"I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy."
The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality."
Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."
Without psychoanalyzing Gibbs, I take it that we have no chance for change. Obama's middle name could be status qvo, just as well. By 2012 one can say, Der Mohr hat seine Schuldigkeit getan, der Mohr kann gehen. Moreover, by the time we are ready to inflate another bubble the Chinese may well be #1.
Speaking of bubbles, a very real one is in education, where the situation is just as in healthcare, even including the need for a national system* similar to a single payer. Local budgets being already bankrupt and universities being so expensive relative to the earning power of their graduates, turn education into a luxury item. Besides costs, the other taboo in education is the quality of the graduates relative to the needs of an economy that is competitive beyond Twitter or American Idol--just ask the executives at Intel or Microsoft. We have run for so long an economy that functionally distorts education that even if we were able to correct the situation today, we'd still be 20 years away from the results. It was also with this second taboo in mind that, at one point in time, I pledged for turning the US universities in the 21st Century Ellis Island. Obama is considering instead the legalization of the millions of illegal low-skills/intensive laborers when a work permit, if anything less than repatriation, would be the way. So, between the pressures coming from 3rd world low wages and illegal immigrants, and considering the disappearance of the school as a leveling social force, we'll converge quietly to a low station. Will polarization be internalized or tear us apart?
Why is education important in any revival scheme? To match human potential with the needs of the world. How responsible is Obama? At certain level, no more than any individual who's put up with made-up stories about better education for several decades now. Oh well, we really have a chance to see how feedback works in capitalism, won't we?
_____________________
* For those objecting on principle about the idea of a national education system, consider that many a school superintendent makes probably just as much as the secretary of education in a country like France. If that's not enough, consider also the billion dollar industries round testing and textbooks.
Good summary from blogosphere
The Truth About the Bailout
There’s so much information (not to mention “information”) about the big banks, the Bailout regime, and the financialized economy the banks and government constructed and now use as the vehicle of tyranny.
How to process it all? How to separate the good information from the bad, the useful from the pointless, the truth from the lies? How to weaponize each idea, anecdote, and piece of data?
Here’s a list of criteria which are true and, I think, useful.
1. The big banks caused the crash. They hold the overwhelming responsibility for a Tower of Babel which was bound to come down and is bound to come down again. Any other responsibilities are trivial. The proximate causes are irrelevant.
2. The Bailout artificially props up insolvent banks. But in spite of their phony profits, the banks remain collectively insolvent, and most if not all of them individually so. Every cent they gamble and loot comes directly or indirectly from the Bailouts, from free QE money, from the TBTF premium. It’s ALL taxpayer money. The big banks are now permanent wards of the state. We the people OWN them once and for all, and are free to do anything we want with them, the moment we are inclined to do so.
3. The Bailout accomplishes no socially valid end, but only enables the banks to reopen the casino.
4. The Bailout only intensifies monopoly concentration, which lay at the core of the Too Big To Fail extortion dilemma. (The policy of TBTF only helps confirm the structure in a positive feedback loop.)
4A. (Wealth and power concentration in themselves are anti-democratic, socially and economically destabilizing, and morally perverted.)
5. The finance sector is a purely rent-seeking monopoly. We can place pretty much anything it does on the list of feudal tactics. Every cent they extract is a TAX upon us. All their “innovations” are con jobs, and all their lobbying is bribery and extortion. Rentier Wall Street is the driver of all federal government policy, with the corporatist government serving as a functionary, a conduit, and as a goon.
6. No true reform will be legislated thanks to corruption. We can extend this: The system is so corrupt beyond redemption that there will never be constructive major legislation again. All major bills will be Potemkin at best (like the finance “reform” bill is looking to be), or a further assault (like the health racket bill). In either case they will only seek to further entrench the rackets oppressing us.
7. Anything which is legislated will not be enforced thanks to corruption and capture. We can extend the principle: The law itself is a battleground, and the rule of law in great jeopardy.
8. We don’t need the big banks for recovery, for lending, for international competition, for anything else. All the evidence is that smaller banks provide the real value here, while big banks are not only unable and unwilling to engage in constructive action themselves, but their monopoly power actively hinders the smaller banks.
9. The size of the banks runs counter to our need for a decentralized economy with greater resiliency and robustness. The stimulus has been remarkable for how little money has headed in a constructive direction. This is because of the banks.
10. Only the rich have benefited from the Bailout. Only they will continue to benefit. Everyone else is prey.
11. The banks (and therefore the Bailout) fund the permanent war, which in turn militarizes the country for the benefit of the banks.
12. The stock market is the terrorist wing of finance monopoly. Its purpose is to punish all public interest government action (for example letting the market work in Lehman’s case, or the Congressional rejection in the first Bailout vote). Such punishment is a tool of disaster capitalism, generating the sense of immediate crisis, the Shock Treatment, to terrorize and stampede policy-makers, the media, and the public into allowing or enabling the power and loot grabs.
(On the other hand, it rewards official crime. Thus health insurance stocks have been a barometer of the policy debate on health reform, for example going up after every racket-friendly action on Obama’s part.)
Appendix: The mainstream media’s coverage is systematically biased in favor of corporatism, often atrociously so. The infrequent good articles are accidents, incidental to the media project.
The Bailout is a war upon America. This is Bailout Nation, Bailout America. (We should settle on a name for this debased regime, this perversion of America.)
The basic principles of freedom and humanity tell us that the only measures of an economy’s health, practically and morally, is how well it empowers the people of a society to produce real goods and services for themselves, and how many good jobs it empowers them to create and preserve for themselves.
No other metric has any inherent validity, and nothing else as far as money flow has any value. The rest is just a shell game.
These truths dictate the right positive principle, relocalization, and the necessary negative principle, anti-corporatism. the need to smash the banks. For we are at war.
The call – Smash the banks! Break up Too Big to Fail! Too Big to Fail is Too Big to Exist.
Of any policy we must ask first, What will it do to help Smash the Banks? Of any alleged leader or would-be leader: Where is their call to relocalize? And what have they done to help Smash the Banks?
rene
There’s so much information (not to mention “information”) about the big banks, the Bailout regime, and the financialized economy the banks and government constructed and now use as the vehicle of tyranny.
How to process it all? How to separate the good information from the bad, the useful from the pointless, the truth from the lies? How to weaponize each idea, anecdote, and piece of data?
Here’s a list of criteria which are true and, I think, useful.
