Amos
Portland, Oregon
I've spoken with executives at American companies that tell me they have "their own factories" in China, and they seem proud of it. But then when I ask, "Doesn't the Chinese government own 51% of your factory?" they'll then say "Yes, well, err, that's the way they do things over there, but it's our factory!"
Not really. Since we began on this road to globalization, that is, free and mostly unregulated trade, just about the same time that Chairman Deng was opening China to Western capitalism, China has played us for fools.
We've taught them how to make everything we know how to make, from steel to computers, iPods to cell phones, giftware to American-style furniture, and all the fittings and components and add-on's as well.
When we decided to invade Iraq, Congress and the Bush Administration decided to keep the costs off the books and out of the budget, so we borrowed as much as $200 billion each year from China and Saudi Arabia, and a few other countries here and there. This, at the same time we were running a trade deficit with both countries and had to borrow from them to be able to afford importing all those great things we buy from China and all that Saudi oil.
So while we were forcing American businesses to set up factories in China that brought in labor from the countryside at a whopping $5/day for 60 hours/week (no labor unions in Communist China, I suppose), we were exporting our manufacturing base and all of our manufacturing technology to that country and in the process enriching the Chinese government with virtually every dollar we spent.
Now we're in a so-called Great Recession in which we're having to face the fact that we've lost literally tens of millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs, and China is doing great, up 10% a year, raising its general wage to another whopping $6.50/day and building what will become the second strongest naval, air and armed forces in the world. Not to mention their advanced missile technology, which they'll sell to anyone with money to buy it.
We've been such chumps.
Of course, Obama says he has a plan to create great jobs that can't be outsourced. Nonsense. The Chinese are way ahead of us in wind and solar technology. They've taken their riches and put it into vast new infrastructure projects and research, and when we finally have the resolve to build those new highways or create that new electric grid it will be with Chinese machinery and technology.
The Republicans are no help either, as they don't seem to have a clue about how to create jobs. They just want to protect the banks and Wall Street so they have the money to win elections and make it easier for the rich to get richer while denying any help at all to everyone else.
I see no future for this country unless and until we confront the outsourcing of jobs to China head-on. Globalization doesn't work for us when overseas labor is so cheap. China doesn't play by the same WTO rules in any case. It's time to establish bilateral trade agreements with key trading partners under which they can't export to us very much more that we export to them. At the same time, we need to protect key industries that are vital to our national security, like steel, metal fabrication of all kinds, shipbuilding, electronics with military uses, on and on.
There's no other way out of the downward spiral of cheap goods forcing Americans out of work, so they have less money and have to buy cheap Chinese goods, which leads to more layoff's, and down we go to being a third world country. It's time someone in Washington, and in the media, had the courage to call a spade a spade. The loss of our manufacturing base is what's killing America and unemployment won't go down until we begin to restore it.
Hong Zhou
Germany
Sorry to disappoints the author, but the answers to the questions are:
"Experts on both sides of the debate have but two questions. One is how much longer state control of vast swaths of the economy will generate that growth."
A very, very long time still. China is in the same state of development now as Japan was in the sixties. So do your arithmetic.
"The other is whether, when that strategy inevitably stops working, China will be able to change it."
"inevitably"? In which country please do the large conglomerates fail to be the first in line to get state help, anywhere in the world? Is the strategy of bailing out AIG etal. "stopping to work"? Or how about Airbus, or for that matter Boeing, who's always the first in line to get big US government contracts?
So much ink spilled for a faux dilemma and a bunch of false questions....
AussieLouis
Perth, Australia
For an impoverishment nation, why should the emphasis of state enterprise be about profits? It must be about the raising of the people from poverty. Like in Singapore to do this, instead of producing more private billionaires and millionaires which only help to exacerbate inequality, the state enterprises learn to be viable and this helps the ordinary public more. The share of state equity amongst the people is balanced against the share of privately held wealth, preventing the excesses of the rich as in the US and Russia.
In capitalist US the individual entrepreneurs and private enterprise comes first; in capitalist China the ordinary people of the nation comes first and the private capitalists second. Yet this is allowing the emergence of a wealthy private class. Both state and private enterprises eventually enrich the whole nation instead of enriching only a few private individuals. This is what made Singapore the first world nation it is; it is a proven new working model for capitalism, state and private, in balance!
James
Los Angeles
Compare China's state-sponsored recovery to our situation. China is being flexible about its recovery, and is totally willing to allow its government to prop up the private sector during this global economic downturn. In evolutionary terms, their economy has an adaptation that the US economy does not have - a dynamic and fully integrated participation of state-sponsored industries in the national economy. Instead, the US is in political/class/race deadlock about cultural diversions like "birthers" "gay marriage" and "ground zero mosques." China's economy is a demonstration of what our economy needs - Massive investment by the government in the national economy (not just banks). Instead Bernanke/Geithner are playing patsy to the economic establishment and protecting their meager hedges against "the specter of inflation" when they should be taking decisive action to adapt our economy to the current global conditions. A bank recovery alone is not an economic recovery! The Bush bank bailout doesn't help the national economy, only insures the financial sector against losses from their past irresponsible behavior. We need a national stimulus, direct support by the government to our vital competitive industries - Info Tech, Biotech, Skilled Manufacture and Small Business. We must adapt or go extinct.
Jane
West Coast
The level of inefficiency and incompetence in US banks, makes Chinese government institutions look good by comparison.
Consider that we are a consumer driven economy.
Consider that our elected leaders gave our banks 750 billion dollars in taxpayer funded TARP monies, with no accounting required.
Consider that the FED supplies our banks with 0% funds to loan out, at taxpayer expense.
Consider that these same banks, loan these 0% funds out at rates up to 29% to consumer/taxpayer customers, many of whom have timely paid their bills for decades.
Consider that retail spending has taken a dive, and the economy, in this consumer driven economy is failing.
Do you think maybe the bottleneck in our banks where executives continue to collect multi-million dollar bonuses, while the taxpayers that subsidize these banks, get charged almost 30% per year to borrow back their funds....during a period when the price of money is 1-4%, might be part of the problem?
The performance of our banks suggests the creation of government banks. Our current banks are generously subsidized with bailouts, 0% FED money, tax deductions on their losses, taxpayer financed law enforcement protection, and still, they randomly steal from their customers at interest rates that should be outlawed and refunded if charged.
The argument that usury is necessary in a free market only applies if the banks are freely operating, not heavily taxpayer subsidized as they are now and handling money priced at significant interest rates on capital markets, which they are not.
Our banks are stealing from us, and making what used to be considered a relatively inefficient Chinese government financial sector, look good by comparison.
Imagine that.
David Underwood
Citrus heights, CA
There are a number of misconceptions about China in general.
China has a one party system that has been labeled Socialist. However it is nowhere near what the Soviet type Socialist system was. the government finances business, but these are not state controlled businesses. They are not given production quotas, they are not required to hire people just to make the system look good, they need to make a profit or they do go out of business unlike the Soviet system.
The Chinese government runs a country of 1.3 billion people and they are directing the economy to accommodate as many people as they can. They do not give more personal freedom as they believe it would result in anarchy, and they are probably correct, and i not anarchy, a division of the country into several Balkanized countries.
They also have the ability to do things their way. If they want a high speed rail line, there are no laws, property rights, environmental considerations to worry about. If your house is in the way, you are given a choice to rent an apartment, or get a new house further from the city, if you refuse, you are moved. Business competes on a basis unlike anything we have seen since the 1800s. There are huge industrial parks where a manufacturer can get new materials and equipment almost overnight. For instance if you need a new circuit board for a product, you contact the companies that make those kinds of things, and there will be several choices on your desk in the morning. You can hire and fire employees at will. Yo can not compare the Chinese style government to anything we have previously known. So called Socialist governments did not compete on such a scale. The government sets limits on political action, it sets limits on the press and it encourages industrial espionage.
