Been here, done this before. Good to hear from you Ed.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2011 7:47 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] American economy I do believe that "competency" figures into economics, Ray, even though "scarcity" is a more basic concept. In a capitalist society, the competent take scarce resources and combine them into uses that serve their self-interest - i.e. that pay off to the maximum extent. In so doing, they hire people and thereby serve the economic interests of society. That is what happens under capitalism. Under socialism, the resources are combined not to serve individual interests but rather communal interests --- or so the theory might go. Another concept that is often left out is morality, the "golden rule" kind of thing, like you wouldn't do anything to hurt other people just as you wouldn't want to hurt yourself. In capitalist societies, laws are enacted in place of morality -- e.g. the now gone Glass-Steagal or the US law that prevented corporate interests from buying politicians and converting them into lobbyists. There is another way of building morality into economic behaviour. I did a job in the Los Santos area of Costa Rica a few years ago and what amazed me there was the huge array of cooperatives active in the area. It seemed that everyone wanted to help everyone else. Why? I attributed it to the influence of the huge church in the middle of each community -- love thy neighbour (or be eternally damned?) etc. I'd better quit here because next thing I say may be something silly or even sillier than what I've said already. Getting tired. Regards, Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Ray Harrell <mailto:[email protected]> To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2011 5:15 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] American economy One thing neither of you are taking into account is term limits. We are guaranteed an amateur president who just learns the office and leaves. It doesn't even work for mayors. Term limits on Congress guarantees short term thinking. Term limits are also used as a weapon by the right wing to demean the very idea of government itself. It doesn't help when ex-government employees lift their legs on government either. I've worked in the private sector for fifty years and grew up in the public sector with both parents in public education. I've always defended public education and the need for a private sector but I certainly know the problems in both. I would argue that it would help if people didn't "think" as if they weren't a part of all this but had a stake in helping it work and making it work for everyone. No one seems to see the problem in the basic premise of economics that is grounded in the "scarcity" construct rather than in a "competency" construct and the development of the "Field of Plenty." Everyone says that solar power isn't economical. The implication is that it's too expensive when the reality is that what is free is NOT economical at all. No one want to purchase sand if they live on the beach and no one wants to buy castor bean beer either just because its scarce. The very idea of business is the idea of winners and losers. I would argue that to complain when the religion of the market effects the government negatively and yet refuse to question the religion itself as a system, is to make the choice to be a loser in the game of life. Good to hear from you Ed and Keith I enjoyed your post about the Chinese. Well done. The sole qualm I had was about women's suffrage and the roots of the problem. I think it has more to do with the private sector having too much power, too little regulation by the society and term limiting the governors so they don't have time to build power groups that accomplish things. The issue of morality (cronyism) is a problem of religion and personal judgment. It would help if the society could learn the elements that go into teaching both and teach them. Then give people a decent time to learn the Art of Government. If one religion had too many lawbreakers perhaps we could apply the rule that they apply to teachers who fail. Cut their tax deduction until they do a better job with their constituency or teach the foundations of morality and critical judgment to everyone in public school. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2011 4:44 PM To: Keith Hudson; RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] American economy Keith, I'll just have to take you at your word on the actual rate of US GDP growth. It may well be higher than the 1.8% Reich claims it is. However, many of the other things he mentions, and which others have mentioned, suggest an economy in decline and perhaps in severe decline. Everything seemed to be looking up until about the 1970s and then ever so many things started going down hill after that. The best book I have on the reasons for it is Hacker's and Pierson's "Winner Take All Politics" which lays out how the rich got very much richer, the middle class became eroded and the poor became poorer from the mid-1970s to the present. I should take another look at the book, but some of the most significant trends H&P (and Riech) mention relate to changing political power, enabling the rich to control politicians to make decisions to their advantage (e.g. Bush tax cuts, financial donations to politicians making them, in effect, lobbyists for finance and industry) and the politically fostered decline of unions. As well, the US government and many state governments have become hugely indebted and therefore greatly constrained with regard to the kinds of stimulus programs they can launch. All in all, whether the rate of growth is as Reich says or a little higher, the US does not appear to have much of a chance of a return to the kind of growth, hope and prosperity we witnessed in the decades following WWII. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Hudson <mailto:[email protected]> To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION <mailto:[email protected]> ; Ed Weick <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2011 3:02 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] American economy Ed, At 15:09 02/06/2011, you wrote: Robert Reich's take on what has happened to the USA since world war II. http://truthout.org/truth-about-american-economy/1306953884 This is a pretty accurate account of the American economy since '45. However, towards the end he writes: <<<< Democrats, meanwhile, are behaving as if they're powerless to affect the economy even though a Democrat occupies the White House and his appointees run the federal government. >>>> . . . and then gives no hint of what policy the Democrats should be advocating! OK, it's true enough that they don't have a policy (except more public spending which would only make the deficit worse) but that he -- one of the most articulate economists on the left -- hasn't been able to sketch out something that's anywhere near relevant is eloquent enough. But there's another point that intrigues me for which Reich is not to blame. This is the figure of 1.8% that's officially quoted for present GDP growth. This cannot be so. In America, as in the UK and Europe, the average income and well being of ordinary folk has actually been declining for decades. And yet GDP has supposedly been tanking along at anything between 3% and 5% p.a. for year after year! There's clearly a discrepancy here of at least 2%. Far from being 1.8% today, it ought to be 0% or even a negative figure. This is pure spin by government statisticians and economists. Much the same applies in the case of official figures for inflation -- except the fix is in the opposite direction. To be realistic, at least 2% or 3% should be added to the officially quoted rate. This is why Bernanke is so ambiguous as to know what he's going to do next. He knows that America is not far away from galloping inflation. "Can I get away with yet another dose of QE", he must be asking himself. He must be very fearful that if he does so he might go down in the history books as the person who transformed the Great Recession into the Great Depression Mark II. Keith Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/06/ _____ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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