---------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> And cutting unnecessary costs. Wal-Mart has driven up >>_productivity_. >'Productivity' is just another word for the 'efficiency' that you >worship like a supply sider. Like Brad Delong and Paul Krugman? --- Who both argue for the joys of 'free trade' as if we actually had such a thing. If the super rich gets super-richer and the poor get super poorer, but the average is higher, that is supposed to be good policy. --- Are you seriously arguing against the notion that improved productivity has been the foundation of the existance of the middle class. That, if we had the productivity of 200 years ago, everyone would fall below the present 10th percentile in the present US society? --- No. I'm saying that it is progressive policies that created the middle class in conjuction with manufacturing. Without the unions the New Deal and Progressive taxation, most of the 'middle class' would be paid about as well as chinese peasants are right now. The Iron Law of Wages. > Cutting costs 10% is the same as getting an 11% raise. Wal-Mart's > innovations have > >.11 * 0 = 0 >No it's not. And a five dollar gift certificate is really the same as >having a five dollar bill in your wallet or in the bank...Not. OK, so we can all become richer if we raise prices and wages a factor of two. You seem to be arguing that inflation adjustments are nonsense. If your salary and expences double, you are better off? --- No. The economy is a feedback system. It's all just a flow of money between people and corporations and government. Your policies take money that is flowing through the economy and removes it from the system entirely--to swiss accounts, which lessens the amount of money flowing through the system (negative feedback), lowers wages, depresses the GDP and incentivises credit card debt spending (consumer debt is currently somewhere near 87% of GDP, corporate debt is very similar and so is the U.S. debt, we're talking trillions of dollars). > When the average farmer produces 5% more food than his/her family >needs, then there is little room for error, as well as little chance for >more than a few to rise above hand to mouth poverty. >Whose policies is it that keep third word economies down again? >one that uses Economic Hitmen and controls the IMF and world Bank? Mostly the policies of the goverments. --- G8. --- Indeed, the arguement I've heard from Aficans is that the West is at fault for not supervising their aid more. How in the world does borrowing money to buy government officials 100k cars help the ecconomy of Africa again? --- I think what is going on is exactly what certain rich people who control the IMF etc, want. Money flows to the U.S. from those countries instead of helping them. Reasources, profits, etc. flow to U.S. corporations, and anyone who gets in the way has an 'accident'. With genocide going on in darfur and pretty much nobody doing anything, not the U.S., or other G8 countries, it is easy to see what people who are elected in the G8 tend to care about. --- I may be wrong, but I bet you haven't discussed this at length with anyone from Africa who's has an ecconomics degree. Would you even listen to my daughter's understanding if I pass this on to her? FWIW, she's seen the problem from both sides, marching against the IMF and interning for them. What she wants to do more than anything is improve the well being of the people of her country. --- Why is charles Taylor still in power? Pat Robertsons buddy. Why is Zimbabwe ruled by a fascist, Mugabe, while Zimbabweans starve, and the U.S. Does nothing? Oh right I forgot. The biggest threat to us is from Hugo Chaves. Can't let a popularly elected leader control the oil that is rightfully OURS. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