1. The big banks caused the crash. They hold the overwhelming responsibility for a Tower of Babel which was bound to come down and is bound to come down again. Any other responsibilities are trivial. The proximate causes are irrelevant.
2. The Bailout artificially props up insolvent banks. But in spite of their phony profits, the banks remain collectively insolvent, and most if not all of them individually so. Every cent they gamble and loot comes directly or indirectly from the Bailouts, from free QE money, from the TBTF premium. It’s ALL taxpayer money. The big banks are now permanent wards of the state. We the people OWN them once and for all, and are free to do anything we want with them, the moment we are inclined to do so.
3. The Bailout accomplishes no socially valid end, but only enables the banks to reopen the casino.
4. The Bailout only intensifies monopoly concentration, which lay at the core of the Too Big To Fail extortion dilemma. (The policy of TBTF only helps confirm the structure in a positive feedback loop.)
4A. (Wealth and power concentration in themselves are anti-democratic, socially and economically destabilizing, and morally perverted.)
5. The finance sector is a purely rent-seeking monopoly. We can place pretty much anything it does on the list of feudal tactics. Every cent they extract is a TAX upon us. All their “innovations” are con jobs, and all their lobbying is bribery and extortion. Rentier Wall Street is the driver of all federal government policy, with the corporatist government serving as a functionary, a conduit, and as a goon.
6. No true reform will be legislated thanks to corruption. We can extend this: The system is so corrupt beyond redemption that there will never be constructive major legislation again. All major bills will be Potemkin at best (like the finance “reform” bill is looking to be), or a further assault (like the health racket bill). In either case they will only seek to further entrench the rackets oppressing us.
7. Anything which is legislated will not be enforced thanks to corruption and capture. We can extend the principle: The law itself is a battleground, and the rule of law in great jeopardy.
8. We don’t need the big banks for recovery, for lending, for international competition, for anything else. All the evidence is that smaller banks provide the real value here, while big banks are not only unable and unwilling to engage in constructive action themselves, but their monopoly power actively hinders the smaller banks.
9. The size of the banks runs counter to our need for a decentralized economy with greater resiliency and robustness. The stimulus has been remarkable for how little money has headed in a constructive direction. This is because of the banks.
10. Only the rich have benefited from the Bailout. Only they will continue to benefit. Everyone else is prey.
11. The banks (and therefore the Bailout) fund the permanent war, which in turn militarizes the country for the benefit of the banks.
12. The stock market is the terrorist wing of finance monopoly. Its purpose is to punish all public interest government action (for example letting the market work in Lehman’s case, or the Congressional rejection in the first Bailout vote). Such punishment is a tool of disaster capitalism, generating the sense of immediate crisis, the Shock Treatment, to terrorize and stampede policy-makers, the media, and the public into allowing or enabling the power and loot grabs.
(On the other hand, it rewards official crime. Thus health insurance stocks have been a barometer of the policy debate on health reform, for example going up after every racket-friendly action on Obama’s part.)
Appendix: The mainstream media’s coverage is systematically biased in favor of corporatism, often atrociously so. The infrequent good articles are accidents, incidental to the media project.
The Bailout is a war upon America. This is Bailout Nation, Bailout America. (We should settle on a name for this debased regime, this perversion of America.)
The basic principles of freedom and humanity tell us that the only measures of an economy’s health, practically and morally, is how well it empowers the people of a society to produce real goods and services for themselves, and how many good jobs it empowers them to create and preserve for themselves.
No other metric has any inherent validity, and nothing else as far as money flow has any value. The rest is just a shell game.
These truths dictate the right positive principle, relocalization, and the necessary negative principle, anti-corporatism. the need to smash the banks. For we are at war.
The call – Smash the banks! Break up Too Big to Fail! Too Big to Fail is Too Big to Exist.
Of any policy we must ask first, What will it do to help Smash the Banks? Of any alleged leader or would-be leader: Where is their call to relocalize? And what have they done to help Smash the Banks?
rene
most look for the past, the lucky seize the moment, the very few look round the corners
At the thinking person level, the economy is mostly a narrative line or another. Sometimes, we feel like joining narratives, yet the ideologues in charge with economic policy would have none of that. This would matter only little had the economic narratives remained constrained to the space of ideas. But economic narratives drive policy and passions, they commingle dialectically with reality.
Looking ahead, in normal times, consists of plotting the dominant narrative in some future, accounting for those kind of medium-term foreseeable changes one can come up with. Our time does not allow such comfort.
The biggest challenge to our capitalist storyline is WAR--assuming no natural cataclysm. I am not taking about war with Iran, though most any war can turn into WAR. Such capital event can be imagined as the result of tension-escalation between a overly sensitive incumbent, magnifying some real or perceived wound, and an incumbent.
I wonder if a renewal of the US Congress with new faces can bring about lawmakers who are more aware of our grassroots-vulnerabilities, -possibilities, and -opportunities. Today, most people in Congress resemble too much the Soviet Politburo in the last years of Brezhnev.
Another challenge, against which the State started preparing after 9/11, is internal unrest. Lacking a support system and facing structural unemployment for years to come, the American fabric may be wearing thin. The legalization of the illegal immigrants can fuel the State for a while longer. Nothing is guaranteed, though. Indeed, think of the leaked names and addresses of the illegal immigrants in the state of Utah. For one, from Utah hail many a patriot, this being the top contributor state to the US Army. For another, such list could only come from inside the power enforcing mechanism... Just as Bradley Manning, who also came from inside the power enforcing mechanism.
If we make it through, the big challenge becomes in structuring a post-capitalist society. Can we get so productive and have such a progressive tax system to (sustainably) land in post-capitalism? To those wishing a return to capitalism I can only say that it's tardy late, unless we are ready to lock ourselves in and wait for about two decades until we can achieve some level of self-sustainability.
In closing, I feel like I also need to stand in for today's elites. If a new world order were to happen things might go on for a few more decades. Several managed crises will be necessary, provided that the sense of injustice won't be too high/widespread. Again, the keyword is "managed."
P.S. At a time I used to be more optimistic I authored "Open Letter, for O8." It was a 7-point summary of what I thought we needed at the time Obama and McCain were presidential candidates in 2008. I think President Obama has done more or less about most points with one exception, Let wages converge lower; I have to say that this is the direction we are moving towards, and the slowness of getting there is commensurate only with the size of the task itself. No easy there!
the voice of big business
Especially at a time like this, views from the commanding heights of American business are a necessity.
