Category Archives: US Government

Change the Government?

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Said the message board poster to me: “If government debt only benefits the wealthy then clearly society should get rid of it.”

Easier said than done. Government benefits the wealthy largely because the wealthy benefit the government. It’s a two-way street, to boot.

It’s not all doe-eyed politicians falling under the sway of evil Big Money. I’ve heard a good number of anecdotes about how politicians can’t take your calls because they’re too busy speed-dialing every multi-millionaire in the country. Then there was the story related by a former president of Standard Oil when he went to Congress to see why it was passing so much legislation against his company.

He went to the head of one committee, who flatly stated that the laws against Standard Oil would stop as soon as that company dumped its current legal representation and signed a contract with the committee chair’s legal partners back in New York. The representative was basically demanding a huge bribe for himself and his partners, and the president of Standard Oil refused to play ball that way… but I think we all know that it continues.

Because of the two national parties and their primary systems, we only get to choose leaders that are pre-approved by some segment of the powers that be. We don’t get to draft our own local heroes and have them battle it out for the political mindshare of the nation: we get Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dumber. We’re free to think that Tweedle-Dumber is the other party’s man, but there really isn’t enough difference between the two – except on social issues and in personal style – to truly make a difference.

The level of institutional change necessary to effect a change in the way the USA is governed is sufficient to be described as revolutionary at the very least and cataclysmic in only slightly more extreme scenarios.

George Friedman of Stratfor has said that the struggle in the USA between empire and the republic is very real. I’ve read a set of books from the turn of the previous century to indicate that the struggle was already finished by 1919 and the forces of empire emerged victorious. Even then, authors complained of media concentration in the hands of the elites and the use of propaganda to distract people from actual goings-on. Every thing said in these books from 1902, 1919, and 1921 resonates today, but even more strongly because not one condition they decried 100 years ago has done anything but increase in intensity.

Many consider Eisenhower’s speech about the military-industrial complex to have been a warning back in the 1950s: It was only an echo of sentiments voiced by Wilson in 1912, in his “The New Freedom.” The problems we worry over today were already intractable a century ago.

The Flipside of the Monroe Doctrine

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Whenever I heard about the Monroe Doctrine in school, it was always about how the USA put it forward to protect the Latin American republics from European interference. Never once was it mentioned that the Monroe Doctrine also effectively meant the USA could exercise a veto power on any Latin American relationship with the rest of the world. The new republics never asked for the doctrine in the first place and it was useless whenever the British navy didn’t feel like blockading France… until 1898.

After 1898, the USA could use the Monroe Doctrine to extend a condition of empire over the whole of Latin America. Rather than incorporate the lands politically and then have to deal later on with questions of citizenship and rights, as did the Roman Empire, the USA allowed for political separation to exist in legal terms, but managed to nevertheless control Latin American nations through forced treaty obligations and military interventions. This, in turn, meant that US corporations could use the puppet governments propped up by US forces and US-trained forces to create unfair economic arrangements to suck natural resources out of Latin America to make cheaper goods for US citizens. Slavery existed, just not in a jurisdiction where it was both illegal and where law enforcement would act to put an end to it.

Quote of the Day for Me:

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“Society has the right and the need to safeguard its interests against an injurious assertion of individuality.” – J.A. Hobson

Sorry, Ayn Rand, but Mr. Hobson is right. O, but that we had heeded his advice at the Fed instead of embracing hers! O, but if only Greenspan had been a devotee of Hobson instead of a disciple of Rand! Alas, but that is what a good government should do: protect society from the injurious assertions of individuality.

On Palin and Trump

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Worst case: they’re running mates and unify the loony bin vote. Best case: Trump runs as an independent, splitting the whack job camp. I see Trump and all I can think of is, “plunderer!” Like he’d have the interests of normal people in his heart. The man’s a walking billboard for overblown CEOs. I’ve already said stuff about Palin, and that hasn’t changed. So help me, the GOP is doing all it can to get me to vote for Obama in 2012.

Right Concept, Wrong Solution

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The GOP has a plan. Gut programs to aid the poor, and divert what’s left of them to their buddies in the big insurance companies. Yes, we need to cut spending, and that does include the big entitlement programs. But we do not solve the problems of America by giving more money from the poor to the rich. The growing income disparity in America – and it’s been growing since the Civil War, when the USA took on perpetual debt to fund that war – is due not to the poor being unable to hack it in the real world. It’s due to the way the government facilitates the plunder of America’s poor to benefit the rich.

I’ve read books from recent years, from the 1960s, from the 1930s, and from 1902 about the subject. All present telling facts – the same litany of facts, with numbers appropriate to their generation – all decrying the way the government assists large corporations and their directors in plundering the poor of the nation. Republican politicians seem to be the most ideologically predisposed to the plundering of the poor, and the article linked above demonstrates a continuance of that trend. Yes, we need fiscal responsibility, but no, it’s not in continuing to send bags of cash from the poor to the rich.