No matter how much you may think the Chines government is oppressive, it is in no way anything close to the Mao regime or those of the eastern Soviet controlled countries in the past century. The Chinese people you meet will tell you, they think their lives have improved more than most of them could have imagined. They are free to move about the country, we see them in the parks which are clean and well neat. Their stores are full of products and full of customers, they have first class hotels, we ate in restaurants that held a thousand people and were full. Thee are rows of high end auto dealerships and the streets are crowded with cars and buses.
There are also the traditional areas of alleys where shops sell novelties, and have food stands of all sorts, and these are crowded with Chinese shoppers. The Chines are entrepreneurs, make no mistake about it.
The Chines have also improved the schooling and universities, the government wants them to be as good as any there are.
Another thing the Chinese did that took away some of the US industrial dominance was in building modernized industrial complexes. The built the most modern steel mills while the US steel industry failed to upgrade. The US steel companies were being run like they had been run since the 1800s and management was just plain hidebound, engaging in war against the unions and not reinvesting their profits. Once the Asian steel industry come on line, they were through.
Finally the American consumer helped the Chinese ascend. Once companies like Wall Mart found a way to bring you goods cheaper by having them made in China, shoppers were willing to give up quality for price.
It is time or Americans to realize that other countries and governments have learned how to compete and even beat us at our own game.
No one country as a monopoly on competition and the well being of its citizens. The Chinese have taken up the American idea of we will buy you, and they are doing a good job of it.
The denigration of President Obama by some misanthropes shows just how far many have degenerated. These people seem to think returning to the 1890s would beat a country that is looking toward the 2090s. Give it up and join the 21st century.
peteski14
hamtramck
Many have no clue, let's start here. It is "The Peoples Republic of China".
Not "Communist China" not "Socialist China". Get it?
I ask you, for such an impoverished society, how is it at 11:00PM on Sunday night there are more people out having dinner, shopping, drinking in public, having a good time in a little town like Jinhua then I ever saw out on the town in Detroit or even Toronto for that matter. Most of you people are clueless. By the way, didn't our genius President, Justanotherbushofadiffrentcolor name Alan Roger Mulally as head of "Export" development for the U.S.? I thought Al was the one that sent the Boeing work to China. I thought Al was the one that tried to break the Machinists Union on the west coast by shipping all of the foundry work to non-union (anti-union) shops in the Detroit area. Funny how Al turned up here, borrowed 28 BILLION from Bill Fords college room mate at Goldman Sachs 12 months before the economy collapsed because of fraud perpetrated using "credit default swaps"
and then used that collapse to eliminate even more union workers. I wonder why there has been no investigation into who knew what. Maybe Carl Levin has been too occupied with his lip tumors to actually do some work other than grandstanding last October with the Goldman Sachs grilling. You are right, in China executives responsible for tainted milk and toys paid the ultimate price. Maybe its time for some Americans to pay the ultimate price for what they have wrought.
Karl
Beijing
My observations are based on living and working in China for over a decade. The question is where China will go from here. Yes, economic growth has been strong numberwise, but the standard of living has not really improved much over the last five years. Infrastructure is strong, but mainly because the state either throws tremendous tax dollars at projects (roads and rail) or allows oligopolistic control with subsidies (telecom, airlines, banks, TV, oil). As a result, private money scrambles to find outlets in places like real estate, resulting in distortions (read: bubble) caused by inflated land values, which are high in part so that government can raise income. Where else do the central and local governments get the money? Exports are certainly a big part. Also, the tax man is very strict about foreign companies--whereas state enterprises are given more "flexibility." Yeah, tax evasion is just a way of life in China. The government attitude seems to be that "We'll cut you (the taxpayer) some slack, but, in exchange, you won't get uppity and keep your mouth shut." Not too much taxation for very little representation. As far as China's growth is concerned, a lot of people assume China erupted ex nihilo around 1978, when Deng Xiaoping solidified control. That's one of the myths drummed into everybody's head by the Party, where discussion of life pre-Deng is discouraged in the public sphere. In fact, China had built a very strong industrial base between 1949 and 1959 and plugged along despite some political disasters over the next two decades. (Okay, maybe over twenty million people starved to death between 1959 and 1961, but still.) It makes little sense to compare China in 1978 to Japan or Korea immediately after WWII or the Korean War, when those economies were destroyed and in disarray. But, getting back to the key issue, where is China now headed? Chinese state enterprises do get the job done, but they're still pretty inefficient, despite efforts to make them more responsive to the market. In short, where private companies--especially foreign firms--are allowed to compete on an equal footing, they blow the SOEs away. Which is why other countries shouldn't put up with Chinese restrictions on investing in China. The United States buys tons of Chinese widgets but has incredible trouble making headway on exporting things like telecom services. Then again, the Chinese are scrappy because they've been trading horses and just surviving for a long, long time.
James DeVries
Pontoise, France
What's the difference between politics and history (gross oversimplifications department)? Politics is a big, long, laborious story told about a very short period, set against a tiny corner of interest. History, on the other hand, is an extremely short story told about a big, long, laborious period, set against a nearly immeasurable area of interest.
American journalism would do well to resist today's impulse to regard China in purely political terms---leave that to the politicians---and consider her career from a more historical perspective. China has a long history and has survived as a civilisation through vast upheavals. Whatever short-term economic tactics China may or may not be adopting today barely qualify as a “concern”, let alone an upheaval. Seen from the point of view of history, goings-on in the right-now, contemporary Chinese pond barely rate as a ripple or wavelet.
Too much directive government intervention or not enough? That is a discussion couched in purely Western political terms. A China that, despite its internal tensions, is feeling particularly cohesive today, isn’t thinking about itself in purely Western political terms. So any judgments passed in those terms probably won’t register on Chinese consciousness as significant, let alone something to worry about. The Chinese are probably thinking something more like, “Look, we’ve suffered enough over the last 100 years from being forced to think of ourselves in Western terms. Now the industrial revolution has fully caught up with us, imperialism has been shaken off and the worst excesses Communism can lead to are well established (although the latter is probably still more an unvoiced suspicion or vague hope than an outright admission), why should we listen to a lecturing West that 1) just nearly put paid to the whole world economy and 2) just launched two perfectly disastrous, unprovoked wars?
Others will say, Afghanistan? Unprovoked? And they have a point. But if the United States hadn’t bitten on the gaudy lure of backing the call to international Jihad at the end of the 1970’s, if they had they silently helped the likes of Ahmad Shah Massoud rather then publicly encouraging grandstand events like calling all Muslims to come and become “Afghan resistance fighters”, well, they wouldn’t have got the triple fishhook of Al Qaeda in their lip a couple decades later.
The Americans, and I’m one, must resist the trend to become more Maoist than Mao. What are you doing? Trying to imitate the Cultural Revolution? Shouting slogans, refusing to listen, worse, refusing to think? Aren’t there enough wounds to heal at home, without continuing to stab foreigners? And on top of it, delivering lectures to China because she decides for herself? China probably never noticed the huge success that Sloan/Harvard/Wharton-style neoliberal economics-inspired “capitalist shock treatment” initially brought to Russia… Follow the West’s advice on how to run an economy? Are you kidding?
Bruce Olson
Houston
Fascinating comments.
