Speaking of "Unreal", two days ago I answered the phone and received
my first Donald Trump for President plug. The fellow sounded like he
was high on drugs. I thought the same thing, no one in their right
mind would change their vote when hearing this fellow.
But I expect the worst...and hope for something better.
By the way, the "official ground hog" failed to see his shadow. That
fact should point toward a Democratic landslide. At least in the
Groundhog's home town.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/2/20, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
He sounds patronizing. Yesterday, I was trying to get to a link on The
Grayzone website for a video and somehow, got to a link to the wrong video.
It was an advertisement aimed at ultra right wing conservatives for an ultra
right wing newspaper. Talk about patronizing, the tone of voice of the guy
pitching this newspaper was unreal. It sounded like a satire, but it wasn't.
Anyone who would be seduced by that voice into buying that newspaper, has to
have something wrong with their mental capacities.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, February 2, 2020 11:31 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Richard Wolff: Global Capitalism Is Theft
Well said. I actually get more out of Richard Wolff while listening to his
lectures using JAWS. In the Flesh, Richard Wolff sounds very much like my
old high school history teacher. Condescending.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/1/20, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Richard Wolff: Global Capitalism Is Theft Economist and University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, professor Richard Wolff.
(YouTube screenshot)
In modern capitalism, governments routinely borrow money. They do this
to finance budget deficits that occur when governments raise less in
taxes than they spend. Governments also borrow to invest in long-term
projects of economic development. The swindling occurs when the
lenders and borrowers-usually private financiers and career
politicians-negotiate loans that serve their own particular interests
at the expense of the taxpayers who eventually cover the costs of
repaying the government's loans plus interest on them.
If governments raised enough taxes to cover their desired levels of
spending, they would not need to borrow. Taxes imposed on the
wealthiest corporations and individuals would be the most equitable
strategy. The corporate wealthy protest, of course, threatening that
if taxed, they might reduce their contributions to the economy
(investing less, etc.). Most government politicians sympathize with
those protests. Many come from the ranks of the wealthiest
corporations and individuals (or aspire to join them). They share
similar ideologies and depend on campaign donations from them.
Compliant politicians typically exaggerate the negative aspects of
taxing corporations and the rich. They rarely compare them to the
negative effects of the alternatives: taxing middle and lower income
people more or cutting government spending.
Government borrowing to cover budget deficits has its own negative
effects on the economy. Many variables influence the impacts of taxes
and deficit borrowing. Because those variables' effects cannot be
known or measured for years into the future, no one can know which is
better or worse for the economy in the long run. When the corporate
rich and their political allies stress the negative effects of taxes
on the rich they usually carefully neglect the other side of the story
as when advertisers mention only the positive side of whatever they
are paid to promote. Their goals are simply more profits and less taxes.
The class swindle embedded in government borrowing is the
none-too-subtle mechanism whereby the richest sectors of modern
capitalism avoid or replace taxes levied on them with interest-bearing
loans to the same government.
The class swindle goes deeper than one-sided untruths about taxes.
This becomes clear when we identify who lends to borrowing
governments. Banks, big corporations, the 5% wealthiest individuals
and other governments are the chief lenders. They are the same
economic groups (excepting foreign
governments) that press for and get tax cuts such as the Trump/GOP tax
reduction of December 2017. That particular tax cut increased the
federal budget deficit to over $ 1 trillion in 2019. The same
politicians who facilitate tax reductions for banks, big corporations,
and the wealthiest individuals likewise then facilitate government
borrowing money from them.
The class swindle embedded in government borrowing is the
none-too-subtle mechanism whereby the richest sectors of modern
capitalism avoid or replace taxes levied on them with interest-bearing
loans to the same government.
What a deal for the rich who thus exchange taxes (assets lost) for
loans (assets and income gained)! And what a deal for their political
servants:
leaders who can spend more to buy votes and secure donations without
having to tax anybody because they can borrow instead. And by the time
the mass of taxpayers watching all this grasps the swindle perpetrated
on them, those leaders have moved up their political ladders. Their
replacements will then respond to popular anger by ostentatiously
raising taxes less or maybe even cutting them in favor of, yet again,
borrowing. As this can gets kicked down the road, its explosive
potential builds.
Deficit finance-the polite veneer for this swindle-deepens inequality
in the United States and everywhere else it is practiced. It
redistributes wealth from the mass of people (taxpayers) to the
richest who "save" by means of lower taxes and then "invest" those
"savings" in government loans. In transferring money from the many to
a few, deficit finance operates like a lottery.
A different but parallel sort of swindle occurs when governments,
especially in "emerging economies" (Asia, Africa, Latin America, and
so on), borrow from banks and other lenders in the "advanced
industrial economies." Here the perpetrators are, on the one side,
bankers and other lenders eager to make profitable loans to foreign
governments. On the other side are government politicians eager to
borrow. The latters' eagerness flows from two sources. The first is
the need to secure their political careers by funding economic
development projects that could not otherwise occur because those
politicians fear the electoral results of using taxes to pay for the
projects. The second is their ability to divert, legally or otherwise,
sizable portions of the loans they procure to finance themselves and
their parties in addition to (or even instead of) their development
projects.
These lenders and borrowers gather easily in expensive hotels to
negotiate wondrous "development loans" nicely serving both their
needs. The loans are backed, of course, by the borrowing country's
ability to tax its citizens and/or sell its natural resources and/or
sell its government operations to pay off the loans and the interest
on them. Given such loans' high profitability, they can and often do
run for years before outraged local citizens revolt and refuse to keep
paying. Then the country declares bankruptcy amid threats and
lamentations on all sides. Eventually, what remains of the loan is partly
or wholly forgiven. No problem: the lenders'
profits were already reaped, the career benefits achieved. Soon the
whole process begins again.
The organization and manipulation of government debts (to finance
budget deficits and development projects) have been core components of
world capitalism's real history for centuries. The system fosters those
swindles.
The system also rejects or ignores the critics of those swindles
including Modern Monetary Theorists, Marxists, and "populists" of
varying persuasions.
Change comes when finally the swindle's critics and its victims merge
to end it.
Richard Wolfe
Richard Wolff /