Ivan G. Seidenberg, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Washington, DC - June 22, 2010
As Delivered
[Introduction by David Rubenstein, President, Economic Club of Washington.]
Thank you, David, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the very nice introduction. It's very nice to be here this afternoon. The Economic Club of Washington stands at the intersection between policy and business, which is where my Business Roundtable colleagues and I spend a good deal of our time these days. Based on your invitation list I see you've had a number of business leaders here recently to give their prescriptions for putting the U.S. back on the path to growth.
So in my remarks this afternoon I will try to add to this same conversation today. But first, I'd like to tell you a bit about Verizon and the enormously exciting industry we're in.
Before I start though, I might be the only speaker to encourage you to stay on your Blackberries. It's good for business.
Today, almost 2 billion people - about a quarter of the world's population - are connected to the Internet. Twice that many - 4 billion people - have mobile phones, which are themselves becoming smarter and more connected every day. On Verizon's networks alone, we carry more than 1.7 billion text messages, 50 million picture and video messages, 1 billion phone calls, 400 million emails and the equivalent of 4 million full-length movies - all in a single day.
Verizon invests some $17 billion a year to put ourselves in the center of this expanding marketplace.
We operate Internet backbone networks that serve as the digital trade routes for the global economy. We're reinventing our legacy backbone telephone networks around fiber technology capable of delivering 100-megabit capacity directly to customers' homes. In wireless, we operate 3G networks across the country. Later this year, we'll start to roll out our fourth-generation wireless network, which will increase data speeds by up to 10 times and initiate the era of the "Internet of things." Soon, wireless will be embedded in everything we touch, infusing intelligence into all our systems and presenting us with a whole new way to run a home or an enterprise, or even a country.
When it comes to innovation in communications, the U.S. has a clear, decided edge. The smart phone revolution is centered in the U.S. The creation of tens of thousands of wireless applications is a U.S. phenomenon. Our 4G LTE networks - 4th generation networks - will leapfrog the world in wireless. Verizon alone has deployed more fiber-to-the-home than all the countries of Europe, combined. And a new ecosystem of devices, applications and operating systems is coming together around these platforms for innovation, spawning new businesses and driving our industry forward.
America's communications companies have made a big bet on this vision of the future, investing around $130 billion in 2009 alone. Last year, total investment in information and communications technology accounted for an astonishing 43 percent of all non-structural capital investment in the U.S. And while private investment in general fell by almost 23 percent from 2006 to 2009, communications investment rose by almost 9 percent over the same period.
These investments are a major engine of our economy. Businesses report that every dollar invested in Internet technology creates four dollars of value in return. Robert Crandall of Brookings says broadband investment can produce more than half a million new jobs over the next five years, while creating new demand for computers, software, network equipment and applications. And on a global basis, one study estimates the annual economic benefits of the commercial Internet to be $1.5 trillion - more than the global sales of medicine, investment in renewable energy and government R&D investments, all combined.
Broadband, wireless and global IP are at the heart of American competitiveness. At Verizon, we're excited about the future and believe - fervently - that our industry can continue to play a big role in addressing the challenges we face as a country.
Now, it's important that we not throw sand in the gears of this critical growth engine. You may have seen that last week the Federal Communications Commission began a proceeding to establish a new regulatory regime for broadband, which would impose old utility-style regulation on the Internet. We are very concerned that, in attempting to address legitimate issues about access to the Internet, the FCC has proposed basically an unimaginative and overbearing set of rules that essentially tries to retrofit a new industry into an old framework and expand their regulatory reach well beyond what is necessary. As we've said - and as we've demonstrated - communications companies will continue to work with the Commission and the other players in the Internet space to protect customers and ensure an open and robust broadband environment. The FCC's current course of action will really do little to achieve those objectives, but rather will cause uncertainty in the marketplace, create disincentives for investment and make one of the true success stories of the American economy less competitive on the global stage.
***
Now, Competitiveness is also on the minds of the 170 members of the Business Roundtable, which, as David said, I am the chairman. Together, Business Roundtable companies generate more than $6 trillion in revenues and employ more than 12 million people. We account for 60 percent of all corporate taxes, 60 percent of all charitable contributions, and one-half of all private R&D spending in the U.S. Our market capitalization is one-third of the total value of the stock market, and we pay some $167 billion in dividends to individual investors, pension funds and retirement accounts. For every person employed by a BRT company, there are two more employed by the medium and small businesses that supply the goods and services that we need to keep our businesses running.
So obviously, the companies of the Business Roundtable have a huge stake in the success of the American economy. We create jobs all along the food chain. We invent and manufacture and sell the things consumers need. And we have the technology, expertise and capital capacity to play a huge role in contributing to our nation's economic growth.
It should be equally obvious that our collective resources are not being sufficiently engaged.
The BRT has accepted our responsibility as partners in moving the country forward. My colleagues and I have worked closely with policy-makers across the political spectrum on matters from health care to trade and tax policy to energy and climate change. But frankly, we have become somewhat troubled by a growing disconnect between Washington and the business community that is harming our ability to expand the economy and grow private-sector jobs in the U.S. We see a host of laws, regulations and other policies being enacted that impose a government prescription of how individual industries ought to be structured, rather than produce an environment in which the private sector can innovate, invest and create jobs in this modern global economy.
In our judgment, we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore.
In the search for short-term revenue fixes, we're doing long-term damage to growth.
By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.
Meanwhile, without a sufficiently comprehensive focus on growth and jobs, our unemployment rate continues to hover close to 10 percent. The CBO says debt will rise to 90 percent of G.D.P. in 10 years. And last month's job report showed the private sector creating only 41,000 jobs, a figure the Economic Policy Institute says is "nothing closely resembling the job growth needed to dig us out of our very deep hole."
So, from our perspective, it's time to refocus public policy on creating the conditions that will drive private-sector jobs.
Recently, in response to a request from Dr. Peter Orszag of the OMB, the Business Roundtable and the Business Council polled our members about laws, rules and regulations that are inhibiting growth. We summarized our concerns in an extensive report, which we have already delivered to OMB, and I am very much encouraged that the Administration has already reached out to us to set up a process for discussing recommendations and ideas and set the discussion for the future.
From the avalanche of examples included in our OMB submission, let me share some specifics in three categories: taxes, trade and financial reform.
