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Deficit Deal Deception
Deficit Deal Deception
Intro by Ilene at Phil's Stock World
Michael Hudson argues that there is no real need to raise the debt ceiling (below). Rather than slashing social security, medicare and other social support programs, we could cut spending that is funding our various wars, end Wall Street bailouts, claw back outrageous profits from fraudsters acting through the TBTF banks, and stop pandering to other special interest groups. We could raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy - the top 0.1% - those who measure their monthly income and capital gains (non income for tax purposes) in millions. But there is no political will, or big campaign contributors, that will support a real solution. The issue is another example of creating a crisis so that emergency measures can be rammed through à la Rahm Emanuel's famous statement about never letting a good crisis go to waste.
As Jim Quinn of Burning Platform points out: "We will hit $20 trillion in debt by 2015. That is a lock. Total Federal government revenue today is $2.175 trillion. We spend approximately $1 trillion per year on our military related adventures, or 46% of our total revenue. If interest rates are 5% in 2015, we will spend $1 trillion on interest. If rates are 10%, we will spend $2 trillion on interest.
"Do you get the picture? An unsustainable trend will not be sustained. We have two choices. We can proactively address the problem or just wait for the collapse of our economic system. This debt ceiling reality show is all the proof I need. Our leaders will choose to wait. It won’t be long." (THE SHOW MUST GO ON)
How much do we spend on military? According to usgovermentspending.com, we spent an estimated 848.11 Bn in 2010.
According to Warresters.com, we spend even more on military as a whole. Its numbers include past expenses: "'Current military' includes Dept. of Defense ($653 billion), the military portion from other departments ($150 billion), and an additional $162 billion to supplement the Budget’s misleading and vast underestimate of only $38 billion for the 'war on terror.' 'Past military' represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.* (*Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated.)"
For 2009, Warresters calcuated: Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion, MILITARY: 54% and $1,449 billion, NON-MILITARY: 46% and $1,210 billion.
Obama’s Debt Ceiling Doublespeak
Courtesy of Michael Hudson
Video: youtu.be/z2uxb0oIfnE
Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Washington. And in Washington the drama over whether the United States Congress will raise the debt ceiling or not continues. The Republicans defend the need to cut spending and get government under control and the Democrats standing, defending the people’s social programs–at least that’s the theater that’s being played out. What is the reality? Well, for his take on all this, we’re now joined by Michael Hudson. Michael is a distinguished professor at the–distinguished research professor, I should say, at the University of Kansas City. He’s the author of Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire. And he joins us again from New York City. Thanks for joining us, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON, RESEARCH PROF., UMKC: Thank you, Paul.
JAY: So, what do you think? Good versus evil. We’re playing out the debt struggle and the debt ceiling issue. And if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we’ll be in the apocalypse. What do you make of it all?
HUDSON: I think it’s evil working with evil. I think the whole argument in Congress is a charade that was pretty much set up two years ago, when the Obama administration first took office and Mr. Obama appointed the reduction commission of Republican Senator Simpson and Clinton manager Bowles. When Mr. Obama went on television two days ago, he said he’s hoping to reach a compromise, which is pretty much what this commission said. And the people he appointed to the commission to head it were the people who said, number one, cut back Social Security. If you have to choose between paying Social Security and Wall Street, pay our clients, Wall Street. And secondly, cut back Medicare. But most especially, cut back Medicaid to the poor. You have to give money to the job creators, mainly the financial managers who are closing down firms, downsizing, and outsizing–outsourcing on labor. They’re called job creators instead of–to the people who actually get work and spend money on goods and services, which is what’s keeping the market going in business.
JAY: Now, somebody who defends the Obama administration would probably say, number one, Obama was dealing with the political reality in America that public opinion and the press and the media were heavily on the side that government needs to be cut. And they would also probably make the argument that there are inefficiencies that could be cut. I mean, Obama did at least early on in his administration say–talk about the need for stimulus. So that certainly his waned. Do you think there’s any merit to some of that defense?
