Economic History

What is historically good for us is not historically good for all.

Consider the Native Americans for example. The Europeans came to their country (I'm thinking this the day after our traditional feast celebrating the saviour of the early immigrants by the native population) and proceeded to teach a wealthy and successful people that they were worthless and impoverished. A lesson that the descendants of these peoples, those allowed to live, are still struggling against.

The native Americans had a successful economy based on husbandry, craft, trade, communal living and political strength derived from their ability to make war as they needed to. The Europeans brought fruits of technology that the AmerIndians had lived without and took what they couldn't trade for.

This decade's debacle in trying to Americanize Iraq is another example of why we shouldnot interfere with the economic and political lives of others.

Economics is based on the confluence of a society's morality and its material needs. History shows us that economic policy will naturally tend to support those who are best able to influence the laws governing economic activity. In general this is done to the advantage of the few over the good of the many.

The Constitution appears to be written with the fundamental idea that American economic policy should support the welfare of the people of the United States. In fact the only people well supported by the economics of the last fifty years are the amoral corporations. With no obligation other than to show growing profitability (which is ludicrous in itself) these companies have moved a majority of our production to other countries. How does this benefit the US?

The reality is that since we no longer produce, we no longer increase our personal wealth through our own labor. Wealth instead is produced by others, like the chinese workers in their sweatshops. If we own the means to import and distribute we can transfer their wealth to our own accounts, otherwise we rely on the redistribution of wealth from those who have it to ourselves.

That doesn't imply socialism but is the nature of a service based economy. Without a means of production we are servants of the ones who do have such a means.

Das Kapital

I had an interesting discussion with my son (the college student) and one of my daughters this evening about the value of money and the control of our economy.

For a while now I've been wondering just what has gone wrong and it is clear (as mud) that the criminals that manipulated the economy into last years collapse were just another set of jokers in the deck, deluded by the illusion of capitalist superiority.

Capitalism states that wealth comes from the investment of money. Money begets more money. Ask any banker if this simple minded truism is valid and he'll hem and haw. Ask him for a loan and he wants his pound of flesh along with every penny he lends you.

Money is supposed to represent our productivity. One unit of measure is our Gross Domestic Product. Madman Junior (my son) claimed that the US would have a negative GDP unless China (who we have an egregious trade balance with) invests in our economy. If China should think this is a bad investment and pull out of trade with us our economy would fail.

My argument to him was our economy is comprised of buying and selling the crap China exports. We aren't producing anything. There fore if China wants to continue to produce they might want to continue to give us the money to buy their production.

Or we could just say no.

This isn't a rant about protectionism. We don't need protectionist trade policies to control our economy. We need to look carefully at who is controlling our economy and where the money goes. Just like in CSI. Follow the money.

The investment community has manipulated the average relative wage and the inflation index for many years. (The inflation index shows signs of manipulation since the early 1980's). OK this is an opinion but I think I can prove it. More to follow on that front. I feel that my relative income growth has not kept up with either my value to the workforce or the GDP.

The number crunchers have taken away the sense of what money is> that is the value of work.

In 1979 my take home was 1200 a month.

today my take home is 4900 a month (roughly).

According to the economics site www.measuringworth.com the measure of my productivity (my wages) has shown a 38% growth in the last 30 years measured against the CPI (or the value of what I spend my money on).

In 1979, $4,903.00 from 2008 is worth:

	$1,652.60	using the Consumer Price Index
	$1,977.82	using the GDP deflator
	$1,476.96	using the value of consumer bundle
	$1,731.24	using the unskilled wage
	$1,176.82	using the nominal GDP per capita
	$869.89	using the relative share of GDP

Against the nomimal productivity of everyone else I've lost ground (Nominal GDP).

But most telling is the relative share of the GDP. There I've lost 30% of my worth. This means someone else has taken my money. And yours. This is a conspiracy theory, but not a wild one. Maybe they're just arrogant.

We shouldn't be stupid.

King Obama Tututkamen

I love bigots and conservative blowhards. They are a cartoon characters when compared to an intelligent man.

President Obama's speech to the Eqyptians strikes at the heart of the middle east trouble. Consider the real history. The original Israelies were conquered by the original Italians (Romans) and driven from their homeland when they rebelled (read this as violent terrorist acts). 1900 years later the descendents of Rome in the guise of the Third Reich tries to eradicate them as a race.

