Nbadan
03-03-2006, 02:50 PM
Continuing our discussion on Why I think Globalism will soon lead to hard times for most Americans, how the world global elite are selling out our countries interests, undermining the American middle class in the process, and why their plans for world globalization domination are already being undermined by the leftist rise in South and Central America, the war in Iraq, and unrestrained debt by the current administration.
Interesting read that if you care about the welfare of your family and your future, you should take heed...
Some Excerpts:
But as domestic markets become global, investors increasingly find workers, customers and business partners almost anywhere. Not surprisingly, they have come to share more economic interests with their peers in other countries than with people who simply have the same nationality. They also share a common interest in escaping the restrictions of their domestic social contracts.
The class politics of this new world economic order is obscured by the confused language that filters the globalization debate from talk radio to Congressional hearings to university seminars. On the one hand, we are told that the flow of money and goods across borders is making nation-states obsolete. On the other, global economic competition is almost always defined as conflict among national interests. Thus, for example, the US press warns us of a dire economic threat from China. Yet much of the "Chinese" menace is a business partnership between China's commissars, who supply the cheap labor, and America's (and Japan's and Europe's) capitalists, who supply the technology and capital. "World poverty" is likewise framed as an issue of the distribution of wealth between rich and poor countries, ignoring the existence of rich people in poor countries and poor people in rich countries.
The conventional wisdom makes globalization synonymous with "free trade" among autonomous nations. Yet as Renato Ruggiero, the first director-general of the World Trade Organization, noted in a rare moment of candor, "We are no longer writing the rules of interaction among separate national economies. We are writing the constitution of a single global economy." (Emphasis added.)
sic
Given the influence of American elites, the model for this constitution is the North American Free Trade Agreement, conceived under Ronald Reagan, nurtured by George H.W. Bush and delivered by Bill Clinton. Among other things, NAFTA's 1,000-plus pages give international investors extraordinary rights to override government protections of workers and the environment. It sets up secret panels, rife with conflicts of interest, to judge disputes from which there is no appeal. It makes virtually all nonmilitary government services subject to privatization and systematically undercuts the public sector's ability to regulate business. Jorge Castañeda, later Mexico's foreign secretary, observed that NAFTA was "an agreement for the rich and powerful in the United States, Mexico and Canada, an agreement effectively excluding ordinary people in all three societies."
*sic*
But Clinton was more Davos than Democrat. Tutored by financier Robert Rubin, a prodigious fundraiser who became his Treasury Secretary, Clinton embraced a reactionary, pre-New Deal vision of a global future in which corporate investors were unregulated and the social contract was history. Indeed, in all three countries it was the leaders of the political parties that had historically claimed to represent ordinary people--the Democrats' Clinton, the Liberal Party's Jean Chrétien and the Institutional Revolutionary Party's Salinas--who delivered NAFTA to their global corporate clients, undercutting their own constituencies. "NAFTA happened," said the then-chairman of American Express, "because of the drive Bill Clinton gave it. He stood up against his two prime constituents, labor and environment, to drive it home over their dead bodies."
A year later, in November 1994, enough angry Democratic voters stayed away from the polls to give the Republicans control of the House. Since then, many working-class Americans, feeling abandoned by the Democrats, have responded to the Republican definition of class struggle as a fight over gun control, school prayer and abortion. The Democrats have still not recovered.
*sic*
AFTA was only the beginning. The Clinton/Republican alliance then pushed through the WTO agreement and the subsequent deal with China that traded off more US industrial jobs in exchange for protections for US investors in that huge Asian market. Not only has this produced a massive trade deficit with China and further downward pressure on US wages, it has also sent some 250,000 jobs from Mexico to China. The ubiquitous Citigroup, with banking operations in 100 countries, is now busy building its Chinese banking empire--with Chinese partners.
That well-connected people who move in and out of government and business act in ways that benefit their class and take advantage of their contacts to further their own interests is neither illegal nor new. That's the way class privilege works. Thus, it is unlikely that Dick Cheney ever ordered anyone at the Pentagon to give a huge sole-source contract to Halliburton. He did not have to. Procurement officers already knew the relationship between the company and the Vice President. And Cheney's promotion of more funds for the military and for the war in Iraq in particular was bound to benefit the world to which he belonged--his circle of rich and powerful people who would always be there for him and his projects.
*sic*
Davos relies on the Pentagon to protect its class privileges with a worldwide web of military bases, training schools and the always-present threat to send in the Marines. It's worth remembering that virtually the only section of Saddam Hussein's law still untouched by the US occupation is its oppressive labor code.
But the twin pillars of the US superpower--the Pentagon and Wall Street--are slipping into their own crises and soon may not be able to provide the military and economic muscle for the Davos agenda.
