(Click title above)
(Continued from “Time To Tax Consumption,” “Free Trade that is Fair,” and “Managing Volatility with Sales Taxes and Tariffs,” below.)
Fair Trade and "National Strategery":
Leftists tend to want to “think” with their Feelings and emotions, while demanding objective Reasoning from Conservatives.
However, smart Moderates should season reason with empathetic, enlightened Intuition, recognizing that political and social choices are inter-permeated with incompleteness and subjectivity. That is, there is no encompassing formula for making completely objective decisions about fair trade. Rather, one’s notions about fair trade quickly reduce to nonsense, unless guided by a meaningful, defining philosophy.
In my philosophy, one should encourage one’s countrymen to respect human Freedom and Dignity in promoting governance that seems most likely to avail civilizing Sustenance, Sustainability, and options for Surpassing excellence. We must encourage and tolerate freedom, without tolerating its being undermined by collectivism or fascism --- whether secular or religious.
Freedom and dignity entail respect for individual initiative, innovation, and self reliance. Not entailed are empowering and encouraging sloth, victim mongering, zombie addiction, emotional blackmailing, and gang-style, collectivist robbing.
One may fantasize to try to “objectify” fair trade. For example, one may suggest that each nation should arrange its trade policies in “fair” respect for all other nations. One may suggest that one’s government or nation: (1) ought not “disproportionately arm-twist” other nations so as to “cheat” their citizens out of the fair exchange value their work adds to their resources and production; and (2) ought not allow other nations to cheat one’s own nation out of the fair exchange value its citizens’ work adds to their own resources and production.
However, at least four problems seriously intrude upon such fantasy:
(1) The fantasy assumes “givens” (objective measurability of value added) can be measured, even though such “givens” are more insuperable than given;
(2) The fantasy assumes “capacity to arm twist” is not, or should not be, in itself, a legitimate aspect of a nation’s natural resources;
(3) The fantasy assumes other nations can naturally be counted on to reciprocate, symmetrically and in kind, by trading fair-dealing for fair-dealing; and
(4) The fantasy assumes other nations and their citizens share in having assimilated America’s core values and philosophies relating to individual freedom, dignity, and fairness, as opposed to values of co-dependency, cultural entitlement, and collectivist pillaging.
Regardless, events have brought us to a point such that a notion of “free trade that is fair” has become of meaningful import. Such meaningfulness, however, is not found in “objectification,” but in respect for core values that define our civilization.
History has brought us to a date such that wealthy and powerful “Cosmopolitan’ists,” of an unholy alliance among both the Left and the Right, with little learning, loyalty, or love for national patriotism, humane philosophy, or Western Civilization, are alarmingly undermining the borders, symbols, and values that gird America's freedom and dignity.
It is one thing to accord decent respect or tolerance for trading partners. It is an altogether unenlightened, weak, and repugnant thing to extend such tolerance to such a point as to participate in our own destruction.
The line for “fair trade” becomes this: We must not allow “free trade” to be used as a zombie-inducing mantra for sacrificing Western freedom and dignity to such Globalists and their allies as seek to reduce freedom-loving Americans to debt slaves.
(Continued from “Time To Tax Consumption,” “Free Trade that is Fair,” and “Managing Volatility with Sales Taxes and Tariffs,” below.)
Fair Trade and "National Strategery":
Leftists tend to want to “think” with their Feelings and emotions, while demanding objective Reasoning from Conservatives.
However, smart Moderates should season reason with empathetic, enlightened Intuition, recognizing that political and social choices are inter-permeated with incompleteness and subjectivity. That is, there is no encompassing formula for making completely objective decisions about fair trade. Rather, one’s notions about fair trade quickly reduce to nonsense, unless guided by a meaningful, defining philosophy.
In my philosophy, one should encourage one’s countrymen to respect human Freedom and Dignity in promoting governance that seems most likely to avail civilizing Sustenance, Sustainability, and options for Surpassing excellence. We must encourage and tolerate freedom, without tolerating its being undermined by collectivism or fascism --- whether secular or religious.
