| COLD WAR AND GLOBALIZATION - WAR RESTITUTION IN AMERICA |
http://groups.google.com |
| Robert Morpheal, Bob Ezergailis, Morphealism (morpheal@yahoo.com) |
2008/11/25 21:08 |
COLD WAR AND GLOBALIZATION : WAR RESTITUTION IN AMERICA
You have to understand that in globalization capital, that is money,
keeps flowing out, like blood from an open gaping wound. There is no
tourniquet of regulation to stop the flow.
Globalization meant capital flowed out of the USA. Money supply
remained regulated. From all reports it still is strictly regulated.
However lending remains largely unregulated. There are no definite
clear, nationally legislated standards for lending and borrowing. It
seems to have become more and more of a free ("enterprise") for all
involved. Do what thou wilt, and don't give a damn about anyone seems
to the whole of the law. There was a time when you had to have
adequate collateral to secure a loan and that did not include shaky
foreign investments, potentially worthless derivatives, and other
even
more worthless paper presented as "worthiness". A lot of that
borrowed money goes out the door and never returns. In many instances
they might as well be armed thieves carrying it out in suitcases,
robbing the bank, because you will never see any significant part of
it again. Not on American soil. It is the middle men closing the
deals, brokering it out the door, that fool you. They at least look
like Americans. Some even sound like Americans, but that is not as
much the case as it used to be. So where did the money go ? It
circulated. It still circulates. However, it does not return as
investment in America. It is gone from America. (America is not the
only country that has fallen for that game.)
Now don't imagine those little dividend cheques, ultimately coming
from overseas production and holdings, really return that much
compared to what went out. At least not in the short term. Maybe
never. It depends on how the world economy fares. So be optimistic
that eventually the money comes back, but chances are it doesn't and
won't.
More money will flow out and never return, unless regulated, but that
is not a "free market". Nationalizing industries would help.
Fraudulent instruments and methods have added their impact, as does
lack of a sufficiently stimulating war. War has been the economic
savior more than once in history, but it has to be a big one. Little
skirmishes like Iraq don't do it. That is not stimulating enough. Not
enough things get destroyed to make it a worthwhile altercation. You
need megatonnage of destruction nowadays to really boost the economic
engine.
I estimate that the next big one will leave 3 billion people dead. If
it happens.
Private sector failure, since the 1960s, is partly to blame. If you
leave housing, infrastructure, energy, and everything else of real
importance to the private sector they only do what is most profitable
and ignore everything else. You can see the results everywhere
around
you. More than 30 years of the most public spirited private sector
failure imaginable. Of course there was no real incentive. Every
neighborhood preacher and politician knew that the big apocalypse was
coming. I recall working somewhere, while the world was in the thick
of it, and everyone working there, even though not very religious,
believed that the end of the world was almost upon it. Everyone was
going to die. For sure. No way out of it. Certainly assured
destruction. It was a peculiar feeling to see, hear, those attitudes,
because I knew it was a high probability that exactly that would
happen. They were really being prepared to die as the Cold War became
hotter and hotter. Everyone in North America was being prepared to
die
and to witness the destruction of everything they knew, along with
the
loss of everyone dear to them. That's quite a trauma to inflict as
"preparedness". However, that was what was happening. There was
almost
no chance, in many minds, that we would come through it without a
nuclear exchange destroying most of civilization as we know it. Now,
how is that for disincentive to rebuild, repair and improve
anything ?
Everyone who was brought into any aspect of the Cold War era was
conditioned to expect the worst at any moment. Your friends,
relatives, home, precious things, loved ones, city, countryside, all
gone at any instant. You had to be prepared to function in those
conditions if you were chosen as deemed of any strategic value. If
you
were not deemed to be of strategic value you were simply being
conditioned to die. Those people who were taught to say "we the
people" of the United States of America, the majority who are not
rich, or well off. Many of
whom were, are, remain poor and struggling, deserve restitution for
war damages from their own government.
During the Cold War there was no incentive whatsoever for much of
anything.
That is proven by examining the world around you. We now see the
results more clearly.
What all of that means is that the circumstances demand unprecedented
new public sector, government led and run, initiatives for
rebuilding
America. Government will have to create the money, and control where
it goes. That will use every capable worker for a long time to come.
America may have to nationalize some key industries. That keeps the
money at home, and keeps the reconstruction, of what was so run down,
and neglected, going. Consider it war restitution to all the people,
across a span of several generations who have suffered because of the
war.
Rebuilding a war torn country is not easy. It is not "cheap". It is
never done purely by leaving it to "free enterprise" and "private
concerns". It is a task that the government must take on. The
government of the United States of America must take on its
responsibility to rebuild war torn America, and must become
responsible for restitution, at least to its own population who have
been so deeply harmed, for such a long time, while America
remained at war with the USSR and The Peoples
Republic of China.
Obama might not be the man who can do it. Or is he ? Does he really
even have a clear idea of what it is really about ?
Does he really realize that in the past 30 years we almost lost the
whole planet ?
Now we are in the mess of cleaning up what's left. Luckily, much more
is left than was expected by those planning the future.
Cheers.
Robert Morpheal
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