A manifesto

From the Economist: A Manifesto for renewing liberalism


Excerpt:

Success had turned liberals into a complacent elite. It is time to rekindle the spirit of radicalism.

Click to expand...

LIBERALISM made the modern world, but the modern world is turning against it. Europe and America are in the throes of a popular rebellion against liberal elites, who are seen as self-serving and unable, or unwilling, to solve the problems of ordinary people. Elsewhere a 25-year shift towards freedom and open markets has gone into reverse, even as China, soon to be the world’s largest economy, shows that dictatorships can thrive.

For The Economist this is profoundly worrying. We were created 175 years ago to campaign for liberalism—not the leftish “progressivism” of American university campuses or the rightish “ultra-liberalism” conjured up by the French commentariat, but a universal commitment to individual dignity, open markets, limited government and a faith in human progress brought about by debate and reform.

Our founders would be astonished at how life today compares with the poverty and the misery of the 1840s. Global life expectancy in the past 175 years has risen from a little under 30 years to over 70. The share of people living below the threshold of extreme poverty has fallen from about 80% to 8% and the absolute number has halved, even as the total living above it has increased from about 100m to over 6.5bn. And literacy rates are up more than fivefold, to over 80%. Civil rights and the rule of law are incomparably more robust than they were only a few decades ago. In many countries individuals are now free to choose how to live—and with whom.

This is not all the work of liberals, obviously. But as fascism, communism and autarky failed over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, liberal societies have prospered. In one flavour or another, liberal democracy came to dominate the West and from there it started to spread around the world.

Click to expand...

The past twenty-years has seen the rise of Income Disparity because of penchant by countries to lower (or keep low) upper-income taxation. (Why? It all started with JFK/ who started the trek downwards and then when Reckless Ronnie hammered down upper-income rates in the 1980s. See here.)

What this means is that most of the wealth (Income after taxation) that is generated is going to the wrong people. Not just because it is unfair. But because that money could be better spent helping the rest of the people to obtain a decent living. Howzat?

Because the rich don't "spend" their far too easily-gotten gains. They park them away, mostly in investments that protect the capital from inflation wear--'n-tear.

Which is pure and simple selfishness on the part of a very small percentage of the total population. Rarely more than 10% of all American families. (See here for the worst culprits, America's New Rich and their giant-share of the Wealth*.)

*Wealth = Income net of Taxation (ie., lower net-taxation and wealth increase directly).

Lafayette said:

Because the rich don't "spend" their far too easily-gotten gains. They park them away, mostly in investments that protect the capital from inflation wear--'n-tear.

Which is pure and simple selfishness on the part of a very small percentage of the total population. Rarely more than 10% of all American families. (See here for the worst culprits, America's New Rich and their giant-share of the Wealth*.)

*Wealth = Income net of Taxation (ie., lower net-taxation and wealth increase directly).

Click to expand...

It's not as simple as our income tax not being progressive enough. The problem is the subsidies that we give to large businesses in the form of immigration and free trade. We allow corporations to exploit 3rd world labor while neglecting our own workers. Why should we put up with companies that don't hire Americans but only sell to us?

The point of dumping is to knockout a nation's industries while propping up your own. For the past decades, we've been incessantly dumped on, and our productive capacity has been pummeled. What have we gained? Well, China is busy building up their own infrastructure with magnificent new cities, railways, roadways, and airports. Meanwhile, our infrastructure is decaying and our people are addicted to drugs. It's time we start defending ourselves, focusing on American labor, and making sure that all Americans benefit from our economic policies.

phattonez said:

It's not as simple as our income tax not being progressive enough. The problem is the subsidies that we give to large businesses in the form of immigration and free trade. We allow corporations to exploit 3rd world labor while neglecting our own workers. Why should we put up with companies that don't hire Americans but only sell to us?

Click to expand...