HUDSON: I think that words–Mr. Obama’s great with words. He says one thing, and he does the opposite. Here’s basically the charade that’s happening when he’s trying to be reasonable. In order for him to move way to the right and to continue the Bush administration policies, he needs the Republicans to move even further to the right. They have to be so extreme that they’re perceived as the crazies. And then Mr. Obama can say, look, they will give Mr. Obama room to move way to the right, because he’ll say, I’m not as crazy as Michelle Bachman. I’m not as crazy as Boehner. I’m not as crazy as the Republican leaders. But they were going to close down the government, and that would have really hurt us. And we have to–we do have to cut what’s inefficient. What’s inefficient? Paying for people on Medicaid. Got to cut it. What’s inefficient? Medicare. Got to cut it. What’s inefficient? Paying Social Security. What is efficient? Giving $13 trillion to Wall Street for a bailout. Now, how on earth can the administration say, in the last three years we have given $13 trillion to Wall Street, but then, in between 2040 and 2075, we may lose $1 trillion, no money for the people? That is absolutely crazy. So when we talk about public opinion, we’re talking not about public opinion that watches your Real News Network; we’re talking about the public opinion of Fox TV and sort of the echo chamber that says–that presents the financial sector as job creators rather than job destroyers.
JAY: Well, what would you think are the real repercussions if, let’s say, they don’t raise the debt ceiling now in August? Let’s say Obama calls the Republicans’ bluff. It seems to me it is quite a bit of a bluff, seeing as the US Chamber of Commerce has told the Republicans they have to vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling. It’s kind of hard to believe that in the long run the Republicans are going to defy the business and banking community. But let’s say they play this out and Obama says, okay, we’re not going to savage government spending the way you want us to, and if you want to not–if you want to force us into this quote-unquote “abyss”, we’ll go there because it’s on you. So what is the abyss? I mean, is this really such a serious issue?
HUDSON: It’s not about the abyss at all. It’s not about the debt ceiling. It’s about making an agreement now under an emergency conditions. You remember what Obama’s staff aide Rahm Emanuel said. He said a crisis is too important to waste. They’re using this crisis as a chance to ram through a financial policy, an anti-Medicare, anti-Medicaid, anti—selling out Social Security that they could never do under the normal course of things. They’re using this to stampede the Democrats.
JAY: Yeah, I understand the point. What I’m saying is is, you know, whether Obama would want an alternative policy or not. What if he says to Republicans, okay, do your worst, we’re not going to go down this road? What would be the repercussions of him saying–. I mean, I think the Republicans, personally, would more or less cave in, because they’re not going to defy the whole business community. But let’s say–. So, what happens? So they don’t raise the debt ceiling. So, what happens next?
HUDSON: Then, obviously, they have to cut back some kind of government spending. What are they going to cut back? They’re not going to cut back the war in Libya. They’re not, because that’s–.
JAY: They have to cut back because they can’t borrow more. That’s the point you’re making.
HUDSON: Right. They’re going to have to decide what to cut back. So they’re going to cut back the bone and they’re going to keep the fat, basically. They’re going to say–they’re going to try to panic the population into acquiescing in a Democratic Party sellout by cutting back payments to the people–Social Security, Medicare–while making sure that they pay the Pentagon, they pay the foreign aid, they pay Wall Street.
JAY: Yeah. But what–I hear you. But what I’m–I’m saying, what could be an alternative policy? For example, don’t raise the debt ceiling. Number two, raise taxes on the wealthy. Number three, cut back military spending. I mean, there are ways to do this without having to borrow more money, aren’t there?
HUDSON: Of course. There’s no need at all. Of course they’d–. First of all, the Federal Reserve can basically print money. And whether they count this as the debt or not, they can say this is off-balance-sheet activity. They can technically sell Treasury bonds to themselves and say this is–. They can do Enron-type accounting if they wanted to.
JAY: [crosstalk] probably is some of that going on anyway. But go on.
