Prelude:
John Mueller's 1995
statement concerning
Retrospection Bias
“... no matter how much
better the present gets, the past gets better faster..."
Golden ages "...do happen, but we
are never actually in them:
they are always back
there somewhere.”
Collections
of delinquent student loans
increased to $2.9 billion last year.
The fiscal 2019 path is $3.3 billion.
Payments come from borrower
tax refunds,
Social Security payments and paychecks.
Are College Marketing Efforts to
Blame?
The Merit Aid-Illusion Schools Increase Tuition More Than
Needed
Give More Aid to Top Students, Others are Overcharged
A household is only eligible for SNAP
if it has a
gross income below
130 percent of the federal poverty level
or a net income
below the poverty line.
Little Benefit 2nd Worker Benefit
needs more study/analysis.
B. Many Poverty Gaines Since 1989
B. Counting Safety Net Paints a True Picture
D.
Is Poverty a
Condition or a Position?
Growing up in a rural 1950's Massachusetts
Observations
Conditions
Elderly lived with their children, few had health
insurance or much income.
Poor Families lived in older house at the end of a dirt road.
Poor Children were skinny, often dirty, didn't finish HS,
pooped around and then went into military, found a trade or pumped gas.
Almost no one had air conditioning.
Position Almost
all benefited economically after WW 2 but
those in the bottom
quintile
were economically less well-off.
Retired in rural 2003
Central Florida Observations
Conditions
Elderly live on their own with Medicare and improved SS. Poor families lived in older lowland house or trailers. Poor Children, obesity a problem, most finish HS, try college,
go into one of many services industries and live at home.
Position
Poverty Rate Stuck,
which ignores the safety net,
is stuck at 15%.
Liberals misuse poverty data and Conservatives despise safety net.
Editor's Notes:
Measuring
economic
Wellbeing is
difficult. Poor
use of economic measures overstate poverty Undervalued
Inexpensive Well-Made Asian Products are Undervalued.
Some inflation adjustments makes people look poorer than reality.
Improved
Government Imposed Building Standards Are Ignored. U.S. Poverty Rate is Fake News. Why? It Ignores Our Safety Net.
Such inadequate communication,
Fake News,
is used exploit the
data
byeconomists, professionals and politicians.
The Congressional Budget Committee
should audit economic statistics and
report those that misrepresent wellbeing.
Transactions only occur in dollars
which the FED prints as needed.
So what is
thought of as government borrowing
is selling interest paying debt for cash i.e. non-interest paying debt.
FED borrows dollars and promises to return dollars.
BUT Their Printing Dollars Means There is No Affordability
Risk.
States Can't
Print Money and Have Affordability Risk You Might Not Get Your State Retirement Check
But You Will Get Your FED Retirement Check BUT
FED Debt Has
Three Risks to Value
Inflation, Exchange Rate,
Interest Rate
Printing too many
dollars has historically caused inflation.
Patriots who
bought all US war bonds paid the price as
war bonds were refinanced with inflated, less valuable, dollars.
FED borrowed a lot on Vietnam war, OPEC caused problems, resulting
inflation
cause bondholders and those on fixed social security to received less buying power.
So FED began adjusting SS payment up to balance inflationary
effects.
Debt increases
demand.
Supply must keep up or inflation results.
The less we put into increasing production,
the faster debt will lead to inflation.
Editor's Note: Public Debt Concerns are
Not Financial
Who receives the money and what is bought are the concerns.
CBO April budget review for 7 months of
fiscal 2019
The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal
WSJOpinion
@WSJopinion
Revenues rose2% to $2.041
trillion
Federal Reserve payments to Treasury dropped 34% by $15
billion
Spending rose 7% to $2.571
trillion. Deficit increased to $531 billion?
