady years of financial abandon, but only over the objections of President
Coolidge. The Bonus Pay was awarded as a twenty year certificate, redeemable
only upon maturity in 1945, at a maximum face-value allotment of $625 per man. Adjusting
for ninety years of inflation, it was not a hefty sum. Still eight years later,
it looked like a princely amount for those who, by 1932, had fallen on hard
times. When 17, 000 WWI veterans and 26,000 family members and supporters set up a shanty town in Anacostia Flats, just outside Washington,
D.C., demanding the right of early redemption of the bonds, they were rebuffed.
You see, despite what a small group of modern elected officials might espouse
publicly and with false aplomb, government intervention into the plight of the
unemployed and homeless would not begin until five years after the stock market
crash and only then because influences outside our borders threatened our
internal stability – all of which has a familiar ring. Tasked by President
Hoover, General Douglas MacArthur and Major Dwight D. Eisenhower would route
and disperse the squatters, then raze the shanty town that no one might return.
While this event may be lost in the pages of history, it had great significance
to decisions and direction of government in the years that followed.
But sir, I am out of time
and, in keeping with our agreement for brevity, I leave you with a passage by
the Freedman, Solomon Northup, from a time, not quite so modern yet still
ringing truthfully even today.
“The society and associations at
that world-renowned watering place, were not calculated to preserve the simple
habits of industry and economy to which I had been accustomed, but, on the
contrary, to substitute others in their stead, tending to shiftlessness and
extravagance.” - Solomon Northup, Twelve
Years a Slave
Sincerely,
Mr. Pot
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