My radio in the shed is usually set to Radio national. Phillip Adams did this fascinating interview Wednesday afternoon.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/default.htm
"Wednesday 16 January 2008
Is America engaged in imperial over-reach?
Originally broadcast 15th October, 2007.
Chalmers Johnson parallels the military over-reach of the United States with the Roman Empire and warns that financial bankruptcy could herald the breakdown of constitutional government in America."
Fascinating stuff, 40% of the military budget is on secret stuff that not even the Congress knows about!
Sebastiaan
Is America overstretched?
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sebastiaan56
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There is a lot of secrecy going on in the shadowy places, not only in the USA but in the whole world, i think that we will see alot of stuff happening in 2008 with the European union and China trading Euros for oil because Iran has started demanding that the currency received would be such so that it would hurt the financial markets in the US.
Jesus, family, friends, guitar and mandolin : D
The problem has very little to do with military spending. The last 30 years has seen a gradual loss of resource of the low and middle income Americans to the wealthy. The speculations that happened in the 1880 resulted in the depression of the 1890's. The speculation of the 1920 resulted in the depression of the 30's
Speculation causes a disassociation of the real value of money from resource, service, real value which is what money symbolizes, so a free exchange of goods, resource and services can be freely exchanged.
As speculators, which corporate stucture is certainly the worst, begins to control more and more money they demand to be payed more and more, so they can extract more and more from anything that is done of real value.
During the "great depression" there was never a shortage of food, farmers were pouring out milk and throwing away eggs, because no one had the money to pay for them. There was huge amounts of money available in very greedy wealthy hands, made even more afraid because of the serious downturn in the market.
There were plenty of people to do work, food to feed them, things that certainly needed to be done but no money to pay for them. Thus the inheritance tax which was exorbitant at the time. There was a 90% tax on the wealthy to remove funds from their bank accounts to pay for programs.
The obvious abuses of the tax structure and an almost insane idiocy of the average American in addressing tax inbalance exacerbates this corporate abuse. The average American pays effectively 55% of his income in tax, not just the 35% income tax he believes. Between exise tax, sales tax, various governmental "fee's" (hidden tax) the American is under an incredible burden. If one has wealth to advantage tax write offs he can do quite well, teh average schmoe gets the bill for it!
Speculation destroys by distortion moneys real purpose.... free exchange. Devalues labor and real goods to support petty corporate emipre.
The added evidence of economic strain was evident all through the 20's as speculators gained more and more power, farmers were being thrown off of farms because of fluctuations of market and outright gouging in speculations caused the greed of the speculator grabing as much money from were ever he could get it.
This issue has been brewing for quite sometime actually. Many of my friends in their 40's and 50's are working 2, sometimes 3, jobs just to make ends meet.
Mortgage meltdown is not caused by poor lending practices, the lendors were actually masking a real serious economic flaw people are not being payed fairly for labor to sustain healthy economy.
As average people work, they place demand for products and services and create more jobs in turn. If they are not paid properly the opposite happens, jobs are lost because no one can afford the product/service.
This is accelerated by off shore production allowing corporate speculation/greed to disadvantage more average Americans in wages and services demanding a even greater imbalance.
We need to remeber the parasitical nature of the corporate structure. Personal computers... invented by 2 average guys in a garage. Airplane? to guys in a shop. TV? a average guy in a garage! Light bulb... car... telephone... average guys not corporations! Corporation is excellent at exploiting a concept or invention but very poor at contributing. If one sees the resource available to the average guy reduced, one see a hinderance to the real service to mankind invention allows!
Yes America will be able to afford less and less military spending as corporations bleed more and more of the real value of the nation, but the issue is far greater than military spending!
Speculation causes a disassociation of the real value of money from resource, service, real value which is what money symbolizes, so a free exchange of goods, resource and services can be freely exchanged.
As speculators, which corporate stucture is certainly the worst, begins to control more and more money they demand to be payed more and more, so they can extract more and more from anything that is done of real value.