Defense spending rose 10% (is 3.2% of GDP, Low by historical standards)
Social Security payouts rose 6%,
Medicare outlays 5%
Medicaid 4%. OOPS
Skilled Medical/Profession Workers
Were the Big Winner
But Most Wealth Accumulates at the
Very Top
So We Discuss Socialism
Why young people are more socialistic
Most Dominate Perception
1) Post WW 2
Government controls key industries
such as
utilities, transportation and communications
Classic socialism dominated after World War II
Still promenade about older Americans
2) Current Perception
Government provides
health insurance,
retirement support, and access to free higher education
Scandinavian model popularized by Sander
Doesn't replace capitalism, makes it more humane,
egalitarian, and protective
Another example of the unintended
consequences of government support
is that increased Social Security benefits has paralleled the decrease in
the personal savings rate.
Government Deficits Fund Private
Savings
The 1987
Communication Industry
Fairness
Doctrine Eliminated
Radio Stations were no
longer required to present contrasting views.
Conservative and
Liberal Polarization
Proliferate Rush
Limbaugh, who had popularized
conservative talk radio, had
few restrictions.
Talk Radio and
Identity
Politics
Flourished.
The
Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed multi station company ownership
and national network developed.
As of 2011, Clear Channel Communications
(now iHeartMedia) owned over 800
US radio stations and
Rush Limbaugh wealth eventually climbed to $400 million.[3]
Citizens United v. FEC
Fostered
Increased Political Contributions This increased campaign funds and allowed
a
new type of sponsorship
which supported both
intended and
unintended
Fake News.
Trash Talking Went Public in Sports
Mohamed Ali
practically invented this 1960's genre as a boastfully Cassius Clay.
Athlete had been formal, cordial, and boring.
Ali changed everything with his elite out-of-ring bantering
which was only rivaled by his in-ring dominance.
Larry Bird
and others soon followed.
More than
five years ago I began adding political economy studies to
Quick Notes Economics.
I looked at early U.S. history and presidential politics. Then came biographies
of our most influential presidents.
Currently, I study the
fourth populist-terrorist episode to seriously attack the post WW 1 United
States.
Anxiety began
to increase when blacks
increased their economic and political power.
They received a larger share of our economic pie.
Then Asians got more pie followed in close proximity by women.
Fear from 9/11 amplified our anxiety.
Then main stream traditional sexually lost ground.
White middle class men and women were no longer the
center of society.
Educators
had long been acting as if the normal curve did
not exist.
Education was the great equalizer. It solved most issues.
Then the Great Recession many hardships to rural areas and the
Rust
Belt very hard.
Increased education had not ended individual failure.
Equal educational opportunity was not enough.
More Education spending was not the answer. Unbiased observers knew that nature and nurture were not equally
distributed.
Education
Change was needed.
Special
blame goes to the politicians, economists and professionals.
Economic
successes and political stability from 1980-2000 allowed technocrats to take
charge.
But, too often they provided inadequate,
bias Information that was not applicable to a particular issue.
There failures are the
real
Fake News.
It is more dangerous than the
fake news associated with lies,
Yellow
journalism, and
Propaganda.
The
Great Society created a time bomb.
The explosion was delayed
by the Reagan Revolution followed by fifteen years of economic prosperity.
Then the dot com bubble ended prosperity and 9/11 lit the fuse.
Accelerants were added by The Great Recession.
Gay Rights put a psychological hurt on
many middle class whites.
Finally a black President’s health care plan took many back
to the beginning, to Great Society animosity.
Trump's election signified a new
Populism. It is much like
our
20th Century Populism episodes.
Democracy is supposed to be
troublesome. Those most unhappy raise Cain.
Oligarchs run the show and maximize their wealth from our ever growing economic pie.
Populism caused the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and the King Phillips War.
By accepting more responsibility, Oligarchs could avert a forth devastating event.
2018 "...attackers with ties to
right-wing extremists killed at least 50 people.
Up 35 percent from 2017, it was the fourth-deadliest
year since 1970.
ADL reports white supremacists caused the majority of
such attacks “almost every year.”
The Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life
synagogue attacker blamed Jews for the migrant
caravan.
Parkland, Florida attacker
wished" all the Jews were dead.”
