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On this Labor Day weekend, our country is engulfed in deep economic anxiety, and no doubt you share my heartfelt concern for those Americans who’re suffering the worst of these uncertain times. I refer, of course, to millionaire corporate chieftains and big bankers.

What? You thought maybe I was referring to our 25 million fellow citizens who can’t get the jobs they need, or the millions more who’re soon to be out of work due to both corporate and governmental cutbacks in the American workforce? No, no, bucko — according to the corporate establishment (top executives, media barons and political elites), the number one economic problem is not the ongoing elimination of middle class jobs and the subsequent destruction of consumer spending. Rather it’s some terrible “uncertainty” that has swept through the executive suites, immobilizing once-proud risk takers, who now wail that Washington’s priority must be to relieve their anxiety. “To create jobs,” implored a senior vice president of strategy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “we need pro-growth policies and the certainty necessary to invest and hire.”

Certainty? Aren’t these the same corporate honchos who’ve proclaimed (and imposed) a “new normal” of intentional economic uncertainty on America’s workaday majority? Yes, they are. Forget job security and middle-class expectations, they bark at us. Instead, the future for working families will be one of low wages, long periods of unemployment, no health coverage or pensions, a tattered safety net and practically no worker rights — get used to it.

What are the “pro-growth policies” these economic elites are demanding from Washington? Deregulation of corporate power, de-unionization, reduction of taxes on corporations, the rich, cutting “entitlement” benefits (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid), and the privatization of everything from education to transportation — to name a few. Guess who grows under these policies and who shrinks?