Folktruther:

“Maani, Inherit—I can only hope that all my adversaries are as mindless as you guys.  It’s guys like you that should be put in as heads of the Dems and Aipac.”

And I hope there are VERY FEW like you, and that they are not, and will never be, in any positions higher than dog-catcher.  LOL.

Peace.

Maani, Inherit— I can only hope that all my adversaries are as mindless as you guys.  It’s guys like you that should be put in as heads of the Dems and Aipac.

ITW:

LOL.  I guess I’m just slow on the uptake…LOL.

Peace.

Maani, November 24 at 12:53 pm #

Peace.

***************************************

Figured it out, didja?  Folk likes to ignore inconvenient facts that upset his bizarro world view.  He knows the “truth” and doesn’t need facts.  He is no different than one of those nutty Christo-fascists who think they don’t need facts or evidence because God is speaking directly in their ear.  But in Folk’s case it’s Marx, Che, Qutb (founder of Modern Wahabism, jailed by Nasser).

Let me amend my platform.  Forget 100% reserve requirements.  Let’s consider private currency.    Cheers.

Folkliar:

Apparently, anyone who is not as “left” as you is a “right-winger,” no matter who they are, what they believe, what they have done for left-wing causes, or any other factor.

You are hopeless.

Peace.

Well, here’s “the good news.”  This “global” horror movie is nearing THE END of its final reel….and underneath it all, Sisters and Brothers, it IS all absolutely nothing but make-believe. 

Almost before you know it, all the domesticated peoples will be fleeing the burning theater they’ve been mistaking for the actual Song ‘n’ Dance ground of Life Herownself.  Sure, many will be in terrible shock when they find their selfs back in the organic Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth.  They’ll get over it….sooner or later.  Take it from your old Indian Guide….and certified EMT.

Of course, there’s still a little time to exit the bowels of this “....heart-attack machine” ahead of the panicky mob.  Avoid the rush….not to mention the CRUSH.

Be seein’ y’all soon.

HokaHey!

Yes, you are a right winger, Maani, a Zionist right winger that supports the Dems rather than the Gops.  John is a right wing libertarian who believes there should be even LESS government regulation of the banks and corporations, precisely the neoliberal position that got the US in its present economic condition. 

The War on Terrorism, neoliberalism and a American police state are driven by Zionism funded by Jewish and Chistian businessmen, and expounded by Jewish and Christian academics, professionals, and bureaucrats.  Obama is in favor of both and has appointed Zionists to key positions to contunue the War, neoliberalism, and, necessary to support both, a postmodern police state.

Obiden’s success in the US has affected the election in Israel where Netanyahu and the Likud party now enjoy a commanding lead.  Both Obiden and Likud are against a Palestinian state, this being one of the implicit policies of the Zionist instigated War on Terrorism.

Therefore the Zionist War, neoliberalissm and police state will continue in both Israel and the US, and the policy of ethinic cleansing of the Palestinians- under the codeword of Transfer-  will continue to grow in the Israeli population. 

Unless the American population distinguishes between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and opposes the latter, it cannot oppose effectively the War, neoliberalism, or a police state.  The alternative is to believe in the sucker Hope and delusive Change that Obama promises, which appears to be fine with you and other right wing Dems, as class inequality continues to increase and the American population is deprived of their jobs, homes, and even food in the comming years.

This is the change that we can believe in.

John:

Well said.  And I am no “right-winger” (LOL).

I would simply have asked Folktruther: So, is the answer to simply throw the Constitution in the fire and start over?  Shall we try anarchy?  or maybe go back to monarchy, or a benevolent dictatorship?

As I noted before, Folktruther is about as much “folk” and “truth” as FOX news is “fair” and “balanced.”  LOL.

Peace.

The arguments of right wingers like yourself never change, John; it’s always go back where you came from.  My comment that the US neoliberalism-which you advocate- can’t compete with Chinese party capitalism in growth, an obvious truth, elicits the comment to consider Chinese citizenship. If the choice is between Patriotism and the simple reality-based truth, you, like many Americans, prefer the Patriotic truth.

The American truth, indeed any truth consensus based on a national and regional perspective, conflicts sharply with the truth formulated from world historical perspective.  It is this holistic truth that is the basis for mobilizing the American people, indeed all people, to subvert the power delusions created by civic Patriotic Education.

Oh Folk,

“It is legalistic and ideological dreck that obscures real power relations.”

We are a republic and the health of our system is dependent on rule of law.  The fact that most people don’t realize that the Congress is the branch empowered to declare was is probably the reason our current corrupt leaders can get away with ignoring the law.