In the meantime the remaining European powers have recaptured the middle east and have been parceling out it's wealth and history, while treating the people, who carried the torch of science and civilization through the barbaric times following the fall of Rome, as though they were somehow inferior, therefore causing deep seated resentment and mistrust.

So our European bretheren, after we ended their great war for them, chose not to accept any of the survivors of the Nazi's 'Final Solution' and sent them back to their original homeland, Palestine, which was now the homeland of a whole other group of people (oddly called Palestinians) who did'nt want a bunch of European immigrants taking over their cities and farms.

I can't imagine why these people should feel bad about being put aside. Didn't they realize that the Jewish people had a God given right to the land? (It's true. Read Exodus. Though I'm afraid the intervening years has destroyed the land of milk and honey).

So here we are today, a group of European immigrants who pushed aside the resident population of 'our' country, to make a great nation, in turn supporting another group of basically European immigrants of Middle Eastern extraction who pushed the resident population aside when they fought against the invasion of their land.

I guess I can appreciate our position. But it's not a noble one. We simply support those who looke at the world the same way we do.

And dear naive President Obama has pissed off the conservative hack machine by telling the world the truth. Our public self image requires us to support the oppressed and make the world a better place for children. Realizing neither side has any place else to go, the president has said let's all get along. Let the evils of the past stay there.

The idea that it's somehow unAmerican to look at both sides of an issue should make the comic book character pulpit pounders that speak for the conervatives look like cutouts of Hitler pounding on his pulpit and espousing the superiority of everything German. Or Brezshnev pounding his shoe on the podium trying to rouse the masses with emotion.

Reasonable thought and discussion should be the watchwords for political discussion. No more of this Madison Avenue hype playing to emotions with cliched images (did anyone see the new GM ad??? Right out of the Advertisers Sure Sell Handbook. Page 63. Look it up.)

God bless free speech, but keep your hand on your freedoms or the Conservative shills will scare you back into the autocratic Bush Cheney dictatorship.

A New Day for America

Well folks, Obama is going to be president and the world thinks it's marvelous we elected a black man.

I think it's marvelous we elected an intelligent and literate man who reasons with his head instead of his duodenum. Imagine actually researching Lincoln for a philosophy on building a presidential cabinet.

I'm very glad for my brothers of color who can see someone they identify with in as president. The fact that he is a man of reason and learning is more important, and relevant, to me than his skin color.

With 'W' as our poster child, I'd rather not talk race. Let's talk about how learned people are the best hope for finding our way out of this mess. Reason, intellect and the willingness to look at more than the personal interests in the problem are the ways to solving our current Crises.

From the Middle of th Road

I am quite fed up with pundits and spin and the rhetoric of 'political realities'. Politics is supposed to be the science of self interest, so let's review where our self interest lies.

The current administration has provided tax breaks and lucrative contracts to well connected corporations. It has presided over a war that has increased the profits of oil companies by billion's of dollars. It weathered the worst natural disaster in US history since the San Francisco earthquake by ignoring the plight of the economically dispossessed. It has overseen record foreclosures and home losses.

Now we need to ask ourselves a few questions:

Have we benefited in any way from the Republican party's aggressive pursuit of profit?

Is the pursuit of profit at the expense of the well being of the majority of the people in the United States in our best interest?

Is the the pursuit of political ambition worth the dismantling of the greatest all volunteer Army in the world?

Sometimes I wish we could go back to the turn of the century where we were faced with a choice between the 'righteousness' of the Republican candidate as opposed to the licentious legacy of the previous administration. Given the results, if I had to make the choice over again, I'd choose fellatio over sodomy.

Reach Out and Touch someone

It's hard to know if we're a country of psychopaths or pussies. Today's horror in Virginia where a single man guns down thirty people is insane. No rational mind can see value in the taking of so many innocent lives. (As opposed to taking guilty lives? Our society is bi polar on this issue too, since we don't want to kill the guilty...)

How can one man hold thirty people at bay while he systematically shoots them? According to one eyewitness he wasn't even a good shot. (The living witness said the man shot at him five times from a distance of 30 to 35 feet and missed. Much to relief of the witness).

The only thing that holds people in that condition is fear.

Fear of what? we ask.