My solution is simple, but revolutionary. Ban all lending of money or property at interest. Ban any practice that amounts to someone earning money from another’s efforts, regardless of what was borrowed to make those efforts. Forgive all debts once the debtor has repaid the principal, and forgive all debts the debtors are unable to pay. Require conscription of personal fortunes in times of war – and we’ll never have another war again if the rich can’t lend money to profit from them. Amend the constitution with Thomas Jefferson’s idea: require the government to repay all debts within 19 years so that those born on the day the debt was taken out will not be involved in paying it off.

Yes, this means defaulting on the US debt and that we’ll never be able to borrow money again (supposedly). That seems to me to be a good thing, going forward. We need a new way of living in which we do not permit the exploitation of the poor. That is the true path to fiscal responsibility for the nation as a whole. I’m ready to ride a bike 6 miles to work when gasoline is unavailable to us – and that might not be so bad, either. It’s not the easiest world, but it’s a brighter future than one in which debt looms over us all and the rich continue to oppress the poor.

Think about it.

Educational Bailout?

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When the USA faced a financial meltdown in 2008, the US government was swift to prop up the ailing banks, with executive bonuses nearly intact. Now, schools across the nation are facing a similar meltdown. Where’s their bailout? Back in the Great Depression, the USG came out with the Works Progress Administration and Public Works Administration to get teachers back into classrooms, students back into schools, and schools back into repair. Just one quick question to every governor, legislator, Congressman, and president: which is more important, banks or children?

Why Iran’s Protests Will Fail

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Ahmedinijad hasn’t lost the will to rule, that’s why. Mubarak was old and tired and facing a regime change, anyway. Iran’s dear leader still has some spunk in him. Moreover, with the way the State Department is backing Twitter, Iran can now legitimately portray the website – and possibly also Facebook – as tools of the US Government… the same US Government that ordered the overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953 and that set up the Shah in his place.

Iran is ready to fight and break bones. I don’t see peaceful protest succeeding there because the police will make things violent as quickly as they can. Root for the plucky, wired-in activists if you want, but they’re not going to find much success in their efforts.

Not that the recent revolts had that much to do with the Internet, anyway. The people that speak English may use the Internet, but for the folks on the street that don’t have an ISP, things look a whole lot more like they did back in the day… I recommend “The Battle of Algiers” to understand their unwired world. What happened in Tunisia and Egypt and everywhere else looked just like the closing scenes of that film. The opening of the wave of unrest didn’t look like “The Social Network”, either. It looked more like the Buddhist monk immolating himself to protest the anti-Buddhist measures of the US-backed government of South Vietnam.

I’m now wondering if the 60s metaphor will extend to a general wave of economic decolonization. The nations attained political freedom in the 50s and 60s, but soon fell under the economic sway of the USA and its allies, becoming economic colonies. This wave of activism could very well be what unseats the American Empire… unless our forces join in the breaking of bones “to protect American interests”, as I suspect they will, one day soon.

The Wealth Gap Widens

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A recent article on the BBC discusses the global concentration of wealth and how it is increasingly separating the wealthy of the world from the poor. And make no mistake: if a flirtation with a dread disease would wipe out your income and savings at a stroke, you are poor. You are not rich unless you could still make millions while dead.

Which probably explains the exuberance with which today’s crop of super-rich individuals work at looting the world. They do not yet have that stable, old money revenue stream. They are dependent on work. One heart attack, and their cash flow goes to zero. They take jobs at major banks, run spreadsheets constantly, and innovate ways of fleecing the world in order to line their pockets.

So what happens when the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor? The article concludes that the rich either have to spread the wealth or crack down harder. If they choose the latter course, they invite the day when, as the Lakota described it, the world will roll to and fro like a tired, angry old dog, trying to shake off the fleas sucking its blood.

So what do you want to do when you grow up? My recommendation: be virtuous. Live with dignity and bear up under hardships. You’ll keep your soul and you’ll need that for when capitalism is no more.

Should We Have Let the Banks Fail?

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Interesting article about Iceland, which let its banks fail instead of bailing them out. Creditors for the banks had to take their losses and the taxpayers didn’t have to foot the bill. Iceland’s government took a hit and their economy went way down, but they’re apparently on their way back up.

Ireland, on the other hand, has a government that, like the US, wants its taxpayers to pay for the banks’ criminal, stupid, and/or reckless behavior. Iceland’s public debt, while high, is still manageable. Ireland has taken on debt that is 12 times – 1200% for those who like big percentages – of its GDP. This is known in economic circles as “unmanageable.”

While the USA has a big enough GDP to absorb the calamities of 2007-2008, will it be able to manage things if there is another banking crisis? It might happen… Click that last link for a paper on how the underlying fundamentals of the banking system remain reckless, stupid, and, yes, criminal.

A Scary Story

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Looking at the Wiki article on the 2010 budget, I noticed that total tax receipts for 2010 were $2.381 trillion. Total mandatory spending was $2.184 trillion. That’s very close to 100% of tax intake. Before the USA spent a nickel on military affairs, a further $664 billion, the USA had to borrow about $1.3 trillion dollars.

The problem isn’t in goofy discretionary spending programs, although they deserve to be cut. The problem is in the swelling amount being spent on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid… and interest on the national debt. I’m not talking about repealing so-called “Obamacare.” We’re looking at the unsustainability of our three biggest social safety net programs.

Something has to give. The question is what?