While I do not intend in any way to understand China, its economy, its government and its society, a few things stood out to me in the article which, if anywhere near accurate, explains China's recent economic successes, especially when compared to our own economic performance over the last few years.
First, it is now abundantly clear there is more than one way to run an economy. China, with its history of Communist top down planning, is going to continue to be a top down run economy. It is working for them and as long as the leadership is acting in the best interest of the economy as a whole, it will continue to work.
Second, America, with its history of free market Capitalism and minimal regulation is going to continue to be a free market economy. It has worked well for us and as long as the private leadership in America is acting generally in the interest of the economy as a whole it will continue t serve us well.
Third, as both systems have evolved into industrial giants: China’s rapidly at warp speed since their Cultural Revolution and America’s more slowly but still very rapidly since the 1850s, especially following the Civil War and each the world wars of the 20th century. Along the way both countries have been forced to make adjustments to their systems and philosophies. China, coming from the top down central planning model, has moved toward a more decentralized, free market capitalist influenced system in order to more efficiently allocate and develop its resources. America, coming from its private capitalist system, has moved toward ever more regulation and government influence to more efficiently preserve its free market structure in the face of the inevitable abuses that occur as the most successful competitors become more powerful and less focused on meeting the true needs of the free market.
Both systems are constantly required to accommodate to changing conditions, in order to survive.
Both systems must be seen by their citizens as working to improve their economic condition.
Both systems are currently working, at least in the short term.
Both systems are being forced into finding a broader mix of free market capitalism and appropriate government regulation/control to overcome the shortcomings of each respective system.
Contrary to the beliefs of most who call themselves Capitalists or free marketers and also many top down planning Communists, the key to success in either system lies not with the systems themselves but with the people running them. Both systems are working, albeit one apparently a little better than the other at the moment.
I believe one thing for sure. Far Right or Far left ideologues who put their “line in the sand” and refuse to adjust will drive either system to failure. Right now, I believe that is what may be happening in the United States. Too many seem to be worshiping at the alter of unfettered, unregulated Capitalism and an ill defined idea of reduced government, refusing to see the damage the currently over concentrated wealth and power has done.
The reality is that China and the United States are both heading toward more “Socialized Capitalist” systems, to better serve their citizens. If they don’t they will fail.
The alternatives to failure will be more revolutionary than evolutionary or, if the Chinese model continues to work, it may well embrace us. I hope I am wrong, but given the politics of the moment here in America I can see it happening.
Bruce Olson, Houston
Shrinagesh
Chennai, India
China today is pretending to be Modern to reap benefits.
To build Wealth and Minds, there needs to be space and
Chinese Minds have to free themselves.
What comes out of China is filtered and so there will
always be simmering frustration within. The advantage of
democracy is that frustration is expressed spontaneously and things appear worse than it really is.I would rather live in a poor democratic
country rather than an autocratic rich nation.
While in China it is a Pretentious economy, pretending to be great
the reality could be shocking. The greater shock is that
even US is carried away by Chinese pretensions.
I have always been an admirer of the American spirit but it
is getting diluted as US waters down her convictions especially
on Free Enterprise for the benefit of immediate needs. Instead
of leadership by convictions, American leadership has resorted
to management of crises by giving up time tested convictions.
Obama instead of the challenge of taking up world leadership
which would have benefited US, has become regional leader and limits
himself to be the Prez of US. Am deeply disappointed with him. He needs to prove that he is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.
I can understand China's behavior but ET TU US?
Mr. Ho
NJ
Do top-down, state-run economic growth programs work? If you are on a low state of economic development, definitely yes. That's how Japan, Korea, Taiwan etc. started up. Does it continue to work forever? No, definitely not. Japan's economy has stalled in the 90's and it hasn't really been growing since, Asia's "little tiger" economies experienced the 1998 crisis and learned that after reaching a certain level of development, it's time to change your strategy. For now, except some big privileged cities, vast areas of China are in a state of low economic development. So for now, the system keeps working.
The big question is: What will happen if China reaches a per-capita income of §10,000 per year? The communist bureaucrats may think that they are infallible, but no advanced economy has had a top-down planning and succeeded. The reforms carried out by Thacher and Reagan, which dismantled state-control and was so painful because it was not accompanied by a corresponding social-welfare program to mitigate the effects on the poor, was in effect an acknowledgment that government-control over the economy is a bad idea. Short-term stimulus packages work, but long-term control will lead to stunted growth.
So expanding the state-run sector and propping up inefficient state-run companies against competition from the private sector via massive subsidies won't have a visible effect now, but in the future it will create a big headache. And it's already creating a huge waste:
"The state airlines immediately began a price war. The state-owned monopoly that provided jet fuel refused to service private carriers on the same generous terms given the big three. China’s only computerized reservation system — currently one-third owned by the three state airlines — refused to book flights for private competitors. And when mismanagement and the 2008 economic crisis drove the three majors into financial straits, the central government bought stock to bail them out: about $1 billion for China Eastern; $430 million for China Southern; $220 million for Air China."
Well, you might think that we just used billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out big banks, which in turn provided its managers with large bonuses, but think on this: Using billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out banks in a country with a per-capita income of ca. §45,000 is outrageous, but using billions of dollars to prop up mismanaged companies in a country where the per-capita income is ca. §6,000 and where people used to ride bicycles instead of cars until recently is an atrocity.
30.8.10
Some of Bernake's critics were Obama's voters
Bernanke is willing to lead the Fed into taking several steps if the economy continues its downward trending.
I. Generational
Brooklyn
It's a funny thing about capitalists: they say that they believe in markets. They say that prices should be allowed to float, reflecting the forces of supply and demand.
But, as it turns out, they only believe this when prices are floating upward. Prices trend down, and suddenly its time for a bailout. Federal Reserve, Banks & Wall Street - It's always the same story: privatize the gains and socialize the losses. Make the little guy pay for the bad investment decisions of major corporations and wealthy individuals.
I, for one, would like to see prices trend down for a few months or years. It would help re-align prices with my paycheck.
Jacob Olsson
New York
There's nothing they can do now. At the start of the crisis, the U.S. had a choice: the road to Sweden or the road to Japan. The first one entailed firing the bankers, bleeding the shareholders, regulating the industry and plan for a new future for the country. The second one entailed saving zombie banks at any cost, propping up banker bonuses, country and future be damned.
times
Houston, TX
Bernanke doesn't know the wires are cut in the wall behind the control box. He keeps turning the knob but nothing happens. This is what happens when the president decides to do Wall Street's bidding and reappoints a loser to run the Fed. Bernanke, that great student of the Great Depression, learned his lesson well and is leading us into another one. Why is that we have the same bureaucrats, who orchestrated the demise of economy, like Bernanke and Geithner, running it? It's called a plutocracy: government by and for the wealthy ruling class. Wake up, America.
brian
egmont key
prop up the economy or prop up wallstreet?
we must break this "stockholm syndrome" with wallstreet.
dump your stocks and save your dough before wallstreet gets a chance to say,"oh so sorry, we lost your money ," once again
Libertarian
West Chester, PA
We are taught that prices are information about supply and demand. This amounts to the Fed manipulating information. They are trying to hide the fact that we have moved jobs overseas and the middle class can no longer afford their recent lifestyle.
1. End the wars and close overseas bases. Use the money to pay down the debt and build infrastructure.
2. Impose tariffs to bring back jobs. Set tariffs based on wage differential so that our workers are competing on productivity, not wages with those in developing countries.
3. Pass Amendment to end personhood of corporations. Only human citizens should be allowed to participate in our politics.