The crisis on the military side involves blowback from the overreach in Iraq. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld--despite their thick transnational corporate connections--have created a disaster for Davos. The war has unleashed an army of enemies of Western modernization that is making global corporations nervous. Two years ago the wiser heads at Davos were appalled at Cheney's delusional report on the Bush Administration's progress in turning the Middle East into a shopping mall--however much they might have sympathized with the objective. Today the mess in Iraq has revealed to Davos both the incompetence of the American governing class and the unwillingness of the American electorate to make the sacrifices necessary to act as security police for the world's rich and powerful.
*sic*
The looming economic crisis comes from the unsustainable US external debt. For more than a quarter-century, we Americans have been buying more from the rest of the world than we have been selling it, and borrowing from abroad to make up the difference. The resulting trade deficit has been a major engine of global growth under Davos's management. But common sense and simple arithmetic tell us that even the United States cannot go on much longer spending more than it is earning.
When the day of reckoning comes, high interest rates and a falling dollar will force us Americans to rebalance our trade by cutting the price of what we sell and raising the price of what we buy, lowering real incomes. The crisis in the nation's trade sector will be transmitted to the rest of the economy, made vulnerable by overindebted consumers, overleveraged pension funds and overpriced houses. Thanks to George W. Bush's reckless fiscal deficits, the government will have less ability to overcome an economic crisis through borrow-and-spend, as it did in the last economic downturn. With the appetite for America's IOUs diminishing, US politicians will have their hands full dealing with rising energy costs and the tottering finances of healthcare, education and pensions.
*sic*
Resistance to Davos is also growing in our own hemispheric neighborhood. Latin American oligarchs who prospered by selling their countries' assets and people to transnational investors have been ousted in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Bolivia. In Mexico, which is having a presidential election this July, a leftist critic of NAFTA leads in the polls. The Party of Davos may not be over, but the rest of the world seems less willing to foot the bill.
Here in America, the coming unrest could turn right as well as left. The Republican Party is hopelessly tied to the multinational priorities of the US business elite, but its managers are skilled at stoking nationalist resentment among the working-class victims.
In the two-party system the burden therefore rests on the Democrats' ability to produce leaders who are not co-opted by the Party of Davos. Given the current crop, our chances may not seem great. But leaders are often produced by the times. As globalization's squeeze on ordinary Americans continues, the political price will rise for those who continue to give priority to bringing Burger King to Baghdad over healthcare to Baltimore. It's worth remembering that Franklin Roosevelt, who was as elite and privileged as one could get, responded to the economic crisis of his time by becoming--as they muttered in the best clubs--"a traitor to his class."
The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/faux)
Interesting read that if you care about the welfare of your family and your future, you should take heed...
Some Excerpts:
But as domestic markets become global, investors increasingly find workers, customers and business partners almost anywhere. Not surprisingly, they have come to share more economic interests with their peers in other countries than with people who simply have the same nationality. They also share a common interest in escaping the restrictions of their domestic social contracts.
The class politics of this new world economic order is obscured by the confused language that filters the globalization debate from talk radio to Congressional hearings to university seminars. On the one hand, we are told that the flow of money and goods across borders is making nation-states obsolete. On the other, global economic competition is almost always defined as conflict among national interests. Thus, for example, the US press warns us of a dire economic threat from China. Yet much of the "Chinese" menace is a business partnership between China's commissars, who supply the cheap labor, and America's (and Japan's and Europe's) capitalists, who supply the technology and capital. "World poverty" is likewise framed as an issue of the distribution of wealth between rich and poor countries, ignoring the existence of rich people in poor countries and poor people in rich countries.
The conventional wisdom makes globalization synonymous with "free trade" among autonomous nations. Yet as Renato Ruggiero, the first director-general of the World Trade Organization, noted in a rare moment of candor, "We are no longer writing the rules of interaction among separate national economies. We are writing the constitution of a single global economy." (Emphasis added.)
sic
Given the influence of American elites, the model for this constitution is the North American Free Trade Agreement, conceived under Ronald Reagan, nurtured by George H.W. Bush and delivered by Bill Clinton. Among other things, NAFTA's 1,000-plus pages give international investors extraordinary rights to override government protections of workers and the environment. It sets up secret panels, rife with conflicts of interest, to judge disputes from which there is no appeal. It makes virtually all nonmilitary government services subject to privatization and systematically undercuts the public sector's ability to regulate business. Jorge Castañeda, later Mexico's foreign secretary, observed that NAFTA was "an agreement for the rich and powerful in the United States, Mexico and Canada, an agreement effectively excluding ordinary people in all three societies."
