Trump and foreign trade

From Yahoo! Finance: 2019-01-04
AAPL
CNBC Videos • Fri 1:57 PM
Trump: China is paying us tremendous tariffs

AAPL
Fox Business Videos • Fri 1:59 PM
Trump: I want Apple to make their products in the US

AAPL
CNBC • Fri 2:53 PM
Trump says he's not concerned about Apple because it builds products in China

Who is paying the “tremendous tariffs?  It is not the Chinese.  They just pass those tariffs on to the U.S. customers.

But the complexity gets worse.  Do U.S. manufacturers cut their costs by manufacturing in other countries.  If they cut their costs, do they pass those savings on to their customers or do they just add them to their profits.

If the savings are passed on, the customers benefit.  If the savings are considered profits, do those at the top get bigger bonuses or do the share-owners get bigger dividends or bigger profits when they sell their stock.

The Lord giveth and the Corp taketh away

The New York Times had an article on Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, the work the board does, and some of the opposition to the this work.  See “U.S. Climate Change Policy: Made in California”, Hiroko Tabuchi, 2017-09-27

It is amazing the corporate and “conservative” opposition to this work.  On the other hand, the comments were overwhelming in favor of clean air and the necessary regulation to obtain it.  And the profits to be made by leading the world in providing a clean environment instead of making matters worse.

Thus my title.  You would think that “conservatives” would be all in favor or preserving the clean air and water that “God gave us”.  Instead, they seem hell-bent on destroying them, bringing us back to days of heavy smog and burning rivers.

My own little comment was to a contributor who had been in China recently where pollution is endemic but the government is taking steps to improve the air quality.  I pointed out that “we the people” had enough of the pollution from backyard burning barrels.

Quote of the day: Chess vs. Tic-Tac-Toe

"The Chinese are playing chess, while Trump is still trying to master the rules of tic-tac-toe."
Comment from MGB to https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/opinion/trump-china-asia-pacific-trade-tpp.html

Other comments include Trump claiming to be a master negotiator even as he loses on many deals.

At least P.T. Barnum gave his “suckers” something for their money.  All we get from Trump are “yuge” promises, like Trump Care being far better than Obama Care.

What does it take to become an "American"?

Comment to
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/opinion/sunday/why-is-this-hate-different-from-all-other-hate.html?comments#permid=22009533

Many Americans consider themselves to be Swedish or Italian or Polish because of where their grandparents or earlier were born, but are they really?  I have four great-grandparents born in England and four who were born in Germany or in what is now Poland.

But I do not consider myself English, German, or Polish.  I consider myself American.  I grew up here, my parents grew up here, and my grandparents grew up here.  Actually one grandmother was born in Schliesen, now part of Poland, but she went to American schools all her life.

When I went to England, I was not English, but a Yank.  When I went to Germany I was not German, but ein Amerikaner.

We will continue to have people from elsewhere come to the U.S., settle, and adopt many American ways.  Some will keep customs of their parents or grandparents; others will blend in.  Some will keep their religious views; some will change.  Consider the Amish.  Although there may be hostility to them by some, they are accepted by most people.  Can't we treat all newcomers with the same respect?

Oh, it gets more complicated.  My extended family includes people whose ancestors were born in Japan, China, and Africa.  I consider all of these as Americans first, and whatever as a matter of historic interest.

Trump and Nuclear War

I am worried that Charles M. Blow is a Cassandra.  He speaks the truth but nobody believes his warnings of doom. See Charles M. Blow, “Are You Not Alarmed”.  See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/opinion/are-you-not-alarmed.html

I left the following comment, but as far as I know, it was not approved.

After a nuclear war, will Donald Trump have become the last President of the United States? Sad!

Quote of the day: corporation interest in strong dollar

"The reason that our government doesn’t intervene to push down the value of the dollar is that powerful U.S. transnational corporations like Wal-Mart prefer a strong dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them.”

“Will Trump outdo Obama in handling US-China: No: Even before taking office, Trump has made a mess”
- Mark Weisbrot, Duluth News Tribune, 2016-01-07

The “other side” is “Yes: His policies will protect our allies, economy, citizens from Chinese bullying”
- Pete Hoekstra

Why does so much writing, politics, and whatever have to be either/or?  There are so many more considerations than “either side” puts forth.