MS O
Berkeley, CA
The problem is that the core of the American economy was destroyed with the exportation of middle class jobs to China, India and other countries where $129/month for 12 hour days and a six day work week is the norm and where child labor is still legal.
The United States could bring things back by imposing a value added tax of 25% on all goods imported by "American" corporations as "American" products. This tax should be imposed on oil first.
Until people realize that feeding the greed of the super rick is not a sound economic policy there will be no recovery. Wall Street represents corporations with a single goal, the accumulation of wealth. This wealth is not "American" wealth it is international wealth. The profits are not returned to the United States but are invested overseas to avoid any possibility of paying any of the taxes which support the American military which, of course, is expected to rescue their investments when things turn nasty.
I. Generational
Brooklyn
It's a funny thing about capitalists: they say that they believe in markets. They say that prices should be allowed to float, reflecting the forces of supply and demand.
But, as it turns out, they only believe this when prices are floating upward. Prices trend down, and suddenly its time for a bailout. Federal Reserve, Banks & Wall Street - It's always the same story: privatize the gains and socialize the losses. Make the little guy pay for the bad investment decisions of major corporations and wealthy individuals.
I, for one, would like to see prices trend down for a few months or years. It would help re-align prices with my paycheck.
Jacob Olsson
New York
There's nothing they can do now. At the start of the crisis, the U.S. had a choice: the road to Sweden or the road to Japan. The first one entailed firing the bankers, bleeding the shareholders, regulating the industry and plan for a new future for the country. The second one entailed saving zombie banks at any cost, propping up banker bonuses, country and future be damned.
times
Houston, TX
Bernanke doesn't know the wires are cut in the wall behind the control box. He keeps turning the knob but nothing happens. This is what happens when the president decides to do Wall Street's bidding and reappoints a loser to run the Fed. Bernanke, that great student of the Great Depression, learned his lesson well and is leading us into another one. Why is that we have the same bureaucrats, who orchestrated the demise of economy, like Bernanke and Geithner, running it? It's called a plutocracy: government by and for the wealthy ruling class. Wake up, America.
brian
egmont key
prop up the economy or prop up wallstreet?
we must break this "stockholm syndrome" with wallstreet.
dump your stocks and save your dough before wallstreet gets a chance to say,"oh so sorry, we lost your money ," once again
Libertarian
West Chester, PA
We are taught that prices are information about supply and demand. This amounts to the Fed manipulating information. They are trying to hide the fact that we have moved jobs overseas and the middle class can no longer afford their recent lifestyle.
1. End the wars and close overseas bases. Use the money to pay down the debt and build infrastructure.
2. Impose tariffs to bring back jobs. Set tariffs based on wage differential so that our workers are competing on productivity, not wages with those in developing countries.
3. Pass Amendment to end personhood of corporations. Only human citizens should be allowed to participate in our politics.
MS O
Berkeley, CA
The problem is that the core of the American economy was destroyed with the exportation of middle class jobs to China, India and other countries where $129/month for 12 hour days and a six day work week is the norm and where child labor is still legal.
The United States could bring things back by imposing a value added tax of 25% on all goods imported by "American" corporations as "American" products. This tax should be imposed on oil first.
Until people realize that feeding the greed of the super rick is not a sound economic policy there will be no recovery. Wall Street represents corporations with a single goal, the accumulation of wealth. This wealth is not "American" wealth it is international wealth. The profits are not returned to the United States but are invested overseas to avoid any possibility of paying any of the taxes which support the American military which, of course, is expected to rescue their investments when things turn nasty.
17.8.10
Why aren't we getting out of these two senseless wars?
pdxtran
Minneapolis
I noticed as early as 2007 that the mainstream media were acting as if there were only two candidates for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I also noticed that there were no significant differences between their policies, because while Obama could do a good imitation of a fiery populist, his actual positions were center-right, just like H. Clinton's.
There were still other candidates out there campaigning, but they received little coverage, because before a single vote was cast in Iowa, Obama and Clinton were anointed "the frontrunners."
Why? They had raised the most corporate cash. Furthermore, the mass media loved asking the question, "Do you want the first woman president or the first president of color?"
That's really what the race boiled down to, and on political message boards, advocates of one candidate or the other were accusing each other of either racism or sexism. (Since I didn't have much use for either candidate, I watched in dismay.)
What a wonderful way to distract the electorate from the real issues!
Now where am I going with this?
Our politicians are bought and paid for by the major corporations, the financial institutions, and the military-industrial complex. Anyone who seems reluctant to do their bidding receives no corporate cash and no publicity. The last thing the Big Money Boys want is a president who will ruin things for them when they're gobbling up hundreds of millions of dollars per day at the public trough.
When was the last time we had a president who genuinely stood up for the economic welfare of ordinary people or for a sensible foreign policy and would not be bullied or badgered or bribed or sweet-talked into caving in? I'm trying to remember... (No, Reagan doesn't count. I said GENUINELY stood up for the economic welfare of ordinary people.)
Leftists are angry these days because they feel that they put Obama into the White House and that he is disrespecting them. There is some truth to that. However, the ones who really put Obama into the White House and who would have hobbled his candidacy if he had crossed them, are the financial elites, the corporate bigwigs, the media conglomerates, and the military contractors.
They don't want to get out of Afghanistan or Iraq, because they're making too much money, and they will be insulated from the worst effects of an economic collapse. Besides, they tend to be like Harry Lime in The Third Man, regarding ordinary human beings as mere ants crawling on the ground.
They will continue to do so until the American people wise up.
Tim Kane
Mesa, Arizona
It has fallen to the Obama administration to clean up the many and varied Bush's messes. One of those messes is Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan project got off to a rousing good start. But the corruption, intrinsic to Republicanism (graft, greed, oil, and corporatism) perverted the project.
The first big mistake was not grafting on to existing Afghan constitutional institutions (they had them!), like the return of the Monarchy, which after 30 years of civil war and anarchy held maximum moral authority for the people, the use of the loya jurga as an indigenous assembly body that could have help create a proto-constitutional democracy and the ancient, tried and true, implementation of neo-feudalism into the mix to align local war lords with progress.
The important thing about feudalism and neo-feudalism, and monarchy and proto-constitutional monarchy, in the developmental state is that it is intuitive to all in a relatively primitive society. We could have supplemented that with our strength, vast amounts of international development funds, and Japanese and Korean economic and planning bureaucrats (the best in the world, and our allies). If this had been done, Afghanistan might be something of a success story today.
Instead, the Bush administration planted a presidential system (unintuitive and difficult for most societies to make use of) with a petroleum industry lackey in the presidency, then got side tracked jousting windmills in Iraq, allowing the whole afghan project to descend into chaos when it need not be.
In "Structure and Change in Economic History" by Nobel Laureate and Economic Historian, Douglas C. North cites that the Roman Empire collapsed because wealth and power had become extremely concentrated, 6 Senators owned half of North Africa, so that the Wealthy and Powerful were able to use their influence to avoid paying taxes.
The Empire, consisting of 1/4th of the earth's total population of about 60 million people and controlling all of Western Civilizations resources, when Western Civilization included the western half of the Middle East, Turkey, Egypt and North Africa, lacked the political will to raise enough money to provide a large enough army to control the Empire's borders.
The Roman legion still held a tactical edge over the barbarians, but it had thinned. They needed a larger army but lacked the political will to fund it.
Other historians will say that the empire collapsed because it's commercial (cash) economy collapsed. As we are aware of, by what we are living through now, this is the same thing. When wealth concentrates, demand collapses and with it the commercial economy. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, until they became serfs.