Freedom and dignity entail respect for individual initiative, innovation, and self reliance. Not entailed are empowering and encouraging sloth, victim mongering, zombie addiction, emotional blackmailing, and gang-style, collectivist robbing.
One may fantasize to try to “objectify” fair trade. For example, one may suggest that each nation should arrange its trade policies in “fair” respect for all other nations. One may suggest that one’s government or nation: (1) ought not “disproportionately arm-twist” other nations so as to “cheat” their citizens out of the fair exchange value their work adds to their resources and production; and (2) ought not allow other nations to cheat one’s own nation out of the fair exchange value its citizens’ work adds to their own resources and production.
However, at least four problems seriously intrude upon such fantasy:
(1) The fantasy assumes “givens” (objective measurability of value added) can be measured, even though such “givens” are more insuperable than given;
(2) The fantasy assumes “capacity to arm twist” is not, or should not be, in itself, a legitimate aspect of a nation’s natural resources;
(3) The fantasy assumes other nations can naturally be counted on to reciprocate, symmetrically and in kind, by trading fair-dealing for fair-dealing; and
(4) The fantasy assumes other nations and their citizens share in having assimilated America’s core values and philosophies relating to individual freedom, dignity, and fairness, as opposed to values of co-dependency, cultural entitlement, and collectivist pillaging.
Regardless, events have brought us to a point such that a notion of “free trade that is fair” has become of meaningful import. Such meaningfulness, however, is not found in “objectification,” but in respect for core values that define our civilization.
History has brought us to a date such that wealthy and powerful “Cosmopolitan’ists,” of an unholy alliance among both the Left and the Right, with little learning, loyalty, or love for national patriotism, humane philosophy, or Western Civilization, are alarmingly undermining the borders, symbols, and values that gird America's freedom and dignity.
It is one thing to accord decent respect or tolerance for trading partners. It is an altogether unenlightened, weak, and repugnant thing to extend such tolerance to such a point as to participate in our own destruction.
The line for “fair trade” becomes this: We must not allow “free trade” to be used as a zombie-inducing mantra for sacrificing Western freedom and dignity to such Globalists and their allies as seek to reduce freedom-loving Americans to debt slaves.
****
NWO / NAFTA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Li0Wa5rc0;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brYWujMC-0k;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdxI0zClV_Y.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brYWujMC-0k;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdxI0zClV_Y.
7 comments:
CONSIDER:
Coming Financial Collapse?
Snippets from http://www.scribd.com/doc/2448286/Money-Creation-Legalized-Embezzlement-and-Global-DebtSlavery:
Money Creation - Legalized Embezzlement and Global Debt-Slavery:
....
Indeed, in a healthy economic system, money should only facilitate ecologically regenerative production, trade and consumption. But, as the supply of credit based monies rises, money increasingly loses value unless gross national expenditure increases in line with the overall money supply; in other words, unless quantitative (not qualitative) production and trade in the real world grows equivalently.
The problem is, of course, that the perpetual growth of the economy requires the perpetual growth of both natural resource consumption and energy use just to maintain the system.
We must then ask ourselves, how can a financial system that functions on the premise of perpetually compounded growth, allow a sustainable economy?
The only answer is—it cannot.
....
If growth lags, increasing amounts of debt must be created to service the previous debt and keep the level of foreclosures down. Of course, this only serves to further increase the total debt on which even more interest must be paid. Over the past 150 years, the fractional reserve banking virus combined with masterfully executed consumer manipulation through public relations and marketing (s. [..] ff) has infected every aspect of our lives. In the process, it has transformed us from prudent citizens who carefully avoid debt to voracious consumers unable to exist without it. The only circumstance keeping the “systemic shortage” of money from ravaging our economies today is the time lag between the creation of new credit as new loans—and its repayment. To keep this perverted mechanism from collapsing, banks must continually increase the amount of credit (which is why credit is so easily available) and governments are forced to continually increase spending (which is why budget deficits tend to continually increase).
