In The USA: the Next Revolution

[Ken White]

or even warfare in general. The initial op-ed is pure political foolishness.

"Throughout the nation there is outrage in the land, revolution in the air, insurrection in the wind from the left, right and center. The political ground is shaking from gale-force winds of a national demand for powerful change in the way our corrupted and tone-deaf capital does business."

Sheesh, creative writing at its campiest. Our Capital has been tone deaf all my life and until we start voting out all incumbents and get rid of political parties, it'll remain that way. Robert's polemic is dumber than a box of hammers.

On that last link, the Great East Point Riot, I'm sure the left will make a big deal out of it. Out of little or nothing; "Yet no arrests were made." (LINK). I lived in Atlanta for 12 years. East Point was a minor tinder box the whole time and has remained such. The various housing authorities in the Atlanta area have been and are a bed of consistent corruption. Housing authorities nationwide have problems; to be expected when dumb Congroids promise more than we can afford or deliver...

The Son who's an Atlanta metro area cop has a slew of tales about political shenanigans there and in Georgia Generally. The other two, the Soldat in the northeast and the Cop on the west coast also have a bunch from their regions. So does the NC Grandson in Law. Not to mention mine from here in Floridada. The point -- Flawed politics and tone deaf politicians are not restricted to DC, not by a long shot. They just make the national news easier and provide media and pundit fodder.

The Sky is Falling, 2010 Summer Edition. Penalty of being old: it's at least the thirtieth or maybe the fortieth time that I've seen our immediate demise from internal dissent, riots, militias, etc. etc. -- and fiscal ineptitude -- predicted ...

Oh, well, I'm still making plans for my Great Grandson's arrival and setting up a College savings account for him.

[Steve Blair]

Nor does it have anything to [do] with Small Wars or even warfare in general.

One could say that about many threads here.... But I agree, the op-ed is pretty much speculation on par with Fallout III. Except that Fallout has better graphics...

[slapout9]

One could say that about many threads here.... But I agree, the op-ed is pretty much speculation on par with Fallout III. Except that Fallout has better graphics...

Thats why I posted it under "The Whole News". The parameters of the thread topics are "Post and debate the news; good,bad and ugly. News ignored by the mainstream especially welcomed here"

[Steve Blair]

Thats why I posted it under "The Whole News". The parameters of the thread topics are "Post and debate the news; good,bad and ugly. News ignored by the mainstream especially welcomed here"

I know, slap. Not complaining...just commenting on the story.

[slapout9]

I know, slap. Not complaining...just commenting on the story.

Wasn't really for you, it chopped off the part by ken White which was supposed to be included you know how those old folks are, nothing has changed since the first revolution he will be back I am sure.

[Ken White]

...and not much of it for the danged better." He said, grumpily in his hoarse old voice...

[The fact that small 'l' liberals don't agree with small 'c' conservatives and that "the world is going to the Devil in a hand basket" being things that have not changed much at all since 1782. Amazing that we're still here...]

[slapout9]

...and not much of it for the danged better." He said, grumpily in his hoarse old voice...

[The fact that small 'l' liberals don't agree with small 'c' conservatives and that "the world is going to the Devil in a hand basket" being things that have not changed much at all since 1782. Amazing that we're still here...]

I didn't know you were a liberal.

I'm a Hells Angel Republican. And so is our Republican Govenor. Click on the link below for the story and then click the video to the right to see our Govenor on a Viper motorcycle!
http://www.wsfa.com/Global/story.asp?S=12957209

[Pete]

'Oh, a lot has changed ... and not much of it for the danged better. He said, grumpily in his hoarse old voice...

Although off-topic, this story about Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. comes to mind:

A well-known anecdote has Holmes, riding in a carriage with a law clerk while in his nineties, passing a beautiful young woman on the street. Holmes is said to have sighed, "Oh, to be seventy again!"

[Valin]

or even warfare in general. The initial op-ed is pure political foolishness.Sheesh, creative writing at its campiest.

Could not agree more

Our Capital has been tone deaf all my life and until we start voting out all incumbents and get rid of political parties

Right. Like that'll happen.

[slapout9]

Latest interview by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, includes comments on Iran.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIPoZ...eature=related

[slapout9]

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts "The Ecstasy Of Empire" or how we need a new kind of Revolution to Tax Corporations oversees profits that out source American jobs.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=20650

[Fuchs]

That's unlikely to work out well.

The U.S. is already an exception with its taxing of income generated by its citizens abroad.
A German doesn't need to pay German income tax if he lives (=60% or more of the year) in Monaco, for example.


It's more important to generate jobs anyway.
Think of a tax on international phone services. Call centre jobs would need to be moved to domestic locations and reliably put hundreds of thousands of unskilled people in labour.

Or end the structural nonsense of the financial sector ripping off the industrial sector and its shareholders. You need roughly a fourth more industrial output to meet your material consumption level. East Asians won't deliver goods for mere promises forever - sometime they'll demand a real payment and you don't want to experience a drop of a fifth of goods consumption in your society. That would be about twice as grave as the recent crisis and it would probably break much more.

[Dayuhan]

we need a new kind of Revolution to Tax Corporations oversees profits that out source American jobs.

There is no such thing as an "American job". A job is only yours, as an individual or as a nation, if you can perform the function more efficiently than the other guy. If you penalize American enterprises by forcing them to hire less efficient labor, the enterprise goes out of business and produces no jobs at all.