Still other historians will claim other causes to the collapse of Rome, however, the same basic dynamic of concentrated wealth leading to the collapse of so many other empire's, civilizations, economies and states (Ancient Egypt's New Kingdom, Byzantium prior to Manzikurt, Pre-Islamic Mecca [Islam was, in part, a reaction to sudden concentrated wealth there at the time], Medieval Japan, arguably Hapsburg Spain, Bourbon France, Romanov Russia, Coolidge/Hoover America, Reagan/Bush America) is so common that it deserves the highest level of presumption.
The thing about these dynamics, is that the Wealthy and the Powerful, the very people with the most to lose from collapse, were also the same ones who brought about the collapse. The power of greed is so great, that all perspective is lost and the movement of the greedy cannot be contained by foreknowledge that they are precipitating their own ruin.
To save money, the Romans hired barbarians into their army. Then they belatedly abandoned Brittan around 405. Too little, too late: by 455 the Roman Empire was no more.
Much of these dynamics are taking place now. The concentration of wealth in the United States is greater than it was in 1929. This lead to collapse of financial institutions and a jobs depression. Some hindsight from 1929 brought about swift stabilization of financial institutions, but the collapse of demand, without massive stimulus, looks to be permanent. If so, deflation will soon set in, leading to a serf like existence for many who once hailed from the middle class.
We are struggling with immigration and the control over our own borders.
By the time we get around to pulling out of Afghanistan and other commitments, like the Roman Empire pulling out of Brittan, it will be too late. The economy will be destroyed. The vast majority of working people will live a serf like existence. The wealthy will so jealously hang onto their wealth that the Government will be powerless to do anything constructive. What resources that are available will be utilized to control the helot serfs of our economy and protect property rights.
Meanwhile, the renaissance in East Asia continues.
I can see nothing on the horizon to stop this process of dissolution.
Carole A. Dunn
Ocean Springs, Miss.
I challenge anyone to say the US is the "land of the free and the home of the brave" with a straight face anymore. Our government has been systematically selling us into slavery to the military-industrial complex.
The war in Afghanistan is just a part of the war on the average American. It's part of the plot to drain our treasury so that there is nothing left for America to be a modern and civilized country. Our jobs have been exported and low-wage workers imported, and the large corporations are rewarded for it. The big banks perpetrated huge financial fraud against the country as a whole, but primarily against the working classes, and they were rewarded by bailouts at no cost to them. The money they are not hoarding they are lending out at high rates of interest, while savings are losing value every day. (My interest on an account with an average daily balance of about $2,500 was 18 cents for July).
The rich have been paying tax rates that are lower than their own workers who make salaries in the lower five figures, starving the treasury further, and causing one-third of the deficit. The recent financial debacle didn't start the states on their starvation diets; the states started running out of money soon after the Bush tax cuts in 2001. As a result, the middle and working classes have seen everything go up, from property taxes, sales taxes and all sorts of fees. We have seen services and any attention to infrastructure go down, including our educational system. Out of one side of their mouths our "leaders" talk about improving education, and out of the other side they call for the laying off of teachers.
We are no longer an upwardly mobile nation. A person growing up in a working class family, whether he/she goes to college or not, only has a twenty percent chance of rising up to a higher station in life. For many young people the only chance at a future is with the military, if they live long enough to reap the benefits. We are not even anywhere near as geographically mobile as we used to be. Thanks to the moribund housing market, those lucky enough to find decent jobs in another part of the country are unable to sell their present homes and move on. Around here, people can't even find tenants for houses they can't sell.
We don't believe in global warming. We don't believe in evolution. We don't believe the government should help the poor. We sit on our duffs and do nothing while the entire country is being sold out from under us. The war in Afghanistan won't end until the big war profiteers decide it's time. I hear rumblings that the ideas being put forth to "save" Social Security, like raising the retirement age and cutting benefits are making people mad. People don't get mad enough anymore. Make no mistake: our fascist government will do what they want and the American people will role over. We are allowing ourselves to become a nation of people who will be just marking time until we die.
We ask the president and the Democrats in Congress to grow a spine. It's time for us to grow a spine.
Minneapolis
I noticed as early as 2007 that the mainstream media were acting as if there were only two candidates for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I also noticed that there were no significant differences between their policies, because while Obama could do a good imitation of a fiery populist, his actual positions were center-right, just like H. Clinton's.
There were still other candidates out there campaigning, but they received little coverage, because before a single vote was cast in Iowa, Obama and Clinton were anointed "the frontrunners."
Why? They had raised the most corporate cash. Furthermore, the mass media loved asking the question, "Do you want the first woman president or the first president of color?"
That's really what the race boiled down to, and on political message boards, advocates of one candidate or the other were accusing each other of either racism or sexism. (Since I didn't have much use for either candidate, I watched in dismay.)
What a wonderful way to distract the electorate from the real issues!
Now where am I going with this?
Our politicians are bought and paid for by the major corporations, the financial institutions, and the military-industrial complex. Anyone who seems reluctant to do their bidding receives no corporate cash and no publicity. The last thing the Big Money Boys want is a president who will ruin things for them when they're gobbling up hundreds of millions of dollars per day at the public trough.
When was the last time we had a president who genuinely stood up for the economic welfare of ordinary people or for a sensible foreign policy and would not be bullied or badgered or bribed or sweet-talked into caving in? I'm trying to remember... (No, Reagan doesn't count. I said GENUINELY stood up for the economic welfare of ordinary people.)
Leftists are angry these days because they feel that they put Obama into the White House and that he is disrespecting them. There is some truth to that. However, the ones who really put Obama into the White House and who would have hobbled his candidacy if he had crossed them, are the financial elites, the corporate bigwigs, the media conglomerates, and the military contractors.
They don't want to get out of Afghanistan or Iraq, because they're making too much money, and they will be insulated from the worst effects of an economic collapse. Besides, they tend to be like Harry Lime in The Third Man, regarding ordinary human beings as mere ants crawling on the ground.
They will continue to do so until the American people wise up.
Tim Kane
Mesa, Arizona
It has fallen to the Obama administration to clean up the many and varied Bush's messes. One of those messes is Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan project got off to a rousing good start. But the corruption, intrinsic to Republicanism (graft, greed, oil, and corporatism) perverted the project.
The first big mistake was not grafting on to existing Afghan constitutional institutions (they had them!), like the return of the Monarchy, which after 30 years of civil war and anarchy held maximum moral authority for the people, the use of the loya jurga as an indigenous assembly body that could have help create a proto-constitutional democracy and the ancient, tried and true, implementation of neo-feudalism into the mix to align local war lords with progress.
The important thing about feudalism and neo-feudalism, and monarchy and proto-constitutional monarchy, in the developmental state is that it is intuitive to all in a relatively primitive society. We could have supplemented that with our strength, vast amounts of international development funds, and Japanese and Korean economic and planning bureaucrats (the best in the world, and our allies). If this had been done, Afghanistan might be something of a success story today.
Instead, the Bush administration planted a presidential system (unintuitive and difficult for most societies to make use of) with a petroleum industry lackey in the presidency, then got side tracked jousting windmills in Iraq, allowing the whole afghan project to descend into chaos when it need not be.
In "Structure and Change in Economic History" by Nobel Laureate and Economic Historian, Douglas C. North cites that the Roman Empire collapsed because wealth and power had become extremely concentrated, 6 Senators owned half of North Africa, so that the Wealthy and Powerful were able to use their influence to avoid paying taxes.
The Empire, consisting of 1/4th of the earth's total population of about 60 million people and controlling all of Western Civilizations resources, when Western Civilization included the western half of the Middle East, Turkey, Egypt and North Africa, lacked the political will to raise enough money to provide a large enough army to control the Empire's borders.
