NEOLIBERALISM, the globalizers
Carl Barks |
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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.
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