I know you've all heard me talk about what it takes to live in a civilized society.........something Republicans who have an anti-society and anti-government attitude don't understand.
Don't get me wrong........I think our current government with too many special interest (corporate) lobbyists is completely dysfunctional in guarding the public interest. Instead of eliminating government or shrinking it we must make it work in the PEOPLE's interest.
So here is another Economist making the same argument I've been making over the years:
Quote
The Books Interview: Jeffrey Sachs
Jonathan Derbyshire
Published 24 October 2011
Can you summarise the central argument of your new book, The Price of Civilisation?
I'm saying that, on an economic level, we have a set of deep structural problems in the United States. This cannot be solved by short-term stimulus; nor is it something that can be solved by another tax cut. They are much deeper problems, reflective of globalisation and powerful trends in the world, and they require active government in order to address them.
So you're not just talking about the regulatory failure that helped to bring about the crash of 2008?
The interesting thing about regulatory failure is that it happened during the Clinton administration. That reflects the complete failure of my party, the Democrats. Bill Clinton basically sold the Democrats to Wall Street.
The crisis on Wall Street is syndromic of something deeper: our political system has been profoundly corrupted by corporate money and campaign financing. Both parties are part of it and both are playing a game of endless flirtation with the rich.
And Barack Obama has done nothing to close the "revolving door" between Wall Street and the White House, has he?
Everyone was shocked when, to address the Wall Street crisis, he brought in the Wall Street team! Unfortunately, that's the Washington milieu - it is completely pervaded by money. Half of Congress are millionaires. The White House is filled with millionaires. And that, of course, leads to deep popular dissatisfaction with government institutions.
There is popular dissatisfaction throughout the western world. What's special about the situation in the United States?
In sheer monetary terms, politics in the US is the most egregious of all the developed countries' with the possible exception of the almost surrealistic situation in Italy. Italy is in the final stage of this disease.
No one has completely unregulated, private-paid TV advertising the way the United States does. No one has our two-year national election cycle that leads us to a complete frenzy. This is an accident of 1787 - you wouldn't write a constitution that way today.
Do you think Obama's stimulus programme was ill-conceived?
There was a feeling, which I didn't share, that we were about to enter a great depression in 2009 and that we had to do anything to stop it. I thought it was way overdone.
If there was an urgent crisis, it was in the money markets. We absolutely needed emergency central bank responses to that. But the idea that we had to bet the administration on a two-year grab-bag of measures worked out in two weeks, a hodgepodge of spending and tax cuts, was politically toxic.
One of your intellectual heroes is Paul Samuelson, who developed the theory of the mixed economy which America has left behind.
Samuelson mathematised what many writers, going back to Adam Smith, had realised: that markets simply can't function in some areas.
Even such a paragon of the free market as Friedrich Hayek is absolutely clear, in The Road to Serfdom, that wherever the market functions, it's an effective resource-allocating mechanism, but that there are many places where it is completely inappropriate. All of that was mainstream when I started studying at Harvard in the 1970s, but this basic idea has lost its central, almost axiomatic status.
Are there other things that economists are getting wrong?
We are blinded by our metrics. Our metrics are, to a large extent, based on national income, but national income doesn't convey several crucial things about society. It doesn't include distributional considerations, or take account of environmental factors. And it's
a pretty poor measure of well-being.
In the US, not only do we have a GNP-centric discourse, we also have a consumerist discourse that overwhelms everything else. This is a society addicted to consumer debt. America reached a pinnacle of technical efficiency and technological advance after the Second World War, and this is what it brought about.
Jeffrey Sachs's "The Price of Civilisation: Economics and Ethics After the Fall" is published by the Bodley Head (£20)
http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/10/wall-street-interview-italy
It all comes down to needing public financing of campaigns in order to fix legalized bribery in the US.
Interesting FFCure. I enjoy your occasional articles and posts.
Although “both†parties attract individuals who can be “purchased†by special interests, I expect that if accurate comparison was possible, the conservative Repubs would grow more of the corrupt individuals because they have more of the types who, by some cause, perhaps the Christian influence, feel special, elitist, and therefore a little more deserving of material wealth. In any case, corruption and mediocrity exists on both sides of the isle, but perhaps in more abundance on the right â€" the conservative Repub side.