***
One message we heard loud and clear from our members is that the current U.S. tax system is a major impediment to international competitiveness. Our corporate tax rate is the second highest among 30 OECD nations. We're one of only five OECD countries to tax companies on worldwide income. Moreover, since 1990 every other OECD country has lowered its corporate tax rates, while the U.S. is going in somewhat the opposite direction.
Recently, the House passed a tax extender bill containing several provisions that raise taxes on multinational companies. We believe these actions would impair America's competitiveness and harm American workers. Multinational companies account for 63 million jobs, nearly half of U.S. exports and most of the productivity gains in the U.S. economy - facts that need to be taken into account when making tax policy.
Sometimes the problem isn't too much action, but too little. Dividend taxation is one example. Next year, unless the Congress takes action, the tax on dividends is scheduled to rise to that of ordinary income, with rates topping out at 39 percent. On its face, this may seem to be an easy revenue-raising idea. But at a time of extreme market volatility, do we really want to disadvantage stable, dividend-paying stocks - and the retirement funds and millions of long-term dividend investors who depend on them?
Another area in which we fear good intentions will have unintended consequences is financial reform. Clearly, the government has an interest in ensuring a stable financial system, efficient capital markets and ethical and transparent business practices. That's why the BRT completely supports the idea of financial reform. However, we believe some of the current proposals with respect to derivatives and proxy access go a step too far, imposing one-size-fits-all solutions on highly dynamic and diverse businesses. Instead of focusing on the inputs to a transparent and efficient financial system, the proposed reforms will increase risk and volatility at a time when just the reverse is required.
We also see a disconnect between objectives and actions in the area of international trade. The Administration has indicated its intent to double U.S. exports over the next five years, recognizing that with 75 percent of the world's purchasing power and 87 percent of its growth coming from outside the U.S., an export-focused trade policy will grow jobs here at home.
The Business Roundtable agrees wholeheartedly with this goal. But while the European Union is moving ahead in implementing free trade agreements, we have seen very little movement on pending agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea to name a few. Nor have we made it a priority to seek more expansive trade negotiating authority to keep up with foreign competitors.
We also could do more to make America a more attractive destination for foreign direct investment, which fell by nearly 60 percent from 2008 to 2009. Now, to be fair, much of that is due to the global recession. But the truth is, the U.S. share of global capital inflows has been declining for decades. A new survey by Ernst & Young found that, whereas 48 percent of global investors saw North America as a desirable location for investment in 2006, by 2010 this percentage had fallen to just 22 percent. The most attractive market is China, favored by 39 percent. To quote the Ernst & Young study, we're competing for capital in a "new multi-polar world"in which investors can shop the globe for "growth, talent, technology and productivity."
We need to make sure that the U.S. isn't a fly-over zone when it comes to international trade and investment.
***
These are just a few of the issues we have laid out in our response to Dr. Orszag's request. The full report contains literally hundreds of separate actions and decisions that, taken together, create an increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation here in this country.
As I said before, it would be better to re-focus public policy on creating private-sector jobs. In general, among BRT CEOs there is remarkable consensus around a few fundamental pillars to achieve this growth.
First, we need tax policies that promote capital formation. As Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx, noted recently in the Wall Street Journal, the correlation between domestic job growth and business investment is very strong. He calls for an extension of accelerated depreciation tax provisions as a way to give an immediate boost to the economy. According to the Institute for Policy Innovation, every $1 of tax cuts devoted to accelerated depreciation generates about $9 of growth in G.D.P.
Second, we need to increase exports and improve our international competitiveness. Here, the rhetoric from policy-makers has been right but the actions need to be better aligned through an emphasis on trade agreements, corporate tax reform and other initiatives to put us on more competitive footing internationally.
Third point, we need infrastructure investment to create jobs and build the platforms for 21st century growth. Jim Owens, the Chairman and CEO of Caterpillar, points out that since the 1970s, U.S. investment in infrastructure has grown at only half the rate of G.D.P. growth. Roads and bridges are in disrepair and the power grid is inefficient. In particular, we need to upgrade our transportation and energy systems with communications and information technology to create "smart"grids that will radically improve efficiency and productivity. You've heard the story before. Some of this will take public investment, but most can be done by the private sector, if we don't impose so many rules and regulations that it becomes an uneconomic proposition.
The fourth area is education. We fully support the Administration's actions to shore up America's educational system, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math. Verizon is directing more than $25 million this year from our charitable foundation this year to support education, working with partners like the New York Hall of Science, the National Academy Foundation, Jobs for America's Graduates and the many educational partners in our on-line educational resource, Thinkfinity.org. This is also a top priority for the Business Roundtable, which is leading a business-wide initiative to increase the number of American students with college degrees in STEM fields.
And the fifth area of Business Roundtable's CEO focus, we need to promote the innovation and entrepreneurism that are the beating heart of the economy. While the government has a lot of innovation initiatives, we need better focus and coordination in this vital arena. We need a permanent tax credit for research and development, more effective protection for intellectual property, and sustained federal investment in basic research. Both government and private sectors have a critical role to play here. Now, government invented the Internet, mapped the human genome and developed GPS technology - extraordinary advancements. But it took private industry to commercialize these discoveries, develop real businesses around them and make them available to average Americans. There are many areas, from renewable energy to transportation to homeland security protections, where government and industry can and should be working together to develop the technologies that will create new industries and new jobs. To do that, though, we need a more favorable environment for investment and new business formation.
The BRT believes that these five areas - capital formation, exports, infrastructure, education and innovation - are the necessary inputs for creating growth and private-sector jobs. We also believe that, if we can focus on the big goal and stop trying to micromanage industries, we could make real progress in these areas immediately by taking some of the pragmatic, targeted actions I just mentioned.
As further evidence of our commitment to being a good partner to the public sector, the Business Roundtable is forming an initiative around fiscal reform with the goal of providing constructive suggestions and input to government about deficit and entitlement reform. The single most important step government could take to stabilize the financial markets and create an environment for growth would be to show a real commitment to fiscal discipline and a recognition that sustainable growth will only occur when the private sector - not the government - is expanding.