The yoga studio attack by an “incel” obsessed with interracial dating.
Source
homegrown-terrorists -were-almost-all-right-wing
9/11/01 Began an Era of Fear
Suddenly Our Invulnerable Nation Felt Dramatically Unsafe
Since then we have had bloody unexpected shootings and fear stroking
politicians.
Childhood trauma/insecurity from strained families/childhood
experiences causing increased fear.
Overprotective children become adults unready to face inevitable
risk.
Fearful people hear no good news, see threats
from hidden, vague, nasty forces like
immigration, globalization, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and
automation.
Fear's dark filter hides our increasing
economic wellbeing.
Inflamed by of a breaking news crisis atmosphere from a ratings
obsessed media,
we fear when our imagination tells us a catastrophe
might happen.
Inspired by
Times'
David Brooks
Some politicians want to increase C for education.
Most politicians want to more G for infrastructure.
Some want more G for entitlements.
Some want a more G for the safety net.
Some politicians want to more G for defense.
All politicians are buying votes.
Until economic growth picks up, all will increase debt.
D. Populism is
the Result
Politicians, the Media,
and
Professionals Can/Have Made
Much Money, Power and Earned Peer Respect
by Influencing/Creating Negativity!
See
Fake News
Please Share!
Editor's Note: Knowing how our
economic measures poorly measure reality,
I wants someone to determine exactly how well our poor live now and in the
recent past.
1. How
frequently do 4th grade students
use computers when learning math? U.S. 18 - 79
percent OCED 42 - 51 percent
2. Do
8th grade students
do math homework
at least twice a week? US fell 86 - 75 percent
OECD 56 - No Change
3.
Do teachers of 4th grade science
demonstrate experiments with
half their lessons? US 16 - 36
percent OECD 13 - 35 percent
4. Do
4th grade students actually
perform science experiments or
investigations? US 45 - 53 percent
OCED 33- to 46 percent
5. Are
Incentives used to recruit and
retain STEM 8th math teachers? US 7 to 6 percent
OECD 10 to 8 percent
Three
noteworthy points: 1. We just don't know if more math homework and experiments are a
good thing or not. 2. US policies and practices don't look all that different. 3. High-performing STEM countries aren't doing anything that's obviously
distinctive.
Editors Thoughts:Almost all students lose
interest in math and science. Computers and experiments may
delay this decision but they
also increase learning for a very few
by a very lot. Homework may teach some to be more responsible but again it
also increase
learning for a very few by a very lot.
More for teachers is usually good
but one of the best teachers I have
observed since 1950
was by
almost all measures used or considered the worst teacher I
have observed.
Postscript: We Used Debt to Pay for
1. Revolutionary War
2. The Civil War
3. WW 1
4. Great Depression Poverty
5. WW 2
5. War on Poverty
Today We Spend It On All Voters
Happy voters have always loved
government spending.
Historically, the
U.S. Has Succeeded
in Using Inflation and Economic Growth
to Postpone Economic Pain.
People loved dot-com companies until
they didn’t.
They loved credit default swaps until they blew up.
Now, with low interest cost, they love cash-burning companies.
“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things
will be complicated."
Chuck Prince on debt-fueled private equity deals before the economy
collapsed.
Net National Income Paints an Interesting Picture!
Nonmonetary
Compensation Falling?
Supreme Court’s 2018
Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewisdecision
may increase business use of forced arbitration clauses to deny
workers
the right to fight wage theft, discrimination,
or harassment in court.
See Report
Jobs Will
Leave With or Without Outsourcing Gresham's Law
Bad Money Moves Good Money
Applies to All Assets
Prelude: When
gold and silver both supported a currency
gold leaves that market for a better markets.
#1
Bad economic conditions move business, skilled workers
away Examples: Colonial Westward Movement, for more productive
farm land
Rural workers to urban areas Cost: Depleted areas become even more economically
disadvantaged
so more business leave
causing more skilled workers to leave.