The Roman legion still held a tactical edge over the barbarians, but it had thinned. They needed a larger army but lacked the political will to fund it.
Other historians will say that the empire collapsed because it's commercial (cash) economy collapsed. As we are aware of, by what we are living through now, this is the same thing. When wealth concentrates, demand collapses and with it the commercial economy. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, until they became serfs.
Still other historians will claim other causes to the collapse of Rome, however, the same basic dynamic of concentrated wealth leading to the collapse of so many other empire's, civilizations, economies and states (Ancient Egypt's New Kingdom, Byzantium prior to Manzikurt, Pre-Islamic Mecca [Islam was, in part, a reaction to sudden concentrated wealth there at the time], Medieval Japan, arguably Hapsburg Spain, Bourbon France, Romanov Russia, Coolidge/Hoover America, Reagan/Bush America) is so common that it deserves the highest level of presumption.
The thing about these dynamics, is that the Wealthy and the Powerful, the very people with the most to lose from collapse, were also the same ones who brought about the collapse. The power of greed is so great, that all perspective is lost and the movement of the greedy cannot be contained by foreknowledge that they are precipitating their own ruin.
To save money, the Romans hired barbarians into their army. Then they belatedly abandoned Brittan around 405. Too little, too late: by 455 the Roman Empire was no more.
Much of these dynamics are taking place now. The concentration of wealth in the United States is greater than it was in 1929. This lead to collapse of financial institutions and a jobs depression. Some hindsight from 1929 brought about swift stabilization of financial institutions, but the collapse of demand, without massive stimulus, looks to be permanent. If so, deflation will soon set in, leading to a serf like existence for many who once hailed from the middle class.
We are struggling with immigration and the control over our own borders.
By the time we get around to pulling out of Afghanistan and other commitments, like the Roman Empire pulling out of Brittan, it will be too late. The economy will be destroyed. The vast majority of working people will live a serf like existence. The wealthy will so jealously hang onto their wealth that the Government will be powerless to do anything constructive. What resources that are available will be utilized to control the helot serfs of our economy and protect property rights.
Meanwhile, the renaissance in East Asia continues.
I can see nothing on the horizon to stop this process of dissolution.
Carole A. Dunn
Ocean Springs, Miss.
I challenge anyone to say the US is the "land of the free and the home of the brave" with a straight face anymore. Our government has been systematically selling us into slavery to the military-industrial complex.
The war in Afghanistan is just a part of the war on the average American. It's part of the plot to drain our treasury so that there is nothing left for America to be a modern and civilized country. Our jobs have been exported and low-wage workers imported, and the large corporations are rewarded for it. The big banks perpetrated huge financial fraud against the country as a whole, but primarily against the working classes, and they were rewarded by bailouts at no cost to them. The money they are not hoarding they are lending out at high rates of interest, while savings are losing value every day. (My interest on an account with an average daily balance of about $2,500 was 18 cents for July).
The rich have been paying tax rates that are lower than their own workers who make salaries in the lower five figures, starving the treasury further, and causing one-third of the deficit. The recent financial debacle didn't start the states on their starvation diets; the states started running out of money soon after the Bush tax cuts in 2001. As a result, the middle and working classes have seen everything go up, from property taxes, sales taxes and all sorts of fees. We have seen services and any attention to infrastructure go down, including our educational system. Out of one side of their mouths our "leaders" talk about improving education, and out of the other side they call for the laying off of teachers.
We are no longer an upwardly mobile nation. A person growing up in a working class family, whether he/she goes to college or not, only has a twenty percent chance of rising up to a higher station in life. For many young people the only chance at a future is with the military, if they live long enough to reap the benefits. We are not even anywhere near as geographically mobile as we used to be. Thanks to the moribund housing market, those lucky enough to find decent jobs in another part of the country are unable to sell their present homes and move on. Around here, people can't even find tenants for houses they can't sell.
We don't believe in global warming. We don't believe in evolution. We don't believe the government should help the poor. We sit on our duffs and do nothing while the entire country is being sold out from under us. The war in Afghanistan won't end until the big war profiteers decide it's time. I hear rumblings that the ideas being put forth to "save" Social Security, like raising the retirement age and cutting benefits are making people mad. People don't get mad enough anymore. Make no mistake: our fascist government will do what they want and the American people will role over. We are allowing ourselves to become a nation of people who will be just marking time until we die.
We ask the president and the Democrats in Congress to grow a spine. It's time for us to grow a spine.
16.8.10
Ponzi, short for Social Security
Richard Luettgen
New Jersey
It's not that reasonable conservatives believe that government is always the problem, never the solution: it's that we believe that while government can do important things that individuals cannot, it is almost never the entire solution. The problem with liberals is that they believe that pervasive government that robs us of our liberty and beggars us to pay for itself is the only solution.
That said, Social Security's dedicated trust fund is nonsense. It's never been cash, out there earning money by allowing private enterprise to actually build something useful; it's been T-Bills that the government trades for the excess cash collected from workers that isn't paid out immediately to beneficiaries in this massive Ponzi scheme that makes Bernie Madoff look like a piker. The government then spends that excess cash on whatever it chooses, year after year, promising that someday it will pay the T-Bills as they become due and are needed to pay benefits. Unlike the states, that are close to bankrupt (and if you were to consider their unfunded public pension liabilities as real, they would be bankrupt in any sensible accounting scheme), the feds think that they can forever print money today and tomorrow to meet obligations that they entered into yesterday and keep entering into today; or raise taxes again and again and again, until they've expropriated all productive output and find that it's still not enough to satisfy them.
So, what happens when Social Security tax receipts no longer exceed what is actually paid out, and when outlays start exceeding related tax collections by significant sums? Well, one thing is that the federal government no longer will be able to hide a much larger actual operating deficit behind this thin set of skirts, since they can no longer take excess money that no longer exists, to spend as they see fit. The second effect is that those T-Bills start coming due. That would be a hoot, except that our children and grandchildren, and maybe our great-grandchildren, will need to be taxed at truly ruinous levels to collect the cash to make good on those promises. At that time, you will necessarily see a massive reduction and means-testing regime for Social Security and Medicare that will limit recipients to the poorest among us. It won't be law that requires people to work into their seventies (or eighties), it will be the need to feed themselves, because there will be no other help unless your kids can support you.
FDR believed that Social Security would need to be privatized, probably in the sixties, or it would become a Ponzi scheme far too vulnerable to a demographic shift that had a very large number of retirees appearing with too few active workers to support them -- sound familiar? But it was never privatized, not because the markets are too flighty but because Congress refuses to give up the excess cash it spins off, or they'd have to admit that they're actually burning deficit dollars at a much higher rate than they admit to; or, they'd have to cut spending to levels closer to the sum of other tax collections, something that might actually get them kicked out of office by the dependents of all the programs those deficit dollars fund; or, they'd have to increase income taxes enough that middle class people would be converging on D.C. to hang them.
This is the legacy of believing that government is the whole solution all the time.
So, what really to do? If we want a social safety net for the elderly (and just about all of us do), then we'd better start taxing ourselves now to pay for it, now and tomorrow; but take every dime of the excess collected now, DO NOT invest it in T-Bills but in very conservative market instruments that pay real cash as interest, and stop Congress from its decades-long spending spree. If we need to cover expenses that current income tax levels can't satisfy, then make some hard choices -- like getting out of Afghanistan now, calling our troops home from all over the world and cutting the military's budget by at least 50% over ten years. And getting rid of every U.S. Representative and Senator over seventy wouldn't be a bad move either, since they clearly haven't the foggiest idea how to deal with today's and tomorrow's problems.