In support of Weisbrot, I’d cite “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”  Also, Republicans have turned the Constitution upside down so many times; in this case they have replaced Congress has the power to regulate commerce among the states to commerce having the power to regulate Congress!!

I wonder if any other democratic nation has as many “pariah” states as the United States: Cuba, North Korea, and Iran.  Yet we support many broken or rigid states far worse than Iran.

Fox guarding the EPA chicken coop?

See "Trump names climate change skeptic, oil industry ally to lead EPA  in Duluth News Tribune, 2016-12-08.

This definitely is having the fox guard the chicken coop!

Shouldn't a "populist" be in favor of the people being free to breathe rather than the corporations being free to pollute?

See also "China to become the leader of the free-breathing world".

China to become leader of the free-breathing world

With Donald Trump’s appointments leaning to climate change deniers, it is interesting to note that China is being very aggressive about addressing climate change.

See “China emerges as global climate leader in wake of Trump’s triumph”, Isabel Hilton, The Guardian, 2016-11-22.

Rogues, clowns, politicians, and statespersons

Whether in government, business, unions, or any other human activity, we can find people who are rogues, clowns, politicians, or statespersons.  And sometimes a person can be any of these at various times.

Rogues are those who are only for themselves.  They may merely be selfish or they may work to destroy others.  Clowns are those who have no connection to reality.  Politicians are those who try to work with others to accomplish something they can’t do by themselves.  Statespersons are those who have a vision for the common good and succeed in implementing some portion of that vision.

Richard Nixon was an example of someone who was all of the above as candidate and President.  He was a rogue in his first campaign for the Senate when he misrepresented Helen Gahagan Douglas as a Communist.  He was a rogue when he authorized the Watergate break-in.  He was a clown when he said “I am not a crook.”  He was a politician in that he did work on legislation that was supported by many in both parties, for example Marshall Plan funding.  He was a statesman when he looked beyond his anti-Communism to visit and recognize China.

The genial Ronald Reagan was certainly not a rogue.  He was a clown in that he thought the Laffer Curve showed that decreasing taxes would increase prosperity.  He was a politician in that he did get legislation passed that had significant bi-partisan support.  He was a statesman in that he worked with Mikhael Gorbachev on a nuclear arms treaty.

A good portion of the current Republican candidates are clowns and at least one is a rogue.  They are clowns in their continued attacks on President Obama, including continuing to label him as a Muslim.  They are clowns in their continued belief that giving more money to the rich will make the general public richer.  Their schemes will make the whole country poorer with an even more rapidly deteriorating infrastructure and more rapidly warming climate.  And they don’t seem likely to be good politicians because they seem incapable of compromise to get something done.  As I looked at a picture of them in the Star Tribune of 2016-01-17, I thought that the only gray matter was their gray uniforms, I mean gray suits (“Give candidates a little time to think and a little time to speak – you know, kind of like presidents have.”, Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg).

As for the current Democratic candidates, they may be politicians working with others, but I don’t see them as statespersons.

Rogues in business include those who ran Enron (into the ground) and those who gave misleading information to get people to sign mortgages they couldn’t afford.  The Koch brothers are certainly rogues in that they buy a lot of legislation at the state and local levels that is advantageous to them and detrimental to the people.

The rogues in Oregon do not represent the people.  Those “patriots” occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are only after some Ayn Rand “freedom” to do what they please rather than the freedom to govern ourselves.  The Tea Party types seem to completely ignore the General Welfare clause of the Constitution and the establishment of a Congress to provide laws.  If law enforcement doesn’t bring these rogues to justice, it will be our misfortune (malheur in French).

The magical thinking of the anarchists in Oregon is of the same ilk as another set of rogue anarchists: the so-called Islamic Jihadists of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram.  These “Islamic” rogues no more represent Islam than the Bundy anarchists represent the American people.  Consider that there are only about 100,000 “Jihadists” but 1.6 billion Muslims

As a measure of how non-Islamic these rogues are, consider that they may not even have copies of the Qu’ran. “Because it has nothing to do with the Quran. They didn't even have the Quran; they didn't want even to give us a Quran.” - Al Arabiya News, 2015-02-04, reporting on Didier François’ interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

If you want a better sense of Islam, see www.trueislam.com.

