Molly Ivins January 4

AUSTIN — The tree is down, the bills are due, we're all on Ry Krisp and cottage cheese, and it's time to face the new year.

In an effort to roust out of the old rut, I am considering a tempting offer from presidential candidate Jack Fellure of Hurricane, W.Va., who has invited me to be his permanent campaign representative for the state of Texas. He wrote President Clinton about his platform as follows:

— George Herbert Walker Bush was and is responsible for inestimable damage toward the destruction of this sovereign democratic constitutional republic. He continued to water the seeds and fan the flames of international, Satanic, Marxist socialism to the exclusion of our national sovereignty.

— And now you, William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, have merely shifted into overdrive the socialistic, Marxist New World Order agenda.

— Our country used to be led by patriots, Christians, character, integrity, veterans, flag-saluters, morality and Bible-believers. They were called Thomas, Abraham, George, John, Lewis, Philip, Patrick, etc.

— Now, we're being destroyed by atheists, Marxists, liberals, queers, liars, draft-dodgers, flag-burners, dope addicts, sex perverts and anti-Christians. They're now called Ruth, Hillary, Janet, Donna, Joycelyn, Rose Mary, Roberta, etc.

— You and Hillary are indicative of two serpents coiled around the throne of the nation, spitting venom and striking at all that made us one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all, guided by the laws of nature and nature's God.

And people say there are no choices since Colin Powell dropped out. Here's a candidate in the great tradition of Bobby Locke (o ye of short memory), who during his 1986 gubernatorial race challenged Moammar Khadafy of Libya to hand-to-hand combat in the Gulf of Sidra. He trained in his swimming pool in San Antonio. I voted for him on the grounds that it was a no-lose proposition.

Personally, I wish I could get a better grip on the New World Order, or even a glimpse of it. Seems to me we're heading from a democratic constitutional republic toward a corporate oligarchy, even toward an international corporate oligarchy.

But that's only because I spend so much time watching Congress. I could be missing the Big Picture.

The hot new Big Picture book of the year so far (it's gonna be a long year) is "The Winner-Take-All Society" by economists Philip Cook and Robert Frank. In this version, the Good Old Days (there are always Good Old Days in these books; right-wingers believe that the 1980s were a Golden Age) were 1950 to 1970. The Cook/Frank analysis is that regulated capitalism and trade barriers led to certain cozy, non-competitive arrangements that allowed or encouraged corporations to spread the wealth.

Regulated insurance rates, labor unions and the progressive income tax are examples of institutional mechanisms that kept capitalism's harshest effects at bay and helped divvy up economic rewards in a somewhat equitable way. Corporations with higher-than-average profits shared same with workers, so that IBM paid its janitors more than the going rate for janitors, even though it theoretically didn't have to.

Alas, the Good Old Days came to an end as cries of "too much government regulation" echoed through the land and we de-regged everything from airlines to energy to communications to (most memorably) savings and loans. The unions went south, new technology shook up the old arrangements, and corporations began catering to the global market. According to Cook and Frank, the final villain in the piece was "out-sourcing," which is the kind of word you get when you let economists name villains. Under increased competitive pressure, corporations figured out that they could save money by going to outside suppliers for everything from raw materials to cafeteria services. When a secretary with a good salary and medical benefits is replaced by a series of temps with neither, the secretary's job has been "out-sourced." Meanwhile, the executives have seen their pay shoot heavenward.

In one field after another — computers, professional sports, publishing, law, Wall Street — we end up with a winner-take-all economy. A few people get ungodly rich, and the rest of us fall behind. Well, we all knew the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer, but it's always nice to know why. Read Cook and Frank, but don't weep — organize.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.