To Pakebeer

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 7090 Location: Central CA

I'll have to bow (deeply) to your experience in global affairs. My entire life has been spent within a couple of hundred miles of where I grew up.

Again, I think I may have misrepresented myself. I'm not a major fan of globalism as it's being practiced by the major corporations in this country and others today. I may be actually a little more nationalistic than most but I haven't really considered it because there are too many practical concerns to worry about right now.

My take on globalism is that it's not, in itself and necessarily, a bad thing. But as with any other concept, it lends itself to exploitation by those ruthless enough to take what they want without giving anything back and sad to say, those are the ones running the show today.

It's not being practiced so as to make sure that each nation gets a fair share of the resources or at least is allowed to exploit the resources that originate within its own borders for the betterment of its own people. It's just an extension of the business practices that have detracted from the quality of life for so many Americans over the past 5-6 years and to insure that the people in many of those other nations never rise above that certain economic level that makes them a noticable nuisance in regard to the bottom line.

All restraints have been or are being removed on businesses and once that happens you have to hope that those in charge will have some kind of moral or ethical standards that will ensure fair treatment for all involved whether it be entire nations or individual citizens of those nations.

Unfortunately and altogether far too often, morals and ethics are not vessels that will carry you very far up the corporate river, let alone across oceans. The moral and ethical in the business world aren't around long enough to make an impression.

Capitalism is the greatest system in the world as far as I'm concerned. I'm not going to get into any big discussion of capitalism versus socialism or whatever "ism" it's politic and patriotic to embrace on any given day. I'll stick with the system I grew up with, thanks.

BUT... capitalism without some form of restraint, whether it be self imposed based on moral and ethical standards (which would be far preferable), or imposed by society based on those same standards, is just another means to exploitation and exploitation is the soul and substance of the parasites on Wall Street and their taxpayer employed lackeys in the government.

Expecting corporations to police themselves based on moral and ethical standards is totally unrealistic. This is why so-called "third world" countries, especially third world countries with resources that could possibly be used to improve the living standards of their own populations are instead being mercilessly exploited for the personal gain of a few corporate globalists themselves and those populations are being sold out by their own governments and doomed to remain in "third world" status.

It's not even a matter of nation versus nation. It's a matter of giant corporations against everybody else in the world. American corporatists don't have a monopoly on greed and ruthlessness by any means and many other countries contribute their share of parasites to the mix. Every industrial country has its Halliburton and every industrial country has its knot of government officials ready to support the highest bidder at any given time for whatever the going price is. Cynical? You bet! Mr. Green

These companies look on the general world population as nothing but a disposable/renewable resource, an expendable labor force to be exploited as cheaply as possible and that's rapidly coming to include the American work force which, rightly or wrongly, has always enjoyed a higher standard of living than workers in most of the rest of the world and so has to suffer through a letdown the extent of which still isn't known.

So, Americans are on their way to "serfdom" and much of the rest of the world still exists and will simply continue to exist in "serfdom". It will all balance out in the future, possibly the near future and we'll all have that "equality" that everyone has touted for so long. We'll just be equal a lot farther down the economic scale than we expected but hey, 97% of the population simply has a duty to lower their hopes and/or expectations a degree for every degree the other 3% raises theirs, right?

Maybe some of us can get jobs in AMERICAN sweatshops making cheap gimcracks to sell in outsourced Sears stores to the Chinese who will be the new world economic super power, (just ahead of WalMart) and hopefully still bent on IMPROVING the living conditions for its own citizens.

You can damned well bet that if Wall Street can make a buck or two under that scenario, they'll sure as hell support the idea.

Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 10

No misrepresentation at all as far as I am concerned, I think I read you loud and clear. Evidently you have studied the matter thoroughly.
Since economics is fundamental to human existence I have to agree with you that a restraint capitalist approach is the way to go.
In my opinion - and no matter what the vocabulary says - economics has basically nothing to do with “Wall Street”.
Economics for our ancestors was solely based on the fundamental needs: procuring food, shelter and clothing.
Of course this does not exclude the profit principle, profit as insurance against future mishaps and as and investment for eventual improvements, never as a means to coerce power.
Unfortunately human greed is – as we have seen earlier – endless (see your remarks re Lacy and all) and human greed became consequently the other defining factor in economics Thus another factor was introduced in economics i.e. the need for protection and consequently the need for hegemony thus power was introduced in economics. By now we the people were hardly able to check the powers that be. Eventually the words of such visionaries as Buddha, Christ and Mohammed were expropriated by the powers that be and restated to their advantage. Through the ages human nature has been “cultivated” and we have accepted that, which of course was a fatal mistake.

