 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
BLOGS
Links: local area political directory
|
Guest
Blog: An Address to a steelmaker's convention held at the Detroit
Athletic Club in March of 2004 by Bill O'palicky THE THEOLOGY OF CUPIDITY: AN EXCURSION INTO FICTIONAL ECONOMICS No doubt, The Holy American Empire has neither epicenter nor periphery. So the trans- corporate elites, which rule the sway, have zero concern for the well being of the American citizenry: The view from the luxury suites is one of fragmented profit-centers. The view from the bleachers is a hazy vision of an ongoing con game with perpetually altered and ambiguous rules. And, no doubt, The Holy American Empire is a persistent and imposed agglutination for the sake of a few at the expense of so many.
The dog salivates because it has been programmed to make a false connection between unrelated events (food and a ringing bell). Thus we condone the murder of legions of the innocent in a spin on greed called “national security” or “freedom and democracy”. “Protecting America’s interests” is a buzz phrase to justify military intervention to situate and/or protect off shore investments of the ultra rich—another form of corporate welfare. This behavior is an economic waste.
From the trans-corporate slant, it makes perfect sense to spend ten dollars of taxpayer money to “earn” one privatized dollar. The current economic system in the United States is neither Darwinistic capitalism nor laissez faire. The multinationals’ adhesion of the executive, legislative and judicial branches have laid to rest the notion the state remains indifferent to trade, industrial and, most certainly, monetary affairs. But it is also clear not all business concerns share in the blessings of only select industries owning shares in a government.
The family farmer has been under siege by the agro-corps, independent manufactures are at the mercy of mega corps; the Wal-Martazation of Everywhere, America is crushing small retailers under it’s concrete foot; ten (soon to be less) mass media-multinational corporations own and control 99% of all news-reportage apparatus. The money supply is in the control of “The Fed”, a privately owned financial monopoly, which is designed to lube the greasy hands of the plutocracy, and keep at bay the reality of prosperity for all. Yet, there is not a single trans-mega-corps that could remain viable without the tribute rendered by the taxpayers of America. Even with the assistance of large sums of public monies, some of these corporate Cyclops’ have fallen upon their own excretion. Witness Enron. This behavior is an economic waste.
The trans-corporatists are fond of “free trade”, as long as it is corporations that benefit and not disadvantaged citizens. Take the recently passed Drug Bill. Not only will this sham not benefit most folks, but much of the public funds appropriated will go as pork to be fed to the privately owned drug companies and HMO’s. And to buy competitively priced medicine offshore? Well, they made it illegal. How ’bout reducing the price of prescription drugs by allowing the federal government to negotiate with the manufactures? The Drug Bill says we can’t allow that. Go half a world away and purchase medicine manufactured in the United States for less than half the domestic price. Go figure.
The Patriot Act has a provision to insure restitution to the multinationals if “terrorists” were to damage their offshore tangible assets. The insurer, of course, is the American taxpayer. Through recent changes in the corporate bankruptcy laws, the obligation to settle many legacy costs connected to failed corporations defers to the American taxpayer. Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent over the last several decades to cover the greed and misdeeds of corporate executives. From the Savings and Loan scandal of the ’80’s to sweetheart deals between mega-corps, such as Enron and Halliburton and “our” government, there remains a trail of fraud at the expense of the American taxpayer. This behavior is an economic waste.
The delusive language employed by legislators as headings for various laws is pure Orwellian. Farm Aid? The main beneficiaries for this 40 billion bucks worth of pork are the giant agro-corps, not needy family farmers. The exemplifications are legion. The environmental laws, the Clean This, Clean That legislations, are nothing more than taxpayers paying to cart away toxic excrement of corporate polluters. Often, fines levied against these polluters are far less than the costs they would incur if they were to operate in a more eco-friendly way. (Wink, wink!) You can put all the perfume you want on a hog, but it will not alter the nature of the beast.
Five-dozen prominent scientists, a third of whom are Nobel laureates, have recently issued a statement condemning the Bush regime for enacting policies that enrich the multinationals while having a destructive effect on the environment, health and biomedical research at home and offshore. Dr. Kurt Gottfried, an emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University, stated that the Bushites have “a cavalier attitude towards science” that is risky for America’s long-term prosperity, health and military strength. Another concern raised by these influential scientists is the current administration’s reckless affection with nuclear weaponry. This behavior is an economic waste.