Ludwig van Mise, the eminent Austrian economist, noted, “Sooner or later all these debts will be liquidated in some way or another, but certainly not by payment of interest and principal according to the terms of the contract. 10 No matter how robust this system might appear to one today, it is inherently fragile and vulnerable. With leveraging of any kind, there is the innate possibility of a cascading sequence of defaults culminating in financial implosion.
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Snippets from http://www.whale.to/m/greaves1.html:
MONEY & BANKS ….
THE HIDDEN TRUTH BEHIND GLOBAL DEBT:
....
Phasing out of National Debt.
"If the government can issue a dollar bond, it can just as easily issue a dollar bill." Thomas Edison.
* Government could stop borrowing money at interest, and start creating it itself by spending it into the economy on public projects and services, at the same time creating jobs and stimulating the economy.
* It already does this to a very limited extent – the amount it receives from the banks when it sells cash to them is added to the public purse and is available for spending on public services and projects.
FINAL REMARKS...
Seeking to redistribute what money there is by taxing the rich to pay for services for the less well off does nothing to solve the problem of the overall shortage of money in the economy caused by interest payments on a debt based money supply - a problem which most socialists have yet to recognise.
The world’s economies are our economies. We create the real wealth through our ingenuity, enterprise and hard work. The current banking system operates as a massive drain on that wealth as well as concentrating power and control in the hands of a tiny minority.
Money is the means of facilitating the exchange of goods and services . There is nothing wrong with creating it out of nothing, because this is the only way to provide the means of exchange. The amount that is printed or created simply needs to be matched to the amount of economic activity that is taking place. What is wrong is that the right to do this has been allowed to pass to private interests who create it as loans for private profit.
* U. S. President Abraham Lincoln considered it a primary duty of the government to provide a nation with the medium of exchange to enable the economy to function.
TO CONCLUDE....
* Can we not ultimately incorporate the humanitarian principles of a fair distribution of wealth that underlies socialism with the dynamic benefits of a free enterprise economy that lies at the heart of capitalism?
* For so long as the power to create money is in the hands of private interests who do it for profit and control, we can never say that we live in a democracy.
POST SCRIPT...
The European Union single currency gives the power to regulate the money supply of all those states that join up, to the European Central Bank. The Maastricht Treaty (article 107) forbids national governments and all other EU institutions to seek to influence the bankers who make up the ECB. For the first time this puts the creators of money totally beyond any form of democratic control or accountability.
....
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STRANGE???!!! CURIOUS ???
See http://www.illuminati-news.com/banking.htm;
http://www.illuminati-news.com/mission-statement.htm:
....
This webmaster is of the conviction that the world is controlled by a network of secret societies, with the goal to create a New World Order and a One World Government. This network of extremely wealthy and powerful people have, through lies, half truths and propaganda, succeeded in making more and more of the world population believe that a world without borders is a world of peace; a world without wars. They are working hard to make us believe that Globalization is the road to freedom, when in fact it is the road to enslavement.
I want to show the readers of this website that behind this sweet talk is a malevolent agenda to control the world and make us slaves in a global society run by a World Dictator (a World CEO) and a web of power-hungry people behind the scenes. Their purpose is to create a Super Socialist State, worse than the former Soviet Union, with a micro-chipped population, who can be tracked and controlled remotely from a Super Computer, located in Brussels, Belgium.
****
N.T. Wright on Debt Relief & Global Justice:
Snippets from http://www.subversiveinfluence.com/wordpress/?p=1745:
As far as I can see, the major task that faces us in our generation, corresponding to the issue of slavery two centuries ago, is that of the massive economic imbalance of the world, whose major symptom is the ridiculous and unpayable Third World debt.
....