Depleted areas require
unique problem solutions.
#2
Improved skills move people toward opportunity Examples: Successfully educated students get to choose
company/location
Greece and Italy losing their most successful skilled workers Cost: Depleted areas require unique problem solutions.
#3 Super
Star Employees congregate Example:
Boston, Austin, and Silicon Valley have most Big Tech headquarters.
Cost: Governments supported education receive less return on
investment. See
Geekability is Important for Success
Prelude:
Workers choose occupations to maximize their lifetime
wellbeing/utility.
Concerns: Impact of labor-saving technical on workers’ occupational
choices,
economic inequality, job polarization, and long-run growth.
The Process:
A worker’s occupation choices
change with new technologies.
These
choices shape the worker job allocations.
Affected:
Variability of
aggregate human capital
Behavior of earnings inequality
Evolution of the labor share
Wellbeing of the workers
1) Aggregate human capital across occupations
ultimately
determines the long-run rate of growth of the economy.
2) Permanente
changes in automation/other technologies
can lead to sustained growth effects.
3) Some workers receive higher earnings from
changing jobs plus from a faster growth.
4) Some workers have lower earnings plus more force
job changes.
5) Some labor-saving technical improvements can
jointly explain
the increase in polarization, earnings inequality and
occupational mobility.
Results:
Summary:
Our theory opens a number
of exciting avenues for future research.
International trade, off-shoring, and migration policies,
can alter the demand for workers in different occupations
Editor's
Note: US Growth has Been Much Larger
Economic Historians Could Do Much More to Measure and Community How
Today, Poor in Booth Countries Life Much Better
In
1962,
President John F. Kennedy Executive Order 10988
led to state laws permitting
the
unionization of public employees
Editor's Note:
Home and stock values determine wealth.
This analysis correctly depicts low millennial
wealth
but applying this data to other applications are questionable.
Median date would show a smaller, and I would guess
much smaller, difference.
See
Fake News
In 1969,
the U.S. Supreme Court, in Tinker
v. Des Moines Independent Community School District,
ruled that the
Constitution forbids local schools from
suspending
students who bring political protest inside the
schools
.
In his dissent, Justice Black wrote:,
"I repeat that if the time has come when pupils of
state-supported schools, kindergartens, grammar schools, or high
schools,
can defy and flout orders of school officials to keep
their minds on their own schoolwork,
it is the beginning of a
new revolutionary era of permissiveness in this country fostered
by the judiciary."[9]
We now have "The
Language Police,
education historian Diane Ravitch's meticulous but horrifying
narrative
of how the major textbook publishers, the testing companies and state education departments have
reduced what public-school kids learn to politically correct,
politically laughable..."
In
the years since,
courts and legislatures gave the neighborhood school yet another
big legal obligation:
Mainstream and educate severely disabled kids.
1969
the U.S. Supreme Court, in Tinker
v. Des Moines Independent Community School District,
ruled that the
Constitution forbids local schools from suspending students who
bring political protest inside the schools
.
In his dissent, Justice Black wrote:,
"I repeat that if the time has come when pupils of
state-supported schools, kindergartens,
grammar schools, or high
schools,
can defy and flout orders of school officials to keep
their minds on their own schoolwork,
it is the beginning of a
new revolutionary era of permissiveness in this country fostered
by the judiciary."
In 1975
Goss
v. Lopez,
the Court ruled in
the case of a suspended student, a hearing was required.
In dissent Justice Powell wrote In 1975 Goss v. Lopez, the Court ruled in the case of a suspended student, a hearing was required.
In dissent Justice Powell wrote "One who does not comprehend the meaning and necessity for discipline
is handicapped not merely in his education but throughout his subsequent life."
B. The
Headline
2015 U.S. students ranked
40th in math literacy
25th in science literacy
24th in reading
literacy.
Singapore topped all nations
in all three categories.
International Students Assessment
Standardized tests mean large
profits to testing companies
and require new curriculums.
Changing from a two-part Scholastic Aptitude Test to a
three-part test
has made a lot of money for a lot of people.