“Beach Closed”, “No Swimming” and “Swim At Own Risk” signs are a glaring reminder of “our” local, state and federal government’s failure to deal with the wicked impact on the environment by developers, and to sufficiently fund the maintenance of “our” infrastructure. There never seems, however, to be a shortage of government funds to help finance the creeping onslaught of corporate-land-grabbing-expansion. Development in flood planes and areas prone to spark devastating fires are insured by the generosity of the American taxpayers. The policies of “our” government have clearly exhibited labyrinthic thinking: confusing commodity with resource, all the while socializing cost and privatizing gain. Nestlé’s sucking up water in western Michigan and the Manistee coal plant proposal are prime examples.
The National Institute of Medicine has reported that twenty thousand folks (at least) die in the United States each year because they lacked access to health care. The US is the only western industrialized nation that does not offer health insurance to all of its citizens. And we spend double per capita on a for-profit health care system than other countries that insure all of their citizens by public means. And, compared to these nations, we are at the bottom of the totem in terms of life expectancy and the infant mortality rate. According to corporate dogma, all is for sale; compassion is for those that can afford it. This behavior is an economic waste.
So, other nations provide heath-care coverage to all of its citizens, but we have bigger and better bombs. And we have a military presence in over half the countries on Planet Earth. Over a million heavily armed US military personnel romp about on four continents—America’s tax dollars at work! Veritably, “our” country’s defense spending exceeds the next 20 largest defense budgets in aggregate. While both federal and state governments pursue extreme cutbacks in social programs, costly wars of choice have contributed to the moral and economic bankruptcy of “our” nation.
The major growth industry within the United States is the politico-police-prison-judicial complex. While other advanced nations are decriminalizing certain nonviolent conduct, “our” country’s prison population is swelling. Most folks trapped in this legal maze have committed nonviolent “crimes”, and a large percentage has been railroaded. Engineering criminals has become big business and job security for the incarcerators—America’s tax dollars at work! This behavior is an economic waste.
In the world of fictional economics there are no standards. Therefore, a handful of plutocratic arbitrators are engaged in monetary phantasmagorias, which tend not only to benefit the wealthy, but also impoverish an ever-increasing number of citizens, who are crucified upon altars of greed. Topical economic thinking is fixated upon an immediate return on capital, ravenous consumption and labor arbitrage. Bereft of light, the financial bubbleheads have not considered that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater.
The American wage-earner-taxpayer is like a person who is forced to dig his or her own grave: The largest percentage of tax-raised monies is used to sustain the multinationals, which, in turn, aggressively export wage-earner-taxpayer jobs. Cheap imported goods are fine if there are enough folks left who can afford them. A jobless consumer is a misnomer. And in 2003 a record 1.6 million jobless consumers went bankrupt. The financial bubbleheads hallucinate a system that suggests economic actions will be void of reactions. This behavior is an economic waste.
In the world of fictional economics, financial engineering is much more profitable than engineering real stuff. Almost 50% of GE’s profits are from finance. The major source of profit for GM in ‘03 did not come from its manufacturing concerns, but from GMAC, its financial wing. In the early1980’s, the WSJ reported that GM had shown a profit of $170 million in its fiscal year instead of a $30 million loss as initially reported. How did they do it? Well, they changed their “accounting procedures”. In some cases, corporate books have been cooking for years.
Many of you in the steel business know that the planet’s most infamous book cooker, Enron, sought to become the largest steel broker in the world. They had enough fictitious capital to buy mega tons of metal from domestic steel producing mills shortly before they collapsed. Their game plan was to market product thru e-commerce. Any hands-on material manager knew the fallacious business reasoning behind such a practice. Still, this was considered a serious threat by the powers that be within the steel industry. A lesser-known fact concerning Enron was its attempt several years earlier to corner the world’s water supply. Would it shock you to know that the WTO considers water to be a commodity, not a resource? This behavior is an economic waste.