We must learn, therefore, to recognize the complex arguments against debt remission as what they are. People tell you it’s a tricky and many-sided subject. Yes, it is; so was slavery. So are all major moral problems. The fact remains that what is now going on amounts to theft by the strong from the weak, by the rich from the poor.
****
Snippets from http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/4864:
Slavery has not yet been abolished, say archbishops:
....
Forsaking the formalities of officialdom in their attempt to reach a new audience, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have gone online to talk about the nature of the slave trade in readiness for the Walk of Witness to take place in London on Saturday 24 March 2007.
They highlight those elements of slavery that have not yet been ended - including the debt burden on the poorest and sex trafficking.
****
Snippets from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Williams:
... he once commented that “Every transaction in the developed economies of the West can be interpreted as an act of aggression against the economic losers in the worldwide game.”
EMANCIPATING DEBT SLAVES:
Historically, were not Knights Templar at least as influential for developing the money changing industry as any movement among Jews?
The problem of fairness in emancipating debt slaves should not be reduced to a racial or religious slur.
Rather, it is a problem that confronts humanity generally.
Mining revenue to fund any nation requires a dance, both delicate and rough, harmonious and conflicting, among various ideals and methods for taxing occupants.
To counter or reduce the undemocratic exercise of disproportionate wealth and political power, a progressive consumption tax is recommended. Businesses should be precluded from making political contributions. Political contributions made by individuals should be taxed to them as forms of consumption.
To counter the rise and establishment of stubborn, undemocratic aristocracies, progressive death taxes are recommended.
To facilitate governance of inducements and discouragements of various forms of production and consumption, various sales and transactions taxes are recommended, for imposition both on individuals and businesses.
To reduce temptations for black markets and tax evasion schemes, various forms of gift taxes may be recommended.
To preserve a viable, competitive nation, protect industry, reward allies, and discourage enemies, national taxes on various imports and exports may be recommended.
FAIR TRADE:
See http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2008/11/19/obama_to_usher_in_major_shift_in_trade_policy:
“Obama's win marks the first time in modern American history "that a candidate advocating a shift in our trade policies in a decisively pro-worker, pro-consumer, pro-environment direction has been elected president," Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, an advocacy group that is critical of free trade agreements, said in a report.”
Comment by Dlanor:
Most policies of both Dems and Repubs have been calculated to advance ninny globalism while undermining national integrity.
But, most of the world is not ready for American style freedom. So, in pursuit of globalism, both major parties have been: undermining American style freedom; sacrificing freedom to political correctness; relieving Mexico from worker despair and internal corruption; and advancing feminine desires for seeking good will from Euros.
These sort of policies are recipe for worldwide gulag. I despair about who is worse for leading us to worldwide gulag, Dems or Repubs. But, if Obama takes on fair trade, that may be OBAMA'S ONE SAVING GRACE.
We need either to kick godforsaken bluebloods out of the Republican party or to start a new, American Voyager Party (or Barracuda Party).
We have submitted to ignorant leadership for so long that things may have to get a far sight worse before they get better.
****
Mainly, Blueblood Republican men fear Palin because she has bigger balls.
RAPIDLY DIMINISHING RETURNS ON DISPROPORTIONATE INCOME:
See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/opinion/20ariely.html?th&emc=th.
POOR GOVERNMENTAL USE OF TRADE INCENTIVES — see comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/oligopoly_and_the_fall_of_the.html.
Free Trade — Corrupt Pols Selling U.S. As Doormat:
See http://townhall.com/columnists/PatrickJBuchanan/2008/11/21/who_killed_detroit?page=2:
....
While we think the Global Economy is about what is best for the consumer, they think about what is best for the nation.
Like Alexander Hamilton, they understand that manufacturing is the key to national power. And they manipulate currencies, grant tax rebates to their exporters and thieve our technology to win. Last year, as trade expert Bill Hawkins writes, South Korea exported 700,000 cars to us, while importing 5,000 cars from us.