New Jersey
It's not that reasonable conservatives believe that government is always the problem, never the solution: it's that we believe that while government can do important things that individuals cannot, it is almost never the entire solution. The problem with liberals is that they believe that pervasive government that robs us of our liberty and beggars us to pay for itself is the only solution.
That said, Social Security's dedicated trust fund is nonsense. It's never been cash, out there earning money by allowing private enterprise to actually build something useful; it's been T-Bills that the government trades for the excess cash collected from workers that isn't paid out immediately to beneficiaries in this massive Ponzi scheme that makes Bernie Madoff look like a piker. The government then spends that excess cash on whatever it chooses, year after year, promising that someday it will pay the T-Bills as they become due and are needed to pay benefits. Unlike the states, that are close to bankrupt (and if you were to consider their unfunded public pension liabilities as real, they would be bankrupt in any sensible accounting scheme), the feds think that they can forever print money today and tomorrow to meet obligations that they entered into yesterday and keep entering into today; or raise taxes again and again and again, until they've expropriated all productive output and find that it's still not enough to satisfy them.
So, what happens when Social Security tax receipts no longer exceed what is actually paid out, and when outlays start exceeding related tax collections by significant sums? Well, one thing is that the federal government no longer will be able to hide a much larger actual operating deficit behind this thin set of skirts, since they can no longer take excess money that no longer exists, to spend as they see fit. The second effect is that those T-Bills start coming due. That would be a hoot, except that our children and grandchildren, and maybe our great-grandchildren, will need to be taxed at truly ruinous levels to collect the cash to make good on those promises. At that time, you will necessarily see a massive reduction and means-testing regime for Social Security and Medicare that will limit recipients to the poorest among us. It won't be law that requires people to work into their seventies (or eighties), it will be the need to feed themselves, because there will be no other help unless your kids can support you.
FDR believed that Social Security would need to be privatized, probably in the sixties, or it would become a Ponzi scheme far too vulnerable to a demographic shift that had a very large number of retirees appearing with too few active workers to support them -- sound familiar? But it was never privatized, not because the markets are too flighty but because Congress refuses to give up the excess cash it spins off, or they'd have to admit that they're actually burning deficit dollars at a much higher rate than they admit to; or, they'd have to cut spending to levels closer to the sum of other tax collections, something that might actually get them kicked out of office by the dependents of all the programs those deficit dollars fund; or, they'd have to increase income taxes enough that middle class people would be converging on D.C. to hang them.
This is the legacy of believing that government is the whole solution all the time.
So, what really to do? If we want a social safety net for the elderly (and just about all of us do), then we'd better start taxing ourselves now to pay for it, now and tomorrow; but take every dime of the excess collected now, DO NOT invest it in T-Bills but in very conservative market instruments that pay real cash as interest, and stop Congress from its decades-long spending spree. If we need to cover expenses that current income tax levels can't satisfy, then make some hard choices -- like getting out of Afghanistan now, calling our troops home from all over the world and cutting the military's budget by at least 50% over ten years. And getting rid of every U.S. Representative and Senator over seventy wouldn't be a bad move either, since they clearly haven't the foggiest idea how to deal with today's and tomorrow's problems.
10.8.10
The non-US take on philantropy
German Millionaires Criticize Gates' 'Giving Pledge'
Germany's super-rich have rejected an invitation by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to join their 'Giving Pledge' to give away most of their fortune. The pledge has been criticized in Germany, with millionaires saying donations shouldn't replace duties that would be better carried out by the state.
Last week, Microsoft founder Bill Gates attempted to convince billionaires around the world to agree to give away half their money to charity. But in Germany, the "Giving Pledge," backed by 40 of the world's wealthiest people, including Gates and Warren Buffet, has met with skepticism, SPIEGEL has learned.
"For most people that is too ostentatious," said the asset manager of one of the billionaires contacted by Gates, adding that many of the of the people contacted had already transferred larger proportions of their assets than the Americans to charitable foundations.
Dietmar Hopp, the co-founder of the SAP business software company, has transferred some €2.9 billion to a foundation. Klaus Tschira, another founder of SAP, has handed more than half his wealth to a foundation.
Peter Krämer, a Hamburg-based shipping magnate and multimillionaire, has emerged as one of the strongest critics of the "Giving Pledge." Krämer, who donated millions of euros in 2005 to "Schools for Africa," a program operated by UNICEF, explained his opposition to the Gates initiative in a SPIEGEL interview.
SPIEGEL: Forty super wealthy Americans have just announced that they would donate half of their assets, at the very latest after their deaths. As a person who often likes to say that rich people should be asked to contribute more to society, what were your first thoughts?
Krämer: I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable.
SPIEGEL: But doesn't the money that is donated serve the common good?
Krämer: It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?
SPIEGEL: It is their money at the end of the day.
Krämer: In this case, 40 superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for. That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state. In the end the billionaires are indulging in hobbies that might be in the common good, but are very personal.
SPIEGEL: Do the donations also have to do with the fact that the idea of state and society is such different one in the United States?
Krämer: Yes, one cannot forget that the US has a desolate social system and that alone is reason enough that donations are already a part of everyday life there. But it would have been a greater deed on the part of Mr. Gates or Mr. Buffet if they had given the money to small communities in the US so that they can fulfill public duties.
SPIEGEL: Should wealthy Germans also give up some of their money?
Krämer: No, not in this form. It would make more sense, for example, to work with and donate to established organizations.
Germany's super-rich have rejected an invitation by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to join their 'Giving Pledge' to give away most of their fortune. The pledge has been criticized in Germany, with millionaires saying donations shouldn't replace duties that would be better carried out by the state.
Last week, Microsoft founder Bill Gates attempted to convince billionaires around the world to agree to give away half their money to charity. But in Germany, the "Giving Pledge," backed by 40 of the world's wealthiest people, including Gates and Warren Buffet, has met with skepticism, SPIEGEL has learned.
"For most people that is too ostentatious," said the asset manager of one of the billionaires contacted by Gates, adding that many of the of the people contacted had already transferred larger proportions of their assets than the Americans to charitable foundations.
Dietmar Hopp, the co-founder of the SAP business software company, has transferred some €2.9 billion to a foundation. Klaus Tschira, another founder of SAP, has handed more than half his wealth to a foundation.
Peter Krämer, a Hamburg-based shipping magnate and multimillionaire, has emerged as one of the strongest critics of the "Giving Pledge." Krämer, who donated millions of euros in 2005 to "Schools for Africa," a program operated by UNICEF, explained his opposition to the Gates initiative in a SPIEGEL interview.
SPIEGEL: Forty super wealthy Americans have just announced that they would donate half of their assets, at the very latest after their deaths. As a person who often likes to say that rich people should be asked to contribute more to society, what were your first thoughts?
Krämer: I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable.
SPIEGEL: But doesn't the money that is donated serve the common good?
Krämer: It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?
SPIEGEL: It is their money at the end of the day.
Krämer: In this case, 40 superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for. That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state. In the end the billionaires are indulging in hobbies that might be in the common good, but are very personal.
SPIEGEL: Do the donations also have to do with the fact that the idea of state and society is such different one in the United States?
Krämer: Yes, one cannot forget that the US has a desolate social system and that alone is reason enough that donations are already a part of everyday life there. But it would have been a greater deed on the part of Mr. Gates or Mr. Buffet if they had given the money to small communities in the US so that they can fulfill public duties.