The US isn't the only one. But the neglect of our own workers is clearly the fact that the minimum wage in the US ($15.1K a year) does not even suffice a family of four below the Poverty Threshold of $25K a year!

phattonez said:

IThe point of dumping is to knockout a nation's industries while propping up your own. For the past decades, we've been incessantly dumped on, and our productive capacity has been pummeled. What have we gained? Well, China is busy building up their own infrastructure with magnificent new cities, railways, roadways, and airports. Meanwhile, our infrastructure is decaying and our people are addicted to drugs. It's time we start defending ourselves, focusing on American labor, and making sure that all Americans benefit from our economic policies.

Click to expand...

You make a number of points that in reference to matters of international trade, but in fact these are matters that are negotiated at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Where the Minimum Wage is a matter for each nation to decide.

I could not agree more about the decaying of America whilst it focuses - in Donald Dork's Administration - on sucking-up to BigMegabucks as he prepares America for the upcoming mid-term elections.

Let's hope Americans wake-up to what is going on and they cut him off at the legs. In EXACTLY the same manner that the Replicants did to Obama during his first-term in office by giving the HofR over to them, which then embarked upon a nationwide-challenge to Obama's desire for more stimulus-spending.

So, what happened as a result? This happened (from the BLS here) to the Employment-to-population Ratio in the US:

As I never tire of explaining: From 2010 to 2014, because of the lack of Stimulus-spending in the economy, NO NEW JOBS WERE CREATED!

Whereupon, in 2014, because Americans had had enough of the stagnation, they started spending again and America's economy started creating jobs!

It's as simple as that ... but you have to be a Replicant to believe that what happened to Americans for the four longggg year that America's poor languished in Poverty Threshold was "acceptable national governance".

We have a tendency to blame "the guy in charge" for the economy, when in fact, depending upon the situation, it is often enough ALSO both Chambers of Congress who get economic policy wrong, wrong, wrong!

MY POINT?

Why do we do that? Because we, the sheeple, do not understand the structure of our National Discretionary Spending. Which is defined as this:

In US American public finance, discretionary spending is government spending implemented through an appropriations bill. This spending is an optional part of fiscal policy, in contrast to entitlement programs for which funding is mandatory and determined by the number of eligible recipients.

Click to expand...

And which looks like this pie-chart here. So ask yourself, "Where is far too much of the discretionary spending money going?"

To the DoD! Shift just 15% of that sum (that is, $100B) over to the Dept. of Education and it would fund post-secondary education in the US at a state-school; and your kids will get that education free, gratis and for nothing thus guaranteeing them a good job!

Lafayette said:

You make a number of points that in reference to matters of international trade, but in fact these are matters that are negotiated at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Where the Minimum Wage is a matter for each nation to decide.

Click to expand...

The World Trade Organization has allowed America to be completely ripped off. I have no respect for them.

I could not agree more about the decaying of America whilst it focuses - in Donald Dork's Administration - on sucking-up to BigMegabucks as he prepares America for the upcoming mid-term elections.

Click to expand...

This is a problem that's been going on for multiple administrations. Obama solidified the bank cartel and the health insurance companies. Bush did the same. Democrats and Republicans are complicit.

Let's hope Americans wake-up to what is going on and they cut him off at the legs. In EXACTLY the same manner that the Replicants did to Obama during his first-term in office by giving the HofR over to them, which then embarked upon a nationwide-challenge to Obama's desire for more stimulus-spending.

So, what happened as a result? This happened (from the BLS here) to the Employment-to-population Ratio in the US:

As I never tire of explaining: From 2010 to 2014, because of the lack of Stimulus-spending in the economy, NO NEW JOBS WERE CREATED!

Click to expand...

I'm actually right there with you. We had and still have millions of Americans doing nothing while our infrastructure crumbles. It's insane.

And which looks like this pie-chart here. So ask yourself, "Where is far too much of the discretionary spending money going?"

To the DoD! Shift just 15% of that sum (that is, $100B) over to the Dept. of Education and it would fund post-secondary education in the US at a state-school; and your kids will get that education free, gratis and for nothing thus guaranteeing them a good job!