That's Asia's idea of free trade.
How has this Global Economy profited or prospered America?
In the 1950s, we made all our own toys, clothes, shoes, bikes, furniture, motorcycles, cars, cameras, telephones, TVs, etc. You name it. We made it.
Are we better off now that these things are made by foreigners? Are we better off now that we have ceased to be self-sufficient? Are we better off now that the real wages of our workers and median income of our families no longer grow as they once did? Are we better off now that manufacturing, for the first time in U.S. history, employs fewer workers than government?
We no longer build commercial ships. We have but one airplane company, and it outsources. China produces our computers. And if GM goes Chapter 11, America will soon be out of the auto business.
Our politicians and pundits may not understand what is going on. Historians will have no problem explaining the decline and fall of the Americans.
COMMENT:
Blind governance is a major responsible part of the common mathematical environment. Market competitors respond in common to government inducements. It would have been a simple thing for forward-thinking legislators to have provided tax incentives or rebates for car manufacturers who meet various standards, such as for fuel efficiency, exhaust cleanliness, and safety testing.
Such forward-thinking would have helped keep American companies competitive. Increasing taxes on fuel consumption by consumers would not have hurt, either.
So, where have all the adult pols and visionaries been, for these many years?
BALANCED TRADE:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/stop_the_borrowing_theres_an_a.html:
The American Thinker
December 04, 2008
By Raymond Richman, Howard Richman, and Jesse Richman
Keynesian borrowing won't solve our economic problems
....
The central idea of monetarism is that governments are too short-term in their thinking unless they are bound by sensible long-term rules. Monetarists have always advocated the first two rules below. We would add the third:
1. Balanced Monetary Growth. Governments should maintain a steadily growing money supply, sufficient to prevent deflation, but not so fast as to cause inflation.
2. Balanced Budgets. Governments should maintain relatively balanced budgets so as not crowd-out private investment or leave a huge government debt to future generations.
3. Balanced Trade. Governments should insure that foreign trade is relatively balanced so as not to lose production jobs or leave a huge national debt to future generations.
Monetarism, even without the balanced trade rule, has been a successful economic philosophy. The Federal Reserve applied the balanced monetary growth rule during the 1980s and 1990s, keeping the U.S. economy relatively free from inflation. Similarly, President Clinton and the Republican Congress applied the balanced budget rule in the mid 1990s, producing a long period of steady economic growth.
The new balanced trade rule is necessary in order to respond to modern mercantilism, the economic policy that maximizes exports and minimizes imports in order to gain market share from trading partners. The latest evidence is the increase in China's subsidies to exporters which has not yet evoked a response from the U.S. government even though China exports four times as much as it imports from the United States and promised to forego export subsidies when it joined the WTO.
China and the other mercantilist governments have been perpetuating and increasing the U.S. trade deficits by buying U.S. financial assets with the dollars earned from their trade surpluses with the United States. For over a decade, American banks passed along the flow of foreign savings to American consumers, offering ever-riskier loans in order to get a high return. But when American consumers could no longer afford the payments, banks went bankrupt and the resulting hole in worldwide demand is causing the worldwide recession.
If the U.S. government switched to balanced trade monetarism, the U.S. could quickly recover since there would be plenty of demand for American products if foreigners bought as much from the U.S. as the U.S. buys from them.
One definition of insanity is trying the same thing again and again, but expecting a different result. Washington seems to be stuck on borrowing foreign savings. But borrowing from abroad exacerbated this recession, has already bankrupted many U.S. banks, and is starting to bankrupt U.S. manufacturers, including Detroit automakers. It's time to stop the borrowing by bringing trade into balance!
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Raymond L. Richman is a professor emeritus of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. The three Dr. Richmans are three generations of economists from the same family and co-authors of the 2008 book, Trading Away Our Future published by Ideal Taxes Association. They blog at tradeandtaxes.blogspot.com.
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