I bet most people think our currency is still backed by gold in some way.  Rather than condemning civic knowledge itself, we should be working to make it relevant again.

As for your love affair with China’s party capitalism, I think you should give Chinese citizenship a try.  See how the party would respond to you posting descent on the internet.

I think I’m done here.  You aren’t willing to have a real back and forth, ask questions and then ignore the answers.  I don’t see any more constructive debate to be had. 

Have a great Thanksgiving and God Bless.

Civic knowledge, Maani, is largely Educated garbage.  It is legalistic and ideological dreck that obscures real power relations.

The 40% of the people who responded ‘incorrectly’ that the preseident has the power to declare war were, in fact, quite right.  No matter what the Constitution says. Congress does what it is told in war situtions, as in so much else.

The Constitution is an ideological document to teach children in school power delusions; the powerful ignore it when they want to.

The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments gave African-Americans civil rights in ideology,  while they were segragated, enslaved and lynched with impunity in practice for a century.

Free market economics, Neo-americanism, is much worse economically than the party dominated economic system of China.  Governemnts have historically played an increasing role in economies.

Schoolbook civics, social theory and history are a large part of the reason why the American people are so ideologically backward and deluded about power relations.

That’s a cool little civics test.  Not to brag or nothing, but I scored an 85%.  How sad that a B constitute the top 3%.  Oh, America.  What’s happened to your knowledge?

All:

This is somewhat alarming (or perhaps, for some, not even surprising:

US OFFICIALS FLUNK TEST OF AMERICAN HISTORY, ECONOMICS, CIVICS

Thu Nov 20, 2:24 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.  Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

“It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI’s civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned,” said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI.

“How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don’t understand the American experience?” he added.

The exam questions covered American history, the workings of the US government and economics.  Among the questions asked of some 2,500 people who were randomly selected to take the test, including “self-identified elected officials,” was one which asked respondents to “name two countries that were our enemies during World War II.”  Sixty-nine percent of respondents correctly identified Germany and Japan. Among the incorrect answers were Britain, China, Russia, Canada, Mexico and Spain.  Forty percent of respondents, meanwhile, incorrectly believed that the US president has the power to declare war, while 54 percent correctly answered that that power rests with Congress.

Asked about the electoral college, 20 percent of elected officials incorrectly said it was established to “supervise the first televised presidential debates.”  In fact, the system of choosing the US president via an indirect electoral college vote dates back some 220 years, to the US Constitution.

The question that received the fewest correct responses, just 16 percent, tested respondents’ basic understanding of economic principles, asking why “free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government’s centralized planning?”
Activities that dull Americans’ civic knowledge include talking on the phone and watching movies or television—even news shows and documentaries, ISI said.

Meanwhile, civic knowledge is enhanced by discussing public affairs, taking part in civic activities and reading about current events and history, the group said.

Here is the test.  See how well YOU do:

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org:80/resources/quiz.aspx

@Folk,
Here’s where I stand (as of right now):

Yes, I am in favor of dramatically less regulation pretty much across the board. The reason is NOT because I think big business should be allowed to run free.  Quite the opposite.  I believe that most regulations are either captured by or often proposed and lobbied for by big corporate incumbents or other powerful interest groups.  I believe most regulations are used to prevent competition that would push down profit margins and lift up wages through labor competition.

We can get into some real specifics if you like, but there are just endless examples. 

But more importantly, I’m in favor the absolute end of all corporate and business subsidy.  Bye bye farm aid.  So long oil subsidies.  Ethanol?  Forget it.  Wind and solar?  I’ll buy it when it’s viable.  I’m a very green person and a vegetarian.  But I want the best tech to win, not the one picked in advance by central planners in cahoots with wealthy profiteers.  Chances are that the oil replacement we want hasn’t been invented yet.  Subsidizing the current alternatives only reduces the change that there will be investment in the unknown future ideas.

I’m also in favor of a return to the gold standard, the abandoning of the federal reserve and open to 100% reserve requirements (or possibly private currency).  This would end the government’s ability to wage wars “off the books”  funded by the inflationary printing press.  It would eliminate inflation and actually bring about slow and steady deflation that would reward work and savings.

It would also end the banks ability to gamble with money they can’t afford to lose (which is what brought us here).  Government should live within it’s means.  If it needs to borrow, that borrowing should be subject to the same kind of scrutiny that any other investor makes, namely the proof of future production that will allow for the loan to be paid back with interest.

