Original text and editing by:
A G Kaiser
email to
agkaiser1@gmail,com
When we’re all rich and live on our investments no one will have to work. There will be no poverty or slums. We’ll all have a PH.D. What a glorious vision it is! If hunter gatherers had envisioned the service economy 20,000 years ago the human race would have achieved its glorious end long before any of US were born. . . .
"A good slave works for food alone."
Volume V Issue 10:
Walmart is the biggest Arizona employer. The states health care system, for the underprivileged, says its rolls contain many Walmart Employees. A spokeswomen for Walmart said employees are offered a good in house health plan. Others say they can’t afford the optional plan and also pay the rent or feed their families. The spokesperson denied that Walmart encourages employees to enroll for public assistance health care. A local PBS station’s news program is my source.
The geniuses running our corporations and their subsidiary government want to protect the profit from the intellectual property they own. The “products” were created under contract by a dwindling number of American engineers and are the basis of our increasingly abstract [financial] industry. As China, India et al. graduate more engineers to create innovative products, the demand for America’s aging and increasingly obsolete line [of hireling ideas] will phase out. If our moron/leaders are successful at coercing the Chinese Communist Government (what are the odds?) into recognizing the rights of the capital masters, it will be an empty victory. Besides military and strategic high tech, like AEGIS, and paper, our corporations have nothing to sell. The money our masters got for selling the Chinese our real wealth of manufacturing infrastructure has disappeared in the Cayman Islands. If we want our power to produce wealth back we must intimidate the Chinese. Think they’ll finance the war by loaning US our money back?
I think the "socialist market," under the guidance of the Communist Government of China, will display respect for our corporate masters’ intellectual property rights as long as we continue investing in their manufacturing capacity and infrastructure. Implied in the excerpt above is the goal of eliminating poverty. Regardless of the progress they’ve made, they still need our help, for a little while yet. I suspect their poverty, coincidentally, is inversely proportional to ours.
The imaginary part of our complex economy is growing. Most know that you can’t make something from nothing. Perpetual motion is impossible. The service/ownership economy moves people and money around in a spiraling motion away from any real product :: real wealth. It is a dissipative system moving in the direction of all investors and no real workers to produce real products. [Editor’s note: Products of the imagination, intellectual properties, are hard to secure. When such imaginary products are produced under contract or purchased by some Mega XNAT, the creator benefits little compared to the monster that owns our thoughts before we think them. The Chinese probably see themselves as liberators. Besides, "plagiarism is the basis of all culture." - I heard Pete Seeger say that but he may have borrowed it from someone else.] Anyone with half a brain can see the obvious end to the road, if they’re willing to look. That small group obviously does not include economists.
If you wish to help, contact me: agkaiser@yahoo.com
Please, copy the "The Times" to an e-mail composition or print it out. Send or give it to ten people. Unlike our economy, this is a pyramid scheme that can work. If this has been forwarded to you and you wish to be added to the list to receive direct notification of the posting of new issues, put Collector Request in the subject and e-mail to: agkaiser@hotmail.com
The high cost of Medicine is certainly exacerbated by pharmaceutical, insurance and other medical corporate profits. These and corporate provider profits, including Frist-HCA’s [Hospital Corporation of America] looting of the Treasury contribute to the reason, are likely the greatest cause, that no health care is available to 45 million Americans. Corporate parasites seek liability relief and blame government insolvency on the victims. They claim the mythical "Welfare Cadillac" and medicare or medicaid for the elderly and poor are responsible for dissipating the economy and treasury. The truth is: fraudulent medicare/medicaid billing, like that which resulted in the $1.7 billion fine paid by the Frist family, is the real reason universal health care is not affordable for America. Sadly, most thralls believe the master’s lies.
Abrogation of responsibility by renegade corporations and the rising cost of health care result in robbing the elderly of medical benefits that were anticipated retirement entitlements. Such earnings are delayed compensation for the work they did all their lives. The government and our tax money may be burdened with pensions and medical care for the retirees and current employees of United and US Airways, who are already in Chapter 11. Two more airlines, Delta and Northwest, recently declared bankruptcy and may have underfunded pensions, just like so many other irresponsible corporations. Delphi, GM’s parts supplier, is bankrupt. Legacy pensions are at risk. [legacy, vested before the great cost cutting dis-pension-nation] Will the government bail out the newest players of this popular con game? GM is suspected of having [deliberately and legally] underfunded pensions. They deny it. Well, at least the neo-con artists haven’t been able to get their hands on our social security . . . yet! What are your vulnerabilities?
