Day: December 1, 2008

The Economy Unbalanced

The present situation is that the ecology of these economies is out of balance. A significant factor in this destructive balance is the collusion between “Government” and “Capital” to separate the “Market” and “Community” economies from their own resources, possessions, productive capabilities, and livelihood. The most effective way this is accomplished at present is through mandatory taxation, land subsidy, and conscripted labor.

The land subsidy from the government, involving grants of titles to large amounts of land, allows the “Capitalist Economy” to accumulate unbalanced amounts of wealth, through privileged access to natural resources, and by living off rent collected from those who live or work on those large tracts of land. Economist call this rent-seeking. In addition, the subsidies from taxes and the draft allow government and trans-national corporations to transfer the more costly activities occurring in the “Capitalist Economy”, such as defense, infrastructure, education, etc., to the “Market” and “Community” economic strata. This makes it possible for the capitalists to engage in more lucrative activities such as international trading and investment banking, while having their investments protected as well as their training of new workers, etc. done by others, via the draft and taxes. If economics were truly consensual then “Capitalists” and “Governments” would not be able to receive subsidies of land, taxes, or use conscripted labor, that allows them to exploit the “Market” and the “Community” economies for their own excessive benefit. With consensual economics, “Capitalists” would have to pay their own cost of survival, and could prosper only to the degree that they benefited all three levels of the economy. They cannot exist if the first two levels of economy do not exist.

The status quo is that “Government” is interfering with the natural costs of “Capitalist” doing business by transferring resources from the “Community” and the “Market”, especially in the form of taxes. Government is also increasing its tax base by moving activities traditionally found in the “Community Economy” into a licensed and regulated market activity so it too can be taxed – an example from the 1980’s is the making of an industry by regulation of child care. Over the past couple hundred years more and more of these voluntary communal exchanges have been brought under regulation, licensing, and taxation. Here we also have the “socialist” (desire to achieve equality in material wealth) aspect of the “Community Economy” working together with the “capitalist” (desire for monopoly), both using the “Government” for restricting the free trade of the “Market” through involuntary limitation of choice and production of surplus, that would arise from the free association in the “Market”. This regulation, licensing and taxing is done for the alleged common good, yet what is the major effect other than to restrict alternative producers, thereby further increasing the wealth of the capitalists and the power of politicians, as well as providing more taxes as welfare to “Government”, and to “Capitalist” or “State controlled socialist” monopolies?

The economic power needs to be left to operate in a consensual way in all matters. People must be free to act in their own self interest, and in the interest of others, which is the principle behind cooperation and free association. The benefit of cooperation is greatest when people are free to make their choice of association based on an optimization of their individual diversity. Each person’s subjective valuation of relations and exchanges will allow them to find a group where they will meet needs and have needs met. The choice is ours – free association and prosperity in a balanced, diversified economy, or statist coercion in an imbalanced, ever declining economy and society.

To Slash Or Not To Slash

In the last week I have heard the president-elect mention the budget and what he would do with it as soon as he is sworn in…not sounding too promising, IMO.

Obama said his economic team would go through the federal budget “page by page, line by line, eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.”

While he reiterated his earlier statement that “there is only one president at a time,” Obama made it clear that his increasingly frequent appearances before reporters in Chicago—a third press conference is set for Wednesday—is being driven by the deepening economic crisis gripping US and world capitalism and a desire to reassure the financial markets.

The immediate backdrop to the press conference was the announcement of fresh figures indicating that the US economy is continuing to spiral downwards. The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that economic activity had declined at a rate of 0.5 percent during the three months ending in September, while the average American’s disposable income had plummeted during the same period at an annual rate of 9.2 percent, the steepest decline recorded since such figures were first kept in 1947.

Obama drew a sharp distinction between his proposal for an “immediate and temporary infusion that’s going to be required to kick-start our economy” and plans for cutting “the structural spending that’s been taking place in Washington that has created this huge mountain of debt.”

He reiterated that the temporary program he is advocating would “help save or create two-and-a-half million jobs.” While the price tag for the program has been estimated as high as $700 billion, the objectives are wholly inadequate given the depth of the crisis. Nearly half as many jobs as Obama claims would be saved or created over two years have already been wiped out in the past year alone, and new jobless claims have climbed to over half a million a week.

This rhetoric serves only to mask the economic and social realities of the unfolding crisis. Wall Street is being bailed out at the expense of “Main Street.” Average working people, who bear no responsibility for the financial meltdown, are being forced to pay the price for years of financial parasitism and speculation that enriched the top 1 percent, while the vast majority of the population saw its real income stagnate or decline. The inevitable response to the kind of economic austerity policies being prepared by the incoming Obama administration will not be a “banding together” of “Wall Street and Main Street,” but rather a resurgence of class struggle in America.

Poverty And Hunger–American Style

Is anyone out there paying attention?  You might want to keep track of this.  There is a storm coming and you may not have your storm prep ready.

The US Department of Agriculture will shortly release figures showing that a record number of Americans, some 30 million, now receive food stamps, benefits available to low- or no-income people. That total will surpass the previous record set in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005.

Every statistic related to poverty and hunger, as well as anecdotal reports from food banks and charities, points to a sharp growth in social misery in America. The majority of the statistics do not take into account the rapid economic deterioration of the past several months.