But “Islamic” rogues are not the only misusers of “religion”.  If we are a Christian nation, why do some “Christians” call for the expulsion of Muslims?  Why do some “Christians” call for bombing women and children because there are “Islamists” in an certain area.  What kind of Christian nation would have nuclear weapons that would indiscriminately kill thousands of innocent citizens?

On the one hand, we had the rogue Fred Phelps whose Westboro Baptist Church would picket veterans’ funerals as a protest against gays.  I couldn’t confirm this memory but I did find a long list of non-Christian behavior.  On the other hand, we have the Christian statesman, Martin Luther King Jr., who eschewed hate and worked hard to spread Christian love, even against those who would hurt him.

We don’t get to choose many of our rogues, but we can choose many of our politicians and statespeople.  But to do that, we have to show up at each and every election.  If we stay away, we bring on the clowns, and the rogues, too.  Every vote counts and your vote counts only if you cast it.

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2016-01-21 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/01/22/6588_rogues_clowns_politicians_and_statespersons.

World Peace in Four Easy Steps

OK!  Maybe the following aren’t easy steps, but compared to the money and effort that have gone into weapons, wars, and stock market manipulation, these should be child’s play.

First, invest heavily in the development and deployment of alternative energy, both small-scale and large-scale.  The main benefits are reducing poverty, slowing global warming, and reducing the power of petro-dictators.  This investment is already happening in many places and at many levels.

You don’t have to look hard to find news about a large array of solar panels, a new purchase of wind turbines, or some large-scale energy savings.  Germany gets over ten percent of its energy from wind, and some German states get half from wind.  Overall, Europe gets about eight percent of its electricity from wind, up from seven percent in 2012. I won’t bore you with a long list of statistics, but you can easily find many sites that describe the deployment of wind energy.

Energy is being generated many places on a small scale.  Last week’s Reader had an article from the Christian Science Monitor about Greenlight Planet, a company that is making low-cost solar lamps.  If the article is to be believed, Greenlight Planet’s Sun King lights do better than my solar shed light for our outhouse.  The Sun King light supposedly lasts 30 hours without recharging.  If I leave my shed light on overnight, the batteries drain to the point that they won’t even recharge!  Unfortunately, according to the Greenlight Planet website, you can only buy a sample if you live in India.  Otherwise, you have to find a dealer.

And some renewable energy projects start even smaller.  William Kamkwamba, age 14, of Malawi started creating windmills just to have a light to read by at night, he then provided light for all in his village, and then a water pump.

Second, invest heavily in moving water to where it is needed, either by rain or by moving desalinated seawater.

One of the problems Kamkwamba’s village faced was periodic droughts, some of them deadly.  With his windmills, he was able to pump water from a dug well.  This also saved women from making long treks to water sources.

But we know that we can stress our water sources, from overusing wells to draining lakes.  Remember the Aral Sea that almost dried up.  It is coming back, slowly.

China is working on some huge desalination projects, but these will meet only some of the demand of its large cities.  Israel depends on desalination for half of its fresh water.

Desalination (also called desalinization) works best near oceans and can cost a lot to move inland or to higher elevations.  I don’t know what moving water inland costs, but consider that desalination can cost three dollars for one thousand gallons, but the same amount of bottled water would cost nearly eight thousand dollars!

I often wonder if spraying seawater into offshore winds could induce rain inland.  Will the evaporation drop out the salt sufficiently that it won’t harm the land?  If a lot of moisture is introduced this way, will it cause damaging thunderstorms?  Will we sow the wind and reap the whirlwind?

Third, invest heavily in soil building either by using natural fertilizers or by planting more trees.  Increasing the amount of fresh water doesn’t do us much good if it only washes the soil away.  Dumping lots of chemicals on soil is only ruining it over the long term.  Clear-cutting larger and larger tracts of land is allowing more soil to be blown away.