***
Now clearly we have a lot of work to do. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that each $1 billion of capital spending generates about 18,000 new jobs for U.S. workers. This means that if we could stimulate an additional $50 billion in capital spending we could create nearly 1 million new jobs. That same $50 billion in capital would also accelerate productivity growth by one or two basis points a year. Over the past 10 years, U.S. productivity growth has averaged 2.8 percent a year. Raising that by a single basis point -- to 2.9 percent a year -- would raise real incomes for Americans by 1 percent over the next ten years, injecting an additional $200 billion into the economy.
We have so much untapped potential, if we can come together around a pro-jobs economic strategy.
To do that, we need to focus on the inputs required to create investment and private-sector jobs.
We need a world view that embraces engagement abroad to support growth here at home.
Most of all, we need accountable leaders in government as well as the business community who reject the false choices between job creation or deficit reduction, growth or sustainability, serving consumers or investors, managing for the short term or the long term, being profitable or doing things right.
Real leadership isn't about making false choices - it's about finding solutions to real problems.
Every one of us should find it unacceptable that so much capacity for growth is sitting on the sidelines. It's time for us all to raise our game and embrace the power of the private sector that will create real value and real growth for our country. If we work together to unleash the private sector's investment and innovative power, I have no doubt that America can accelerate its competitive footing and lead the world in the industries that will create jobs and raise living standards for many decades to come.
For the US Government view, check this letter from Emanuel&Jarrett
Ivan G. Seidenberg, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Washington, DC - June 22, 2010
As Delivered
[Introduction by David Rubenstein, President, Economic Club of Washington.]
Thank you, David, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the very nice introduction. It's very nice to be here this afternoon. The Economic Club of Washington stands at the intersection between policy and business, which is where my Business Roundtable colleagues and I spend a good deal of our time these days. Based on your invitation list I see you've had a number of business leaders here recently to give their prescriptions for putting the U.S. back on the path to growth.
So in my remarks this afternoon I will try to add to this same conversation today. But first, I'd like to tell you a bit about Verizon and the enormously exciting industry we're in.
Before I start though, I might be the only speaker to encourage you to stay on your Blackberries. It's good for business.
Today, almost 2 billion people - about a quarter of the world's population - are connected to the Internet. Twice that many - 4 billion people - have mobile phones, which are themselves becoming smarter and more connected every day. On Verizon's networks alone, we carry more than 1.7 billion text messages, 50 million picture and video messages, 1 billion phone calls, 400 million emails and the equivalent of 4 million full-length movies - all in a single day.
Verizon invests some $17 billion a year to put ourselves in the center of this expanding marketplace.
We operate Internet backbone networks that serve as the digital trade routes for the global economy. We're reinventing our legacy backbone telephone networks around fiber technology capable of delivering 100-megabit capacity directly to customers' homes. In wireless, we operate 3G networks across the country. Later this year, we'll start to roll out our fourth-generation wireless network, which will increase data speeds by up to 10 times and initiate the era of the "Internet of things." Soon, wireless will be embedded in everything we touch, infusing intelligence into all our systems and presenting us with a whole new way to run a home or an enterprise, or even a country.
When it comes to innovation in communications, the U.S. has a clear, decided edge. The smart phone revolution is centered in the U.S. The creation of tens of thousands of wireless applications is a U.S. phenomenon. Our 4G LTE networks - 4th generation networks - will leapfrog the world in wireless. Verizon alone has deployed more fiber-to-the-home than all the countries of Europe, combined. And a new ecosystem of devices, applications and operating systems is coming together around these platforms for innovation, spawning new businesses and driving our industry forward.
America's communications companies have made a big bet on this vision of the future, investing around $130 billion in 2009 alone. Last year, total investment in information and communications technology accounted for an astonishing 43 percent of all non-structural capital investment in the U.S. And while private investment in general fell by almost 23 percent from 2006 to 2009, communications investment rose by almost 9 percent over the same period.
These investments are a major engine of our economy. Businesses report that every dollar invested in Internet technology creates four dollars of value in return. Robert Crandall of Brookings says broadband investment can produce more than half a million new jobs over the next five years, while creating new demand for computers, software, network equipment and applications. And on a global basis, one study estimates the annual economic benefits of the commercial Internet to be $1.5 trillion - more than the global sales of medicine, investment in renewable energy and government R&D investments, all combined.
Broadband, wireless and global IP are at the heart of American competitiveness. At Verizon, we're excited about the future and believe - fervently - that our industry can continue to play a big role in addressing the challenges we face as a country.
Now, it's important that we not throw sand in the gears of this critical growth engine. You may have seen that last week the Federal Communications Commission began a proceeding to establish a new regulatory regime for broadband, which would impose old utility-style regulation on the Internet. We are very concerned that, in attempting to address legitimate issues about access to the Internet, the FCC has proposed basically an unimaginative and overbearing set of rules that essentially tries to retrofit a new industry into an old framework and expand their regulatory reach well beyond what is necessary. As we've said - and as we've demonstrated - communications companies will continue to work with the Commission and the other players in the Internet space to protect customers and ensure an open and robust broadband environment. The FCC's current course of action will really do little to achieve those objectives, but rather will cause uncertainty in the marketplace, create disincentives for investment and make one of the true success stories of the American economy less competitive on the global stage.
***
Now, Competitiveness is also on the minds of the 170 members of the Business Roundtable, which, as David said, I am the chairman. Together, Business Roundtable companies generate more than $6 trillion in revenues and employ more than 12 million people. We account for 60 percent of all corporate taxes, 60 percent of all charitable contributions, and one-half of all private R&D spending in the U.S. Our market capitalization is one-third of the total value of the stock market, and we pay some $167 billion in dividends to individual investors, pension funds and retirement accounts. For every person employed by a BRT company, there are two more employed by the medium and small businesses that supply the goods and services that we need to keep our businesses running.
So obviously, the companies of the Business Roundtable have a huge stake in the success of the American economy. We create jobs all along the food chain. We invent and manufacture and sell the things consumers need. And we have the technology, expertise and capital capacity to play a huge role in contributing to our nation's economic growth.
It should be equally obvious that our collective resources are not being sufficiently engaged.
The BRT has accepted our responsibility as partners in moving the country forward. My colleagues and I have worked closely with policy-makers across the political spectrum on matters from health care to trade and tax policy to energy and climate change. But frankly, we have become somewhat troubled by a growing disconnect between Washington and the business community that is harming our ability to expand the economy and grow private-sector jobs in the U.S. We see a host of laws, regulations and other policies being enacted that impose a government prescription of how individual industries ought to be structured, rather than produce an environment in which the private sector can innovate, invest and create jobs in this modern global economy.