Business Week 2005
reports
"Kaplan, a unit of The Washington Post,
saw SAT-related sales jump up to 50% in the later half of 2004...."
SAT companies got a similar hike in 1994, when tests were last
modified."
New curriculums mean large profits for
curriculum design companies and textbook companies.
The academics who advise these companies receive
substantial consulting fees plus ego enhancements.
Standardized test exists to create a better life for young people.
But these tests hurt young people economically and emotionally.
Product Line Expanded
" More than 25 percent of public high school
seniors graduating last May
took at least one AP test."
2/15/19
Four companies that dominate
the business
of
making/scoring standardized tests.
"As of 2011,
Gaston Caperton, the president of the College
Board, nonprofit owner of SAT,
was paid $1.3 million. Richard Ferguson,
former executive officer of ACT Inc., made
roughly $1.1 million. Meanwhile, The National
Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy
at Boston College reported that the value of the
standardized testing market was anywhere between
$400 million and $700 million."
huffingtonpost.com
As of Sept. 30,
more than 41,000 borrowers applied to have their
loans discharged under the Public Service Loan
Forgiveness program, an initiative signed into
law in 2007, which allows public servants to
have certain federal loans forgiven after at
least 10 years of on-time payments. So far, just
206 have had their loans discharged,
according to data published by the
Department of Education this month.
FED's Get to
Set the Rules Without Providing the Money!
Continued Success of
a particular company seems not to be required.
Do you think higher taxes would have kept Bill Gates
at Harvard?
Kept Steve jobs at Reed College and out of the computer business?
2. We Accommodate Business
3. We Lead the West in Productivity
Editor's Note:
First we were losing to Russia,
then
Germany, then Japan, then Europe and now China.
It has always been a battle.
It has usually always been a
battle of rivals maybe adversaries,
seldom enemies.
4. Key Questions
Who Are the Most
Productive
Post WW2 Entrepreneurs?
Would Higher Taxes Have Affected Them?
When and How Affected?
High-powered tax lawyer and now
Trump’s IRS commissioner,
warned that the squad was conducting “the
audits from hell.”
In 2012 the wealth team embarked on a
contentious audit
of German billionaire businessman
George Schaeffler.
ProPublica reconstruct the key points in the Schaeffler case
Eventually they determined
owed about $1.2 billion in unpaid taxes and penalties.
t after seven years of
grinding bureaucratic combat, the IRS abandoned its campaign.
They would accept just tens of millions of dollars.
Having to battle high-priced lawyers and accountants was too much.
"Typically, when you sell a stock for
more than you paid, you owe tax on the gain.
But thanks
to a quirk in a
Nixon-era tax law,
funds can avoid that tax if they
use the stock to pay off a withdrawing fund investor.
Heartbeats come into play when there isn’t an exiting
investor handy.
A fund manager asks a friendly bank to
create extra withdrawals
by rapidly pumping assets in
and out.
An 8% payroll tax
increase affecting all workers would provide $15.3 trillion over ten
years.
Bernie Sanders proposed Medicare for All would cost about $33.3 trillion.
More Tax Increases Required.
A women named Fuller paid a total of
$24.75 of payroll taxes
for three years.
In the 35 years after her
retirement, she received $22,888.92 in benefits.
Editor's Recommended Proposal
A 10
percent surtax on the top 1/10 of the top one-percent " Our preliminary estimate is that
such a surtax
would raise roughly $75 billion in its first year of implementation
and roughly $800 billion in its first decade.
source EPI
First Proposal from Ocasio-Cortez proposed 70 percent marginal
income tax rate on $10 million and over to finance her Green
New Deal
affects 16,000 people with income of $245 billion.
It
would
raise
$164-382 billion over ten years.
Another calculation from "Mazur calculates that it
could raise $720 billion over the next decade,
affecting 0.05% of the US population (around 16,000
households),
although the estimate is likely to be much smaller
because of the changing behavior of the
millionaires."