*sic*
But Clinton was more Davos than Democrat. Tutored by financier Robert Rubin, a prodigious fundraiser who became his Treasury Secretary, Clinton embraced a reactionary, pre-New Deal vision of a global future in which corporate investors were unregulated and the social contract was history. Indeed, in all three countries it was the leaders of the political parties that had historically claimed to represent ordinary people--the Democrats' Clinton, the Liberal Party's Jean Chrétien and the Institutional Revolutionary Party's Salinas--who delivered NAFTA to their global corporate clients, undercutting their own constituencies. "NAFTA happened," said the then-chairman of American Express, "because of the drive Bill Clinton gave it. He stood up against his two prime constituents, labor and environment, to drive it home over their dead bodies."
A year later, in November 1994, enough angry Democratic voters stayed away from the polls to give the Republicans control of the House. Since then, many working-class Americans, feeling abandoned by the Democrats, have responded to the Republican definition of class struggle as a fight over gun control, school prayer and abortion. The Democrats have still not recovered.
*sic*
AFTA was only the beginning. The Clinton/Republican alliance then pushed through the WTO agreement and the subsequent deal with China that traded off more US industrial jobs in exchange for protections for US investors in that huge Asian market. Not only has this produced a massive trade deficit with China and further downward pressure on US wages, it has also sent some 250,000 jobs from Mexico to China. The ubiquitous Citigroup, with banking operations in 100 countries, is now busy building its Chinese banking empire--with Chinese partners.
That well-connected people who move in and out of government and business act in ways that benefit their class and take advantage of their contacts to further their own interests is neither illegal nor new. That's the way class privilege works. Thus, it is unlikely that Dick Cheney ever ordered anyone at the Pentagon to give a huge sole-source contract to Halliburton. He did not have to. Procurement officers already knew the relationship between the company and the Vice President. And Cheney's promotion of more funds for the military and for the war in Iraq in particular was bound to benefit the world to which he belonged--his circle of rich and powerful people who would always be there for him and his projects.
*sic*
Davos relies on the Pentagon to protect its class privileges with a worldwide web of military bases, training schools and the always-present threat to send in the Marines. It's worth remembering that virtually the only section of Saddam Hussein's law still untouched by the US occupation is its oppressive labor code.
But the twin pillars of the US superpower--the Pentagon and Wall Street--are slipping into their own crises and soon may not be able to provide the military and economic muscle for the Davos agenda.
The crisis on the military side involves blowback from the overreach in Iraq. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld--despite their thick transnational corporate connections--have created a disaster for Davos. The war has unleashed an army of enemies of Western modernization that is making global corporations nervous. Two years ago the wiser heads at Davos were appalled at Cheney's delusional report on the Bush Administration's progress in turning the Middle East into a shopping mall--however much they might have sympathized with the objective. Today the mess in Iraq has revealed to Davos both the incompetence of the American governing class and the unwillingness of the American electorate to make the sacrifices necessary to act as security police for the world's rich and powerful.
*sic*
The looming economic crisis comes from the unsustainable US external debt. For more than a quarter-century, we Americans have been buying more from the rest of the world than we have been selling it, and borrowing from abroad to make up the difference. The resulting trade deficit has been a major engine of global growth under Davos's management. But common sense and simple arithmetic tell us that even the United States cannot go on much longer spending more than it is earning.
When the day of reckoning comes, high interest rates and a falling dollar will force us Americans to rebalance our trade by cutting the price of what we sell and raising the price of what we buy, lowering real incomes. The crisis in the nation's trade sector will be transmitted to the rest of the economy, made vulnerable by overindebted consumers, overleveraged pension funds and overpriced houses. Thanks to George W. Bush's reckless fiscal deficits, the government will have less ability to overcome an economic crisis through borrow-and-spend, as it did in the last economic downturn. With the appetite for America's IOUs diminishing, US politicians will have their hands full dealing with rising energy costs and the tottering finances of healthcare, education and pensions.
*sic*
Resistance to Davos is also growing in our own hemispheric neighborhood. Latin American oligarchs who prospered by selling their countries' assets and people to transnational investors have been ousted in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Bolivia. In Mexico, which is having a presidential election this July, a leftist critic of NAFTA leads in the polls. The Party of Davos may not be over, but the rest of the world seems less willing to foot the bill.
Here in America, the coming unrest could turn right as well as left. The Republican Party is hopelessly tied to the multinational priorities of the US business elite, but its managers are skilled at stoking nationalist resentment among the working-class victims.
In the two-party system the burden therefore rests on the Democrats' ability to produce leaders who are not co-opted by the Party of Davos. Given the current crop, our chances may not seem great. But leaders are often produced by the times. As globalization's squeeze on ordinary Americans continues, the political price will rise for those who continue to give priority to bringing Burger King to Baghdad over healthcare to Baltimore. It's worth remembering that Franklin Roosevelt, who was as elite and privileged as one could get, responded to the economic crisis of his time by becoming--as they muttered in the best clubs--"a traitor to his class."
The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/faux)