Animal waste can either be a contaminant or a sustainable fertilizer.  Dairy operations and feedlots can either let the wastes infiltrate our fresh water or improve the soil for other farmers. Even human wastes can be used to improve soil.  The Western Lake Superior Solid Waste District (WLSSD) processes garden waste, food waste and human waste into fertilizer.  The first two are made into garden fertilizer; the second into farm fertilizer.  WLSSD produces over 30,000 tons of the latter every year.  What would our drinking water be like without that treatment?  What would our health be like?  Too many people in the world find these answers the hard way.  How do we ensure that these techniques are scalable all around the world?

The fourth step is that we could probably pay for all these improvements all over the world just with what the United States spends for all kinds of military equipment.  The Nuclear Threat Initiative estimates that the United States could spend one trillion dollars to upgrade its nuclear arsenal.  My guess that such upgrades in other countries combined would be half as much.  Let’s put that in numerals.  My guess of worldwide upgrades would be $1,500,000,000,000!!  Some readers would like to have savings of $15,000; others would be glad to have $150 in savings.  That $1,500,000,000,000 is over $200 for every man, woman, and child in the world.  Some of them would like to have that $200 just to survive for a year.

So, what are our world leaders doing about this over-abundance of killing equipment?  Dithering about cutting back what they have and posturing with it whenever they don’t like what others are doing.  Do we have any grown-ups around to get these big kids to stop playing games with other people’s lives?  This is the hardest step of the four steps to world peace!

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/04/24/3274_world_peace_in_four_easy_steps





You can find more of my thoughts at
http://magree.blogspot.com

How folks change rivers

One of my wife’s cousins sent her a link to “How wolves change rivers”.  At first I thought it was about how wolves move from one river valley to the next.  It really is about how wolves change a whole eco-system around a river, from the reintroduction of other species to less erosion of the riverbanks.

The five-minute video is about how the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park reduced the deer that had over-browsed.  This in turn allowed plants to get bigger, including trees.  Bigger plants and trees provided food and shelter for more and more species including bears, beavers, and birds.

This led me to think about my previous column “Five simple steps to lower gas prices”.  As we build more and bigger highways, we need to salt them when they get icy.  As the weather warms, the saline solution goes into the ditches and drains.  This eventually makes its way into rivers.

California, among many other states, has a problem with excess salinity in water used by humans.  See “Desalination Can Address Major Threat Salt Poses to California’s Water Supplies”.  It doesn’t mention the effect of excess salinity on fish and other animals dependent on river water, but it does mention two effects that it has on humans.

“Salt buildup in agricultural soils and water sources has destroyed mighty civilizations in the past and, if left unmanaged, can do so readily again.”

“[Salt buildup eventually chokes] the root zone for plants and makes thousands of acres unfit for farming.”

The Colorado River furnishes water for irrigation and other uses for 40 million people.  Consumption is so great that the Colorado doesn’t reach the sea except in years of heavy rain.

This reminds me of Herodotus writing that the Persian army invading Greece was so huge that it drank rivers dry.

Most Americans have heard of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland burning because of the pollution.  That happened after I left, but whenever I crossed it by streetcar or auto it was not a pretty site.  However, much of the heavy industry is no longer located in “The Flats”, and that which is doesn’t pollute as much as was done in the 40s and 50s.

The Hudson River was another tragedy.  Pete and Toshi Seeger and many others worked for years to get it cleaned up from PCBs.  The Hudson still has many problems including the effects from large amounts of water being withdrawn for cooling of a nuclear power plant.

The Mississippi River, Ol’ Man River, keeps rolling along and poisoning the Gulf of Mexico.  Agricultural runoff has created a dead zone in the Gulf.

The Columbia River may be one of the most dammed rivers because of its sharp average drop.  Damming a river has both benefits and drawbacks.  One of the benefits is hydroelectric power, possibly the cleanest and generally most reliable form of energy.  The drawback is that it limits the migration upriver of fish like salmon.  No salmon currently migrate to the upper half of the Columbia.

One of the most damaging effects on the Columbia River was the Hanford Nuclear site.  Water was taken out of the river for cooling, held for six hours for certain radio-active isotopes to decay, and then put back into the river still containing longer-lived isotopes.  Also much radioactivity is going into the groundwater.