Source
Another Proposal
from Warren's team says her "wealth tax,"
which would apply to people with more than $50
million in assets,
is projected to raise $2.75 trillion over a decade.
This is an estate tax.
A
Trump proposal requiring the chained CPI to
inflation-adjust the official poverty line would,
over time, lower increases to the poverty line used
to qualify for means-tested federal programs.
President Barack Obama’s
(failed) 2013
proposal to
apply chained CPI to Social Security benefits,
Protections for extremely low-income elderly people
were provided. Source:
Washington Post
Editor's note: Forty years ago protectors of
the SS fund tried to do this.
Obama continued the Bush policy
of fighting the Great Recession with debt
and by
12/16 it was apparent that this policy
had worked better than Europe's
austerity policies.
F. Trump's
Unorthodox Tax Cut Beginning Step #1 of Trouble?
In an Already Expanding Economy
Really High Nominal Growth Will Be Needed
G.
Who Finances Deficit Rollovers?
H. Is Foreigners US Debt
Ownership a Problem?
U.S. Buys Cars, Wine, Electronics ...
Foreigners Get $ and Buy U.S. Treasuries.
Japan Tried to Buy US Assets, Paid Way Too Much, and Stopped.
So U.S. Get Good Stuff at Low Prices,
Foreigners Mostly get U.S. Government IOU's.
B. BUT After the
Safety Net
Poverty Down 14.2% Points Over Fifty Years
This chart
"...provides a first approximation of how correcting the 2013 poverty
rate for noncash food and housing benefits, refundable tax credits, and not
using the upward [inflation] bias of the CPI-U
would change the 2013 poverty rate. This adjusted poverty rate falls from 14.5
to 4.8 percent, making the 2013 rate roughly a quarter of the 1964 rate (19.0
percent). If we were to lower the poverty threshold for cohabiting couples to
match that for married couples the 2013 poverty rate would have fallen even
more."Examples of noncash benefits
include food stamps SNAP), discounted school lunches, subsidized rent, Medicaid,
and Medicare. See SourceEditors Comments are
in red.
C. Real Minimum Wage Falls
Unintended
Consequence of Safety Net Increases?
A. Engagement with “Fake News” on Facebook is Declining The National Bureau of Economic Resources measured the diffusion
of fake news stories on Facebook and Twitter between 1/15 and
7/18.
False content rose steadily on both Facebook and Twitter through
the end of 2016 but dropped by measurably from Facebook
but not for twitter.
B. Politically “teams”
will accumulate grievances..."
"...lose any interest in communicating across party
lines."
"This happened in the 1850s: We know
what happened..."
"Things...could get plenty bad..." with a "...serious recession or
the stock market..." crash. "
and ... as a nation we are no longer
capable of making preparations for such events."
There is a substantial partisan and
ideological divide on abortion,
with Democrats
much more likely
than
Republicans
to say it should be legal in all or most cases.
This
gap is even larger between liberal Democrats
and conservative
Republicans:
Nearly nine-in-ten liberal Democrats (88%) say
abortion
should be legal in all or most cases, compared with
only
about three-in-ten self-described conservatives in the GOP
(27%)
Today’s
“partisan chaos” is a direct result of Roe v.
Wade,
said Michael Barone.
The all-out war over Brett Kavanaugh’s
appointment
to the Supreme Court would not be so heated if
people on
both sides didn’t think Roe might be at
stake.
In 1973, 16
states with 41 percent of the nation’s population
had already liberalized their abortion laws,
and America would have had different laws in
different regions,
depending on the democratic
process.
But then seven justices
delivered “an unusually sweeping”
ruling that made
abortion legal in almost all circumstances—
and the country’s defining wedge issue.
While public
opinion on
cultural issues like same-sex marriage
has shifted markedly this century,
“opinion on abortion has
scarcely budged.”
It’s hard to win converts on such a fundamentally
moral issue
about “the way people live their lives”:
Pro-choicers,
who are largely secular, think their
“personal autonomy”
is at stake, whereas pro-lifers,
who are mostly religious,
believe abortion amounts
to “extinguishing human lives.”