I’d like to see the end of undeclared wars of foreign aggression and intervention and the removal and return of most of our military from around the world.  Team America World Police must end.  It’s also costing us trillions.

I’m pretty sympathetic to the legalization of all drugs and the end of the “war on drugs” because I find it futile and broadly racist in effect.  The police state enabled by this war destroys our cities and fills our prisons with abusers for no reason.  Also, the American black market demand for drugs funds cartels all around the world from Mexico to Columbia to Haiti to Afghanistan that are hideously destructive to their people.  I believe we could spend a tenth of the money we spend on this ludicrous and futile “war on drugs” by making them legal, regulated and investing in the savings and proceeds on treatment and prevention.

With all the savings from the above, I would like to see a massive reduction in taxes to the point where there is no real tax code or IRS, both of which are epic drags on our small businesses and economy through their byzantine rules.  Our business taxes should be low enough to incentivize businesses coming here… say 10 tp 15%.  I’d love to see no personal income tax at all.

Notice I said nothing about eliminating Welfare, Medicare, Social Security or Public Education.  It’s not that I think these are working well (they’re not).  But the above I think are our first priorities.

That’s it for now.  That’s my liberty platform.  I think it’s quite populist and very much against the current “power system”.  Take it of leave it.

John, you are in favor of less regulation of corporations by the Government?  Less people expenditures, health, welfare Education?

@Folktruther, November 22 at 11:50 am

We may not be sure whether we will be able to find some amphibious animal on the mars or not but I certainly know for sure that there is a hero who is making the dreams of Neoconservative and their Project for the New American Century come true by making sure that their radical agenda is adopted and enforced by Bush/Cheney administration in its true letter and spirit. Global war on terror is one such enabling tool in use toward its execution.

Bencher,

With all due respect, I’m not hearing any ideas in your post.  I’ve heavily criticized the corporatist collusive powers and the central bank collusion in this post.  Monetary inflation certainly is a robbing from the average people to give to the politically connected.  It is my belief based on everything I’ve read and observe that the best alternative is a dramatically smaller state.  The state is a supporter and creator of corporate monsters, not the opposite.  I think I’ve argued this point here at some length with little real rebuttal.

You bring up Domino Sugar without any irony about the role of government sugar quotas in their power maintenance.  That these ludicrous quotas are still in place is pretty shocking proof of the lack of accountability in the state.  We could go on and on with legions of other examples.  Capitalism is not a system of design so referring to it as such misunderstands its very nature.  It is fundamentally a system of emergence and spontaneous order based on a few simple rules, a key of which is property rights.

Now, corporatism and crony capitalism is another matter.  Again, this is why I believe in a smaller state and decentralized power.  A constitutional government.  Our history of abuse by power is the history of tyranny and statism.  Big corporations hate free markets because they drive profits down and wages up. 

All of you seeming to argue against economic liberty don’t seem to really be arguing in favor of anything. Do you want some kind of socialist state?  Something else?  I’d love to hear the affirmative ideas.  And if they’re socialist, I’d love to hear the means through which that kind of system can avoid it’s long history of tyranny, innovation suppression and collusive oligarchy.  So far, the only place socialism seems to have a shot at working is in heaven.  But I’m open to a reasonable argument.

BTW, I’m a middle-class guy working for a living and right now just trying to get by paying the bills and taking care of my family.  Nobody is helping me out.  I’m on my own.

@Folk,

I’m not going to claim enough knowledge of China to really dig into some kind of cause-and-effect analysis.  I generally reject causal arguments because I don’t believe the world is simply or that the information necessary to be anywhere close to right is accessible.  I must also stipulate that I’m not much of a fan of macro indicators like GDP in the absence of micro knowledge.  They just mask too much of what actually matters in economics (which is the incentive structures in play for individuals).

I will say that there was a decisive change between China’s old agrarian socialist economic model and their embrace of trade and markets at certain levels.  It seems reasonable to attribute their growth to that embrace.  Also, their astonishing growth rate is based in no small part on the fact that they’re building from a dramatically smaller economic base. That is just basic math.  It’s easier to grow from a smaller base, barring other barriers.  The other factor that China benefits from enormously is their ability to get a running start by importing all the innovations that have taken place in market economies.  Think about it.  China didn’t do anything to bring about the computer or the internet, but they are now developing with those benefits in place.

Take all of that and countless elements I’m completely ignorant of and mix them in with a society of hard working people who are just now getting a taste of market incentives to invest and prosper, and it’s not that hard to see how 10% growth rates are achievable.