“When the Yellow River runs clear” is the Chinese equivalent of “when pigs fly.”  The Yellow River is full of natural sediments that give it its name.  These sediments in turn cause heavy natural flooding that can take over one million lives.  People compound this problem by building levees.  If water breaks through then it cannot flow back into the main channel downstream.

However, several times breaking the levees has been used as a military strategy, one being in 1938 to stop the advancing Japanese army.  That flood took the lives of an unknown number of Japanese soldiers but also those of over a half-million Chinese.

The Danube in Europe is a very storied river and you can read more about it in Wikipedia, as well as about the other rivers that I mentioned.  We often refer to other rivers with a preceding article and sometimes a following “river”.  The Danube, at least in English, has no following “river”.  Maybe you can figure out its etymology from the Wikipedia article.

I haven’t researched what people have done to it, and so I can’t write about any pollution.  I will say that I didn’t find it “The Blue Danube” of the song, the Wikipedia pictures notwithstanding.  When I crossed it in both Vienna and Budapest, it looked brown to me.  Maybe I was in these cities after a heavy rain.

As for “How People Change Rivers”, Pete Seeger sang it well in the ‘60s’ and on: “When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn.”  I know, I know, he used “they” instead of “we”, but in the words of another immortal, Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2014-02-27 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/02/27/2990_party_of_one_how_folks_change_rivers

If you are a live person reading this…

If you are a live person, I'd like to have you counted as a live reader rather than a reverse spammer.

To be counted as a live reader, would you please access this blog from a Google search for "magree.blogspot.com"?  When you do the search, please use your local Google search, besides google.com for the US, there include

google.ru
google.cn
google.co.uk

and many others.

I just did a search for magree.blogspot.com from google.cn.  Although my access was recorded as from the U.S., the reference was from google.com.hk (Hong Kong).

Thanks, Mel

Resolutions, predictions, and premonitions

First, here are my guaranteed true predictions:

I won't break any of my New Year’s resolutions.
The stock market will go up and the stock market will go down.
The nation-wide turnout for the November elections will definitely be less than 70% and maybe even 60%.
There will be no new major national political party.  I really hope I am wrong on this.
There will be updates for major fixes in almost all major computer software.

The first prediction is easy.  I won’t break any New Year’s resolutions because I don’t make them.  I do make plans and to-do lists, some of which I accomplish or do, but too often the items get pushed down and forgotten.

I have made a major commitment to be on a plant-based diet, aka vegan diet.  In one of those little bits of randomness, when I saw the animation in the DVD “Forks over Knives” of plaque going off an artery, I was hooked on trying it.  Essentially it’s avoiding meat, eggs, and dairy.  There went yogurt on my oatmeal and my once a week omelet.

For the most part I’ve stuck to it.  Within a week of starting, a friend sent us some Alaskan salmon.  It is a standing joke with my wife and I that I get the bones and she doesn’t.  Would you believe that almost every piece I ate had a bone and one had three!

The Freethinkers had their December monthly social at Gannucchi’s.  Just my luck that every item on the menu had cheese and/or meat.  So I went with a turkey sandwich, figuring that was the leanest meat that I could get.  The organizers of the monthly social plan to go back in January.  I think I better call ahead to Gannucchi’s.

We have our three-year-old grandson from Japan with us.  At one visit to the grocery store, he chose a sushi tray.  Four of the pieces had salmon.  But then he didn’t want those.  He wanted only the rice under the salmon.  So, Grandpa “had to eat” one of those pieces of salmon.

I hope I don’t get stuck in any of these situations again before my next cardiologist visit.  I would like to see an improvement in my flow rate.

The prediction on turnout is easy, because we have so many people who don’t bother to show up, even when they have registered to vote.  I don’t know if they are just plain lazy or don’t like any of the candidates.  They don’t seem to realize that by not voting, they increase the odds of seeing the candidate they favor least elected.