But before I continue, I have a question which has been nagging me for several months. How is it that our country, with its abundance of natural resources, its momentum of technological and industrial strength, its workable population; that is, not too much, not too little, and with its decades of reasonable stability within which to arrive at whatever we desire and are capable of â€" why have we arrived at the current state of extreme income and wealth inequality? Why have we arrived at the current economic disaster? Why do we always start these wars?
In my view, there are three candidates for answers. One is that “Shit Happensâ€. The second is that the masses, the workers, have somehow become lazy, dumb, or disoriented, and make the wrong decisions. And third, that our nation's politicians, and the individuals heading up the huge corporations and financial giants have, in the interest of maximizing profits and the achievement of wealth at any cost, made decisions that ultimately destroyed our economy, our manufacturing and industrial base, and much of our environment, and certainly the jobs available for the workers. Most reasonable people would vote for the third cause.
But to continue, I’ve wondered about the meaning of the word “conservative†in regards to a political position. Although the words “democratâ€, “progressiveâ€, and “liberal†are of interest, it seems that the dangers inherent in the “conservative†demands a closer look at this species of political animal.
Conservatives I suppose are about the same as Republicans. Does this mean that they want to conserve something? If so, what? Because self-interest is a prime mover, one might guess that the conservative wants to protect and conserve something “good†which they already possess; even if it is only money or accumulated assets, their political power, or their “ability†to gain more assets and wealth, and too, even to conserve the status quo of their comfortable living. But then, everyone must make a living, and be comfortable, so why are many concerned individuals inclined to bash the conservative politicians?
Is it because of excess? Much of life allows that there is the desirable ideas of reasonableness, of moderation, and the qualities of sharing and compassion. And there are the ideas of excess, of unreasonableness, of abuse of power, of elitism, and of greed. Recent history has shown that many of our politicians, especially the conservative Repubs have unfortunately been infected with the latter undesirables; attributes that have mutated into a disease that has infected the political environment, a disease so formidable that the well-intentioned but morally weak new politician succumbs to it; and soon becomes as the others, entrenched mediocrities working only to perpetuate their terms in office, and to enrich themselves. They are unable to focus and pursue much needed goals for the good of the masses simply because they are blinded by their obsession to enhance their own assets.
This tendency of the conservative Repubs to gain, increase, and hold onto power and wealth is very similar to the dictator we’ve become accustomed to in recent decades. Both the conservative Repub and the dictator believes he is an elite, and somehow deserving of power and wealth, at the exclusion of needs of the general population over which they wield power. Neither the dictator nor the conservative Repub cares much about the well-being of the general population or the average worker. The dictator therefore, can be considered a conservative; that is, as compared to being called a democrat, a progressive, or a liberal.
Conserving power, position, privilege, wealth, and comfort are the ultimate and “first†goals of the dictator and the conservative Repub. Whereas recent history has shown that the malevolent and abusive dictator can be forced out by mass protests -- the comfortable and haughty conservatives, because they are spread out amongst the states and the communities, much as a disease or a cancer amongst the population, are immune from being deposed all at once by protests. They must be voted out individually.
It is understandable that conservatives ascribe for the most part to social Darwinism simply because they are for the present in the position of being on the high side of things; comfortable, asset loaded, privileged, and in general, well cared for. To these mental dwarfs, those who are less endowed with wealth, opportunity for education, and a good standard of living, are simply deficient or somewhat lazy, and therefore they deserve their poverty, their unemployed status, and even their homelessness.
The conservative Repub must realize how lucky his kind is to be spread out in the population like an incurable disease, because if he were not, he would be deposed, as has been his fellow dictator types, by the protest action we’ve witnessed recently throughout our nation. Removal of a dictator or most conservatives results in the removal of incompetence, of elitism, of racism, of favoritism, of corruption, and of the theft of national assets belonging to the people.
Why are we continually in these little occupying wars? How has the insane wealth inequality come about? We have the richest country in the world, having enough natural resources to insure a good standard of living for all citizens. How has the majority of the wealth accumulated into the hands of only a very few? Why has our economy been trashed? I wonder if there has been any corruption going on? Or does shit just happen?