In our judgment, we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore.
In the search for short-term revenue fixes, we're doing long-term damage to growth.
By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.
Meanwhile, without a sufficiently comprehensive focus on growth and jobs, our unemployment rate continues to hover close to 10 percent. The CBO says debt will rise to 90 percent of G.D.P. in 10 years. And last month's job report showed the private sector creating only 41,000 jobs, a figure the Economic Policy Institute says is "nothing closely resembling the job growth needed to dig us out of our very deep hole."
So, from our perspective, it's time to refocus public policy on creating the conditions that will drive private-sector jobs.
Recently, in response to a request from Dr. Peter Orszag of the OMB, the Business Roundtable and the Business Council polled our members about laws, rules and regulations that are inhibiting growth. We summarized our concerns in an extensive report, which we have already delivered to OMB, and I am very much encouraged that the Administration has already reached out to us to set up a process for discussing recommendations and ideas and set the discussion for the future.
From the avalanche of examples included in our OMB submission, let me share some specifics in three categories: taxes, trade and financial reform.
***
One message we heard loud and clear from our members is that the current U.S. tax system is a major impediment to international competitiveness. Our corporate tax rate is the second highest among 30 OECD nations. We're one of only five OECD countries to tax companies on worldwide income. Moreover, since 1990 every other OECD country has lowered its corporate tax rates, while the U.S. is going in somewhat the opposite direction.
Recently, the House passed a tax extender bill containing several provisions that raise taxes on multinational companies. We believe these actions would impair America's competitiveness and harm American workers. Multinational companies account for 63 million jobs, nearly half of U.S. exports and most of the productivity gains in the U.S. economy - facts that need to be taken into account when making tax policy.
Sometimes the problem isn't too much action, but too little. Dividend taxation is one example. Next year, unless the Congress takes action, the tax on dividends is scheduled to rise to that of ordinary income, with rates topping out at 39 percent. On its face, this may seem to be an easy revenue-raising idea. But at a time of extreme market volatility, do we really want to disadvantage stable, dividend-paying stocks - and the retirement funds and millions of long-term dividend investors who depend on them?
Another area in which we fear good intentions will have unintended consequences is financial reform. Clearly, the government has an interest in ensuring a stable financial system, efficient capital markets and ethical and transparent business practices. That's why the BRT completely supports the idea of financial reform. However, we believe some of the current proposals with respect to derivatives and proxy access go a step too far, imposing one-size-fits-all solutions on highly dynamic and diverse businesses. Instead of focusing on the inputs to a transparent and efficient financial system, the proposed reforms will increase risk and volatility at a time when just the reverse is required.
We also see a disconnect between objectives and actions in the area of international trade. The Administration has indicated its intent to double U.S. exports over the next five years, recognizing that with 75 percent of the world's purchasing power and 87 percent of its growth coming from outside the U.S., an export-focused trade policy will grow jobs here at home.
The Business Roundtable agrees wholeheartedly with this goal. But while the European Union is moving ahead in implementing free trade agreements, we have seen very little movement on pending agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea to name a few. Nor have we made it a priority to seek more expansive trade negotiating authority to keep up with foreign competitors.
We also could do more to make America a more attractive destination for foreign direct investment, which fell by nearly 60 percent from 2008 to 2009. Now, to be fair, much of that is due to the global recession. But the truth is, the U.S. share of global capital inflows has been declining for decades. A new survey by Ernst & Young found that, whereas 48 percent of global investors saw North America as a desirable location for investment in 2006, by 2010 this percentage had fallen to just 22 percent. The most attractive market is China, favored by 39 percent. To quote the Ernst & Young study, we're competing for capital in a "new multi-polar world"in which investors can shop the globe for "growth, talent, technology and productivity."
We need to make sure that the U.S. isn't a fly-over zone when it comes to international trade and investment.
***
These are just a few of the issues we have laid out in our response to Dr. Orszag's request. The full report contains literally hundreds of separate actions and decisions that, taken together, create an increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation here in this country.
As I said before, it would be better to re-focus public policy on creating private-sector jobs. In general, among BRT CEOs there is remarkable consensus around a few fundamental pillars to achieve this growth.
First, we need tax policies that promote capital formation. As Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx, noted recently in the Wall Street Journal, the correlation between domestic job growth and business investment is very strong. He calls for an extension of accelerated depreciation tax provisions as a way to give an immediate boost to the economy. According to the Institute for Policy Innovation, every $1 of tax cuts devoted to accelerated depreciation generates about $9 of growth in G.D.P.
Second, we need to increase exports and improve our international competitiveness. Here, the rhetoric from policy-makers has been right but the actions need to be better aligned through an emphasis on trade agreements, corporate tax reform and other initiatives to put us on more competitive footing internationally.
Third point, we need infrastructure investment to create jobs and build the platforms for 21st century growth. Jim Owens, the Chairman and CEO of Caterpillar, points out that since the 1970s, U.S. investment in infrastructure has grown at only half the rate of G.D.P. growth. Roads and bridges are in disrepair and the power grid is inefficient. In particular, we need to upgrade our transportation and energy systems with communications and information technology to create "smart"grids that will radically improve efficiency and productivity. You've heard the story before. Some of this will take public investment, but most can be done by the private sector, if we don't impose so many rules and regulations that it becomes an uneconomic proposition.
The fourth area is education. We fully support the Administration's actions to shore up America's educational system, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math. Verizon is directing more than $25 million this year from our charitable foundation this year to support education, working with partners like the New York Hall of Science, the National Academy Foundation, Jobs for America's Graduates and the many educational partners in our on-line educational resource, Thinkfinity.org. This is also a top priority for the Business Roundtable, which is leading a business-wide initiative to increase the number of American students with college degrees in STEM fields.
And the fifth area of Business Roundtable's CEO focus, we need to promote the innovation and entrepreneurism that are the beating heart of the economy. While the government has a lot of innovation initiatives, we need better focus and coordination in this vital arena. We need a permanent tax credit for research and development, more effective protection for intellectual property, and sustained federal investment in basic research. Both government and private sectors have a critical role to play here. Now, government invented the Internet, mapped the human genome and developed GPS technology - extraordinary advancements. But it took private industry to commercialize these discoveries, develop real businesses around them and make them available to average Americans. There are many areas, from renewable energy to transportation to homeland security protections, where government and industry can and should be working together to develop the technologies that will create new industries and new jobs. To do that, though, we need a more favorable environment for investment and new business formation.