There will be no new major party unless some national leaders create it.  The Green Party has been around for years, but it has not become a major force in politics.  The Independent Party of Minnesota has been around since Jesse Ventura won as a Reform Party candidate.  There will be a “Forum for Building Progressive Political Power” on January 11 at “Copper Top”.  But will the usual “liberal” suspects be able to engage more than each other?  The only real hope is that a large number of “moderates” at the national level say enough is enough.  It happened in 1854 with only thirty people meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin.  The result was the Republican Party had a winning presidential candidate in 1860.  Aren’t we past due for a re-alignment?  Wouldn’t those who met in Ripon because they didn’t want to compromise on slavery be surprised to learn that their party has morphed into a party that doesn’t want to compromise on corporate interests?

What else can I predict than the no-brainers above?

No major advances will be made on abating global warming, at least at the government level.  Many people will do their part on using less energy, but these people will only make a small dent in the emissions.  Some municipalities or counties will plant more trees to absorb some of the carbon dioxide.

The sleeper may be China.  As the complaints increase about the air pollution in many Chinese cities, the authorities may make a major push for alternative energy sources.  This might include major grants to universities and companies to produce more efficient and cheaper energy sources.  If they do so, the United States will be a major loser on the manufacturing side.  Something the U.S. should have taken seriously, would you believe, in Jimmy Carter’s presidency!

There probably won’t be any major wars, but there will be plenty of local wars and terrorist attacks.  Let’s hope Russia can take sufficient steps to thwart any who want to upset the Winter Games at Sochi.

I seriously doubt that there will be any major propaganda push to negate the appeal of hardline Islamists.  The Qu’ran, like the Bible, certainly has many passages that call for peace and warn against violence.

My premonition is that China and the U.S. will continue their power play to assert their authority wherever they think their “vital interests” are at stake.  Even though it is much more in either’s interests to avoid conflict, hardliners in either capitol could escalate the situation to the point of open war.  Think Sarajevo and World War I.

I doubt if any leaders are going to step forward and say “enough”.  “We really need to cut down on military expenses.  We all could make better use of our resources.”

To end on a brighter note, may you have a happy and prosperous new year!

This was published in the 2014-01-02 edition of the Reader Weekly at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/01/02/2696_resolutions_predictions_and_premonitions.

Are we on the cusp of peace or of war?

President Rouhani of Iran is working to make life more open for Iranians and to build more bridges to the West.  See "Not for Prime Time: Music Video with Iran's President" and "Iran Invites Inspectors to Nuclear Site".

On the other hand, China has declared certain air space as requiring permission for others to enter.  The U.S., Korea, and Japan felt compelled to enter that air space.  Now China is sending fighter jets into that space.  See "China Sends Jets into 'Air Defense' Zone After Flights by Japan and Korea".

We have one situation slightly defused and another situation ignited.  The first can bring about more peace, and the second can put war a lot closer than most of us want.  Will we have a Kennedy and a Khrushchev to resolve the latter?

Default Social Security but not China?

A company was founded that used bonds for its financing rather than stocks.  It issued bonds for various lengths of time: short term to smooth cash flow, medium term for starting new projects, and long term for capital improvements such as office buildings and factories.

When it began hiring a large number of people, it started a retirement and disability insurance fund for its employees.  It paid half of the premiums and collected the other half from the employees.  All the premiums purchased short-term bonds of the company.  Essentially, the company used the premiums to smooth its cash flow.

This went on for several decades.  Some employees never collected because they died before retirement.  Others collected for a few decades after retirement.  Few complained about the arrangement.

Then the company hired a new CEO.  He looked at the retirement fund and decided that instead of paying interest on the bonds of the fund, he could use that money to increase his own salary.  He also found a loophole in the decades-old contracts that allowed him to not pay the principle on the bonds.  He could apply it to his own salary.

There was a big hue and cry from current retirees about having their retirement checks reduced, but the votes of the bonds were controlled by the company, not the retirees.

Meanwhile,the holders of the higher interest bonds, the big banks and the foreign governments, including China, were assured that the company would meet its regular interest payments and pay the bonds in full on maturity.

Lessons in governance

"Clearly, the ability to solve problems, much more than sustaining some sort of ideological leadership, is now the key to the Communist Party’s legitimacy."  - C. Cindy Fan, "Don't Expect Big Changes", "Dawn of a New China?", "Room for Debate", New York Times, 2012-11-23.

Could this statement be equally valid if "Communist Party" were replaced with "Republican Party"?