I see no contradiction at all between China’s growth and the ideas of liberty.  I think the hopes that market forces will lead to civil liberties is overblown, however.  At some point, China will burn through the low-hanging economic fruit of basic capital development and be forced to confront the innovators dilemma.

As a side note, I believe that there are many elements of China’s economy that are dramatically more free than the US.  If you wanted to start a business braiding hair in China, I don’t think that you’d need a license (like you do in the US, which is simply ludicrous).  I bet there is tremendous degrees of emergent economic behavior of the bottom-up variety that faces far few barriers to entry than business start-ups face in the US.

...but what the hell do I know about China?  Seriously.  And what do you really know?

John, the Chinese economy has grouwn over the last half century at a rate of about 10% a year, an unprecidented historical development.  It invests over 40% of its GDP every year, which is also unprecidented.

The govenment owns about a third of the economy and the biggest banks.  They are subject to a hierarchal communist party which includes technically trained people.  In my opinion they play their political cards extremely cleverly.  They are trying to keep a low profile until their economic dominance is such that they cannnot be militarily attacked.

This is not a Free economy, which exists only in liberal and libertarian textbooks.  Only managed economies exist; in the US the banks control the government, in China the party contols the banks.  The US can’t compete with the Chinese economy which is, in total GDP, about equal, although of course much less per capita.

What is your libertarian analysis of this historical conflict?

“John, you appear quite sincere in defending the rich.”

I am sincere, but if you think I am defending the rich, you fundamentally don’t understand what I’m saying.  I strongly defend the rights of individuals to pursue wealth.  That is true.  And I don’t find relative inequality to be a problem so long as everyone is moving up the ladder.  But my views are no comfort to the incumbents of power.

What I’m saying is that powerful central authority is the tool of the existing powers and they all use it to keep out new comers.  Surely you can agree with this as it is a fact that dates back to the powerful railroad tycoons using the Interstate Commerce Act as a weapon to keep out competitors and maintain higher prices, which of course hurt the people.  Even Ralph Nader found this to be true in his study of regulation and competition during the 1970s (google “Monopoly Makers”).

Again, big business and rich incumbents are no friend to REAL libertarian ideas.  Real competition from remotely free markets is a threat to the “Power System”.  Again, this is why the more socialized a nation’s economy is, the fewer large corporate bankruptcies there are.  This is why our current bailouts are so terrifying to me, because they are rewarding failure and perverting the incentives.  This is why our foreign interventions, including aid, are so often a tool for propping up despots.

I believe that you and I, libertarians and progressives, can share common ground in our fight against the abuse of power through corporatism.  But for that to happen, progressives must be honest about what our system is and is not.  It is not a pure “free market”.  This crisis is not a market failure as Bob is trying endlessly to promote.  This is a failure of corporatist collusion between the central bank, the government and the power players close to those entities.

But so long as progressives erect the “free market” strawman and libertarians appear to hold water for the big corporations, we’ll never make progress or see real change.  I’ve never read Ayn Rand.  I don’t “celebrate” selfishness. But I do acknowledge the power of incentives that drive people invent and produce.  Wishing for these incentives to change is the true delusion of socialism.  Again, it’s not workable model.  It’s a religion.

The system that enables a healthy, bottom-up emergence of innovation has and will deliver the growth and prosperity that we’re all looking to see.  America has historically been the worst place to be a corporate incumbent thanks to our embrace of creative destruction.  That is what we’re risking in our current action.  A system that concentrates power in the State deprives people of prosperity through corruption, stifling of innovation and ultimately through outright theft via taxation and inflation. 

I see no better example than our wealth (and likely energy) destruction known as ethanol mandates and subsidies.  This is classic central planning failure that a market would never support.  And yet, despite it being a known disaster, these systems remain in place and rob from the working class through higher food and fuel prices to give to the politically connected agribusinesses like Monsanto.  The coming boom in federal “investment” in alternative energy will likely be equally destructive to the working class while lining the pockets of connected corporatists like T. Boone Pickens.

If you put your faith in The State to be an agent of the people beyond the simple powers granted in our constitution, your faith is betting against all known history.

Please, feel free to dive into a deep rebuttal.  I like learning from people of opposing views.  But I think we’re closer than you think.

John, you appear quite sincere in defending the rich. Some of us feel that money is a power commonity as well as a unit of exchange and those who control the means of production increase their power as well as their wealth. That although the ruling class competes with each other, they unite against the working population.

A power system includes the privately owned mass media as well as the government.  They both support the power interests of the power struture.  Does this assertion not have empirical implications, or is it just another conspiracy theory of the crazed brains of the leftists.

