Posts Tagged ‘capitalism’

On Campaigns and Society

May 7, 2015

As of this writing (May 7th, 2015), there are at least six ‘declared Republican candidates’ for president. Six more are hinting strongly that they’ll run while they accumulate the milllions it will take to campaign for the party’s nomination. To do that, they’re attempting to find something, anything, that will separate them from the rest in the clown car. Funny suits, big noses, huge shoes won’t do it; this time, it’s not how they look but what they say.
Believe it or not, those buffoons represent a slice of the modern TeaPublican Party. Because they appeal to the few, they believe they can parlay that into an appeal to the many.

But they will end up driving each other farther to the right, to the portion of the electorate where the lunatic fringe lives. Where people think that if only people prayed more, that would solve all the world’s problems. Apparently they haven’t noticed how often Muslims pray.
They end up where the NRA lives, never noticing that the NRA propaganda hasn’t done anything to rein in government; instead, the guns kill thousands of ordinary citizens, many of them children. Not one ‘dictator’ trying to take over the country has been held back. You’d think someone would notice, but the propaganda is never ending. The tree of liberty has not been watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants, it’s grown stunted by being overwatered by the blood of children and citizens.
The no-tax fools are realizing that as government shrinks, as there’s less money in the system, somehow the potholes don’t get fixed. Bridges are collapsing. Some wonder why. Eventually, others will too. Whether they’ll wonder in time for the election I don’t know.
But the party of low spending has no qualms about using public money for political purposes. After all, they’ve spent millions trying to deny affordable health care for ordinary citizens. Fifty plus votes, last I heard. They’ve spent more on repeated investigations into Hillary Clinton. So far, nothing has been found. How much have the manufactured ‘crises’ cost the government?
More money will be spent on defense, too. Not to pay soldiers, not even to care for the injured and shocked, but for hugely-expensive weapons systems. That will, somehow, be spent in districts that elect powerful politicians. Ahh, pork…more public money used to help elect a critter.
So what are the issues? Other than that virtually all of them have been told by God that he should run. God’s being indecisive, I suppose.
Wouldn’t you love to see Ted Cruz debate Mike Huckabee on the role of religion in government?
Freedom, or what Republicans call freedom, is an issue.
Railroads are ‘free’ to haul dangerous cargoes. Periodically they blow up, but at least they blow up free.
Factories too are free of regulations. Guess what? They blow up too. But hey, regulation cuts into profits. And corporations need to be free to make as much as possible.
That TeaPublican fringe curses the EPA because it limits ‘freedom’. Even so, corporation are still free to pollute, to strip the top off mountains, to dump coal ash in streams, to leak oil from pipelines into rivers and streams, to create a mess that the federal government can’t control and won’t have the money to clean up.
And after the clowns drive the car as far to the right as possible, the eventual winner will try to crab back to the center. Dragging all that campaign baggage with him.
I don’t see much chance that a Republican can be elected. Even if one is, haven’t we seen how ineffective they’ve proven themselves to be at governing? At least so far, there’s a slight amount of control.
But the corruption is getting worse. The preachers and priests are gathering, waiting to have more say in American society. The manufacturers of military goods are smiling, waiting for more money for ever-more expensive systems they can sell to the Defense Department.
Have you noticed how similar we’ve become to the Middle Eastern nations we’ve been fighting?
We’ve separated into ‘tribes’ based on religious fundamentalism. On color. On ethnicity. On gender and sexual orientation. Corruption, always present, has become endemic. Schools are failing, education is a way for banks to exploit the young, the social safety net is tattered, little by little we’ve been reduced to a third-world nation. Maybe that’s what people are looking for.
Personally, I don’t want to live in Americanistan.
How about you?

