Please Dems, not Hillary!

[Arpyjee]

Right, I see what you mean. Still, that's a pretty broad definition, since there are very important differences within that group; you have a point, though, that the discourse has been seized by these people.

There's nothing inherently liberal -- neo or classical -- about free trade and globalization, though -- Keynes and his modern day followers are all for it. The problem is that free trade isn't really, and globalization has been managed in a completely lopsided way -- the rights of creditors over debtors, capital over labor, agriculture in the developed world over agriculture in the less developed world, and so on, with social and ecological costs not just neglected but completely left out of the equation.

It's called new liberalism for a reason : it's a departure from the traditional concept, and if the only 'opposition' to it comes from the ultra-right, then it really runs the risk of being hijacked by and for powerful corporate elitists. I call it rampaging corporatism : it is functionally oblivious to the bottom 2/3rds of society, while it perpetually and exponentially upholds the interests of the upper economic 3rd.

If there was a center-left counterbalance in the US, then it (economic neo-liberalism) wouldn't be so negligent and unrestrained.

 

[Arpyjee]

I'm a big fan of multi-party systems, but they do need a specific political climate to function, and the US today may not have that climate.

So goes the assumption, to the detriment of most Americans (especially the poor and the lower middle class).

It's really simple : if Americans want the 2 party neo-lib/neo-con monopoly to continue indefinitely, then they won't strive or ask for a changing, tweaking or overhaul of their system.

 

[Arpyjee]

Of course, that comes down to:
- Really liberal
- Liberal, but will bend to get elected
- Conservative, but will bend to get elected

If you wanted true parity, you would need a true ultra-conservative party - not a bunch of religious nutjobs, but people who believe in the tenets of personal initiative and states rights and so on. Then you would have 4 way parity, ... and as PJ says, absolute shrill gridlock.

I would be happy with a 20:30:30:20 mix there ... something to allow the centrists to flex power and stay true to themselves while allowing both ends some influence over the debate. Despite the opinions formed by the Bush crew in the heads of an overwhelming majority of people from all ends of the spectrum, no one group has a monopoly on 'rightness' by virtue of their fundamental political ideology.

You don't have absolute gridlock in Europe & Scandinavia, you have compromise towards the center. The *extremists* are gridlocked ; but those who modify their policies are facilitated.

Again, if Americans prefer the Kingdom of omnipotent presidential vetos, polarization, extremism, indifference of politicians, unilateral foreign policy agendas, oblivious responses to negative policy effects, leader authoritarianism, and blatant lack of compromise, then they will stick with the donkey vs. elephant (fraudulent) 2-party state monopoly, while all alternative voices, including socialist AND libertarian ones, are disallowed and strongly shunned.

 

[Arpyjee]

The problem isn't that we have more free trade: the problem is that the trade is unfair, benefiting corporate interests über alls, and rewarding asset-stripping, environmental degradation, predatory lending, and exploitation of labor.

So what about a more humanitarian/populist standard of statistical evaluation ? Instead of judging the efficacy and viability of an economic system based on CEO well being and satisfaction, what about measuring the child poverty rates / health care coverage / homelessness as well ? CEO's make up a puny percentage of the population, whereas 15+% of American children live in poverty. Many believe that the current scenario is acceptable because miilionaires MUST be free to become billionaires, unconditionally.

Shouldn't there be a scientific method of evaluation as to the socio-economic effects on the entire population ?

 

[Prime Junta]

You don't have absolute gridlock in Europe & Scandinavia, you have compromise towards the center. The *extremists* are gridlocked ; but those who modify their policies are facilitated.

Not now, and not in all countries -- but Belgium just went for months without a government, Finland from 1960 to 1980 had chronically unstable governments that led to power sliding to a semi-authoritarian president, and Israel can't manage to agree about what to serve for lunch in the Knesset cafeteria, let alone doing something about sorting out the Palestinian problem.

Again, I have a strong preference for multi-party systems, but they don't work everywhere and all the time; much depends on culture and the political climate. You can't make one out of whole cloth anymore than you can export democracy on a bayonet.

 

[Prime Junta]

Shouldn't there be a scientific method of evaluation as to the socio-economic effects on the entire population ?

There are efforts in that direction. The most important is called the Green Net National Product (GNNP). It's basically the gross national product (GNP) minus depreciation minus depletion of natural resources minus the calculated cost of pollution, plus one or two other things, which pad up the 235 pages used to define it. It's clearly better than GDP, since you can't, for example, artificially raise it by stripping and selling off assets.

You might be a bit surprised to hear where it's from: the World Bank.

[ http://siteresources.worldbank.org/...0/20781069/EnvironmentalDegradationManual.pdf ]

It's not perfect, I'm sure, but if GNNP replaced GDP in popular economic benchmarks, things would look pretty different.

