CRASH 2008-09 -- first wave

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NEOLIBERALISM, the globalizers

Carl Barks
harpies-ducks.jpg

Harpy (one of 3) mean spirited winged women who are best known in the Greek legend for constantly stealing all the food of king Phineas and defecating upon his table.  Neoliberals are the harpies set against the working class.

NEOLIBERALISM

By jk6/07

Updated 9/08

Key points:  Global industries and financial institutions have organized to promote their cause:  a greater share of the global economy through the removal of restrictions.  Their principle methods consist of donations to political parties and politicians, and the implementation of IMF economic plans, promoted principally through treaties such as NAFTA and MEFTA.  Both in the developed and underdeveloped countries the reforms are the same, removal of trade, banking, ownership, and commerce restrictions and the privatization of government functions (utilities, schools, military, infrastructure, and the social safety net.). Their political donations have resulted in the globalizers becoming the principle influence upon our two-party system.  As a result the wave of deregulations which resulted in their controlling the media, and thus the production of ideas has marginalized opposition.  The economic deregulations have brought about the 2008 economic CRASH.  This is the result of revisiting the age of the Robber Barons. 

There is an evil afoot, neoliberalism (called neoconservatism by U.S. media).  It is neither new nor liberal.  It is a theory of unregulated economics and social irresponsibility given wings by the lackeys of the multinational corporations and international banks, who backed the theories developed in the University of Chicago, school of Economics, of whom Milton Freedom was there most noted professor.  The IMF (International Monetary Fund), WTO (World Trade Organization), and the World Bank have found these theories useful for promoting their financial goals.  These goals when realized would again produce an age of the robber barons.  The flat worlders (from a book The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman) have been the principle contributors to the politicians and parties that support the removal of economic and trade restrictions, and the social safety nets.  They want to privatize government services such as the water works, social security, post office, and even the military.  Bit by bit they have been accomplishing these goals. 

Money talks and bull shit walks.  Political contributions are just one of three tools; treaties and loans the other two. In the third world they also use loans made by or through the WTO, IMF, and World Bank to those governments who support at least in part their agenda which consists of opening up the resources, the media, the utilities, the banking, the borders, and the very market places to foreign buy outs and competition.  They call it deregulation.  The flat-world policies are also packaged as international treaties with acronyms such as NAFTA, CAFTA, AFTA, MEFTA, etc., which are signed by both underdeveloped and developed nations.  (The Iraq war is about MEFTA—opening up the Middle East markets including the oil fields).  In NAFTA there are 900 pages of clauses.  Among them are clauses requiring the overriding of national environmental, safety, drug, labor, commerce, and tariff laws; and NAFTA sets up their own court system to accomplish this!  National sovereignty has been sold.  Today’s new Robber Barons are not the monopoly capitalists like Rockefeller, Gould, and Morgan, but a much bigger global fish.  Business ethics hasn't changed, only monopoly capitalism is now played upon a board that covers our planet.

These flat-world (neoliberal) policies have resulted in the out sourcing of jobs, the flood of tariff-free goods, the flood of undocumented workers, the reduction in the pay for skilled and unskilled labor, the breaking of unions, the reduction of social services, and a shift of the tax burden by a major reductions in taxation of the rich and corporations (many of whom have moved to tax-free heavens and avoid U.S. taxes).  In the past 35 years productivity has gone up over 45%; yet real wages (including benefits) have gone down, way down.  Why aren’t workers getting a share of their increased productivity?  Family income has remained level because now two earn the income of one.  In 1950s, there were very few working mothers. Through their media, the new Robber Barons paint a rosy picture, but the facts thunder a different storm.   

In the pursuit of their short-term and global interests the neoliberals are having us revisit 1929:  they have brought this nation to the brink of economic collapse.  Financial market speculation has increased at phenomenal rates.  The volume of foreign exchange transactions has risen to $2.7 trillion dollars daily. The U.S. has a greater foreign debt (measured as a percentage of GDP) than was held by those nations that have in the last 2 decades, because of economic crisis, defaulted upon their foreign-debt obligations.  Servicing government debt is now the third biggest item (over $398 billion) in our budget.  And our nation is being bought up by foreigners made fat by our trade deficit ($817 billion in 06, and rising).  The manufacturing foundation of our economy has been eroded to less than 15% of employment.  All this increases the likelihood of an economic crisis (collapse).

From 10/26/00 to 7/15/08, the dollar has depreciated against principle foreign currency the EURO by 48% (26% since 1/02/06 to 8/23/08).  The principle cause is the need to sell t-bills—the falling dollars makes for a lucrative return for the foreign investors.  In 2006 the total value of the EURO in circulation surpassed the USD.  U.S. prices rise because foreign goods and resources take more dollars to buy.  Our global corporations profit from our falling dollar since most of their manufacturing plants have been moved over seas.  They import what once they made here.   