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Of Riots, and Causes

April 29, 2015

The president has condemned the rioters, as have most politicians.
I’m not happy with them either. They did indeed burn businesses, loot them, put their neighbors out of work. All those and more beside.
I read a few statistics about that neighborhood in Baltimore. I hope you’ll take the time to look up things for yourself. I certainly don’t know everything about it. I don’t know anything at all about the police who arrested the young man or what they did to him. I’ll only say it’s suspicious, and that officials are looking into the matter. Six officers have been suspended. Some will probably be charged, although it hasn’t happened yet. An investigation is ongoing, although it seems to be moving far slower than a similar investigation would take that involved a civilian.
So what’s the neighborhood like, other than that it’s filled with minorities who are likely overwhelmingly black?
Less than half of the residents have jobs. Why?
One in four young men have been arrested by the police in the past. Why?
There are gangs in the neighborhood, criminal gangs. We know that because the police know it and implied that they’d received intelligence that major gangs were allied and were going to ‘take out cops’. The gangs quickly responded and said that no, there was no such alliance and they weren’t going after the cops. Duh.
I wonder how these folks live? You can be sure their income is less than the official poverty income. So how do they buy food, buy clothing, pay for electricity and gas service, things like that?
And of all those politicians, from President Obama all the way down to the mayor and city council, how many have had an opportunity to do something about the impoverished, black neighborhoods of Baltimore?
And decided that no, it wasn’t worth fighting the entrenched interests who insist on no taxes. No taxes to improve people’s lives. No taxes to build good schools, hire good teachers, hire enough policemen to suppress the gangs and the drug trade that supports them. No taxes for urban redevelopment.
It’s a vicious slope. The residents don’t have enough money to do anything, including pay the necessary taxes. State and federal politicians aren’t willing to spend the money on a blighted neighborhood filled with blacks.
And then, when a trigger point is reached, the riots erupt. Arson. Looting. Violence and vandalism. Police cars torched. Rocks thrown, sometimes shots fired.
Most major cities have neighborhoods just like the one in Baltimore. And, before Baltimore, Ferguson.
It will happen again. Los Angeles? New York? Kansas City? Atlanta? Birmingham, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston…
I expect a long, hot, summer of unrest.
And all the politicians, including the wannabe’s, will wring their hands and condemn the rioters.

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Economics, and the Best Economic System

April 26, 2015

So many curse the idea of ‘socialism’, but have no idea of what that means.
Look at the history of the Great Depression; it was caused by unrestrained capitalism, and only socialism was beginning to reverse the economic disaster. Things like the CCC, the WPA, others, where the government became the employer of last resort.
Consider for a moment what would happen if we made the government the employer of last resort now and paid those employees a living wage, not a punitive wage? Say, for example, $15 an hour.
No more unemployment insurance, or the taxes to pay for it.
No more minimum wage. What the government paid becomes de-facto the ‘minimum wage’.
Food stamps and disability insurance only for the truly disabled. Yeah, they exist; and if we expect to be called a civilized nation, we have to take care of our own. My son drew disability from Social Security for about five years. Before dying of the disease that rendered him unable to work, at age 44.
No more ‘booms’ and ‘busts’ from gambling capitalists. No more bailouts. Let the banks go broke, no golden parachutes left, take over those failed businesses and make them part of the ‘socialist’ government employment of last resort.
Use it as a governor for the economic system, in other words. When labor is needed, employers will have to pay more, hence fewer people on direct government employment. When a downturn comes, automatically pump more money in and employ more people.
About the people employed: they have to spend the money, buying food, housing, clothing, appliances. No foreclosures. No default on education loans. All that spending generates economic activity in the private sector. That’s why I consider socialism the governor for a mature economic system.
Private enterprise? Absolutely. Capitalism, where invested money earns income? Absolutely. Regulated private enterprise/capitalism (gas service, phone service in some cases, insurance when ownership of insurance is made mandatory), absolutely.
The best economic system is a mix of private enterprise, regulated private enterprise, capitalism, and socialism.

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Failures of Capitalism in a Depression

September 27, 2012

I’ve argued before that we’ve really been in a depression for a long time. It could be called a ‘recession’ only because borrowed money artificially supported parts of the economy, but that’s only a short term solution.
Manufacturing jobs have fallen precipitously. Some were offshored, others were eliminated by mechanization of manufacturing. The relentless drive for efficiency also included loss of jobs in offices and in such departments as design and accounting because computers now could do what was formerly done by people. Even cleaning machines reduced the need for janitorial services. Bottom line, fewer humans needed as machines took over. Fewer humans, fewer jobs…and no other jobs to go to. At this point there are jobs, but only for the well educated. And not simply for any college graduate, but only for those with a master’s or higher in business, engineering, science, and math. A degree in liberal arts or humanities simply won’t provide the qualification that employers are looking for.
And only government expenditures, supported by taxes on the wealthy and creation of new money, can reverse the decline. Capitalism won’t do that, and this is the failure of capitalism. Capitalists invest not to take risk, but to receive profit. No guaranteed profit, no expenditure; the more perceived risk, the less likely the chance of investment by capitalism.
Only government can spend without expectation of profit.
An ideal system consists of government (e.g., socialist) development where there’s not enough profit potential for capitalism; capitalism to increase efficiency and extract profit after this initial development.
Control of capitalism to prevent abuse after the opportunity has stabilized. That’s what capitalists hate, the idea that as risk is reduced, they also must restrain their urge to profit.
Monopolies are one way that capitalism reduces risk. Microsoft/Bill Gates understood that. As competition increases, risk also increases, and profit opportunity declines. Industries and companies now actively exploit the political sector to decrease competition by a variety of strategies; tax abatement, even subsidies, other political moves that favor some over others. Pure capitalism doesn’t include those things, but capitalists are quick to involve them to lessen risk while increasing profit.

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