Sure, you can force American corporations to produce at home. The product will be too expensive to sell, nobody will buy it, and the jobs disappear anyway. Not a solution. Protectionism never is.

[slapout9]

There is no such thing as an "American job". A job is only yours, as an individual or as a nation, if you can perform the function more efficiently than the other guy. If you penalize American enterprises by forcing them to hire less efficient labor, the enterprise goes out of business and produces no jobs at all.

Sure, you can force American corporations to produce at home. The product will be too expensive to sell, nobody will buy it, and the jobs disappear anyway. Not a solution. Protectionism never is.

Pure Gobbsmackery, why is it every other country is allowed to engage in protectionism but we can't? China has a nationalized banking system that will provide any amount of money needed to allow it's industries to produce at below market rates in order for it to maintain a competitive advantage, and it also has a government policy of slave labor. You cannot defend against that without counter policies to protect our jobs (USA) and industries.

[slapout9]

Link to Real News Network interview.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcCf9mzuLd4&feature=sub

[Seabee]

Sure, you can force American corporations to produce at home. The product will be too expensive to sell, nobody will buy it, and the jobs disappear anyway. Not a solution. Protectionism never is.

Sure it is... tax imports... and make imports cost the same as locally made... then let the buyer choose.

My mother in law uses paint brushes once, its cheaper and easier to buy new ones from China each time. My kid gets more toys a year than i had in my life, because they are all so cheap....

We have become quantity consumers, not quality consumers.

If prices became higher due to protectionism, I would be forced to look after my stuff more...

Last week i went to the gym and forgot my Gym shoes. Instead of driving home to get them i bought a cheap pair at a shop next to the gym... Blush...

20 Years ago shoes were worth something, kids did not discard toys after a week... and you cleaned paintbrushes... cheap imports change a lot...

[Joske]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayuhan

Sure, you can force American corporations to produce at home. The product will be too expensive to sell, nobody will buy it, and the jobs disappear anyway. Not a solution. Protectionism never is.
Sure it is... tax imports... and make imports cost the same as locally made... then let the buyer choose.

My mother in law uses paint brushes once, its cheaper and easier to buy new ones from China each time. My kid gets more toys a year than i had in my life, because they are all so cheap....

We have become quantity consumers, not quality consumers.

If prices became higher due to protectionism, I would be forced to look after my stuff more...

Last week i went to the gym and forgot my Gym shoes. Instead of driving home to get them i bought a cheap pair at a shop next to the gym... Blush...

20 Years ago shoes were worth something, kids did not discard toys after a week... and you cleaned paintbrushes... cheap imports change a lot...

Yes but these protectionist measures will then simply be followed by retaliation protectionist measures by countries who are subject to your measures, leading to a collapse of your export sector and by extension international trade.
also only producing for an internal market could lead to a massively reduced demand of your products and this will result in economic recession/downgrading and although this effect could be limited in large countries who have large internal markets, small and export aimed countries dont have such large internal markets and this would cause an even bigger economic recession in those countries.
And then we are not yet speaking about the political/social consequences of such a recession.

[Dayuhan]

Sure it is... tax imports... and make imports cost the same as locally made... then let the buyer choose.

My mother in law uses paint brushes once, its cheaper and easier to buy new ones from China each time. My kid gets more toys a year than i had in my life, because they are all so cheap....

Last week i went to the gym and forgot my Gym shoes. Instead of driving home to get them i bought a cheap pair at a shop next to the gym... Blush...

You can't tax imported toys and shoes until they cost as much as local products, because there aren't any local products. These manufacturing lines moved out of the US decades ago, and nobody ever really missed them. It's really not possible to do low-skill labor-intensive manufacturing at US wages... the products would cost more than anybody would pay for them and the people making them would go out of business. People with lower incomes would also kick up a bit of a fuss if prices of items like clothes and children's toys suddenly quadrupled.

Protection is best understood as a subsidy, paid by the consumer. In an emerging economy it can be an effective way to shelter an industry that has the potential to be competitive but needs space to get established and achieve an economy of scale. Very hard to justify protection in a mature economy, unless we decide that we want consumers to perpetually subsidize non-competitive industries.

The problem, of course, is that everybody thinks their job and their industry is important enough to be subsidized... but if we subsidize everybody there's nobody left to pay the subsidy.

Treating non-competitiveness with protection is like treating malaria with paracetamol. You may push that fever down briefly, but you're not treating the cause. Why are we not competitive? Start with an education system that thinks competition is evil and produces more liberal arts graduates than the economy can possibly absorb, while even at close to 10% unemployment we have severe shortages of machinists, precision welders, and other skilled trades. Finish with an entitlement culture that has us convinced that wages should not be proportional to cost of a middle class lifestyle, not to the value of the product or service being produced. Fill in the space in between.

Our problem isn't them furriners. Our problem is us. We need to compete.

The trade deficit comes largely down to two issues. First is energy imports, which is not likely to change in the immediate future. Second, and more important, is a currency that has held an artificially inflated value, sometimes wildly inflated, for most of the time since WW2. That has been to some extent corrected, though IMO the dollar should still fall a bit more. It will take some time for that correction to show any material effect on the economy, though: the impact of 6 decades of distortion isn't reversed overnight.