Of getting shot.

So they get killed. Anyway.

All right when something unexpected and awful happens people normally do the wrong thing. Without training or forethought they freeze. The brain shuts down and if they can't run away they quiver in terror as the madman rampages and kills them all systematically.

So I guess we need to think these things through. The psychos will rule the world if we let them. Being passive and waiting for rescue is usually not an option. We need to plan on how to fight back. How to keep the wacko's from treating us as playthings.

I like to think I might have charged into his fire with a desk for a shield, crushed the killer against the wall and wrestled the gun from his hand. Especially if he was reloading.

On the other hand, and in reality, I would likely have been cowering under a desk in a puddle of my own piss when he put a bullet in my head.

But I'd rather go out fighting than laying in my own fear. Hopefully this doesn't happen to me or you, but if it does? What would you do?

The Manifesto Revisited

Since the basic purpose of this blog is to define a document the American people can live with let me restate the premises of the New Manifesto.

1. The government belongs to the people, not the other way around. This is our country. The bureaucrats and politicians guide it by our authority. Remember that when it comes time to vote.

2. Our leaders must not try to appear perfect. We all make mistakes. Admit them. Learn from them and move on.

3. Private ownership of the means of production is the cornerstone of our economic strength. This does NOT mean CORPORATE ownership and does not encourage outsourcing good paying jobs overseas while encouraging marginally paying jobs to be filled by illegal immigrants.

4. This is a land of immigrants. Every time cheaper labor was needed waves of immigrants came to this country, Chinese, Irish, Poles, Germans, Africans. Each group was treated badly when they came (especially the Africans) but ultimately they all became Americans. If people want to come to live in our ghettos, let them do it legally.

5. War is always a last resort, but the object of the war must be of the first agreement between ALL people in the society. Otherwise, no war.

6. Our first response to a threat is to negotiate and determine the cause of the hostility.

7. Our first response to an attack on our soil is a response in kind, but magnified a hundred fold.

8. Peaceful use of nuclear energy is a beautiful thing. But see 7 for our response to a nuclear attack.

9. Energy independence is mandatory. The sun is the source of all energy consumed, excepting nuclear. It shines on all of us.

10. The Constitution of the United States is a darn good document. It mandates the separation of powers and thus we should encourage all branches of government to be separate.

11. The Bill of Rights, as appended to the US Constitution, is a damn fine document itself. No leader has the right to abrogate any of those rights. This is what prevents us from becoming a totalitarian state.

12. Health care is not a right. However, it is a necessity. The purpose of government is to protect the individual and provide those services we can't provide individually. Health care is one of these services. Anything less is un American.

And lastly, What does it mean to be an American?

It means to be a individualist and an individual.
It means to Love your neighbor like your brother.
It means to stand tall and strong in time of threat.
It means to be creative and inventive and productive.
It means to be involved in the creation and re-creation of your government.
It means cherishing this country and its history, with all the flaws and blemishes, mistakes and arrogance. Our history is not perfect, but our ideals are.

Impeach Dubyah?

Last night I saw an internet rumor that Illinois and California legislatures were voting to impeach the president. I've been checking CNN and NPR all day expecting to hear about it but I guess it's just a rumor.

I was afraid they'd really do it. Because, without a doubt, the weak kneed democrats wouldn't charge him with the real charges.

If we were to impeach Dubyah let the charges read: For incompetence, shown be his refusal to actually study the problems before he orders troops in, shown by ignoring white papers on Al_Qaeda plans to attack the US with airplanes.

Let him be impeached for refusing to admit his mistakes, and refusing to see his mistakes.

Let him be impeached for not planning to win the peace in Iraq.

Let him be impeached for making the phrase "Force is a last resort" mean war is imminent.

Let him be impeached for blowing the opportunities of 9/11.

Let him be impeached for the corporate legislation passed on his watch allowing credit card companies to gouge middle income people, big business to profit by off shoring jobs, and shifting the tax burden to the middle class.

Let's not impeach him for lying. We learned that lesson with Clinton and the Blue Dress. If we impeach a president let it be for something meaningful, like the grotesque misuse of power, as illustrated by "warrantless" telephone tapping.

Then again, if we impeached Dubyah and forced him out of office, Dick Cheney would be front and center.

Maybe we should throw out all the bums and start over.