Our problems originate on both sides of the aisle. But look especially at the conservative side, and you will see most of the individuals responsible. Many of these individuals, but not all by any means, as there are a few concerned and able conservative Repubs; are entrenched leaches upon our society, able to achieve and maintain their positions only because of the corporate wealth supporting them. Get money out of politics. Destroy the absurd lobbying power, as it serves only the special interests, and not the people, not the workers.
Some wonder why people are protesting. They just don’t understand the occupiers. Those who oppose the occupiers and have ignored their emerging message over the months, are either mental midgets, or they are in positions to fear what is coming, just as some dictators feared what came.
Moderation. Fairness. Compassion. Empathy. Reason. Most of our politicians shamefully play the game of politics, and because of their short sighted juvenile attention to the game, they have no thought or time left to expend on the real reasons for which they have been elected. Our current catastrophic economy, the obscene wealth inequality, and our continual wars, offer evidence that they have failed.
Quote from: ronchamblin on December 05, 2011, 04:21:42 PM
Interesting FFCure. I enjoy your occasional articles and posts.
Although “both†parties attract individuals who can be “purchased†by special interests, I expect that if accurate comparison was possible, the conservative Repubs would grow more of the corrupt individuals because they have more of the types who, by some cause, perhaps the Christian influence, feel special, elitist, and therefore a little more deserving of material wealth. In any case, corruption and mediocrity exists on both sides of the isle, but perhaps in more abundance on the right â€" the conservative Repub side........
This tendency of the conservative Repubs to gain, increase, and hold onto power and wealth is very similar to the dictator we’ve become accustomed to in recent decades. Both the conservative Repub and the dictator believes he is an elite, and somehow deserving of power and wealth, at the exclusion of needs of the general population over which they wield power. Neither the dictator nor the conservative Repub cares much about the well-being of the general population or the average worker. The dictator therefore, can be considered a conservative; that is, as compared to being called a democrat, a progressive, or a liberal.
Conserving power, position, privilege, wealth, and comfort are the ultimate and “first†goals of the dictator and the conservative Repub. Whereas recent history has shown that the malevolent and abusive dictator can be forced out by mass protests -- the comfortable and haughty conservatives, because they are spread out amongst the states and the communities, much as a disease or a cancer amongst the population, are immune from being deposed all at once by protests. They must be voted out individually.
It is understandable that conservatives ascribe for the most part to social Darwinism simply because they are for the present in the position of being on the high side of things; comfortable, asset loaded, privileged, and in general, well cared for. To these mental dwarfs, those who are less endowed with wealth, opportunity for education, and a good standard of living, are simply deficient or somewhat lazy, and therefore they deserve their poverty, their unemployed status, and even their homelessness.
The conservative Repub must realize how lucky his kind is to be spread out in the population like an incurable disease, because if he were not, he would be deposed, as has been his fellow dictator types, by the protest action we’ve witnessed recently throughout our nation. Removal of a dictator or most conservatives results in the removal of incompetence, of elitism, of racism, of favoritism, of corruption, and of the theft of national assets belonging to the people.........
Moderation. Fairness. Compassion. Empathy. Reason. Most of our politicians shamefully play the game of politics, and because of their short sighted juvenile attention to the game, they have no thought or time left to expend on the real reasons for which they have been elected. Our current catastrophic economy, the obscene wealth inequality, and our continual wars, offer evidence that they have failed.
Thank you Ron Chamblin. As to the causes of the slow "waking up of the masses"..........I think our corporate media is very much to blame. Much of what they report is simply distracting us from the real problems. How much war coverage did the average American see while we were spending a sizable portion of our nation's wealth on waging wars?
The selfish nature of Republicans and their strong disdain for the Public good, makes them by definition poor public leaders. You have to believe in government to be effective in government.
Can you imagine being interviewed for a job and telling the company that you do not believe in their product or mission?
Which applicant would you choose?
Yet, Republicans routinely keep electing people into government who do not believe in government.
Sure Republicans talk about "limited government," but the reality is that they do everything in their power to destroy government by obstructionism, "going through the motions" with "feel good legislation" or by creating government programs that are deliberately designed to fail.
LOL... Faye have you considered opening a bumper sticker store? Your stereotypes, generalizations, and slogans would fit perfectly on a bunch of small stickers... really Faye... you could get rich... :)