The effect on real industries of monster health care costs is to promote outsourcing and other economy destroying cost cutting, to sustain and increase profit, for the benefit of paper people. Corporate protection takes place at the expense of real consumer/taxpayers, who are the ultimate source of all profit and taxes. The greatest part of medical and all costs, are the profits of the parasites that afflict the host community. Mega Oil profits are a great part of the burden on the American people and threaten general insolvency. They have obviously overwhelmed the government, who appear paralyzed except to give the poor oil companies more of our national property and tax money. Are the government subsidies compensation for plundering American’s at the pump by allowing Mega Oil to loot the Treasury, with the blessing of President Oil? Will a general strike get the attention of all these parasites and remind them that the ultimate source of all profit is consumer/taxpayers, who buy their products? It will take some economic catastrophe to convince anyone that privatization doesn’t work and that the burden of insurance, healthcare, transportation, energy and communications on our economy and lives must be minimized to minimize their threat their profit poses to our individual and community survival. To reduce our risk we must minimize the profit of these services. Minimum profit is non profit. Let the rich corporate masters work for their own living. And remind the politicians that they’re our servants.
From Democracy Now:
"Recently, House Republican leaders pushed through a bill to make it easier for oil companies to build new domestic refineries. The bill passed 212-210 but only because the house leadership extended the vote by 40 minutes during which time two Republicans switched their vote. The legislation will streamline government permits for refineries, open federal lands for future refinery construction, weaken environmental protections, and offer subsidies to build refineries even though oil companies are making record profits. . . .
"In the initial vote tally, it looked as if the bill was going down to defeat two votes shy of approval. Democrats called for gaveling the vote closed to no avail. During the extra 40 minutes of voting House Speaker Dennis Hastert, majority whip Roy Blunt and former Majority Leader Tom Delay all pressured other Republicans to change their votes. After the vote, Democrat Henry Waxman asked from the floor, ‘Doesn’t this make the House a banana republic?’" - www.democracynow.org
From the congressional record:
"H.R.3893 -
"Title: To expedite the construction of new refining capacity in the United States, to provide reliable and affordable energy for the American people, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Barton, Joe [TX-6] (introduced 9/26/2005) Cosponsors (None)
Related Bills: H.RES.481
Latest Major Action: 10/7/2005 Passed/agreed to in House. Status: On passage Passed by recorded vote: 212 - 210 (Roll no. 519).
"Gasoline for America's Security Act of 2005 - Sets forth a statutory framework in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to: (1) increase refinery capacity for gasoline, heating oil, diesel fuel, and jet fuel; (2) reduce environmental and other regulations affecting refineries under the Clean Air Act; and (3) coordinate permitting requirements and other regulations affecting refineries at the federal, state, and local levels." - THOMAS -- US Congress
Why do we have de-facto government subsidies for even the most profitable corporations in America, while Americans also create that profit by working for slave wages? And at the end of the day we pay the taxes that subsidize our masters. We know they never have paid their share, even though the taxes they seldom pay do come out of the money we spend on purchases to provide their profit. And Bush has reduced taxes even more for the rich stockholders.
The China Show. Boy, has our team blown it! They’ve pinned their hopes on recognition of intellectual property rights and revaluation of the yuan by the Chinese. I’ll bet they don’t even know there scheme for building up a middle class Chinese market has always been doomed. The Chinese aren’t stupid enough to buy back their own products at a markup. And it doesn’t matter to their Communist Government whose investments built up their industry and infrastructure once they have them on their own soil. Idiots!
"‘On the currency issue, China will move forward in a step-by-step manner in line with its goal, but we will not take direction from other people. . . . Any decision will not be based on trade deficits with certain countries but will be based on China's overall trade balance with the rest of the world.’ - Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing,
"Snow [US Treasury Secretary John Snow] pressed China to let the yuan rise more quickly to help reduce the United States' big trade deficit with China, which reached [should be "rose by" - editor]$162 billion last year.
"He said China, which revalued the yuan by 2.1 percent on July 21 and scrapped its long-standing dollar peg, was reforming its exchange rate system according to its national interests.
"‘China did not want an excessively high trade surplus, but was thwarted in its desire to buy more from "certain countries,"’ Jin said, in a thinly veiled reference to U.S. export controls that prevent the sale of some high-tech items to China.
"Jin said China did not want a rapid increase in its foreign exchange reserves, which have been building up quickly thanks to the trade surplus, foreign investment, and large inflows of speculative money betting that the yuan will rise in value.
"Asked about the make-up of China's reserves, which reached $711 billion at the end of June, Jin said Beijing would continue to invest a good chunk of them in US government bonds.
"’A large part of them are being invested in US Treasury bonds. This is the policy that has been set and it will not be changed because it benefits both sides,’ Jin said." - 2005-10-13 14:38 --http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/--
"Chinese President Hu Jintao said that Asia's fastest growing country is planning to quadruple its GDP to US$4 trillion by 2020, with the per capita GDP reaching US$3,000. . . .
". . . The number of the poor has dwindled from some 250 million in 1978 to 26 million nowadays, which Hu said is a marked contribution to the world's progress. . . .