Rather than settle the abortion debate, Roe inflamed
it
because neither side believes it can afford any
compromise.
As a direct result, every Supreme Court nominee
battle
has literally become a matter of life and
death.
The Gold Standard rules geopolitics until the 20th
century.
Until then, Brittan had all the gold and ruled capitalism.
The US grew economically, took control of gold, and after WW
2, ruled capitalism. Economic growth created pressure on US
gold reserves so, in 1970, she gave partially backing
the dollar with gold.
A Dollar Standard
was created by the US because she had enough consumer and
business demand,
financed by debt, to supply dollars for world trade. Dollars
came back to the US as foreigners bought US assets and debt.
The Euro was created as a multination currency controlled by
Germany. She kept a tight reign on inflation. Members who did
not manage budgets soon got into trouble. This coincided with a
few European bank controlling worldwide dollar trade flows
using Euro's, not dollars, as collateral. But contracts
required payment in dollars and the banks, wanting to
maximize profit, had borrowed dollars very short term. They were in
trouble when the Great Recession created a need for dollars
and rolling over dollar loans became impossible. The FED, as
lender of last resort, loaned
dollars to the entire world financial community. This
combined with Germany using austerity to forced force debt
repayment on
failing countries and banks. Populism resulted.
Beginning of a Post War
International Geopolitical Era
1648
Peace of Westphalia
Sovereignty of participants over their lands, people, and
agents abroad was established.
Broken by European Colonialism
1941
Atlantic Charter
No spheres of influence allowed, territorial
self-determination required
First problem
came
immediately as Soviets did whatever it took to keep
Communists in charge of the buffer state Poland.
The US responded
with the
Truman Doctrine. Eventually
U.S./Britain sponsored covert activities would try to
slow Communist advancement.
One
such activity was
the September of 1953 GB/US sponsored
Iranian Coup
to keep control Iranian oil/profit.
Unintended
consequences followed. First came
the seizure in
1979 of the Tehran U.S. embassy by Militant Iranian
students. Then, 20 years later, the 9/11 Trade Center
attacks made many American feel insecure.
Continuing Problem
The US would try to maintain its sphere of influence
throughout Latin America and stop Russia and China spheres
of influence. Both groups made the world their spheres.
Hegemony
2 made Wall Street more important than Main Street as
conservative presidents Reagan, Bush I and II combined with
business friendly Clinton to allow complete Neoliberalism
economic dominance. The stage was set for the public to pay
for inevitable market failures from
Failing Manufacturing, Less Financial Regulation and A Great Recession
followed by a European Financial Collapse. The FED created
money and paid the entire cost.
Hegemony 3
will happen if the US dominates in the a world of political
populism.
1973-2003 Neoliberal
State Development
Dominated World
Politics Adoption Would Maximized
Human Welfare?
Iraq's Economic Restructuring Agenda was issued in
September of 2003 by Paul Bremmer of the Coalition
Provisional Authority. Many
felt these dictums were illegal under the Hague and Geneva
conventions so an interim sovereign
government was created. It required many
neoliberal economic requirements. Key among them were 1) Private Property for everything
but oil
2) Free Markets with unlimited Foreign Direct
Investment/Ownership3)Unregulated
International Trade4) Unlimited Profit Repatriation. Entrepreneurship
was fostered by guaranteed Intellectual Property Rights
and a conservative Flat Tax.
A 1973 U.S. orchestrated Chilean Coup
had set up a new
government to follow neoliberal Chicago Boys privation advise
with similar requirements except copper resource ownership
would not change.
Unites States
controlled IMF development programs follow
similar guidelines in support of the US International Trade Hegemony. But more was involved
as independent leaders like Thatcher in the early 1970's
and Xiaoping in the late 1970's also embraced neoliberal
economics. Then Germany required similar neoliberal
economic requirements in response to Great Recession budget and banking problems. European Populism
resulted.