Please, for everyone stuck in this utter unempirical notion that the rich of the world are systematically becoming so by taking from the poor, do some real economics study.

Here’s a great place to start:

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/02/lucas_on_g rowth.html

Here’s another excellent piece of work from the Minneapolis Fed by Lucas:
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_ display.cfm?id=3333

All this talk of “Power systems” and nefarious conspiracy is just completely lacking broad empirical support.  Is there exploitation?  Of course.  Are there incentives for the powerful to manipulate the state to maintain their power?  Obviously.

Nobody is a more fierce opponent of free markets than big business.  That is something “progressives” seem unable or unwilling to grasp.  I guess it’s a lack basic economic understand or broad knowledge of the role of regulation throughout history.  I think it’s a quasi-religious attachment to this public romance about the State as the agent of “the public”.  It is not.  The public is the agency of the public.  The state has a few clear roles for which it is well suited and tremendous list of roles for which it clearly fails.

We can be high minded and philosophical, or pragmatic and specific.  Either way you slice it, the state comes out systematically in favor of the power elite or the interest groups.  That will only be reduced by limiting their power to print money and divert resources to their constituents through regulation and subsidy.

If anyone thinks that this is nonesense, please explain why we still have sugar quotas, or ethanol subsidies.

Socialism may work in heaven, where resources are infinite.  On earth, it is a clear and obvious failure in the long term.

The little girl said “I’m drawing a picture of God.”

The teacher said, “But no one knows what God looks like.”

The little girl said, “They will in a minute.”

We are educating people out of their creativity,” Sir Ken Robinson’s most amusing video filmed in front of an audience, about how education is hurting us. It is so true, and really entertaining - http://www.christiankeys.ca/EducationHighlights.html (left column second down)

The “working assumption” of Robert Scheer and many of those commenting here seems to be that the current “economic crisis” is largely the “product” of mal- and mis-feasance on the part of some self-styled “supermen.”  So if the financial apparatus can somehow be got back into the “hands” of people a little less selfish and incompetent, the thinking so wishfully goes, “....the global economy can get back on-track and moving forward again.”

This desperate belief compels its adherents to studiously ignore, of course, the plain fact that “the fundamentals of the economy” are actually quite rotten-to-the-core.  Based on the terminally idiotic notion that our Mother Earth (and all Her other Children) are just “property,” the driving conceit of the “civilized” peoples is their supposedly “divine right” to inflict on everyone and everything else whatever is required to maximize their own private “comfort” and “convenience”....and that’s not even to mention their fatal obsession with the devastating delusion they call “power.”

Meantime, from here in the actual Living Arrangement it’s clear that the “perfect storm” breaking over the superficiality that is “modern civilization”  has itself been generated entirely by the habits and presumptions of the very “individuals” upon whose heads it is falling.  That’s something you truly CAN take-to-the-bank, Sisters and Brothers.

You might still take shelter in the Tiyoshpaye Way within the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth within the Song ‘n’ Dance of Life Herownself.  Just keep in-mind your money’s no-good here.

HokaHey!

A Khokar-Your comments-that based on his acheivements Bush is a hero of America-or that the US controls Central Asia- indicate that you are communicating from Mars.  I’ve always wondered, are there any animals of any kind in the water there?  Inquiring minds want to know.

In US Presidential elections Mr Barack Obama got a splendid slide victory not on the bases of giving out his new foreign policies or the miasma of Iraq war or for that matter his purported resolve toward war on terror. The results show that 67% people voted him for his given promise to change and bring about the socio economic reforms that people were fed up with the out going Bush administration who are leaving them and their country in such a mess. Votes counted toward foreign policy or the War against terror are about 7% each only.

This is an era of people having the controls on the energy resources and people with ability to innovate. America has got the both. One may curse George W Bush to any extent; that mad man was a tyrant; a criminal and oppressor. But he was tyrant, criminal or oppressor for whom? Not for American. He proved to be oppressor of the oppressors, where he flexed his muscles to expand the American hegemony; primarily in the lands with economic resources and other control points and venues. Those people may say they have been subjugated and victimised by George W Bush. But basing on the achievements for American he is the hero for his nation.

However he and his party; conservatives in any case have not been rejected by American masses in this elections for their foreign policy or the war against terrorism. The American masses they very well know that Iraq war or the war against terrorism are just the phoney wars; basing on lies and deception. This war called as Global war against terrorism is just an enabling tool to push forward the U.S planned hegemony in the light of neoconservative Project for the New American Century, whose radical agenda was adopted by the Bush/Cheney administration. The subject project is American national project which has the due support of Barack Obama and the Democrats. Goals of this policy and achievements there of, are as sacred for Democrats, as are for Conservatives.