This drop in the dollar along keeps foreign dollars in this country.  Our government must sell new T-bills for to raise the funds to replace those that have matured.  Foreign corporations, nations, and banks hold over $10 trillion. Moreover with their trade surplus they are buying our industries.  Our instability is making the EURO the global currency.  But the flat worlders have a global agenda. 

Since 1972 disposable income of workers has steadily dropped, even though their productivity has increased 45%--where has this gain gone?   The U.S. ranks 4th in GDP per capita, yet is 92nd in distribution of key benefits—UN stats.  All this has occurred to our nation because neoliberal policies have rolled back the wisdom that got us out of the Great Depression and carried us forward following WWII. The multinational corporations have been changing, through political alliances, the soil of government regulations; thus like a foreign weed they are chocking out native industries mainly with their cheap imports.  These corporations, many of them homegrown, are no more American than Toyota and Shell Oil.  They have moved their corporate head quarters off shore to avoid taxes, and their factories overseas for its cheap labor.  Yes, a flat world is good for them, but not for our nation.

The market place needs regulations:  regulations for safe and effective drugs, clean air and water, safer work place, honest advertising, product safety, the prevention of price fixing, accurate new reporting, etc.  Capitalism needs regulation to assure a decent wage, medical benefits, retirement benefits, and decent working conditions.  All these regulations affect costs, and business is about maximizing profits.  There is a fundamental conflict between profits and people.  There is a need for commercial laws to protect local industries from cheaper imports based upon third-world wages.  But the treaties our government has signed have done away with tariff laws, environmental laws, labor laws, etc.  It’s all about globalization. 

Neoliberals tell us of the virtues of unrestricted capitalism.  They promise developed nations cheap goods and more technocratic jobs, and they promise the third world peoples more manufacturing jobs through exports tariff free to the developed nations and technocratic jobs based upon outsourcing by the developed nations.  They promised better pay and what ever else needed to make the sale of globalization.  They and the politicians whom are in their fold (Bush 1 & 2, Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher being the most brazen) have no regard for the truth.  They haven’t delivered prosperity even though productivity is up over 45%.  They have outsourced jobs and saddled the U.S. with a $10 trillion dollar debt, thus making payment on its interest the budget’s third biggest item.  Low wages in the third world continue and we are heading that way.  Thirty years of stagnation and worse proves the case against them.  What they are about is globalization, for they represent business and banking on a global level. 

Where is our 2-party system? in bed with the Robber Barons.  The Democrats passed NAFTA, and Bush & Chaney sleep with Wolfowitz—whom they made head of the WTO.  The combination of political donations and corporate media has made political success dependent upon the support of the neoliberal Robber Barons.   

Greed is greed, and what benefits one group comes at an expense to the remainder of society.  They have fed the people a false data basis.  Our corporate media have sold the public on the virtues of neoliberalism and the elimination of economic regulations.  The nation’s richest 1 percent of the population holds financial wealth (which excludes equity in owner occupied houses) that is more than four times as much as the bottom 80 percent of the population.  Through their media the economic and social consequences of globalization are given a false face, and the masses have been lulled their message into believing that their greed is in our best interest.   Propaganda and advertising work. 

A start towards a cure would be kick big business out of politics through campaign reform funding and out of the media by turning it over to educators.  (This article is on the web at http://skeptically.org/wto/id13.html).

           

*   Source for federal spending:  http://nationalpriorities.org at http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=285&Itemid=333

NNP figures in billions for fiscal budget 08:  military $598, health $428, and debt $398. 

A Solution

            There is a conflict of interest when the legislators are dependent on election funding upon the very parties whom the policies they pass affect.  And in particular international corporations have very, very deep pockets. 

The Canadian government has addressed the problem that funds buy votes--both of legislators and the publics.  First the Broadcasters Guidelines and CRTC rules require that each broadcaster make available up to 390 minutes for political parties to purchase.  These 390 minutes is divided according to voter’s registration—there are 4 substantial parties in Canada.  Second a limit on spending is set per district (riding) according to the size of the electorate and the number of districts with candidates.  The 4 major parties each had a limit of $18,278,278.64.  In 2004 the law was amended so that if a party received more than 2% of the national vote and 5% in the ridings it contested, then it would qualify for payment equal to 60% of its election expenses (22.5% in 2000).  There is in addition a limit on donations made by third parties (individuals and groups) to $3,000 for each constituency, and a $150,000 limit for a national advertising campaign—set in 2000.  (These limits have been adjusted for inflation.)  We need funding reforms.

Condensed from http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/laws.html by jk

Teddy Roosevelt's advice that, "We must drive the special interests out of politics. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being. There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains."

Don’t miss the collection of Pod Cast links

 

Nothing I have seen is better at explaining in a balanced way the development of the national-banking system (Federal Reserve, Bank of England and others).  Its quality research and pictures used to support its concise explanation set a standard for documentaries--at http://www.freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=214.  The 2nd greatest item in the U.S. budget is payment on the debt.