The BRT believes that these five areas - capital formation, exports, infrastructure, education and innovation - are the necessary inputs for creating growth and private-sector jobs. We also believe that, if we can focus on the big goal and stop trying to micromanage industries, we could make real progress in these areas immediately by taking some of the pragmatic, targeted actions I just mentioned.
As further evidence of our commitment to being a good partner to the public sector, the Business Roundtable is forming an initiative around fiscal reform with the goal of providing constructive suggestions and input to government about deficit and entitlement reform. The single most important step government could take to stabilize the financial markets and create an environment for growth would be to show a real commitment to fiscal discipline and a recognition that sustainable growth will only occur when the private sector - not the government - is expanding.
***
Now clearly we have a lot of work to do. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that each $1 billion of capital spending generates about 18,000 new jobs for U.S. workers. This means that if we could stimulate an additional $50 billion in capital spending we could create nearly 1 million new jobs. That same $50 billion in capital would also accelerate productivity growth by one or two basis points a year. Over the past 10 years, U.S. productivity growth has averaged 2.8 percent a year. Raising that by a single basis point -- to 2.9 percent a year -- would raise real incomes for Americans by 1 percent over the next ten years, injecting an additional $200 billion into the economy.
We have so much untapped potential, if we can come together around a pro-jobs economic strategy.
To do that, we need to focus on the inputs required to create investment and private-sector jobs.
We need a world view that embraces engagement abroad to support growth here at home.
Most of all, we need accountable leaders in government as well as the business community who reject the false choices between job creation or deficit reduction, growth or sustainability, serving consumers or investors, managing for the short term or the long term, being profitable or doing things right.
Real leadership isn't about making false choices - it's about finding solutions to real problems.
Every one of us should find it unacceptable that so much capacity for growth is sitting on the sidelines. It's time for us all to raise our game and embrace the power of the private sector that will create real value and real growth for our country. If we work together to unleash the private sector's investment and innovative power, I have no doubt that America can accelerate its competitive footing and lead the world in the industries that will create jobs and raise living standards for many decades to come.
For the US Government view, check this letter from Emanuel&Jarrett
what i wish i wrote
grusilag
chicago
"John Maynard Keynes was still a practicing economist in those days, and his central insight about depressions — that governments need to spend when the private sector isn’t — was not widely understood."
This still isn't understood. His insight really isn't that governments need to spend. Its that governments need to borrow when the private sector isn't borrowing. The interest bearing debt based economy needs to "grow" constantly. If someone isn't willing to create a larger layer of interest bearing debt to support the previous layer of interest bearing debt then the pyramid will begin to collapse. Today the private sector refuses to go into debt to create this larger layer so governments have to. But now it seems that governments too are refusing to go into debt to create the larger base layer of debt. If no one steps up then the previous layers of the pyramid will collapse - i.e. previous loans will start to default and what will ensue is joblessness, foreclosures and shrinking corporate profits - all of which depend on a constantly growing pyramid of interest bearing debt.
BTW, the reason I keep mentioning interest is because it is the satisfaction of the desire for interest that necessitates a "growing pyramid" - without interest we would have a flatter debt structure and it would debt would be much more sustainable.
Andrew
Colesville, MD
The tragedy of monopoly financial capitalism is that it grabs most surplus of the real economy and contributes almost no economic surplus to society. Its high non-productiveness monopolizes the societal economic activity and renders the low productiveness of the real economy even lower everyday. Enormous over-production hence over-capacity in the real economy make accumulation of profits emaciated whereas monopoly financial capital accumulation outshines its real economy junior partner.
To solve these tragic internal contradictions, the most basic approach is to reduce the over-production and capacity that resulted from competitions on the global market. In good times, the well-employed and –expending middle class of the world would have briskly made the over-produced economy well in hand. Now the heavily indebted and demoralized middle class as a result of the financial crisis wants to buy but finds themselves shy of funds. Are there other ways to break up the siege? Well, war is the most notoriously wasteful and cruel way to do the job of massive consumption of the over-produced goods and then to lift employment by expansion in production. The other way to waste off surplus goods is to buy them from the market and physically destroy or burn them. Both had been adopted during the Hoover Great Depression. The Second World War did indeed solve the problem of severe unemployment due to deflation.
Would a short-term deficit spending and stimulating program extricate the over-production-deflation debacle from the Bush Great Recession and now Obama Depression? Yes, for a short time of period when government spending replaces an anemic private spending but no, for long term. It is not a cure-all strategy but only a temporary relief tactics.
In connection with the deficit-reduction and austerity program, on the other hand, there is the tendency to aggravate bankruptcies and foreclosures, both to so much higher levels, that would serve the purpose of destroying not only surplus goods on the market but also, more importantly, means of production of the capitalists. As a consequence, drastically reduced inventories as well as destroyed capital surplus eventually would emerge over the world, renewed investment and production would start in earnest. The economy would reach its recovery stage, if every unfavorable condition would be made harmless and all conditions propitious to accumulation of capital. The petite and less profitable capital assets, however, would be auctioned off to the big and monopolistic capital, making the capitalist system further monopolized and away from democracy. Thus this deflationary approach would break out the debacle at great social costs of declining working class dignity and status, unemployment, bankruptcy, misery, destitution, and fierce class warfare. A protracted struggle between the two dominant classes would almost certainly engender the Second World Revolution after the first one that broke out in early 20th century. The First World Revolution retreated from the world’s political arena after holding power for almost half a century in the periphery of the capitalist world system. It was incomplete and not without mistakes due to its confinement to only the less developed areas. The Second one will occur most likely in the center because the crisis-prone area is now concentrated in the advanced capitalist countries rather than the peripheral areas as before.
In summary, both the inflationary and deflationary tactics are subpar. They may relieve severity to some extent and temporarily but can never eradicate the poisons of private profits and expropriations of the society-oriented means of production.
Its solutions will have to be sought elsewhere in the radical political economies.
chicago
"John Maynard Keynes was still a practicing economist in those days, and his central insight about depressions — that governments need to spend when the private sector isn’t — was not widely understood."