The figure of 30 million people on food stamps is one sign of the social crisis—although only the near-destitute qualify for the benefits, which themselves are entirely inadequate. The maximum monthly amount for a single individual is $176, the minimum, $14. A family of eight can receive $1,058. The average monthly benefit per person is $95, while the average US household spends $184 per person a month on food.

The number of those using food stamps rose 9.6 percent, or some 2.6 million people, from August 2007 to August 2008. The total is expected to continue rising sharply. Already in 25 states, at least one in five children is receiving food stamps.

Those receiving the benefits must have an income under 130 percent of the federal poverty level ($21,200) for a family of four, or $27,600. Income levels necessary to decently sustain a family of four are estimated to be at least twice the official poverty level. In the New York City area, for a four-member family, the Economic Policy Institute’s “Family Budget Calculator” puts the figure at $68,000; in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area at $54,000; and in the Detroit-Livonia-Warren, Michigan, area at $44,000. If this more-accurate measure were used, the percentage of Americans living in poverty would be at least 30 percent.

A New Nuke Deal

Russia and Venezuela have signed an agreement to promote the development of nuclear energy for civilian use.

The agreement was signed during a visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, on the latest leg of his Latin American tour.

Under the accord, Russia would help Venezuela build a nuclear energy plant. Joint gas projects were also approved

Boosting bilateral trade between Russia and Latin America, which could reach $15bn (£9.9bn) this year, is another priority for the Russian president during his talks.

The Russian leader travelled to Venezuela from Brazil, where he and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva held talks on boosting trade and technical co-operation.

Geez!  I can hear the screams now…..Venezuela is build a nuke bomb why else would they want nuke power.  Wait for it…it is coming.

What Of MediCare?

Promise, promises….a lot was promised to gain your vote, but what now….will it be or will it not?

Medicare has never been a fully public program. A considerable portion of the medical bills has always been paid by the beneficiaries. In fact, on average, retirees over 65 years old are paying more out of their pockets today than they did prior to the passage of Medicare in 1965.

When the Medicare program was signed into law in 1964, Congress set a mandatory premium for physician care called Part B. They also required Medicare recipients to pay an ever growing portion of the overall cost of the hospitalization invoice. This can amount to 20 percent of their medical bills. At the time the bill was up for a vote, Democrats stated that this condition was necessary in order for it to pass. Lobbyists for the American Medical Association (AMA), the insurance carriers, drug companies and most of the rest of corporate America fought the passage of Medicare and Medicaid. The Republican Party was the voice off those interests. These concessions reduced this opposition, but the final product kept the carriers and the drug monopolies in a position to do the dirty work they have been doing ever since.

One of the results of this compromise has been that Medicare Part B premium requirements have grown each year. The premium, now over $100 a month, is automatically taken out of monthly Social Security checks.

Even with Medicare, there is something like a 20 percent or more “gap” in coverage for recipients. To help cover the “gap,” insurance companies sell so-called Medigap insurance, which has become a major source of revenue for private insurance companies. The dollar value for insurance companies of this gap has steadily grown to an astronomical figure, in the billions each year.

Following the failure to win a universal health care program in the early 1990s, the insurance companies created a new scheme and quickly obtained federal approval for it. Congressional Republicans, assisted by the Clinton administration, devised a new way to satisfy the greed of the insurance companies through health maintenance organizations, or HMOs. HMOs were originally group practices, like the Kaiser programs, set up by well-meaning preventive medicine professionals.
The HMOs of the 1990s were a whole new animal created by insurance companies to “offer retirees a deal.” The deal was simple. Sign up with us, we’ll pay for the gap, and we’ll give you better service.

It sounded like a good plan, but corruption was rampant. This was the heyday of corporations like Oxford Health Insurance Company and other underhanded insurance carriers who, in the late 1990s, were caught raking in premium payments but refusing to provide advertised services, while doctors and hospitals went unpaid for months and even years. After the scheme was exposed, Oxford’s CEO was given a golden parachute worth millions.

This is only the beginning…..and only the tip of a huge iceberg that could very sink a struggling economy.  I am saying …do not look for too much in the way of help right now…maybe when you are older (where have you heard that before?).

Expectations For Clinton Are High

President-elect Barack Obama’s expected nomination today of Hillary Clinton as the next secretary of state has energized human rights and women’s rights activists, who expect the former first lady to bring a dramatic new focus to the plight of women around the globe.

But Clinton’s ascension to be the nation’s top diplomat also gives new hope to supporters of international women’s rights, who see Clinton as one of the world’s leading figures in the fight to improve education, safety, and economic opportunity for women and girls.

“This is a new opportunity. We’re very optimistic,” said Daphne Jayasinghe, Amnesty International’s acting advocacy director for Europe/Central Asia and violence against women. The human rights group is pushing for ratification of a UN document calling for an end to gender discrimination, as well as programs to counter violence against women and girls.

Further, the human rights groups are hoping for a more assertive approach by the new administration to stop mass rapes of women in war, and a more vocal stance against such practices as genital mutilation and forced marriages for girls.

The former first lady was a strong advocate for development programs for women – such as loan assistance to help women in third-world nations start small businesses, giving them both a higher household income as well as a stronger role in the local economy, her supporters note. Such development programs can be crucial forces in empowering women, they said.

The sheer star power Clinton offers is in itself a boost for women, said Representative James McGovern, a Worcester Democrat and early supporter of Clinton’s presidential run. McGovern, who was recently in rural Ecuador, said local women clamored to know whether Clinton indeed was in line to head the State Department.