HUDSON: Of course they could cut back the fat. Of course what they should do is change the tax system. Of course they should get rid of the Bush tax cuts. And the one good thing in President Obama’s speech two days ago was he used the term spending on tax cuts. So that’s not the same thing as raising taxes. He said just cut spending by cutting spending on tax cuts for the financial sector, for the speculators who count all of their income that they get, billions of income, as capital gains, taxed at 15 percent instead of normal income at 35 percent. Let’s get rid of the tax loopholes that favor Wall Street.
JAY: I mean, this is, I guess, the point you were making at the beginning of this segment. Obama has bought into the only solution is some form of cutting. The alternative strategy’s not even being talked about. So of course he loses the battle of public opinion, because he’s not fighting it.
HUDSON: That’s correct. And that shows where his actual beliefs are. Lawyers very rarely understand economics anyway. But Mr. Obama has always known who has been contributing primarily to his political campaigns. We know where his loyalties lie now. And, basically, he promised change because that’s what people would vote for, and he delivered the change constituency to the campaign contributors...
***
Washington's Blog's also makes the point:
S & P: America Could Default Even if Debt Ceiling is Raised
Knee-jerk conservatives may say, "yes, we have to slash all social support programs like unemployment benefits and food stamps".
Knee-jerk liberals might say "raise taxes instead of cutting any spending".
But the truth is that plugging the major holes in our economy is more important than either cutting spending or raising taxes.
And stopping bailouts and giveaways for the top .1% of the richest elite (which weaken rather than strengthen the economy, as shown here, here and here) and slashing spending on unnecessary imperial wars (which reduce rather than increase our national security, as demonstrated here and here) is what the budget really needs.
As I wrote last year:
Why aren't our government "leaders" talking about slashing the military-industrial complex, which is ruining our economy with unnecessary imperial adventures?
And why aren't any of our leaders talking about stopping the permanent bailouts for the financial giants who got us into this mess? And see this.
And why aren't they taking away the power to create credit from the private banking giants - which is costing our economy trillions of dollars (and is leading to adecrease in loans to the little guy) - and give it back to the states?
If we did these things, we wouldn't have to raise taxes or cut core services to the American people.
I pointed out the next month:
If there's any shortfall, all we have to do is claw back the ill-gotten gains from the fraudsters working for the too big to fails whose unlawful actions got us into this mess in the first place. See this, this, this, this and this.
***
Matt Taibbi agrees with Michael Hudson that the debt ceiling debate is a charade and that Obama's move to the right is a political strategy that has nothing to do with solving, let alone identifying, the real problems in our economy.
Obama Doesn't Want a Progressive Deficit Deal
By Matt Taibbi of The Rolling Stone
Excerpts:
But what is becoming equally obvious, to both sides, is that the Obama White House is using this same artificial calamity to pitch its own increasingly rightward tilt to voters in advance of the 2012 elections.
It has been extremely interesting in the last weeks to see observers on both sides of the aisle make this point. Just yesterday, the inimitable New York Times conservative Ross Douthat listed Obama's not-so-secret rightward push as a the first in a list of reasons why the Republicans should dig in even more, instead of making a sensible deal:
Barack Obama wants a right-leaning deficit deal. For months, liberals have expressed frustration with the president’s deficit strategy. The White House made no effort to tie a debt ceiling vote to the extension of the Bush tax cuts last December. It pre-emptively conceded that any increase in the ceiling should be accompanied by spending cuts. And every time Republicans dug in their heels, the administration gave ground.
The not-so-secret secret is that the White House has given ground on purpose. Just as Republicans want to use the debt ceiling to make the president live with bigger spending cuts than he would otherwise support, Obama’s political team wants to use the leverage provided by those cra-a-a-zy Tea Partiers to make Democrats live with bigger spending cuts than they normally would support.
[...]
This is interesting because just last week, the liberal opposite of Douthat at the Times, Paul Krugman, came to the same conclusion:
It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth.
[...]