This still isn't understood. His insight really isn't that governments need to spend. Its that governments need to borrow when the private sector isn't borrowing. The interest bearing debt based economy needs to "grow" constantly. If someone isn't willing to create a larger layer of interest bearing debt to support the previous layer of interest bearing debt then the pyramid will begin to collapse. Today the private sector refuses to go into debt to create this larger layer so governments have to. But now it seems that governments too are refusing to go into debt to create the larger base layer of debt. If no one steps up then the previous layers of the pyramid will collapse - i.e. previous loans will start to default and what will ensue is joblessness, foreclosures and shrinking corporate profits - all of which depend on a constantly growing pyramid of interest bearing debt.
BTW, the reason I keep mentioning interest is because it is the satisfaction of the desire for interest that necessitates a "growing pyramid" - without interest we would have a flatter debt structure and it would debt would be much more sustainable.
Andrew
Colesville, MD
The tragedy of monopoly financial capitalism is that it grabs most surplus of the real economy and contributes almost no economic surplus to society. Its high non-productiveness monopolizes the societal economic activity and renders the low productiveness of the real economy even lower everyday. Enormous over-production hence over-capacity in the real economy make accumulation of profits emaciated whereas monopoly financial capital accumulation outshines its real economy junior partner.
To solve these tragic internal contradictions, the most basic approach is to reduce the over-production and capacity that resulted from competitions on the global market. In good times, the well-employed and –expending middle class of the world would have briskly made the over-produced economy well in hand. Now the heavily indebted and demoralized middle class as a result of the financial crisis wants to buy but finds themselves shy of funds. Are there other ways to break up the siege? Well, war is the most notoriously wasteful and cruel way to do the job of massive consumption of the over-produced goods and then to lift employment by expansion in production. The other way to waste off surplus goods is to buy them from the market and physically destroy or burn them. Both had been adopted during the Hoover Great Depression. The Second World War did indeed solve the problem of severe unemployment due to deflation.
Would a short-term deficit spending and stimulating program extricate the over-production-deflation debacle from the Bush Great Recession and now Obama Depression? Yes, for a short time of period when government spending replaces an anemic private spending but no, for long term. It is not a cure-all strategy but only a temporary relief tactics.
In connection with the deficit-reduction and austerity program, on the other hand, there is the tendency to aggravate bankruptcies and foreclosures, both to so much higher levels, that would serve the purpose of destroying not only surplus goods on the market but also, more importantly, means of production of the capitalists. As a consequence, drastically reduced inventories as well as destroyed capital surplus eventually would emerge over the world, renewed investment and production would start in earnest. The economy would reach its recovery stage, if every unfavorable condition would be made harmless and all conditions propitious to accumulation of capital. The petite and less profitable capital assets, however, would be auctioned off to the big and monopolistic capital, making the capitalist system further monopolized and away from democracy. Thus this deflationary approach would break out the debacle at great social costs of declining working class dignity and status, unemployment, bankruptcy, misery, destitution, and fierce class warfare. A protracted struggle between the two dominant classes would almost certainly engender the Second World Revolution after the first one that broke out in early 20th century. The First World Revolution retreated from the world’s political arena after holding power for almost half a century in the periphery of the capitalist world system. It was incomplete and not without mistakes due to its confinement to only the less developed areas. The Second one will occur most likely in the center because the crisis-prone area is now concentrated in the advanced capitalist countries rather than the peripheral areas as before.
In summary, both the inflationary and deflationary tactics are subpar. They may relieve severity to some extent and temporarily but can never eradicate the poisons of private profits and expropriations of the society-oriented means of production.
Its solutions will have to be sought elsewhere in the radical political economies.
condensed thoughts
The just concluded G-20, where the US was part of a minority of 3 calling for more spending, countries agreed to disagree, otherwise the default option in a quickly diverging (unraveling?) world.
On the one hand, smaller countries may be reluctant to keep spending, thus growing deficits and possibly losing some of their sovereignty--see Greece, that little economy that was used to remind some that they cannot undo 50 years of prosperity just by offering savings and trade alternatives to the dollar.
On the other hand, if the US believes in stimulus, what's there to stimulate anymore, besides deficit-growing consumption? The US move could be seen as an effort to make to world in the eyes of the bond-holders/buyers equally leveraged.
All in all, I expect that what I wrote more than 2 years ago to increasingly become part of our daily lives, protectionism. Who said that the renewal part of capitalism was fun?
Given the current strengthening of the power of the US executive branch, I wonder how prepared the system will be to cope with a downward readjustment. On paper, the government and the corporations look stronger by the day. In reality, a major diversion will be required to put all that in motion.
On the one hand, smaller countries may be reluctant to keep spending, thus growing deficits and possibly losing some of their sovereignty--see Greece, that little economy that was used to remind some that they cannot undo 50 years of prosperity just by offering savings and trade alternatives to the dollar.
On the other hand, if the US believes in stimulus, what's there to stimulate anymore, besides deficit-growing consumption? The US move could be seen as an effort to make to world in the eyes of the bond-holders/buyers equally leveraged.
All in all, I expect that what I wrote more than 2 years ago to increasingly become part of our daily lives, protectionism. Who said that the renewal part of capitalism was fun?
Given the current strengthening of the power of the US executive branch, I wonder how prepared the system will be to cope with a downward readjustment. On paper, the government and the corporations look stronger by the day. In reality, a major diversion will be required to put all that in motion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
The 2nd installment of wikileaks, Cablegate , has been partially released, as in 1/000. The story behind the whole data-spill seems to hav... -
A little less than 3 years ago, I commented about the unfolding episode of WikLeaks . [...] a smart young man, driven by patriotism, enlis...
-
Capitalism is itself an artifact, based on a fiction. Sooner or later, it runs out. Some of its plot elements are property, law, innovatio...
-
A recent NYTimes article informs us about the Chinese plan to redirect massive amounts of water to their dry north from their wet south. H...
-
That Obama has overtaken Bush II is a fact that comes to show who's not in charge at the White House. So, as if doubling up in Afghani...
-
This past winter, during a half-day stopover in Paris, I took to its streets, wandering more or less aimlessly. Near the Archives nationale...
-
"I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy...
-
I have been writing about the too big for our good capitalist entities for some time now (e.g., here ). The NewScientist features "a... -
I remember when I was a corporate cog waiting for the time to pass and call it a day. Until I realized it was my own time I was in effe...
-
By Susanne Beyer and Lothar Gorris Italian novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco, who is curating a new exhibition at the Louvre in Paris, ta...
Posts