Capitalism and socialism - let's get our definitions straight

A survey polled people on how they felt about capitalism and socialism - positive or negative.  But did the pollsters give a definition of these two terms or ask respondents to give their own definitions?  I think not.

See "Is Rush Limbaugh's Country Gone?", Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times, 2012-11-19.

Capitalism is gathering  resources to do something, whether it's to start a neighborhood grocery or to start an airline.  Capitalism is not the buying and selling of stocks and schemes based on the stock; that is finance.  Finance can raise capital, but the secondary markets of that capital are not capitalism.

Socialism is the government providing all the resources to do something and controlling how those resources are used.  I don't think there is a country in the world where that happens for all projects.  Even China has private capital ventures.  Social welfare is the government providing various safety nets or investments that help people with needs that "capitalism" doesn't provide to everyone.  Most developed countries have capitalist economies supported by social welfare programs.

Think of LM Ericsson in Sweden, Nokia in Finland, Siemens in Germany, and FIAT in Italy.  These large capitalist companies aren't going away.  Well, maybe Nokia will go away but that's because of technology, not government interference.

And many of these social welfare programs depend on a large number of private organizations, large and small.  Germany has hundreds of insurance companies underpinning its health care.  England has thousands of physicians in private practice who provide government listed services.

What I find ironic is that proponents of "capitalism" don't understand how "socialism" makes "capitalism" work better.  If there weren't government-provided roads, sewers, schools, and yes, regulation there would be chaos.  Chaos is something capitalists do not need or want.  If there wasn't government-sponsored research, many new ideas would never even reached the capitalists who would implement them into products.  If there is a good public health care system, then corporations don't have to fund them directly at great inefficiency.  Wasn't it G. Richard Wagoner of General Motors who said that he wasn't an auto executive but a health care executive?  See "U.S. Firms Losing Health Care Battle, GM Chairman Says", Ceci Connolly, Washington Post, 2005-02-11.

Be careful how you define things.  If you define things incorrectly or too narrowly, you may miss out on many opportunities for a better society.

Will U.S. be the Soviet Union of the 21st Century?

Is the United States moving towards

A single contradictory ideology
Seeing threats everywhere
Giving a large portion of its resources to military
Meddling in other countries' affairs
Being ruled by an oligarchy with sham elections

Or maybe it will become like today's China, building with few environmental considerations, obsessed with security and squashing dissent, and giving sweeping power to large organizations?

I do wish the U.S. would develop a party with enough confidence to stand up to the pseudo-conservatives who are driving most of the political "discussion".

"Moving" auto jobs from country to country

Mitt Romney's campaign has made a big deal of Jeep expanding its manufacturing in China, claiming Jeep is outsourcing jobs and blaming it on President Obama.  Is he also going to blame George W. Bush for all the outsourcing that was done between 2000 and 2008?

The fact is that Jeep is expanding its total manufacturing, including manufacturing Jeeps where they will be sold.

What does he think of Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi,  BMW, Mercedes-Benz,  and Volkswagen having factories in the U.S.?  Are they exporting jobs from their home countries?  Or expanding closer to their markets.  Maybe it's the shipping companies that should complain, all that trans-oceanic traffic that is lost and the associated jobs.

See "'Transplant' auto factories in USA turn 30 this year", James R. Healy, USA Today, 2012-04-03.

As Thomas Friedman wrote, "The World is Flat".

Quote of the day: foreign policy tantrums

"Unfortunately, U.S. policy towards Cuba resembles a 50-year tantrum, rather than a coherent plan for encouraging a transition to democracy. "The Castros, Cuba, and America: On the road towards capitalism", The Economist, 2012-03-24, reprinted in the Star Tribune, 2012-03-27

I am always amazed as to how long the U.S. government holds grudges; these put it in the same play pen as North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran.  I suppose internal U.S. politics has more to do with this silliness than practical diplomacy.  I hope it doesn't take another Nixon to take the initiative like he did with China.

I've been wondering lately why the U.S. doesn't say to Iran, "We are sorry that we overthrew Mossadegh and supported the Shah.  Now would you apologize for the taking over of our embassy?"  Oh, but I forgot internal U.S. politics!