The blindness of the DLC-era "Third Way" Democratic Party continues to be an astounding thing... They've abandoned the unions-and-jobs platform that was the party's anchor since Roosevelt, and the latest innovations all involve peeling back their own policy legacies from the 20th century. Obama's new plan, for instance, might involve slashing Medicare and Social Security under "pressure" from the Republicans.
Read more here: Obama Doesn't Want a Progressive Deficit Deal | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy.
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We spend approximately $1 trillion per year on our military related adventures, or 46% of our total revenue.
You needlessly weaken your point to a serious reader if you compare against revenue -instead of spending-, just to make it look more awe-inspiring.
Put a fork in it already, it's done.
The US has been bankrupt since 1933, and there is already a one world government. I think the 1933 bankruptcy was actually the third. The US is still under martial law since the days of Lincoln. The constitution has been suspended for over a hundred years, and there are no de jure courts.
Why is everyone afraid of a police state? There has never been a republic since any of us have been alive. Police are revenue collectors for the bankruptcy. The IRS is managing the bankruptcy as a debt collector.
The courts are also just banks collecting revenue for the bankruptcy.
The ship sailed so long ago, that people just believe the fairy tales told by Sean Hannity and similarly positioned shills.
somebody's been doin their homework.
We need to do it ALL and the debt ceiling is important Mr. Hudson.
Get a clue
First few sentences sums it up perfectly, they will scare people into this bad decision, just like they did with the bank bailouts. Predict doom, scare people with doom stories, and keep on stealing......
What happened to the "Johnny Neutron attack" person? There's nothing to scare the people with when all you can do is scare the people about grandma. Phil's just another Obama. Of course "without the million dollar a year paycheck." Funny how he screams about those folks when he's one of them. If you're a working person with a paycheck no matter how small and you can't see what's coming our way then you are deluded indeed. this guy's already cashed in.
That's how fascism rolls. If you can't sell the donut, sell the hole... then Krispy Kreme your shareholders.
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=7286
Dave Harrison
www.tradewithdave.com
i don't know enough about your world to say whether or not that's a cliche, but if it's not, it's a good en'. Even if it is, I'm stealin it anyway.
thanks,
janus
We are following the Soviet model to a bond default due to military overspending compounded in our case by home grown consumer overspending on RE and imported manufactured goods. The Soviets blamed economic implosion on fall in price of crude oil and Gorbachev. We will blame it on entitlements, labor unions and Obama. Truth is military/defense spending is strangling our economy and exceeds any rationale for energy security , fighting terrorism or exporting arms. Meanwhile China is arranging long term contracts for future energy needs with oil producers everywhere without exhorbitant military expenditures. Other then large military force, only other advantage US has is status of $ as reserve currency. However with weakening US$, trade in real assets ,such as commodities ,manufactured goods, agricultural products and energy will determine real strength.
o_0
MUST SEE! Ex-CIA Agent Explains How Bloggers Can "Dump Congress On Its Ass"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttDF9ATr57E&feature=player_embedded
.
"blog that".
i wouldn't be so quick to assume he's retired...nor would i assume that the intelligence world is an any way binary.
You will be shocked at the MIGHTY forces that will come to our aid once we reach the breakout point.
Our nation's centers of power are still well stocked with good and competent men; they know the score. And when fear starts to feed courage, watch out!
Spot on comment about Shinseki.
Excellent video! Good way to see the problems facing us. Thanx
Karl Rove took you libtards to the cleaners. Barry was our boy from the beginning, but we had to make him appear to be a Marxist radical in order to insert him into your party, thus all the cover stories about his radicalism, being on the down low, etc. A master stroke. So now what are you going to do about it? Vote for Sarah or Michelle or Mitt? Bwahahahaha...