US
Hegemony 3?
Hegemony 1
was built around Cold War needs and dominance
of global manufacturing trade. Easy domination
with it extensive profit and extensive worker wage gains
began to diminish because of
Tiger Country competition.
To
protect profit, conservatives expanded neoliberal
activities wanting to eventually control the Supreme Court by financing
conservative law students. Business turned away from local
less profitable US manufacturing by investing in overseas production.
They also expanded into
corporate finance activities. Chairman Greenspan took charge
of the lender of last resort Federal Reserve. Keynesian
dominance was being replaced by neoliberal free
unregulated market economics.
Hegemony
2 made Wall Street more important than Main Street as
conservative presidents Reagan, Bush I and II combined with
business friendly Clinton. Obama was Wall Street friendly. Neoliberalism
economic dominance was complete. The stage was set for the public to pay
for inevitable market failures caused by
Less Financial Regulation. A Great Recession
was followed by a European Financial Collapse. The FED created
money and paid the entire cost.
Hegemony 3?
Will US dominates in the a world of political
populism.
German
recorded 1,800 anti-Semitic crimes in 2018, a 20 percent annual increase. Most were
perpetrated by right-wing groups.
US Targets Varied
Racist Trend "White
supremacy groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK),
neo-Nazis such as the National Alliance, and
skinhead groups such as the Hammerskin Nation."
Anti-Federalist Trend The anti-federalist “militia” or “patriot” movement) in the early to mid-1990s with
new
groups in Montana and Michigan. Anti-government sentiments existed
from the birth of the nation were anti-taxation, gun rights, and a
“survivalist” lifestyle. The “farm
crises” of the 1980s, and rapid
cultural, technological and normative changes, gun control and
environmental legislation caused a fairly
ideologically cohesive movement, as well as its rapid growth.2
Fundamentalist Trend Mainly Christian
identity groups such as the Aryan Nations, merges religious
fundamentalism with traditional white supremacy and racist
tendencies. It promotes ideas of nativism, exclusionism, and
racial superiority via a unique interpretation of religious
texts that focus on division of humanity according to primordial
attributes.
The Iceberg Model and American Far Right Violence
In the early 1980s, the Israeli political scientist Ehud
Sprinzak published a paper on the irredentist Israeli religion-political
movement Gush Emunim (The Bloc of the Faithful) entitled
“The
Iceberg Model of Political Extremism.”6
The Bottom Line
Please
Share
under construction
Quick
Money Facts
40 percent of the goods they bought on major online
marketplaces were fake reportedInvestigators
said in a 2018 Government Accountability Office.
The
Trump administration is requiring the Homeland Security,
Commerce, and Justice departments to report back within 210
days.
6/ 4/19
Mexico
deported
around 15,000 migrants in April, up from 9,100 in March.
More than 144,278 migrants
were arrested on the southwest
border in May, the biggest monthly
total in seven years and 32 percent
more than in April.
Unfortunately rather than move the "wall" symbol 1000
miles south to where it would do some good, President Trump from threatening to
slap a 5% tariff on all Mexican
imports as soon as Friday. Trump's
Peggy Bank theory need some
discussion.
U.S. Customs
and Immigration Services reportedly told its staff Tuesday
that it would shut down all 21 of its foreign offices by the
end of this year. The move could delay processing of
paperwork the offices handle, including family visa
applications, foreign adoptions by U.S. citizens, and
citizenship petitions from members of the military. The
offices also investigate visa fraud. The employees who
provide these services will likely be transferred to the
State Department as the offices are shuttered, USCIS
Director Lee Francis Cessna said in an email to staff
obtained by The Washington Post.
Relocating
international employees to U.S. offices and foreign
embassies will help "address backlogs in the United States,"
Cessna wrote. [The
Washington Post]
While the number of H-2B worker
visas is capped by law at 33,000 semiannually, Congress can allow up
to 69,000 additional visas to be made available—if the White House
agrees.
