So here is an amusing read suggesting that a financial conspiracy is driving world events so that everything breaks down to be rescued by a world government lead by an "intellectual elite and world bankers." Well is that any worse than what we have now? Let's invite Soros, Buffet and Hillary (aka the smartest woman in the world) to run it!
Actually, that's not what's interesting to me about this article. Rather, I'm interested in the points the author uses to demonstrate the crisis. Most all of them would get nods of agreement from my liberal friends. Too bad they are (mostly) all wrong. Let's take a look.
Point 1: The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations has led to the elimination of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs as well as the destruction of U.S. family farming in favor of global agribusiness.
What? I thought jobs have been added to the US economy in both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Additionally, there is real economic growth, real wage growth, not just in the US but also in Mexico and Canada. Some relevant data here and here
Point 2: Similar free trade agreements, including those under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, have led to export of millions of additional manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere.
Well OK, let's start with what's so great about manufacturing jobs anyway? Is it all those happy workers toiling away until retirement or death, whichever comes first? Hmm - perhaps all those poor workers at Google and Microsoft would rather pour molten steel or make shows. But guess what, manufacturing have declined in Japan where there is a trade surplus and protectionist policies. Why? Because productivity gains alone will result in fewer jobs. But each job will be better paying. The efficiency gained can be re-invested in new opportunity creating more jobs. The data proves as much!
Read this congressional testimony for the benefits of trade with China.
Point 3: Average family income in the U.S. has steadily eroded while the share of the nation’s wealth held by the richest income brackets has soared. Some Wall Street hedge fund managers are making $1 billion a year while the number of homeless, including war veterans, pushes a million.
Read this congressional testimony for the benefits of trade with China.
Point 3: Average family income in the U.S. has steadily eroded while the share of the nation’s wealth held by the richest income brackets has soared. Some Wall Street hedge fund managers are making $1 billion a year while the number of homeless, including war veterans, pushes a million.
Alright, we've been through this before. Real incomes per person have increased. It is the average family size that has decreased. The reason for that is increased wealth and opportunity. Young working people do not need to live at home. They have their own apartments. Also, analysis of income brackets generally fails to note that people move in and out of the various brackets during their lives. As for billionaire hedge fund managers, well why not!? Homeless war veterans? where's that data? We've been through the housing data before in this blog.
Point 4: The housing bubble has led to a huge inflation of real estate prices in the U.S. Millions of homes are falling into the hands of the bankers through foreclosure. The cost of land and rentals has further decimated family agriculture as well as small business. Rising property taxes based on inflated land assessments have forced millions of lower-and middle-income people and elderly out of their homes.
Where even to begin: Falling home prices mean housing is, oh what's the word, "affordable"! The issues driving the bubble were bad laws encouraging (indeed forcing) subprime lending noted here, speculators, and zoning laws restricting free markets in housing prices note by Cato here.
Point 5: The fact that bankers now control national monetary systems in their entirety, under laws where money is introduced only through lending at interest, has resulted in a massive debt pyramid that is teetering on collapse. This "monetarist" system was pioneered by Rockefeller-family funded economists at the University of Chicago. The rub is that when the pyramid comes down and everyone goes bankrupt the banks which have been creating money "out of thin air" will then be able to seize valuable assets for pennies on the dollar, as J.P. Morgan Chase is preparing to do with the businesses owned by Carlyle Capital. Meaningful regulation of the financial industry has been abandoned by government, and any politician that stands in the way, such as Eliot Spitzer, is destroyed.
Oh and Eliot Spitzer is now the good guy? The monetarist system is in place because it works. Read anything by Milton Friedman.
Point 6: The total tax burden on Americans from federal, state, and local governments now exceeds forty percent of income and is rising. Today, with a recession starting, the Democratic-controlled Congress, while supporting the minuscule "stimulus" rebate, is hypocritically raising taxes further, even for middle-income earners. Back taxes, along with student loans, can no longer be eliminated by bankruptcy protection.
Well guess what? I agree. Taxes are too high. The answer is to reduce taxes!!! The current stimulus plan is a joke.
Point 7: Gasoline prices are soaring even as companies like Exxon-Mobil are recording record profits. Other commodity prices are going up steadily, including food prices, with some countries starting to experience near-famine conditions. 40 million people in America are officially classified as "food insecure."
Hmm - OK I'll bite. Issues affecting food prices: Subsidies for farmers. Distorted markets through trade protection. BioFuels (that ironically generate more CO2 than fossil fuels - except sugar-cane that is). Record food stamps to help the "food insecure". . .and by the way, gas prices in real terms that aren't really any worse than the Carter years.