CAFR CAFR CAFR, no debt now nor ever has been, 2 sets of books, thats it the fake one 2 stir emotion, the real one for the cats to play with
we've all been betrayed .......... we're inconsequential & irrelevant ..... or, we can march on WASHINGTON D.C. , protest, throw the treasonous bums out & elect real representatives who will do their job & represent our interests & concerns .... unfortunately, i'm the only one in my circle of friends who even knows what's going on! .... 'chill out' , my friends say. ' get off the internet, nothing on the net is true anyway' , or, 'stop obsessing about it, there's nothing you can do about it anyway.'
i'm just sick with worry for all of us in this country. what's going on has been pre-planned & deliberate to harm the American Citizen......... deliberate harm, that's the truth.
where's the damn revolution !
Or you could vote in the 12 Republicans that proposed that employers be responsible for voluntary contributions to the treasury.
Different does not necessarily equal better; choose carefully before abandoning the frying pan for the fire.
Do you see the irony of you 1) asking 'where's the damn revolution' and 2) spending your time here asking the question instead of doing something revolutionary?
The essential problem with a revolution is: it would be useless. With 20 million to march on D.C. and carry out assassinations, nothing we do short of that will change a thing.
And I don't have the skills and connections to amass ten people let alone 20 million. Nor can I take out a political or investment banker from 300 yards away.
That is why we are screwed.
The possibility of a peacful revolution, getting rid of politicians who will not carry out your wishes, if offset by those who do not want your wishes carried out. There is great conflict in what people say they want and how that deprives the other voter of what he wants. We are pretty much a divided country and should be split apart. Many large states need to secede from the union. And how likely is that to happen?
The die is cast and the gears have already engaged. We are on a trajectory to perdition and like an asteroid heading for us at a predictable speed all you can do is prepare for it. Take what ever measures you deem appropriate for survival.
Think as if you are going to be put down in a jungle. What would you need to either adapt to living in that jungle or find a way out of it and go to some other more hospitable destination, and failing that, what else would you need to do?
Tbe only Control you have is only that which you CAN control. Seems rudimentary and simplistic, but as a single person that is all you can do or live with the consequences of having more than ample warning and alarms set off all around you and doing nothing about your personal condition.
http://my.firedoglake.com/kevinzeese/2011/06/14/tahrir-square-coming-to-...
http://october2011.org/welcome
the amount of money which the united states spends on its imperial wars and ambitions is staggering....the usa spends nearly more than the rest of the world combined on military, has 1500-2000 military bases world wide, and has antagonized nearly all the world's population with its blood thirsty plunder...
history shows the folly of imperial overstretch - the usa is easily headed toward that trash heap.
history shows us "Imperial overstretch" alright, funding wars has brought almost every (once great!) Empire to its knees
history also teaches us just how stupid we are. I mean get this, most of the people here complaining about the clown show in Washington and the murderous wars are actually paying these arseholes to be arseholes. Yes you're paying your taxes right?
You're funding murder and mahem. You're fueling all the parasites in Washington to keep on being, well 'Washington'. How dumb-arsed stupid is that eh?
Don't Fucking Watch This Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwpy8GMzf4I
Quite the rich pageant, America.
I won't. Thanks for the warning.
Hudson underestimates the political strength of the Entitlements. There'll be cuts alright, all "in the future" and hence fictive. But the debt limit will go up in the here and now. $3 trillion more in funny money, comin' at ya. Only way to keep the Ponzi going thru the next erection.
I remember when they cried all over the expensive maintaince queen 600 ship navy.
It's a good thing they went nuke and juice, but it's going to take more of the same instead of just 150 units or whatever in any branch to survive a war against a nation as big or bigger than we are.
So, are you suggesting we have to out-spend the rest of the world on our military in order to be safe? What's your point?
We outspend the rest of the world (combined) already...and have done so since long before 9/11. Was it worth the $10T we've never paid down?
Are we more "safe" than we were in 1960, 1980, or 2000?
If we consider the foreign misadventures as part of the real cost of our energy usage (subsidizing oil with the barrel of a gun), would renewables still be economically inferior to the oil complex?
The Hegelian Dialect triumphs again.