So; we may see a change or say reforms in the American socio-economic fields with in the country but there may not be any change in the policy of the set American national goals in the field of foreign policy where huge achievements of George W Bush are being relished and haled truly and duly. The entire Middle East and central Asia are practically in U.S. fold; it is meeting both aforesaid ends of U.S. ‘control of economic resources’ as well as ‘Innovation ability’; and the king makers and proxy countries found in the area of U.S. operations like; Pakistan are ready to serve her majesty U.S…. so willingly….for few more Dimes.

George Bush style deregulation and “oversight” is a wee bit out of hand when the FBI is tasked with investigation minnows while purposely ignores the sharks.

Former Regulator: Clear Fraud in Financial Crisis—Why Isn’t Anyone in Jail?

http://tinyurl.com/59jzkk

@Folktruther,

We’ll just have to agree to disagree.  Central planning doesn’t strip away inequality.  Pushing down on the top of the curve does not lift up the bottom systemically.  It simply puts the incentives for people not to create or produce, but to cozy up to the political elite and the central authority for handouts.  There is a dramatic and extensive history of corporations capturing the efforts of the state to regulate and redistribute from the railroads to the telcos.

You seem to be wishing for a benevolent ruling class where the central planners have all the power to pick winners and losers in the economy, yet are somehow not corrupted by this power and captured by the interests whom they affect.

I reject that wish for utopian leaders and believe in the fundamental decentralization of power and choice.  I believe that you are conflating corporatism with free market competition.  What’s worse, I think that you reject the idea of a free market as utopian, while adhering to an alternative and, in my opinion, more dangerous utopian ideal of perfect central leadership.

Take some time to read up on the Trans-santiego Chilean public transit history for a truly amazing example of how central planning hurt everyone, especially the poor, while aiming to reduce “inequality”.

The rich don’t go away in socialist countries… they just get cozy to the ruling class and avoid the perils of failure and competition.  France and airbus is but one of thousands of examples.  American capitalism, while deeply flawed, has still allowed for the destruction of more corporate incumbents than any other system.

It is socialism that allows for a calcified ruling class of central planners and their cronies.  This market collapse is a collapse of cronyism in central banking and finance, not a collapse of competitive free markets. 

All the fear of deflation ignores so many modern examples where a competitive, deflationary free market delivers the most benefits to the most people.  Just look at the rapid explosion of access to computing and it’s ongoing success as a business despite deflation expectations that are inherent in it.  Tomorrow’s computer will be cheaper and better than today.  It will be more affordable for more people.  THAT’s free markets.

France tried to eliminate inequality by giving out computers to everyone.  What it did was crush the industry for computer makers in the country and set them back years.  Socialism is about picking winners of today to the exclusion of tomorrow.  It is not economics at all, but a religious hope for perfect leadership. I see no reason for such hope in this world.

Maybe I’d dead wrong… but I think the evidence is on my side.  Even Ralph Nader wrote in favor of deregulation when he saw how central planners in the airlines were maintaining monopolies.

No, John, I am talking about the poor of the world being kept there by Democratic, market societies. In the US, the investment banks that hold the stock of corporations increase the wealth of their rich by decreasing the wealth of the population.

British imperialism destroyed the textile industry in India to initate its own, and through the opium wars largely destroyed Chinese economic power.

The US helped create the Asian depression beginning in 1998, its corporations buying up the remains at bargain prices.  As the US rich becomes richer, the US working class over the last four decades works harder to become poorer.

Schumpeter is full of shit, more so than most liberal economicsts.  He did say a few true things, however, like socialism is inevitable historically.

“it is quite true that the world’s people are poor BECAUSE a few are rich”

Wow. That statement is truly amazing.  If this kind of sentiment lies at the heart of “progressivism”, I can rest easy knowing that I’m not missing out on anything as a libertarian/classical liberal.

You should really step away from the causal koolaid or at least make an effort to back this kind of statement up with some kind of broad empirical evidence.  The notion that wealth is a fixed or a finite commodity seems to be broadly and demonstrably false.  Entrepreneurship creates wealth.  It doesn’t steal it from others.  That is the State’s job, often in concert with politically connected big business.  Subsidy is the real theft as it is purely coercive. 

A guy like Steve Jobs building a business with a new product and generating hundreds of thousands of jobs with it’s production is not theft.  It’s trade and growth and expansion of wealth for all involved.

