Monday, November 07, 2011 7:50 AM, John wrote:
"Reagan's collectivism wasn't as blatant as Stalin's. Instead of directly
taking small farms and bundling them as large collectives,
he just subsidized the big corporate farms and drove small farmers out of
business." (01)
Its in the blood and nature of the economic scheme, capital accumulation and
profit making by any means. Like the vampire, whose key feature to suck the
blood. Here are some figures from a recent study comming to Congress: thirty
Fortune list companies tricked not to legally pay US income tax 2008-2010,
while the corporate tax rate is 35% and the extreme poverty areas, "pockets
of poverty", grew by one-third over the decade. (02)
"Republicans treat Reagan as a god for promoting "wealth building". Look at
the statistics: In 1979, the top 1% of all Americans earned
9% of the total amount of income. But in 2009, the top 1% earned 17% of the
total. That is almost double the amount they got before
Reagan. The bottom 50% of all taxpayers earn only 13% of the total." (03)
It's in line with Batra's stance, a promoter of the concept "the richest
1%", and who appeals to repeal the Reagan's, Clinton's, Bush's and Obama's
acts and economic measures:
http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-wall-street-movement-and-coming-demise-crony-capitalism/1318341474. (04)
Beside other things, he points an interesting fact: "The 1999 repeal of the
Glass-Steagall Act under President Clinton that led to reckless lending by
banks and an unprecedented housing bubble, which collapsed in 2007 to
trigger the ongoing slump." Also, Obama's & 800b bailout considered as
"extremely wasteful and enormously enriched the rich".
It all looks, capitalism as the world's dominant economic model is going
out, and rather soon will be a history. It's not because of the blatant
inequality, or currently ongoing global financial crisis, marked with the
American or European sovereign debt crises, or because of all sorts of
social unrest and left intelectual social movements, like the Occupy Wall
Street. Or, because of Marx's "Capital" and R. Batra's "the Downfall of
Capitalism and Communism" and "the New Golden Age: the Coming Revolution
against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos".
Neither the sweeping reforms, nor ethical regulations of financial markets,
requested by the Vatican, could save that fully exhausted socio-economic
schema. Its' just another historical formation and economic category which
is completing its life cycle. The industrial capitalism has been
technologically progressive, while the producing no real value financial
capitalism is largely about financial speculation and money collection by
all sorts of financial intermediaries, banks, investment firms, etc., merely
by trading in currencies, invented financial products and derivatives.
As such, the globally dominant economic system fails to deal with such
complex things as globalization and nationalism, multiculturalism and
integration, fundamentalism and modernism, poverty and wealth, innovation
and production, etc.
But most cricial, capitalism, like communism, has no internal powerful
mechanisms to provide a stable, smart and inclusive growth, the precondition
of the world's stability and growth: download THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD TO COME
(http://www.eis.com.cy). (05)
Azamat (06)
----- Original Message -----
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 7:50 AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology (07)
> On 11/5/2011 3:31 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
>> I discovered a book written in 1948 that explains why the Keynesian
>> theories don't work - he describes what he calls the "broken window
>> fallacy" here:
>>
>> http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson/
>>
>> I hope that helps stimulate more discussion of the role of self
>> interest in AI and in ontology developments.
>
> Two points:
>
> 1. The author, Henry Hazlitt, is a typical blue-sky academic with lots
> of opinions, but no facts or experimental evidence to back them up.
>
> 2. Keynes was also an academic. But he became wealthy by observing
> the facts about currency fluctuations, formulating a theory based
> on the facts, and testing his theory with his own money. Today,
> currency trading is not a good field for making money because
> everybody follows the same principles that Keynes established.
>
> I'm not going to defend all Keynesian policies because there has
> been 80 years of further research and practice. But US presidents
> from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan have shown that the basic
> ideas are sound. Roosevelt applied some of Keynes' ideas in the
> 1930s. He helped to mitigate the disaster created by 12 years
> of Republican economics. But he didn't spend enough money until
> 1939, when he used the war in Europe as an excuse for big-time
> spending. The massive war-time spending ended the Depression,
> as Keynes had predicted.
>
> I hate to give credit to Hitler for anything, but I have to admit
> that he got Germany out of an even worse financial problem by
> classical Keynesian means: a huge amount of military spending
> that created prosperity for Germany several years before Roosevelt
> started the really big-time spending.
>
> Ronald Reagan also dug the US out of a recession by classical
> Keynesian spending. The Republicans mistakenly say that he cut
> government. But that is false. It is true that he cut domestic
> federal spending by shifting the burden to the states. But his
> military spending *tripled* the federal debt. The Republicans
> also say that he cut taxes. For the rich, he did. But for the
> middle class, the increase in state and local taxes wiped out
> the tiny tax cut that Reagan gave them.
>
> Reagan's collectivism wasn't as blatant as Stalin's. Instead of
> directly taking small farms and bundling them as large collectives,
> he just subsidized the big corporate farms and drove small farmers
> out of business. The big subsidies were reserved for huge collectives
> that grow corn and soybeans. The small farmers who grew vegetables
> for the local markets got nothing.
>
> Reagan's policy of welfare for big corporations was very similar
> to Hitler's policy of promoting big corporations at the expense of
> the small businesses and individuals. That isn't as blatant as
> Stalin's collectivism. It's a more subtle form of collectivism
> and anti-individualism.
>
> Republicans treat Reagan as a god for promoting "wealth building".
> Look at the statistics: In 1979, the top 1% of all Americans earned
> 9% of the total amount of income. But in 2009, the top 1% earned
> 17% of the total. That is almost double the amount they got before
> Reagan. The bottom 50% of all taxpayers earn only 13% of the total.
>
> Finance professionals really love the term "wealth building."
> They got a 238% increase. (Statistics from New York Times,
> 30 October 2011, Sunday Review, page 10)
>
> Whenever you hear Republicans say "wealth building", that's
> a synonym for "rape the middle class". I am very strongly in
> favor of self interest. That's why I am no longer a Republican.
>
> John
>
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