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JOURNAL: Central Planning and The Fall of the US Empire – Global Guerrillas

30 Jul

The always interesting John Robb notes that Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of bad decisions made through central planning. Lots of resources were used badly. That wasn’t supposed to happen in market-driven USofA. Now it has:

The succession of market bubbles, the global financial collpse of 2008, and the recent US debt problem is prima facie evidence that gross misallocation has occurred for decades. The wealth of the West, particularly the US, is being spent on the wrong things year after year, decade after decade. We are now as fragile as the Soviet Union in the late 80’s.

What happened?

Central planning took over the decision making process in the US, both through the growth of government and through an unparalleled concentration of wealth.

The emergence of a class of the SUPER-RICH, Robb argues, has led to a form of central planning:

The concentration of wealth is now in so few hands and is so extreme in degree, that the combined liquid financial power of all of those not in this small group is inconsequential to determining the direction of the economy.   As a result, we now have the equivalent of centralized planning in global marketplaces.  A few thousand extremely wealthy people making decisions on the allocation of our collective wealth.  The result was inevitable:  gross misallocation across all facets of the private economy.

via JOURNAL: Central Planning and The Fall of the US Empire – Global Guerrillas.

‪Huey Long: Share the Wealth‬‏ – YouTube

28 Jul

Here’s a little old-fashioned politicking that’s sounding pretty good about now. Who’s talking like this now? Heck, who even thinks it?

The Rise of the Austerity Hawk Democrats | The Nation

28 Jul

The fact that Senate Democrats are trying to out-cut the cut-obsessed Republicans pretty much sums up the current political debate in Washington. “Harry Reid’s plan wins the austerity sweepstakes,” Adam Serwer wrote yesterday. “It’s the austerity party vs. the austerity party,” blogger Atrios tweeted.

President Obama has actively shifted the debt debate to the right, both substantively and rhetorically.

via The Rise of the Austerity Hawk Democrats | The Nation.

Obama and His Discontents – NYTimes.com

28 Jul

Obama has been much praised for the magnanimity he shows his opposition. But such empathy, unburdened by actual expectations, comes easy. More challenging is the work of coping with those who have the disagreeable habit of taking the president, and his talk of “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” seriously. In that business, Obama would do well to understand that while democracy depends on intelligent compromise, it also depends on the ill-tempered gripers and groaners out in the street.

via Obama and His Discontents – NYTimes.com.

Run, Ralph, Run!

26 Jul

Take a look at this cap, Ralph, a fine custom job:

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It says, “Nader 2000.” I wore that cap proudly then and was happy to vote for you. But, honestly, Ralph, here’s the ship of state:

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I mean, that’s not what it looks like, physically. But that’s its soul. Would you have been proud to walk the decks of that ship? I think not. If you’d have made it to the ship the Wall Street Gang would have tied you up with threads of gold. Pretty, lots of glitter, but those threads are so tight around the wrists that you’ll bleed to death if you move even one tiny iota in the wrong direction. Continue reading →

Where the money is — Crooked Timber

25 Jul

The wealth that has accrued to those in the top 1 per cent of the US income distribution is so massive that any serious policy program must begin by clawing it back.[1]

If their 25 per cent, or the great bulk of it, is off-limits, then it’s impossible to see any good resolution of the current US crisis. It’s unsurprising that lots of voters are unwilling to pay higher taxes, even to prevent the complete collapse of public sector services. Median household income has been static or declining for the past decade, household wealth has fallen by something like 50 per cent (at least for ordinary households whose wealth, if they have any, is dominated by home equity) and the easy credit that made the whole process tolerable for decades has disappeared. In these circumstances, welshing on obligations to retired teachers, police officers and firefighters looks only fair.

In both policy and political terms, nothing can be achieved under these circumstances, except at the expense of the top 1 per cent. This is a contingent, but inescapable fact about massively unequal, and economically stagnant, societies like the US in 2010. By contrast, in a society like that of the 1950s and 1960s, where most people could plausibly regard themselves as middle class and where middle class incomes were steadily rising, the big questions could be put in terms of the mix of public goods and private income that was best for the representative middle class citizen.

via Where the money is — Crooked Timber.

Murdoch’s 12 ‘Gifts’ to the World

25 Jul

Salon has an article on 12 things the Murdoch has done to make the world a poorer place for you and me:

  1. He has transformed world politics for the worse: It was George W. Bush’s first cousin (John Ellis), working as head of Murdoch’s Fox News election night “decision desk,” who, during the Florida voting uncertainties, called the election for Bush and set off a chain reaction from other media.
  2. He has ridiculed and raised doubts about global catastrophes, and about science itself, while elevating absurd theories and hyping minor matters.
  3. He has undermined liberty: His outlets led the drumbeat for restriction or elimination of certain fundamental rights, … while at the same time … fueling panic justifying the buildup of the national surveillance state.
  4. He has turned the public against the press.
  5. He has simultaneously propagandized for “the law” and compromised it.
  6. He has undermined essential rules about propriety in the news business, degrading ethical walls put in place through long tradition.
  7. He has propagandized for many of society’s worst instincts.
  8. He has until now effectively neutralized many would-be critics in journalism.
  9. He has relentlessly applied a double standard: Long a vilifier of others as communist sympathizers, he has created a pragmatic, but cynical partnership with the Chinese communist party dictators that has benefited him financially without helping (in fact, in some ways hindering) the prospects of democracy and freedom in that country.
  10. He has dumbed down the news business and hence the public.
  11. He has used his wealth regularly to stave off businesses and individuals that his company has illegally damaged.
  12. His campaign contributions and the public support of his media organizations have persuaded politicians to override laws against media monopolies. And with each successive step, his growing dominance made the following step in building an empire easier to achieve

George Bush owns this deficit – Budget Showdown

25 Jul

The debt ceiling is not a fight about the deficit. It’s a fight over power and the size of government.