Take some time and read some Joseph Schumpeter. 

p.s. - if you’re talking about the poor of the world being kept there by tyrannical rule in non-democrat, non-market societies, then I can agree.  Despots do keep themselves rich by robbing the people.

Troublesum, although it is quite true that the world’s people are poor BECAUSE a few are rich, the situation is a little different in China.  There, instead of the banks controlling the government, the party controls the banks, the major ones being owned by the state.  This type of party capitalism, a new form in history, has been economically developing the country at an astonishing speed and promises to develop Asia, where most people live.  Every year over 40% of the gdp is reinvested.

However a Chinese ruling class has developed of course and although the power system is more effective than the neo-American one, with which the US can’t compete, it is likely a new type of imperialism will develop, and in the next few decades.

I will say this.  The economic tsunami unfolding just might wipe away any gains in the past two decades.  Perhaps that will reveal them to be a sham of central bank inflation.

Regarding the poor people of New Orleans, it is without question that the government at all levels is and has been failing that community for a very long time.  Perhaps that’s racism.  Perhaps it’s systematic unaccountability and poor incentives.  Probably it’s both.

We’ll see how and who makes progress there in the next four years.  I’m going to put my bets on the private charities, companies and local organizations. 

@Folktruther,

If your “Power System” construct is referencing the central banks, than we are in agreement.  If it’s a more nebulous construct of collectivism and conspiracy, we’ll have to just agree to disagree.  Unless, of course, the president elect is in fact a secret lizard agent.  I guess anything is possible.

@Troublesum,

We can certainly debate the validity of information coming out of China, given it’s regime.  I’ve read the figure to be as high as 400 million from Cato Institute, which is an organization I find to be very credible.  You may not.  So be it.

Your claim about the upward redistribution of wealth requires more explanation and appears built on ideological notions of inequality instead of absolute improvement.  Again, if you’re talking about the austrian view of inflation as robbing from the rich, I’m in agreement.  If you’re talking about the explosion of wealth at the head of the curve relative to the tail… you’re in a different realm.

If someone’s at the bottom’s income improves by 20% while the people at the very top improve by 300%, it doesn’t follow that the top “took” from the bottom.  Wealth isn’t finite.  The guys that started google and became billionaires didn’t steal their money from the poor.

But I don’t want to sound like I’m holding water for the big guys.  I’m not.  Just pointing out that relative inequality is not the same thing as absolute improvement or decline.  You need to be more precise.  I certainly do as well.

Ho-hum, nothing new here—Obama is the good cop to Bush’s cop. And sadly, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
But we’re in a new ballgame here: the empire is over!
Our empire is broke, the spirit is lacking, the oil is peaking and the leadership is truly Roman.
Time to sit back and relax and enjoy the aftermath of empire—quiet nights at home, no running off to invade and torture, no more ponzi scheming, alchemisty whiz kids on Wall Street turning toxic mortgages into gold—now we can go quietly into the night and be like other post empire countries—Spain, Britain and Holland.

John Papola
“Hundreds of millions…”  Where did you get that figure?  And what constitutes being “lifted out of poverty”?  It sounds like propaganda.  There are approximately 2 billion of the worlds population living on less than two dollars a day or less according to UNESCO.  There has been a radical upward redistribution of wealth in the last twenty years.  Poverty is increasing not decreasing.

By Folktruther, November 20 at 1:16 pm #

New Orleans, John, will not be rebuilt for 20 years not because it was hit by a hurricane, or because governemts are incompetent, but because they want to move the African-Amerians out and gentrify.
————————& #8212;———
I couldn’t agree more.  New Orleans fits into the plan to reurn to the Roman city-state model.  In the modern version, New Orleans takes on the qualities of a theme park.

@troublesum,

“In a parallel universe all the worlds poor have been “lifted” to new heights of prosperity.”

I believe that’s called making a strawman argument.  I didn’t say anything close to “all the world’s poor” being lifted.  I simply stated the fact that hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty by liberalization of trade and opportunity.  It’s not without it’s problems, but it is a statement of fact that I find to be a very positive development for the human race.

I’m just tired of people railing against the great satan of “deregulation” while ignoring the epic interventionism that is central banking.  So many allegedly interested people ignorantly parrot that we’ve been operating in a completely free market and it’s just a totally bogus statement driven by ideological confirmation bias.