SPIEGEL: Should wealthy Germans also give up some of their money?
Krämer: No, not in this form. It would make more sense, for example, to work with and donate to established organizations.
6.8.10
Obama was thought of as good, Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?
Obama started by making me believe there was hope in politics. By and large, he used to speak my mind, as it were. I understood for the first time what people might have meant when saying that Kennedy was the president of their generation, despite my being so neutral about the whole affair. So, either Obama was channeling the zeitgeist, or the White House moves according to its own logic, anchored in the preservationist axioms of the elite so you either swim with its under-current or sink. This last point still brings me to ask, how was FDR possible? Unless Obama needs a worsening of the crisis to get us there… But you know, one never bathes in the same river.
Have a look at the recent talk between Wilbur Ross and Charlie Rose. The money people would have no problem with higher taxes, and the citizenry would take some hardship. All that’s needed is a dual sense of purpose/direction and justice.
Have a look at the recent talk between Wilbur Ross and Charlie Rose. The money people would have no problem with higher taxes, and the citizenry would take some hardship. All that’s needed is a dual sense of purpose/direction and justice.
3.8.10
They have the money they won't spend
Jeremy Horne, Ph.D.
Alamogordo, NM
There are several factors we must bear in mind.
First, no one should be surprised about what is happening to jobs and the hoarding of cash, with CEOs ripping off even more wealth. How many bankster bailouts do we need? The ultimate aim of corporatism is maximum profits with least expense. Workers, along with land, labor, and capital, are simply part of the equation. There is no humanity in corporatism.
Two, poster no. 1, Karen Garcia, while well meaning, is barking up the wrong tree by saying, "The President must ... [to get] ... the progressive agenda ... We need to call the politicians ... ". The president doesn't have to do anything of the kind. He is corporate property, and the people have no say. He was bought and paid for by Goldman Sachs and BP, among others. This is part of what corporatism means - control of political and economic decision making. Look at 1922-1943 as an example. Second, calling the politicians is a waste of time, as the word was sent to them in the last election as to what people generally wanted. In essence, we have a failed state when it comes to doing the peoples' will.
Three, one of the fundamental fatalities of modern industrial political economies is that their viability depends upon production and growth. This is not sustainable environmentally or structurally. The new meaning of "progressivism" will have to incorporate this new direction.
Third, the economy will have to shift from being based in a velocity of capital being the sign of economic health to wealth being based upon labor hours spent. This means dispensing with parasitic income, such as that derived from speculation. Remember, this was one of the fundamental reasons for the current mini-depression.
Fourth, the policy makers for a humane political economy will have to recognize that the foundation of that economy - workers- must have meaningfully and economically available to them excellent health (including mental and dental) - not the pro insurance/big pharma scam that was recently enacted by Congress - care, education, housing, nutrition, and wages. Given the short sightedness of most corporations, one should not expect these things under the present system At least Henry Ford seemed to have a basic understanding in this area.
Fifth, to have any meaningful participatory society, the participants must be educated This presupposes s suitable school/educational system, and an ethos that values education. It must ranscend the current one of business, consumerism, sports, "entertainment", and greed.
Sixth, the political process needs a complete restructuring, from campaign financing, reversal of the SCOTUS decision on corporations, equal access by opposition political parties, term limits, and a requirement that anyone running for high public office be educated and minimally experienced in political/social/economic affairs. Plato and Aristotle would have had it so well.
The problem we face now is one of ethos and structure, and little patches like make work will not be long range enough to do anything in the room. The elephants in the room are corporatism, the present regime's obeisance to it, and the lack of the basic guts and brains of any group to do anything about it.
Mr. Herbert, you are a fantastic columnist, and perhaps socially/economically way ahead of your time, but I am asking you why you don't pick up the cudgel? I know that newspaper staffers have to be wary about becoming activists, but at least subtlety report on what others might be doing around this country that is effective, so we might take these as paradigms on how to organize in our own communities. We may be coming to a point of no return (from a final economic crash), and people will be asking what there is to lose, if the only way is up. I suggest starting with discussing some real humane and viable political economies, such a cooperatives and non growth and sustainable forms of participatory systems based after democratic socialism, where the means of production and distribution in in the participants' hands. Along with the systems, we might see discussions on the nature of participation, what sustainability means, and other alternative concepts. There is no better time than now to start. Obama and the other politicians surely aren't going to be leaders; they already have had their day in what sun there is left. It is up to us.
Alamogordo, NM
There are several factors we must bear in mind.
First, no one should be surprised about what is happening to jobs and the hoarding of cash, with CEOs ripping off even more wealth. How many bankster bailouts do we need? The ultimate aim of corporatism is maximum profits with least expense. Workers, along with land, labor, and capital, are simply part of the equation. There is no humanity in corporatism.
Two, poster no. 1, Karen Garcia, while well meaning, is barking up the wrong tree by saying, "The President must ... [to get] ... the progressive agenda ... We need to call the politicians ... ". The president doesn't have to do anything of the kind. He is corporate property, and the people have no say. He was bought and paid for by Goldman Sachs and BP, among others. This is part of what corporatism means - control of political and economic decision making. Look at 1922-1943 as an example. Second, calling the politicians is a waste of time, as the word was sent to them in the last election as to what people generally wanted. In essence, we have a failed state when it comes to doing the peoples' will.
Three, one of the fundamental fatalities of modern industrial political economies is that their viability depends upon production and growth. This is not sustainable environmentally or structurally. The new meaning of "progressivism" will have to incorporate this new direction.
Third, the economy will have to shift from being based in a velocity of capital being the sign of economic health to wealth being based upon labor hours spent. This means dispensing with parasitic income, such as that derived from speculation. Remember, this was one of the fundamental reasons for the current mini-depression.
Fourth, the policy makers for a humane political economy will have to recognize that the foundation of that economy - workers- must have meaningfully and economically available to them excellent health (including mental and dental) - not the pro insurance/big pharma scam that was recently enacted by Congress - care, education, housing, nutrition, and wages. Given the short sightedness of most corporations, one should not expect these things under the present system At least Henry Ford seemed to have a basic understanding in this area.
Fifth, to have any meaningful participatory society, the participants must be educated This presupposes s suitable school/educational system, and an ethos that values education. It must ranscend the current one of business, consumerism, sports, "entertainment", and greed.
Sixth, the political process needs a complete restructuring, from campaign financing, reversal of the SCOTUS decision on corporations, equal access by opposition political parties, term limits, and a requirement that anyone running for high public office be educated and minimally experienced in political/social/economic affairs. Plato and Aristotle would have had it so well.
The problem we face now is one of ethos and structure, and little patches like make work will not be long range enough to do anything in the room. The elephants in the room are corporatism, the present regime's obeisance to it, and the lack of the basic guts and brains of any group to do anything about it.
Mr. Herbert, you are a fantastic columnist, and perhaps socially/economically way ahead of your time, but I am asking you why you don't pick up the cudgel? I know that newspaper staffers have to be wary about becoming activists, but at least subtlety report on what others might be doing around this country that is effective, so we might take these as paradigms on how to organize in our own communities. We may be coming to a point of no return (from a final economic crash), and people will be asking what there is to lose, if the only way is up. I suggest starting with discussing some real humane and viable political economies, such a cooperatives and non growth and sustainable forms of participatory systems based after democratic socialism, where the means of production and distribution in in the participants' hands. Along with the systems, we might see discussions on the nature of participation, what sustainability means, and other alternative concepts. There is no better time than now to start. Obama and the other politicians surely aren't going to be leaders; they already have had their day in what sun there is left. It is up to us.
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