During the "great depression" there was never a shortage of food, farmers were pouring out milk and throwing away eggs, because no one had the money to pay for them. There was huge amounts of money available in very greedy wealthy hands, made even more afraid because of the serious downturn in the market.
There were plenty of people to do work, food to feed them, things that certainly needed to be done but no money to pay for them. Thus the inheritance tax which was exorbitant at the time. There was a 90% tax on the wealthy to remove funds from their bank accounts to pay for programs.
The obvious abuses of the tax structure and an almost insane idiocy of the average American in addressing tax inbalance exacerbates this corporate abuse. The average American pays effectively 55% of his income in tax, not just the 35% income tax he believes. Between exise tax, sales tax, various governmental "fee's" (hidden tax) the American is under an incredible burden. If one has wealth to advantage tax write offs he can do quite well, teh average schmoe gets the bill for it!
Speculation destroys by distortion moneys real purpose.... free exchange. Devalues labor and real goods to support petty corporate emipre.
The added evidence of economic strain was evident all through the 20's as speculators gained more and more power, farmers were being thrown off of farms because of fluctuations of market and outright gouging in speculations caused the greed of the speculator grabing as much money from were ever he could get it.
This issue has been brewing for quite sometime actually. Many of my friends in their 40's and 50's are working 2, sometimes 3, jobs just to make ends meet.
Mortgage meltdown is not caused by poor lending practices, the lendors were actually masking a real serious economic flaw people are not being payed fairly for labor to sustain healthy economy.
As average people work, they place demand for products and services and create more jobs in turn. If they are not paid properly the opposite happens, jobs are lost because no one can afford the product/service.
This is accelerated by off shore production allowing corporate speculation/greed to disadvantage more average Americans in wages and services demanding a even greater imbalance.
We need to remeber the parasitical nature of the corporate structure. Personal computers... invented by 2 average guys in a garage. Airplane? to guys in a shop. TV? a average guy in a garage! Light bulb... car... telephone... average guys not corporations! Corporation is excellent at exploiting a concept or invention but very poor at contributing. If one sees the resource available to the average guy reduced, one see a hinderance to the real service to mankind invention allows!
Yes America will be able to afford less and less military spending as corporations bleed more and more of the real value of the nation, but the issue is far greater than military spending!
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Bob Connor
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This is a world problem!
These problems we see today area the reason we've had unions/ communism/rebellions all poor responses to a real economic blindness towards greed.
The unions are certainly the best address but it requires a lot of work by everybody to make them work. With unions what you really have is all out war against the greed of corporate reaction.
Most don't really have the guts to stand up to corporations when chips are down!
These problems we see today area the reason we've had unions/ communism/rebellions all poor responses to a real economic blindness towards greed.
The unions are certainly the best address but it requires a lot of work by everybody to make them work. With unions what you really have is all out war against the greed of corporate reaction.
Most don't really have the guts to stand up to corporations when chips are down!
Great Post Billy…
I read an interesting paper by one of our volunteers (an economics student) she compared the current disparity between the rich and the poor with past revolutions and cultural collapses.
Currently in Australia 10% of the population control 90% of the wealth, this was about the tipping point that led to the French Revolution.
Bring it on I say… Viva la revolution!
I read an interesting paper by one of our volunteers (an economics student) she compared the current disparity between the rich and the poor with past revolutions and cultural collapses.
Currently in Australia 10% of the population control 90% of the wealth, this was about the tipping point that led to the French Revolution.
Bring it on I say… Viva la revolution!
Beautifully explained Billy,
Your grasp of the issue penetrates deeply to the core and your delivery crystallises the problem perfectly for all to see. I can give no greater compliment than to ask if you would mind me using what you have written above verbatim? I have a certain union executive in mind that I would like to have read this and a few good friends as well, I would of course give credit where due.
Cheers
Kim
Your grasp of the issue penetrates deeply to the core and your delivery crystallises the problem perfectly for all to see. I can give no greater compliment than to ask if you would mind me using what you have written above verbatim? I have a certain union executive in mind that I would like to have read this and a few good friends as well, I would of course give credit where due.
Cheers
Kim
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Rick Turner
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