". . . China will keep opening up its market, find new ways of using foreign capital, improve on legislation and regulations for encouraging and protecting foreign investors, revamp foreign economic management, step up protection of intellectual property rights, and work still harder to help foreign investors and create an even better environment for trade and cooperation between China and the world, he addressed. . . .
". . . Since 1949, when the New China was proclaimed, and particularly since the implementation of reform and opening-up program pioneered by Mr. Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China has undergone a profound transformation never seen in the country before. In a short span of 26 years from 1978 to 2004, China's GDP increased from 147.3 billion US dollars to 1.6494 trillion US dollars with an average annual growth rate of 9.4 percent. Its foreign trade rose from 20. 6 billion US dollars to 1.1548 trillion US dollars, averaging an annual growth rate of over 16 percent. China's foreign exchange reserve increased from 167 million US dollars to 609.9 billion US dollars. . .
". . . We must stick to the direction of reform for a socialist market economy . . ." - (chinadaily.com.cn/Xinhua) Updated: 2005-05-16 20:55
There's nothing wrong with capitalism, except that it's an impossible pyramid scheme that concentrates wealth and power among an elite economic class, who are akin to a feudal aristocracy. The economic elite appear to be the moral and spiritual heirs of the lords of old and the Roman Empire before them.
The neo-conned dupes of capitalism endlessly repeat the mantra, "supply and demand,"thereby obediently serving their money god. The second and more common (but subtle) reinforcement of propaganda delusions is the contained perpetuation of the distortion of Adam Smith’s economic theory, which didn’t ignore the impossibility of an ever expanding market, because it knew the real market consisted of the trade of real goods, not money. Finance is not an asset. It can’t be counted as growth. It is a debt, a liability. The stock market pyramid scheme of debt trading contributes nothing but its dead weight burden to the real economy of production and consumption.
Does that last paragraph sound like it’s recycled from last month’s "Times?" Well, I changed a couple of words but I won’t apologize. It bears repeating, over and over again!
Is stock debt or ownership? The notion that ownership of stock is ownership of the corporation that issued it is a common delusion. If stock was purchased when issued, the investment helped finance an enterprise. There is no requirement for an entity which finances it’s operation with a stock sale to repay that debt or even a dividend on it. You can sell the stock on the market, if you can find a buyer. If your trading of the imaginary commodity we call stock, which is really borrowed capital, is successful, you can buy real products and property with the profits. No such abstract activity increases the amount of real goods in the world. But with the help of Federal Reserve Banks, a consortium of private banks, to whom congress has delegated it’s constitutional responsibility of minting coin etc., more money may be created to represent the same amount of goods. If you can’t see where this is going, you haven’t been paying attention.
money = profit [financial]; //imaginary
profit on trade of real goods; //complex
The impoverishment of consumers correlates to the increase of imaginary component of money due to the growing proportion of economy that’s abstract. All outsourcing is complex, with the greatest part imaginary, i.e. financial. In the Biblical sense, all money made off money is usury. It expands the money supply without increasing the number of goods. As people must borrow to consume and live, while having incomes limited to increase profits further and support the totally imaginary and parasitic profit of the financial industry, the hole we're digging can only get deeper. We may not know how deep the bottom will be but the increase in bankruptcies is an indication of the efficiency of the abstract economy's power shovel. And trying to stop it by criminalizing poverty [the direction of "bankruptcy reform"] or the mere tightening bankruptcy eligibility that’s taken place so far, is like prosecuting a rape victim to protect the rapist.
Dissipative economy in the service of an elite few is what is. It can’t work, because it is a pyramid scheme. There are two types of people who defend the status quo. One is the kind who is, wants to be or thinks he is in on the scam. This person sees a "good thing going" and will not see it changed, "on his watch." The other kind of person is an ideologue/fool. There is a an almost total union between these sets. In fact, the former can be said to be a subset of the latter, if you include the inability or unwillingness to see the impossibility of the Ponzi that concentrates wealth as the ratiocinations of fools.
What’s really going on with stock corporations may also fit two compatible paradigms. In the first, the economic elite finance entrepreneurs. The burden of providing profit for the stockholders limits the probability of success of any new endeavor. The choice of where to make their investments gives control of the future of human race to those who acquired capital in the past. This line, though with some families displaced by successful nouveau riche, can be traced back to feudal times. Capitalism of this form helps to secure the wealth of those who have it. Their profit is the community’s loss. They are and always have been parasites that feed on individual profit from the communities we formed for our common good.
The profit of all enterprises is ultimately based on the purchases of the consumer/taxpayers of the general community of the human race. In the first place, the organized efforts of communities are required to create any material product that may be sold at a profit. In the case of the second model for stock corporations, the capital for the initiative is also gathered from the community in the form of consumer stock purchases. In most cases the two paradigms, elite or general stock ownership, operate simultaneously, with the former source of investment dominating the latter. In the cyclic stock market crashes it is mostly the latter who lose their investments. This, of course, is true of any Ponzi or pyramid scheme.
Greg Kaiser