Click to expand...

We paid $458 billion to interest on debt. We get absolutely nothing for that money.

phattonez said:

We paid $458 billion to interest on debt. We get absolutely nothing for that money.

Click to expand...

As I never tire of saying, we don't get much out of the largest part of the Discretionary Budget.

And I keep harping about how we should change that mentality very quickly and spend the money on items that really do some good for America (aside from paying the salary of some 2 million DoD-people, all heads counted).

Two million people and the Defense of national borders is simply not worth about 50% of he discretionary budget (somewhat more than half a trillion dollars). But Post-secondary Education and Healthcare most certainly are key to how well we live as a people ...

Lafayette said:

As I never tire of saying, we don't get much out of the largest part of the Discretionary Budget.

And I keep harping about how we should change that mentality very quickly and spend the money on items that really do some good for America (aside from paying the salary of some 2 million DoD-people, all heads counted).

Two million people and the Defense of national borders is simply not worth about 50% of he discretionary budget (somewhat more than half a trillion dollars). But Post-secondary Education and Healthcare most certainly are key to how well we live as a people ...

Click to expand...

You're not going to fund free college and have open borders. You can't have a welfare state and unlimited immigration.

SOME PEOPLE NEVER LEARN

phattonez said:

Well, China is busy building up their own infrastructure with magnificent new cities, railways, roadways, and airports. Meanwhile, our infrastructure is decaying and our people are addicted to drugs. It's time we start defending ourselves, focusing on American labor, and making sure that all Americans benefit from our economic policies.

Click to expand...

You've put your finger on the problem, but your solution is way-off-base.

Focusing on American labor will do no good whatsoever because the whole world is transitioning from the Industrial to the Information Age. Today, in the US, jobs in the "Goods Producing Industries" (not including Agriculture) amount to barely $13% of the total employment! The jobs that existed in the last century have all exited the US for cheaper-climates. And American demand for those goods from abroad is continually high. So, what's the country to do?

Rather than rattling cages (like Donald Dork is doing) the national government must assume the responsibility for the solution. Which is dead simple: Access to a Tertiary Level Degree is an absolute necessary nowadays to find a decent job at a decent salary. Especially with the onslaught of robotics in the manufacturing industries that has put much of not only American labor out-of-work and without any hope of ever finding work in the manufacturing industries.

Let's face reality. Because what Donald Dork is doing, and we think is working because unemployment is down to only 4%-levels, IS NOT THE SOLUTION!

And the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment-to-population Ratio shows what is happening! From here.


Note that the US started recovery from the Great Recession Calamity in 2014 (not 2018!). The graphic above shows the Employment-to-population Ratio since 2008, when the Great Recession started. The "recovery" is on a long and shallow slope that (if extended) will get the Ratio back to its 2008 level not before 2026!

MY POINT:
*For as long as 45% of our kids do not get a Post-secondary Degree (which is the case today), they will NOT enjoy employment at a level that assures a high standard-of-living.
*For as long as access to that education is blocked because public (state) universities have an average cost of $12K a year tuition, lower-income Americans will never be able to afford sending their children to pursue a tertiary-level degree.
*For as long as this situation continues to exist, quite simply, THERE IS NO BONA-FIDE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM if the government does not subsidize the post-graduate education (as is done in Europe).

PS: We are going through EXACTLY the same problem as at the end of the 19th century when America woke up to the fact that a universal secondary-schooling was a necessity. It took Uncle Sam another 30 years to effectively introduce public secondary-education in all the states! As the saying goes, "Some people never learn!"

Lafayette said:

What this means is that most of the wealth (Income after taxation) that is generated is going to the wrong people.

Click to expand...

the beauty of freedom and capitalism is that that's impossible. The wealth goes to whomever people give it. You cant buy from Amazon and then claim your wealth went to the wrong person, Jeff Bezos. 1+1=2