 

[txa1265]

Again, I have a strong preference for multi-party systems, but they don't work everywhere and all the time; much depends on culture and the political climate. You can't make one out of whole cloth anymore than you can export democracy on a bayonet.

But then again, gridlock, filibuster, stalemate and the like are sometimes a very positive political move.

 

[Prime Junta]

But then again, gridlock, filibuster, stalemate and the like are sometimes a very positive political move.

Sometimes, but if it becomes endemic, the results can be dire.

Lebanon has a multi-party system too. They've been gridlocked since September... or, looking at the bigger picture, March, 2005. If they don't manage to resolve the gridlock, there's a real danger of civil war. There was another bomb just now, this time in Doura (Beirut), and this time targeting Americans. Clearly someone wants the situation to escalate.

 

[Eliaures]

I take it you're against trade liberalization and free trade, then. If so, could you elaborate a bit on the alternatives? That is, which types of trade barriers would you like to see erected -- tariffs, regulation, subsidies, something else? --, who would you have erect them, and how would you go about avoiding international trade wars if they were erected?

Unfortunately, I'm a little out of my league in expressing exactly what specific mechanisms I would approve with regards to trade policy. I do like your ideas and that's seems to be the main thing I'm proposing, is capitalism with a little restraint. I don't think free wheeling capitalism works.

Corporations have one function they are best at, never mind the touchy feely commercials we are seeing from energy companies these days, and that is making money for shareholders...and CEO's. Ideally what they want is no regulation, no laws, no restraint at all. As an individual, I guess I wouldn't mind that either. Do I want that stereo system in my neighbors house? I just take it and there is no law barring me from doing so. I let my killer pit bull roam free and he mauled a local kid? Well, it's my right to have a dangerous dog and it's the kids fault for not being on the look out.

It's only natural that we want to get away with as much as we can, but that's why government is supposed to represent the public good. Corporations have much more influence by way of money than John Q. Public. Corporations have shown that no matter how pie-in-the-sky libertarians and laissez-faire proponents bleat about it, self regulation does not work.

I much prefer the well intentioned government influence of Keynesian economics to the hands off approach of Friedman. Do they get it right all the time? Nope. But I would prefer a few welfare moms having Cadillacs to another Gulfstream jet for some fat cat CEO.

 

[txa1265]

Sometimes, but if it becomes endemic, the results can be dire.

Absolutely, I was responding to the spirit of a comment before - that I have seen too often - that any intentionally stoppage of 'progress' in parliamentary proceedings is a bad thing.

 

[Prime Junta]

Corporations have one function they are best at, never mind the touchy feely commercials we are seeing from energy companies these days, and that is making money for shareholders...and CEO's. Ideally what they want is no regulation, no laws, no restraint at all.

That's certainly the spirit in many corporations today, but not all -- and it's also a comparatively recent development. General Motors in the 1950's and 1960's, IBM in the 1970's, and many Japanese corporations today do genuinely take into consideration more of their stakeholders than just shareholders and CEO's. Google is another such example. And yeah, I think much could be done in terms of legislation, incentives, and regulation to promote such socially responsible corporate behavior. At the very least, the current laws, which actually make it *illegal* for a corporation to do something nice if it hurts the share price, should be reformed.

I much prefer the well intentioned government influence of Keynesian economics to the hands off approach of Friedman. Do they get it right all the time? Nope. But I would prefer a few welfare moms having Cadillacs to another Gulfstream jet for some fat cat CEO.

Especially as there never was a welfare queen in a Cadillac.

That said, I kinda doubt the President of the United States could do anything much about the CEO Gulfstreams -- the widening spread of income distributions is a global phenomenon, and equally apparent in Euroweenie welfare states as the US.

But the government does have the power to do a whole lot that is both ethical and in the long run economically sensible -- such as provide improved education, health care, and nutrition to poor children. That'll have a huge payoff when they eventually enter the workforce: they'll be less likely to turn criminal, more productive workers, and incur lower health care costs, which will drive up the productivity of the economy, and affect overall prosperity. (Some people much wiser than I am have in fact calculated that such programs would be the cheapest way to increase American economic productivity.)

But it's a long-term investment. Give better school lunches to kindergarteners today, and you'll only see the results 15 years from now -- and, worse, you won't be able to disentangle the results from the rest of the data.

 

[Corwin]

I don't profess to know very much about economics, but I don't begrudge hard working CEO's their perks. What upsets me more, is the obscene amount of money some sports stars get paid compared to what the average hard working common 'man' gets. I worked hard and helped a lot of people over many years and didn't earn anywhere near what many NFL players get in one year. We have people starving and living on the streets while they are out organising dog fights!! Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching the games, but you can't convince me that they are worth what they're getting.

