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Posted by mv on 08/16/06 12:16
>
>Well David I know your fond of Bill Farnsworth but he ain't the only
>fellow spending buckets of money to stay current to get hired.
>
>I just hate to see my tax dollars being thrown into corporate pockets
>at all of out expense. ie the war in Iraq.
>
Both Bill Farnsworth and David are amongst the stoutest and sanest
members of this group and have my sincerest regard and respect. However
amongst the many great cliché'd sayings my dad come up with is; "If you
don't want to lose friends avoid discussing politics, money or
religion". I'm damned sure that as a multi cultural Brit much of my own
philosophy in these respects will be significantly out of kilter with my
otherwise dear American friends on this forum.
Another one of my daddy's favourites that always makes me laugh is;
"In America, anyone to the left of Ghengis Khan is considered to be a
communist" It may not be strictly true, but it's not strictly untrue
either !
Over here I'm considered to be a waverer between centre left and centre
right. On your side of the Atlantic I'd expect to be considered some
sort of pinko hippy, which I'm not particularly unhappy about, even
though it'd be a falsification by omission.
It's interesting to note your discussions about taxes and society
though, did you read 'john' on this strand forwarding a message from
Greg Palast ?
From my British socio cultural perspective, which is sort of 'Mid
Atlantic' in terms of US European differentials, I get the impression
that the great prop supporting American ideas of social virtue, self
reliance and what often seems to the rest of the world, card board cut
out moral values, has been an abundance of wealth, space and resources
that have allowed a long continuity, across generations, through
sustained internal economic growth. It's this that has supported a
massive trade deficit with the rest of the world and paid the interest
on the debt. Whilst growth is still reasonably strong, the writing is on
the wall. Key economic sectors in heavy industry, such as vehicle
manufacturing and steel are losing money in ship loads, the financial
sector which depends so much on confidence in the dollar is propped up
by little more than magic and the luxuriant expectations of the
population in terms of energy are unsustainable. Sustained growth, so
vital to paying for deficit and debt, is far from secure. Scarily,
warmongering can be a short term potion for staving off economic
collapse. The other great prop has been the informal contract with the
rest of the world that has used the dollar as the international reserve
currency, this one factor alone has provided the dollar with a value
that significantly exceeds it's true weighting. With the steadily rising
strength of the Euro in an economy that now exceeds that of the USA in
value, together with the equally strengthening currencies of the
European non-euro zone, particularly the pound sterling, other primary
economies such as Japan and China are hedging their bets by holding
other currencies in reserve and reducing their dollars. What, you might
ask has any of this to do with the tax issues being raised at this point
on this strand? Absolutely everything actually. There's no point in
considering anything, unless it's just massaging egos, justifying errors
or defending shallow presumption. It's no good trying to resolve the
issues caused by global forces of reality without fully joined up
thinking. The capitalist economies will eventually be required to deal
with actual reality, as opposed to enforcing their own artificial ones.
The notion that a sound economic system is based on a free for all and
the devil take the hindmost (is that unmitigated capitalism?) will not
stand for much longer. It's those countries that truly consider their
own societies well being to be paramount as being in the best interests
of society as a whole who demonstrate the way to go, there's no need to
reinvent the wheel though. A particularly good example is Denmark,
possibly the most civilised nation on the planet, ever. High taxes
coupled with high disposable income. Having eliminated poverty, bad
housing, dysfunctional education and providing excellent social care and
infrastructures for everyone means that those high taxes are not a
burden on the rich because there being no poor, it only leaves the rich
to benefit from those taxes. All this in a country with virtually no
natural resources, and few multi millionaires (in dollar terms). Yet
Denmark has one of the worlds strongest economies relative to size and
is the worlds greatest provider of foreign aid at a whole one to one
point one percent of GDP (USA provides .16%, the lowest amongst all
developed nations, by a significant margin). In Denmark they've recently
had to shut the doors to refugees and economic migrants from outside of
Europe, but only because they've absorbed over 450,000 of them over
little more than a decade, amongst a population of just over four
million and in a country barely bigger than a postage stamp.
The US economy has arrived at a moment of truth. Good ole boy
wishfulness, trite social morality philosophies and the ingenuine
soundbite palliatives of politicians more interested in greasing the
palms of their increasingly Enron like political backers, is no longer
enough. We have the same issues here in the UK, but at least we're
halfway towards the right direction. Our small size and close physical
links with the rest of the world have expediently influenced our social,
economic and geopolitical strategies. Denial is a dead end path.
Joined up thinking is essential, all else is bullshit and a system based
on bullshit is bound to end in tears, no matter how big the larder they
began with.
--
John Lubran
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