New Orleans, John, will not be rebuilt for 20 years not because it was hit by a hurricane, or because governemts are incompetent, but because they want to move the African-Amerians out and gentrify.  Germany after WW2 was rebuit in far less time by this same ‘incompetetn’ government.

You appear to want to live in a dream world. You have a lot of company.  China has moved hundreds of millions of people from the farms to the cities because the power system wanted to.  The US power system does not want to restore the homes of the people of New Orleans.  God has given the realators and developers a chance they always wanted and now they are taking it.

John Papola
How right you are.  In a parallel universe all the worlds poor have been “lifted” to new heights of prosperity.

The Clinton’s ,Obama and the Democrates as a whole would serve and be better served, IN THE LONG RUN,without Hillary as the Secretary…..

I believe Hillary could be president in the future if she does not except the job!!.. ( Condelisa Rice makes a great secretary… gender and race aside)

  .1 star is all you need to make good theatre ..Two will only cause conflict and contraversy!!...Let the democrates and america rule peacefully for the next 16yrs ..

I am afraid to look at what the alternatives for president are after that!!

Such expressions of righteous indignation as this from one who voted for Obama Copacabana “with enthusiasm” (see last weeks blog, Hawk’s Nesting) can’t help but sound more than a little hypocritically hollow. If you “buy” into it when it’s was up for sale - or worse still. helped to sell it. -. then you’re stuck with it for the next four years. No refunds, no exchanges. Perhaps it’s these fickle Obama voters that should now “perform rites of contrition” and be kept at a safe distance from the [reader]ship of our nation”. It never was change “we” could believe in - and never was intended to be. Despite reprising the Joan of Arc myth in the person of a plodding bureaucrat with a name straight out of central casting, Brooksley E. Born may not be quite the super-heroine portrayed in this yarn. In a 2003 interview, Born clarified her CFTC experience, “It wasn’t a regulatory effort. We were just asking questions! The concept release didn’t propose any rules. Alan Greenspan, Arthur Levitt, and Robert Rubin all said that these questions should not be asked… during a congressional conference committee meeting on an appropriations bill, an amendment was added preventing the commission from taking any action on over-the counter derivatives for six months… I thought it was very bad policy, but on the other hand it was congress’s decision to make”. She added, “I am very sorry that it turned out I was right, because it has been a disaster for a lot of people who have lost a lot of money”. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Born should be chiefly concerned about investors “who have lost a lot of money”.  She spent most of her time in private practice in the 80s & 90s at Washington law firm Arnold & Porter litigating high profile derivatives cases for foreign financial and other large institutions that were defendants in fraud suits, such as a large Swiss bank with customers that were co-conspirators with the Hunt brothers in manipulating the silver market then. Not exactly championing the interests of the indigent, you might say. No wonder,knee-jerk feminist Amy Siskind is so admiring of her. Siskind is also a great admirer of Israeli PM candidate and former Mossad agent and Ariel Sharon protege, Tzipi Livni. Siskind also holds former Israeli PM and terrorist, Golda Meir in high esteem. So you can see where she’s coming from. Like Born, Bair is a bland technocrat who has made a comfortable career in serving the powers that be as a private banker, academician and political appointee. In 2004 she made two large donations to the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign and one to Elizabeth Dole. Apparently, she didn’t believe in any “change we can believe in” then; and she hasn’t done anything since, in her brief tenure as Bush’s gal at the FDIC to indicate she’s committed to anything more radical than helping save runaway capitalism from it’s own self-destructive tendencies. So, if you’re looking for “change you can believe in” – and you’re not a self-interested commodities trader or lender – you’d better look elsewhere. For change we can truly believe in, someone like Doug Henwood would fit the bill much better. Keep looking.

@Folktruther & Felicity,

We all filter the world through our own confirmation biases.  You seem to believe that these evils of man are new and different and emerging now like never before.  I see no real evidence of that.  I see a world that over the course of the past 20 years has lifted more people out of poverty than at any time in our history.  China and India together, by embracing the decentralization of economic power, have lifted more than our country’s entire population out of poverty.

That’s progress.  I consider that to be a good thing.

As for this continual idea of a collective “us” with a shared moral compass… I reject that concept on it’s face.  We are not all cells in a larger organism that has morals in aggregate.  We each have our own morality.  Certainly our society can impact how we act, but I see no credible argument for a “shared moral compass”.

I certainly don’t buy this argument that the action of our government represents a “collective action by us”.  Again, the government is an organization in which most of it’s agents are NOT elected officials.  The overwhelming percentage of government agents are bureaucrats who feel no pressure whatsoever by the force of our vote and virtually no competitive pressure by other