Point 8: Corporate control of water and mineral resources has removed much of what is available from the public commons, and the deregulation of energy production has led to huge increases in the costs of electricity in many areas.
OK. . .I don't have all the data on this one. . .but how is Corporate control worse than State control?
Point 9: The destruction of family farming in the U.S. by NAFTA (along with family farming in Mexico and Canada) has been mirrored by policies toward other nations on the part of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Around the world, due to pressure from the "Washington consensus," local food self-sufficiency has been replaced by raising of crops primarily for export. Migration off the land has fed the population of huge slums around the cities of underdeveloped countries.
Umm so family farming is the most efficient form of farming? So let's see - farming in the US is a worse system, than say, India? Also, why are people moving off the land? Did big agri-business force India farmers to the slums of Mumbai? Or was it, that even the slums offer better opportunity than those quaint little villages?
Point 10: Since the 1980s the U.S. has been fighting wars throughout the world either directly or by proxy. The former Yugoslavia was dismembered by NATO. Under cover of 9/11 and by utilizing off-the-shelf plans, the U.S. is now engaged in the military conquest and permanent military occupation of the Middle East. A worldwide encirclement of Russia and China by U.S. and NATO forces is underway, and a new push to militarize space has begun. The Western powers are clearly preparing for at least the possibility of another world war.
So the alternative is, what, to not be prepared? Umm OK.
Point 10: Since the 1980s the U.S. has been fighting wars throughout the world either directly or by proxy. The former Yugoslavia was dismembered by NATO. Under cover of 9/11 and by utilizing off-the-shelf plans, the U.S. is now engaged in the military conquest and permanent military occupation of the Middle East. A worldwide encirclement of Russia and China by U.S. and NATO forces is underway, and a new push to militarize space has begun. The Western powers are clearly preparing for at least the possibility of another world war.
So the alternative is, what, to not be prepared? Umm OK.
Point 11: The expansion of the U.S. military empire abroad is mirrored by the creation of a totalitarian system of surveillance at home, whereby the activities of private citizens are spied upon and tracked by technology and systems which have been put into place under the heading of the "War on Terror." Human microchip implants for tracking purposes are starting to be used. The military-industrial complex has become the nation’s largest and most successful industry with tens of thousands of planners engaged in devising new and better ways, both overt and covert, to destroy both foreign and domestic "enemies."
So 9/11 didn't actually happen and there Islamo-facism is all a myth. . .well uh maybe. . .
Point 12: Meanwhile, the U.S. has the largest prison population of any country on earth. Plus everyday life for millions of people is a crushing burden of government, insurance, and financial fees, charges, and paperwork. And the simplest business transactions are burdened by rake-offs for legions of accountants, lawyers, bureaucrats, brokers, speculators, and middlemen.
Guess what has also happened - lower crime! Putting criminals in jail means less crime! Even the NYT noticed that!
Point 13: Finally, the deteriorating conditions of everyday life have given rise to an extraordinary level of stress-related disease, as well as epidemic alcohol and drug addiction. Governments themselves around the world engage in drug trafficking. Instead of working to lower stress levels, public policy is skewed in favor of an enormous prescription drug industry that grows rich off the declining level of health through treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Many of these heavily-advertised medications themselves have devastating side-effects.
Could it be that drug companies are actually trying to find solutions to health problems that would otherwise be devastating? As for drug trafficking governments - let's see - North Korea, Venezuela perhaps?
Point 13: Finally, the deteriorating conditions of everyday life have given rise to an extraordinary level of stress-related disease, as well as epidemic alcohol and drug addiction. Governments themselves around the world engage in drug trafficking. Instead of working to lower stress levels, public policy is skewed in favor of an enormous prescription drug industry that grows rich off the declining level of health through treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Many of these heavily-advertised medications themselves have devastating side-effects.
Could it be that drug companies are actually trying to find solutions to health problems that would otherwise be devastating? As for drug trafficking governments - let's see - North Korea, Venezuela perhaps?
Interestingly, the points listed are part of the liberal echo chamber about the problems with America: Yea Cuban-style socialist health care and Chavez standing up to the evil Yanquis! Boo corporations and George Bush!
So maybe there is a conspiracy theory. But it is actually the liberals who want to control you by lying about the facts, and then putting their socialist solutions in place to fix problems that don't exist. Don't believe me? I give you Man-made Global Warming (spelled in caps because it's a religion!)
Free markets, capitalism, individual rights, rule of law: It works - try it!