Having said that and being in accord that we can not depend on the corporate system as it is to restraint itself, is it therefore not our (we the people) duty to try to properly define and agree on the moral and ethical standards and subsequently impose them? Now when I read you right you hold the opinion that everything will balance out in the future. That is where I do not agree with you my friend, in my opinion it will only get worse if we do not put a halt to it.
People have to understand that deep down their gut feeling is right, they should not have credit cards, no discount cards, no air-miles, they should beware for the hidden persuaders and not accept any messages in for instance ads for drugs and similar crap like diet-soda’s etc.
They should go back to their local pop&mom stores and buy less junk so they can afford to pay more for their basic needs .... and on and on.
The information is there - has always been there - unfortunately hardly anybody either listens to the messenger, or heeds the message.
People keep buying stuff they do not need, pay with money they do not have, mainly to impress people they do not like anyway.
That is the inflated power of the corporates and that is how wrong our cultivated economics are. Sad

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 7090 Location: Central CA

"Balance out" was a poor choice of words on my part. I meant to be sarcastic in stating my opinion that if things continue the way they are, we will be giving up a lot more than we already have. I tend to do that to myself a lot.

I too believe that we need to take matters into our own hands and yell bloody murder about the abuses taking place and force our government to take notice of the fact that we no longer have government for the people, let alone FOR the people.

My constant references to WALL Street are simply to have a catch all phrase that covers the instigators of most of the evils inherent in the system. Wall Street to me consists of the corporate elite that benefits most from the conditions that exist these days along WITH the brokers and fund managers and advisers and the myriad of others that all take their cut off the top before you and I ever see any of the fruits of our own labors.

I consider those people parasites that simply hang on and suck the blood from the economy while contributing little or nothing to the common good. They've found a way to make money simply by making money and by the time they get through trimming off the choicest cuts there's not even a bone left for the truly productive members of society.

So I really don't think we disagree on that much. The trouble is with my inability to express myself plainly, my reliance on analogy and my tendency to lapse into sarcastic references. You put it much more clearly than I ever have with your reference to food shelter and clothing being basic and the addition of greed to the picture serving a purely secondary purpose, that of providing power.

Even this wouldn't be so bad the uses of that power were actually limited to simple protection but unfortunately that's not the case. The power is now used to export the graft and corruption solely as a means to gather MORE power over MORE people and it's become an end unto itself with 2-3% of the people getting 95% of the benefit from the labors of the other 97% of the people.

Thirty years ago we called that "communism" as practiced by an "Evil Empire". Now we call it corporate capitalism and it's somehow OK. Doesn't matter what we call it, it's all the same to the person at the bottom of the food chain, the one who's actually doing all the real work. I think that's what we're seeing today and is the basis for much of what we call the greed factor.

That greed is now beginning to interfere with the ability of many of us to secure those three basics. The "trickledown" trickle is drying up and yes, we need to stop allowing it to happen, providing we still live in a democracy where there is a chance to do anything about it and enough people left who care about doing anything about it. Last time I looked we still had the vote although there has even been some serious questions about that in recent years. These people could not make lifetime careers in government if we didn't put them there or in the case of the bureacracy, put the people who keep appointing them there.

You'd be surprised at the number of times I've posted something of this nature only to called a "lefty" or a "socialist" or an anti-capitalist at best or an outright communist at worst. They even call me a Democrat now and again which is truly hilarious since there's absolutely no difference between a rich Democrat and a rich Republican when it comes to actually doing anything about the situation and my disdain for polticians, especially corporate politicians doesn't recognize any political labels . I've been treading lightly lately but what the heck? Mr. Green

Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 10

Seems like we are on parallel tracks Smile

, but how many travel-companions do we have ?
Reading my news this morning - of course from different sources all over the world - did not really cheer me up. Small detail California vs Governator caught my eye though.
Well we do not want to turn this forum into a blog.

Hasta lluego, my friend.
pakebeer
(BTW doesn't stand for pack o' beer but is the frisian word for grandpa)

Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 10

- pakebeer means grandpa bear

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