American Default?
July 27, 2011
Legislation of a debt ceiling does not absolve the US from its obligations.
UPDATE: The 14th Amendment of the Constitution clearly states that Congress must not default on its obligations.
While the USA frantically tried to save the world with a nuclear arsenal they could never use and military overspending on wars that did no good, we see the East’s rise to financial domination by engaging huge numbers of lowly paid workers to export in a way that nobody was able to compete with. If you want something manufactured, get it done in China has been the wisdom of the past 60 years. Market forces!
The agenda of the lever pullers seems to be to froce the USA to default and evade repayment. By making it effectively illegal for the USA to meet its obligations, the USA will have to default. The net effect of the USA not borrowing any more is being described in philosophic terms – what would the result be?
I think the answer to that not yet knowable. But certainly creditor nations will invest elsewhere and perhaps it will be the final straw that breaks US economic hegemony. Time for a new deal?
If Obama was to be effective, he needed the Democratic support in his first two years. Sad that they fiddled while the midterm elections were lost. Back to American isolations, anyone?
The Republican End Game
July 25, 2011
The Republican “end game” would be everything owned by big corporations not necessarily aligned with nations as entities but freely enriching shareholders from anywhere avoiding tax as their earnings are processed where there are no taxes.
If these mega corporations are able to employ everyone for a pittance then we are buying into a return to slavery.
Is this essentially the same model that makes China appear successful? Enslavement of the majority for the benefit of the few. The problem with the Republican End Game is the loss of what America is – the most rewarding economy for invention. As these corporations become less answerable to Government, they become more able to break the covenant of fairness. The Murdoch empire is a case in point. A corporation which supported a culture of law breaking that believed it could do this with impunity, which it did for twenty years before a single case sharpened public revulsion with the practice. That is what democracy does, it pitches the majority against the business interest and belief of an individual who learns that the end justifies the means time and again.
Democracy allows for peaceful revolution. An absence of democratic principles as in the case of Libya demands more severe responses. The essential problem here is a duality where both sides are destructive to each other. A unified system that causes progress according to long term principles appears have delivered stable growth in China for the last 3 decades by enforcing cheap exports to the world while the West has been experimenting with Freedman’s economics, gambling as though it were an addict. When cronyism and corruption abide, and capital exists only for its own maintenance, there are economic distortions that will result in disasters.
The West can rescue itself by very progressive and specific Government spending on the correct programmes. Education for all, being the most important. Obama decided to invest in rescuing mortgages and jobs but with poor returns. The Republicans want to reduce taxes and spending and leave America a first world city state in a third world country.
See also: Huffington Post
OBAMA WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
October 9, 2009
President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said.
“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”
The Economic Recovery
July 31, 2009
Signs of an economic recovery are starting to appear. After recapitalising the financial system, President Obama kept the US economy liquid. This is may have averted more depressing news but as the bankers start to return funds they were lent by the tax payer the question arises, where to now for the US economy?
Real Progress
February 27, 2009
All this focus on the economy may mean we take our attention off the real issue. All the focus on sectional interests and pressure groups that drive the climate change agenda, instead of actual planning to change things that must change is distracting humanity from its mission, its meaning and its life.
Real progress follows talking about it, only if plans are made real without all the political watering down of meaning that occurs.
The Great Swindling
February 25, 2009
It just shows that trust in the power of the inheritance as a way to provide tribal continuity is a mirage. The way to provide for all people is to enable everyone to be able to pick themselves up regardless from what station they started…
Latest article on the inside Disturbing Trends – Predicting Future politics
Bailout is just the start
February 3, 2009
President Obama’s effort to raise funds to inject into the system will have a number of effects. One of them is not “problem solved”. Pretending that providing more capital to the people will somehow reactivate the flattened markets may have been generated by media expectations but it simply is not real.
It is aimed at saving a number of American families from going to the wall while the bankers sort out the stale paperwork. It also addresses the generalized shortage that prevents the middle class from spending, but the over charging by credit card companies combined with hyper aggressive status marketing has led the average consumer into a very expensive position.
More…
Letter to Obama
January 16, 2009
Letters from school children to Mr Obama published in the NY Times included this:
Dear President Obama,
I am small, quiet, smart. I love to swim and play basketball. My mom and dad are from the Dominican Republic. I am going to the Dominican Republic next year. I think you should try to change the world by building shelters for the people who live in the streets. It’s the beginning of January, and it’s cold. Good luck being the president.
— Pamela Mejia, age 11, Boston
Something tells me President Obama will read this letter. Something tells me it is a very good idea. People keep saying “clean up the streets”. This 11 year old smart girl is pointing out that the homeless are people.
The Past and the President
January 12, 2009
Barack Obama hints that he does not really care to upearth the Bush presidency. He is justified, his entire stance is that of a break with “The Past”.
There is nothing to learn from the Bush era.
The End Game
July 22, 2007
While George Bush is under general anesthetic – if Cheney had a medical emergency with one of his quadruple bypasses or Lipitor scheduling error, and Bush did not wake up for a while, we would have an America firmly out of the control of Republicans. Would that mean that any change of direction may occur – perhaps a rush to file papers for impeachment could be a good idea, and get in before the anesthetic wears off. It is what they would do.
Seriously, long shots like medical error on the President while Cheney is cleaning his rifle may change the nature of this crop of Democrats but if an election were to be held today how could a Republican win? The advance media for Hilary is replacing good press day for the President. She is seen as articulate where Bush is heard bumbling. Obama is seen as relevant, alive – where Cheney is only kept alive by modern medical miracles.
Bush is faced with the cost of his primary error. Invading Iraq when he did not absolutely have to, he lost the extraordinary morale high ground granted by the obscenity on the American psyche; and yet as Osama bin Laden is walking free, even if only in their thoughts, the bulk of their military muscle is being exposed to a civil war it started by undoing the chain letter of death threats that was Saddam’s rule.
What it such a good idea? Right-minded Americans find rationales to believe it is of course a good thing – but will American democracy sustain the attack long enough to do any good? These are just excuses to keep the war going indefinitely and are no longer ringing true to the electorate.
Bush will run out of time before ending this war. He will leave it to the next President to sort out, because his domestic agenda will take over. He will suddenly be having to make making handsome gestures to maintain his office.
There is no end game in the foreseeable future unless Mr Bush just cuts and runs from Iraq.