I do believe in the value of free trade—as long as it is based on what Econ grads call “comparative advantage”. This country has an abundance of fruit; that country has an excess capacity of veggies. Why not trade your surpluses? Cross border activity can be fun, mutually profitable, and a great way to meet people and make new friends. But, as we practice it, trade often threatens that which we should not be willing to part with: our jobs, industries and resources. Corporate profit at the expense of the majority within a nation is a comparative disadvantage.
If you manage a stamping company that supplies auto manufacturers, your great hope is that cheap steel can be perpetually obtained. Therefore, you support the importation of metal goods. The fault, you reason, lies in the failure of big domestic steel to reinvest and upgrade. The overlooked fact is that every country that unloaded metal in the US has a steel industry that is government subsidized. While these nations are bent on subsidizing their industrial base, “our” government slants toward policies that favor investment bankers at the expense of “our” industrial base. This behavior is an economic waste.
When the Bush boys imposed tariffs on steel imports, it was assumed to be a protectionist measure to offset the plight of the comparative disadvantaged domestic steels producers. But, again, things were flying under the economic radar. A sluggish and gutted market kept metal prices tumbling, and large steel concerns continued to bite the dust. The tariffs were a subterfuge; the importers had already decided to sail in a different direction due to the intentional devaluing of the US dollar and a perking Chinese economy. The tangible remnants of fallen metal producers were either scrapped or refurbished by investment bankers once the new owners were adjudicated from the responsibilities associated with environmental damages and legacy costs.
The irony during this tariff period was that the largest importers of record were the domestic intergraded steel producing mills themselves. Not that they purchased raw bands of metal, but rather foreign slabs to be rolled into bands, which were not subjected to the tariffs. The purchase of offshore slabs was not a cost-cutting measure, but a necessity. The substructure of big steel, the suppliers to the rolling mills, for years had felt the economic strain from bankruptcies further up the food chain, and were comparatively disadvantaged in the global market. As their numbers dwindled, a bottleneck effect helped to create a huge bubble as steel prices increased by nearly 70% since the summer of 2003 (as of Feb. ’04). At last the cozy connections between Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush and Mainland China were beginning to make sense. Some analysts have forecast a 50% reduction of domestic auto suppliers by 2010. The US financial monopolies are hell-bent to make this happen. This behavior is an economic waste.
Although I do not agree in theory with the tremendous benefits promised with applying Darwinistic capitalism—at least in human terms—if practiced, however, there would be a much clearer vision of the causal relationship between supply and demand. When a government has been taken over by select business interests, those concerns will have a comparative advantage, obviously, over other ventures that cannot afford to machinate government policy. Let’s compare the prescription drug and the steel industries. Policies forbidding the importation of most medicines are nothing more than a tariff to inflate the value of domestically produced drugs. On the other hand, importation of metal goods traded for an inflated US dollar has historically undervalued domestically produced steel. If government policies had been reversed during the last several decades, the average consumer would have spent about $50 more a year for steel related products and saved hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars per annum in drug costs. The comparative disadvantaged are the American citizens.
In the world of fictional economics, the established value of otherwise useless pieces of paper is nothing more than a mutual agreement between buyer-seller-borrower-lender. When the financial pixies begin throwing stardust in the visage of reason, greed is zealously defended as a virtue, and loudly proclaimed to be the will of Gawd Almighty. The leader of the financial pixies is Alan Greenspan. He reminds me of Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer’s apprentice in the cartoon classic Fantasia. Mick tries a little conjuration, but soon the “magic” starts running amuck. In The Land Of The Free Lunch, the financial chaos and carnage seem to go unnoticed; barbarians are still willing to pick up the tab. But beware! An ineluctable day of reckoning is near. This behavior is an economic waste.
Years ago, I read a thin book called Small Is Beautiful. The treatise was written as if thru the eyes of a “Buddhist economist”. The author points out that the Buddha did indeed address economic issues. After all, one of the tenets of Buddhism is “Right Livelihood”. The subtitle of this enlightening book is called Economics As If People Mattered. Anything less is an economic waste.
Bill O’Palicky
A dog starved at its master’s gate/ Predicts the ruin of the state…Wm. Blake |