 

[Eliaures]

Especially as there never was a welfare queen in a Cadillac.

Heh, heh...I know that. That's the problem with the written word, you can't tell when someone is being sarcastic unless they're really good. I'm agreeing with all you're saying, I truly believe that human investment really pays off. Folks that don't have to worry about their meals, health care, housing, and security are much more productive. I really wonder at the practical economics of educated economists. It just seems logical to me that when folks are satisfied and working, they are going to be a good market for the crap the industrial and technical world is pushing. What's going to happen to the world economy when the U.S. can't spend themselves silly any more? I suppose China and India could take our place?

I don't begrudge hard working CEO's their perks.

The problem is, the average CEO salary is now (I don't have the specific number) getting around 400 times the average salary worker. How can you quantify hard work? Is the CEO really working that much harder than the salary man? A lot of conservatives will say that the CEO's take the risks and therefore deserve a compensatory wage, but that's just not true in most cases. If you are someone like Mark Cuban or Bill Gates, I guess since they were there at the startup, maybe they deserve some benefit for the risk.

But most CEO's now come in to established companies at high salaries, with golden parachutes, and huge bonuses which are NOT based upon performance. Just recently, banking execs and mortgage execs received huge bonuses and this is after the prime mortgage fiasco.

 

[dteowner]

* Kyoto/Bali with teeth. A climate treaty that sets up emissions targets for all adherents, divides up emissions targets of non-adherents between the adherents, institutes a carbon-trading market that rewards reforestation and preservation of forests (among other things), and enforces the targets through "carbon tariffs," equally on members and non-members of the treaty. The monies collected with the tariffs would then be spent among adherents on carbon sequestration and emissions reduction. We would need a global body to monitor the system, too. (The good news is this has been done before on a somewhat smaller scale -- we got rid of CFC's with a system very much like this.)

This sounds nice, but you'll never get China and the US (let alone the rest of the world) to agree on a consistent set of standards. China's current boom is powered by blatant disregard for environmental concerns. They will have no interest in giving away their competitive advantage. The US, OTOH, is powered by an established eco-unfriendly infrastructure. We'll have no interest in tearing down the "engine" that's put us on top. In the end, a good idea will get derailed when it cannot support the divergent self-interest of various economies.

* Abolition of agricultural subsidies, with a possible exception made for small family farmers to preserve cultural values. For example, cap the subsidy at, say, $20,000 per farm -- enough to make a critical difference for the small family farmer, but small enough to effectively eliminate their current negative effects. This could be done gradually, and social programs might be needed to cushion the effects of the somewhat higher food prices on the poor. (The rise wouldn't be as big as you could think simply from the size of the subsidy, though, as imports from the developing world would replace the subsidized food from the developed world.)

Once again, the US gets to bear the brunt of the policy. Why would the US want to import food of all things? We already suffer a ridiculous trade deficit, and now you want to make it worse? Not likely. Can't say I'm a fan of ag subsidies, but this alternative simply won't fly.

* Abolition of corporate welfare, especially of the oil and extractive industries. Exxon is doing just fine without being subsidized by the state, IMO. Exceptions could be made to seed new industries -- but capitalizing small startups to give them a leg-up is a very different matter from funneling billions to the likes of Exxon-Mobil or Monsanto.

I'd like a little more depth on this accusation. Exactly what subsidies are you referring to? If the government goes to spend $100, it's only to be expected that the lion's share of that spending is going to go to bigger companies because they're...wait for it....bigger. They offer a wider range of products, and those products are in wider demand--that's how the companies got big. And I would hate to think that you meant to omit state-sponsored Chinese conglomerates from your target. I'll just assume you mentioned only US companies for expedience.

* Sensible controls on the capital market. Unlike hard goods, capital can be zapped around the world at the click of a button. This results in greater instability, not greater growth -- and, of course, makes it possible for illegal drug and arms dealers, terrorists, and dictators to easily hide their money. We need more transparency and something to slow down capital flows -- perhaps a "Tobin tax," or perhaps just adding a "throttle" that makes transferring billions of dollars slower than it is now. If the current system is like a shallow tray where capital sloshes around and causes all kinds of spills, we'd need to add something like a honeycomb structure that gets it to stay put a bit more.

So now you're going to control what I can do with my money, when I can do it, and how much I can do it with? And here I thought Stalin was dead. You decry the Patriot Act and then offer this up? You can do better than that, PJ.

