Is anyone else not shocked that people who lost jobs in the recession and were having trouble getting new ones didn't vote for Mitt?
Had Perot - a right of center candidate from decades past - been on the ticket, I would have voted for him.
Perot wanted to make it harder for American corporations to ship production to Communist China. Problem is, the mainstream Republican party is beholden to business, which wants the kind of cheap labor that comes from freedom hating nation's like China.
Do you know how many products Walmart has manufactured in China? Starting with Reagan, the American Government became complicit in the death of middle class jobs. The government became beholden to wealthy investors who didn't want their profits eroded by "first world" labor costs. Point is: Nike, Apple and Walmart make more profits for investors when their products are made by workers who make less than $5 day and live in hovels beneath dictators. This is the dirty little secret of capitalism: it loves slave labor, and so do its investors who amass greater wealth when high wage American jobs are shipped to sweatshops.
To answer your question. Romney is stuck in the same Supply Side policies that have dominated economic policy since Reagan. These policies destroy the one thing that corporations would need to start adding jobs: demand.
Supply Siders believe that if you remove all the Government Policies that stimulated consumer demand and created a solvent middle class - and by so doing transferred all resources and capital to the wealthy - that the money would trickle down in the form of higher paying jobs and competitive pricing. This has proved false. Right after Reagan sold us this snake oil, the jobs were shipped to China and corporations were allowed to go on a mega-merger orgy which resulted in handing most U.S. sectors to large monopolies, which monopolies can raise prices and bankrupt the middle class because consumers are captive to one supplier. This is why people in 90% of Iowa only have one health care option, and it's why many Americans only have 1 option for internet and cable - because the lobbying state created by Reagan (who wanted to put business back in Government), devolved into non-competitive monopolies which fleece the middle class and destroy their ability to consume at the volume needed to sustain job growth. (Problem is: Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh don't teach this)
But it gets worse. Romney also supports a role for the Fed that is toxic to consumer spending. The Fed was created to maintain full employment - to stimulate demand during recessions. This is why all the recessions prior to the Bush Meltdown were relatively short. Granted, one downside of maintaining full employment is inflation, which itself eats away at purchasing power. Because of inflationary worries the GOP under Reagan changed the Fed's role from maintaining full employment to fighting inflation - austerity. [FYI: when Reagan needed to end his '81 recession, he became a vigorous Keynesian, and kept generous taxpayer funding to the states so they could maintain public employees, who themselves were also consumers, which consumers were needed to maintain the consumption levels to prevent a deflationary spiral and the resulting job loss. Obama, on the other hand, has been forced by Republicans to cut-off aid to the states, which is why we have seen massive layoffs to the state sector, and a huge loss in the needed consumer spending to get out of the recession. Of course, Republicans understand none of this because they've been educated by the a ruthlessly ideological information system designed to benefit the wealthy corporate elite that owns the American Government through lobbying and election funding]
But here's the point: the neoliberal austerity of Reaganomics (i.e., welfare to corporations but free market discipline for the middle class) can, like Keynesianism, be over-applied. After 30 years of withdrawing government policy support for middle class purchasing power (and 30 years of trying to fix weak demand by expanding credit/debt based consumption, and 30 years of letting large corporations form anti-consumer mergers (A.K.A. monopolies) over vital consumer sectors), is it any wonder that the consumer is finally too indebted to consume at the necessary levels for economic growth. There is a lesson: you can't fix disappearing jobs and stagnant wages by financializing the economy and handing out credit cards, but this is exactly what Reaganomics did to compensate for moving production to ultra cheap labor markets in Asia and the global south. Now we have the most indebted consumer class in history, and the consumer is too indebted to borrow sufficiently to maintain demand. Translation: our businesses lack enough consumers to justify adding jobs. Yes, the Fed is currently trying every easy money trick in the book to fuel demand - but it's too late. Middle Class purchasing power has been destroyed by having to compete with Chinese labor markets and having monopolized health care, which came by way of lobbying pressure on the GOP, who basically works for the drug companies before accepting lucrative lobbying positions.
Regardless, Mitt would have been a disaster because he brought no new thinking. There are some Republicans who would have been great for the economy, but they would never be allowed near the nomination. Perot is an example of a Republican who wanted American corporations NOT to partner with Communist China against the American worker. Perot didn't want us to send Jobs to sweatshops, but the GOP and the wealthy 1% whom they represent craved ultra cheap labor from freedom hating nations.
Timeline:
1945-1973: Americans have high wages and consume vigorously, which gave capital an incentive to add jobs (so they could capture all the money sitting in middle class wallets). The American economy, during years of postwar Keynesianism and strong unions, sees its greatest growth ever.
1980: Business funds the Reagan ascendancy partly because they are sick of paying American wages. They get Reagan to weaken Labor and trade laws so corporations can slash wages/benefits and ship jobs to cheap labor markets, so corporations can realize higher profits by lowering the cost of production.
1983-2008: to compensate for shipping jobs to China and repealing programs that protected middle class solvency and purchasing power, the Reagan Revolution radically expands credit to American consumers. Domestic consumption is now funded by debt. Check it for yourself. Starting in 1980 American families accumulated unprecedented debt in order to keep pace with disappearing jobs, monopolized health care and slashed benefits/entitlements/programs.
2008: Wall Street and the financial sector creates a conveyor belt that turns the mortgages of the poor into bogus securities and derivatives. Wall Street makes trillions on the way up, then they make trillions hedging the bubble's bursting. Then they get bailed out as the American Middle Class in foreclosed upon.
The Meltdown leads to the death of main street and the final nail in the coffin of middle class purchasing power BUT... [wait for it] the government bails out Wall Street (A.K.A the wealthy private sector) which staffs government through election funding and writes policy through lobbying pressure.
Now the middle class, jobs destroyed and homes turned into casino chips for the wealthy, doesn't have the ability to borrow enough to consume. Demand is dead. Corporations do not have enough consumers to justify adding jobs.
Game over.