While the world bitterly harangues over mere pittances of monies, debates mirages of ideal left and right strategies, confuses truth with honesty whilst practicing neither, the people whose perceptions are managed and redirected to the minute and inconsequential, feel the elite slash the tip of the spear, retaining the bloated excesses and graft resulting in an emotionally deflated and defeated electorate's anger being relegated to mere grumbles while the grand theft of the treasure continues unnoticed and unimpeded.
(Curtain drops upon scene of elderly lady, telling grandchildren of horifficly tough times during Great Depression. She cries, not for her experience, but that her issue must unexpectedly endure the same.)
fin
"And He overthrew the tables of the money changers. My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves"
Matthew 21:12-13
Amen, brother...
When we stop fighting over the inconsequential crumbs they want us to fight over, we might have a chance.
We can all work individually, right now. One thing I've started doing is to just refuse to be drawn into political discussions that perpetuate the gangrenous status quo
Amen, Gordon! Well said, Sir!
That's a big might, but worth fighting for - and the alternative might not be worth living in!
the only person you're fighting is yourself
...you fund this fuking clown show, you pay tax.. you want to shut these parasites up, stop paying your taxes and the whole dirty rotten parasite show comes a crashing down
you have the power, they depend on your constant life-long stupidity not to realise it's under your own nose, in the palms of your hands... stop fueling the parasites, Pay Zero Tax
That only works if enough plebs participate simultaneously. Furthermore, if one has a job, how can they chose not to pay taxes when the taxes are taken out before they get paid?
I agree that to defund the plutocracy would be a most effective way to shut it down, but how can that be possible today?
Amen, brother...
When we stop fighting over the inconsequential crumbs they want us to fight over, we might have a chance.
We can all work individually, right now. One thing I've started doing is to just refuse to be drawn into political discussions that perpetuate the gangrenous status quo
Obama and Boehner were careful to pass the defense authorization act before the fireworks started. Their Israeli puppetmasters would have had it no other way.
See, I knew it! twas you all along, Ilene...oh, don't say anything, just be modest and blush. phil, shame on you.
you know how to stoke my liberal passions, don't you? so i have to look at the world all steely-eyed and cold-souled (investing), but act according to the Higher Calling (politikin) -- something like, 'be ye as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves'...or do i have that backward.
anyway, here's a little Jack White III for a fine Friday Night:
hey little apple blossom/
what seems to be the problem/
all the ones you tell your troubles to/
they don't really care for you/
come and tell me what your're thinkin/
cause just when the boat is sinkin/
a little light is blinkin/
and i will come and rescue you...,
Janus
The lemonade stand had to b shut down. It created 3 jobs for intelligent entrepenors seeking to obtain a goal clearly outlined in the Constitution.
We can't have that now can we.
"But what is becoming equally obvious, to both sides, is that the Obama White House is using this same artificial calamity to pitch its own increasingly rightward tilt to voters in advance of the 2012 elections."
ROTFLMAO!!!
No, he got his bandaid ripped off, his bluff called and is being force fed strained peas.
Won't be long before a diaper "change" now ;-)
absolutely. you give up the game when on the one hand you claim "crisis" but on the other "we're cuttin' off grandma's Social Security check." AMATEUR HOUR. (Social Security is the only solvent Agency in DC.) The Bernank courtesy of ZIRP is already giving away the store to Wall Street. Without anyone in DC coming clean on how little of the people's money is actually getting to the people and instead going to pay interest on the debt (even at 1 percent the dollar amounts our HUGE) then there is no starting point for "negotiations." More to point Filacio's World here simply has it wrong as he has going on three years now. The biggest threat to the government is not the military but (besides listening to Phil the Nil again) it's simply "no longer being able to pay down the principle on your zero percent loan." And we all know about that...don't we? Silver is moving right back up again. If oil suddenly soars then we'll know why equities keep rallying even though the recovery is a complete catastrophe. We'll see Monday!
Am I better off now than I was before Ronald Reagan took office. Hell no.
Was I better off when Clinton left office than when he got in. Yup.
Dubya, not so much.