* A redistribution of risk to where it belongs. Currently, the main function of institutions like the IMF, the World Bank -- and, incidentally, various quasi-governmental banks in the US -- is to protect creditors, not debtors. On the micro scale, a mortgage broker who knowingly or negligently sells a mortgage to a bad risk knows that he can walk away, with the taxpayer picking up the bill for an eventual default combined with a drop in the value of the house. On the macro scale, a Western lender knowingly or negligently lending a billion or two to a country known to be a bad risk can be confident that, when push comes to shove, the IMF will squeeze the money out of the debtor, even if it means selling off the debtor's means of production. Lenders must be made to carry more of the risk of their bad debts: the flip side of overborrowing is overlending, whether we're talking mortgages or national debt.

I'm actually on board for this one, with one stipulation: the first person that whines that (insert African war zone of choice) is stuck in the dark ages because the mean old rich countries won't give them a loan gets drawn and quartered on a global simul-cast.

 

[curiously undead]

stop watching professional sports Corwin if it bothers you. personally i'd rather watch professional gardeners. i do like intramural and sports for the fun of it however. playing though not watching.

the commercials, announcers, attitudes, and fat paychecks don't prevent most from still watching their sports teams and perpetuating the 'winners' and 'losers' mentality that should have been dropped thousands of years ago. but still many are drawn in for many reasons. but basically...
stop watching those games if it bothers you to make a statement.
same goes with ceos. don't support bad companies by continually buying there products/services.

editL
don't worry dte china may be enviro-unfriendly but its their backyard and front that is going to be on the frontlines of global warming suffering.

 

[Corwin]

Whether I watch or not makes no difference to their paychecks!! I want them to play, but for a LOT less money!!

 

[curiously undead]

it absolutely does. no fans=no players.
any market driven by consumption will lead to beneficiaries at the top.
its no different than most 'pop' music. a local band playing a free show (or near it) at a coffee shop is just as much (if not more) a musician than someone signed to capitol records. same goes for the local group of guys and gals playing softball or hockey are just as much athletes as all the rich pro players. pro sports are not about athletisism but entertainment. 'your' money is used to feed and craft the latest greatest 'experience' not the pureness of sporting or music, etc. attention spans are far to short and lack of convienience to great for those sort of things and no golf is not the answer

 

[Corwin]

I only watch on TV, they get no money out of me!!

 

[Arpyjee]

Not now, and not in all countries -- but Belgium just went for months without a government, Finland from 1960 to 1980 had chronically unstable governments that led to power sliding to a semi-authoritarian president, and Israel can't manage to agree about what to serve for lunch in the Knesset cafeteria, let alone doing something about sorting out the Palestinian problem.

Again, I have a strong preference for multi-party systems, but they don't work everywhere and all the time; much depends on culture and the political climate. You can't make one out of whole cloth anymore than you can export democracy on a bayonet.

You've merely put forth the rather remote exceptions which actually prove the general rule. Consider all of the *recent (since 1990) multi-party western 1st world democracies with proportional representation*, and you'll find that the US ranks far below Canada, Ireland, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium and almost all others when statistical socio-economic indicators/statistics are compared. The US ranks far worse in life expectancy, infant mortality, poverty, violent crime, incarceration, homelessness, personal bankruptcy, government transparency, media transparency, corruption indexes, peace indexes, educational standards, health care, etc. But American CEO's get to upgrade their status exponentially.

Those are the practical effects of the US being utterly dominated by authoritarian corporatism (as opposed to pragmatic centrism) brought to the American people by the untouchable elitist monopoly of oblivious donkeys and elephants.

All of the aforementioned countries have their versions neo-liberalism restrained by the many parties, which effectively reign in the most wreckless and extremist agendas, and therefore, the general population benefits more than the CEOs, military leaders and politicians.

The socio-economic indicators will only get worse for the average American if their politician's policies don't become more moderate, pragmatic and populist.

 

[Arpyjee]

There are efforts in that direction. The most important is called the Green Net National Product (GNNP). It's basically the gross national product (GNP) minus depreciation minus depletion of natural resources minus the calculated cost of pollution, plus one or two other things, which pad up the 235 pages used to define it. It's clearly better than GDP, since you can't, for example, artificially raise it by stripping and selling off assets.

You might be a bit surprised to hear where it's from: the World Bank.

[ http://siteresources.worldbank.org/...0/20781069/EnvironmentalDegradationManual.pdf ]

It's not perfect, I'm sure, but if GNNP replaced GDP in popular economic benchmarks, things would look pretty different.

That's still a little too much faith in neo-lib think tanks, imo PJ. They are run by elitists who don't represent the average folk, or the poor and the lower middle class.

Life expectancy, infant mortality, poverty rates, violent crime rates, incarceration rates, homelessness, personal bankruptcy rates, and many other indicators/statistics are currently available, which prove that the bankers, CEOs, military leaders, and politicians of the US are reaping far more extravagant rewards than the average American citizen.