“Utter incoherence” becomes entirely coherent when one considers that Republican strategy is founded on two things: neutering Obama and rolling back the welfare state.

via George Bush owns this deficit – Budget Showdown – Salon.com.

10 Steps Toward Democracy

25 Jul

Juan Cole has a piece on 10 Ways Arab Democracies Can Avoid American Mistakes. Here they are in brief.

1. Contemporary political campaigns in the US depend heavily on television commercials. In the UK these ads are restricted, and in Norway they are banned. Consider banning them.

2. Do not hold your elections on work days. America’s robber barons put elections on Tuesdays in order to discourage workers, including the working poor, from voting.

3. Have compulsory, government-run voter registration at age 18 or whatever the voting age is. … Compulsory voter registration is correlated with high electoral turnout.

4. About 32 countries in the world have enforced compulsory voting. In Australia, for instance, you have to pay a small fine if you do not vote in certain elections.

5. Make a bill of rights central to your new constitutions, and be specific about what rights people have and what actions infringe against those rights. Include electronic rights to privacy, such as freedom from snooping in private emails or warrantless GPS tracking.

6. Put separation of religion and state in your national constitutions and make it hard to amend the constitution. … If we did not have our First Amendment, our fundamentalists would long since have passed blasphemy and other laws and deprived us of freedom of speech (which they consider a ‘provocation’ just as your fundamentalists do).

7. Keep your defense ministry spending as low as possible consistent with being able to defend your borders. Tunisia, you get this one right.

8. Avoid allowing your judiciaries to become politicized. Having party-dominated executives and legislatures approve judicial appointments has real drawbacks. … Never, ever, ever recognize your corporations as persons under the law.

9. Protect your workers’ unions. Make it illegal to fire workers for trying to unionize. Remove obstacles to unionization.

10. Find a way to fight monopoly practices with strong antitrust legislation and enforcement. … Laws against legislators and regulators being hired by the companies they used to regulate would help tell against the entrenchment of the monopolies.

An Open Letter to Ralph Nader

22 Jul

Dear Ralph Nader,

I hope you will campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives where your life experience and wisdom could be put to excellent use during two crucial years 2012-2014. For this country, the world, and all the creatures whose survival is increasingly dependent on whether or not humanity can make the “great transition” to sustainable economics and rational politics, IN TIME, I pray each day that you will make this decision to serve us, and soon.

We do need some of the rich to save us. We need the 17 traditions passed on to you by your family, you know already know the song: traditions for the future. But most of all we need you to give calm, steady leadership to the Truth & Traditions Party between now and election day, Nov. 2012. This party does not exist legally, financially — it’s just an idea that I pay one blogger a modest stipend to develop on Facebook and on the web. We’re not getting anywhere with it, no steadily rising net statistics to report, but it still seems necessary for us to keep trying to awaken a small but significant percentage of right wing populists, old fashioned anti-interventionist and anti-imperialist Republicans, thinking and stubborn (not wishy-washy) liberals, and all those increasing numbers of “independents” who don’t want to be part of this corporate controlled “2 party system” any more.

There is a winning percentage of voters in all 435 districts who can be persuaded to vote for someone in a 3 or 4 person race who stands for: honesty, fiscal responsibility, reducing federal taxes and the war department, decentralization toward real democracy (see Wendell Berry’s 17 Rules for Sustainable Communities); letting companies and banks fail when their “speculations” and criminal activities bring them down; “bringing ALL the troops home” (I’ve been told that a dozen GOP presidential candidates are muttering that “we can’t afford these wars”) to plant trees, permaculture the 50 states; restore the Constitution and Bill of Rights; conserving resources and Nature. . . . . YOU know the list of what needs doing far better than I do. You understand the urgency of our situation. And it can all be phrased as conserving America’s most basic values and traditions by speaking Truth to power.

No need to run for President. And you don’t need to “run” fast, or full tilt, for Congress either. Just make yourself available as a candidate in District 1, and help raise the substantial bucks needed from Gates Sr., Ted Turner, Ross Perot, George Soros and other rich folks who could save us if they would, so that a genuine, conserving party can recruit excellent citizen-candidates in every district of the USA and destroy this deadly Republican control of the House.

Practically speaking, you might not be able to defeat Democrat Larsen in the 1st, but by pulling votes from the right side of the spectrum along with a chunk of independents you could come in 2nd and put the Republican Party into “3rd party” status and fading fast. The best result: you win, Larsen comes in a close second and the Republicans get 5 to 9% of the vote. But the next best result also puts Truth & Traditions Party on the map, the big issues are discussed, and there will be winners in some of the other 435 districts with a very powerful voice in Congress. TNT also stands for Transition and Transformation.

Many thanks for your time and attention all these years,
(my wife adds, we love you)

Charlie Keil

cc. Meryl Streep in the 5th District Ct.; Naomi Wolf in the 20th District NY

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