Clinton did some major legislative damage to this country ... setting the stage for dubya:
nafta, telecommunications act, repeal of glass steagall, commodities 'modernization' act,
of course, it was a republican congress that put this stuff on his desk.
so ... it seems quite obvious to an objective mind that the 'state' of representation is run by the money power that controls it all.
Still smokin' that Rebub vs. Dem crap, huh? Man, do they both love you...
let's see they take money, really big money, from the same people, they fill the "agencies" with people from the same places, they say the same enemies are our enemies and they both point the finger when asked about a problem that took years and both to make. Yup that's some bad shit he's smoking
Right on Gordon... reading this article in the context of well financed politicians bantering with the old team spirit. Both parties have sold us down the river and engineered the downward trajectory of our standard of living.
Keep to the code... the elites (multinationals) wish to lower the standard of living in developed countries while increasing the living standards in developing countries. It is much easier to implement globalization if you don't have to deal with inequities. All this is achieved through incremental-ism.
Proof #1 - Why would the average American wish to see less manufacturing in the US and shift to service jobs
Proof #2 - Why would Americans welcome an influx of undocumented laborers which keeps wages lower.
Proof #3 - Why would Americans want to outsource engineering and professional services to other countries and allow foreign H1B visas to take jobs.
Proof #4 - If multinational companies are so flush with cash today, why don't they take some of the cash and train their own workforce.
The sad answer to these proofs... they don't really give a shit about Americans anymore. It is profits for management and stockholders at any cost.
It's not the politicians bantering about the debt, they are bought and paid for. It is the Banksters that have America on a glide-path to be cops on the beat for the New World Order.
Oh I almost forgot... they have already done all this shit....
Amricans are so stupid they can't even understand those basic points.
They only care about: gay marraige, Casey Anderson, abortion, American Idle.
Americans need to feel how the rest of the world does. Remeber-when you get
something for nothing, somebody got nothing for something.
Blatantly wrong. There is no wishes. No elite fathering a situation that should not be.
What is happening is the natural consequences of smithian economics.
Smithian economics leads to concentrate wealth on certain areas, which disqualifies them to host all kinds of low valued activity. Sweepers might work in a Hilton palace, they do not live in it.
This is also the root for the demand of non residential labour that is existing in the West.
Outsourcing is the natural consequence as certain activities can no longer be hosted in certain areas that are concentrating wealth. It answers to the first term.
The second term is totally absurd. Smithian economics lead to look for the greatest inequality possible to favour transfer of wealth, the best extraction of wealth, (the wage race to the bottom stuff)
When an activity is outsourced, it is moved as soon as the inequality is lessened. That means for example an activity has been located for some years in some place and the locals have invested in bettering their life, by taking up running water, heating and stuff like that. It shows on bills and then a demand for a higher wage is formulated.
Poooof, inequality is about to be lessened, US citizens say that they have understood the locals no longer want to work and the activity is moved elsewhere, where the inequality is greater.
Certainly not a plan to enrich the rest of the world. On the contrary, a plan to make sure the rest of the world will never grow rich.
There has no selling out, not secret plans going on, no elite working for themselves. What is going on is the natural developpment of Smithian economics, economics that were cheerfully chosen by the US People.
Stop the victimology.
+1 In a nutshell.
What to do, what to do, Mmmm?!
...well we could take Michael Hudsons view and re-arrange the deckchairs on the Titanic by keeping the left (social payments) and trimming the right (military). Or we could take the Tea Parties 'solution' to slim down the size of the Titanic.
Fantastic problem solving this, the ship is the same, the course is the same and the ending will be the same
Maybe the solution is to have no Titanic (Govt). Maybe the solution is for citizens to not continue trooping into these large corporations (big Banks, big Car Co's, mega-retailers etc). Defund them all; Pay Zero Tax, shop at small businesses
Anyone notice these two easy options are powers within your very own grasp? Anyone notice you don't need to vote in a bunch of puppets with the tenuous thought they'd actually carry out a policy of making Govt and big business smaller??
There you go, empowered, just as soon as you want to be