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American Nationalism Globalism Paradox

 

A U.S. presidential campaign ran on a platform of nationalism, with the pledge of making America great again, although the candidate, at least partially fashioned in his own line from China, is head of a transnational corporation with globalism to thank for the great wealth amassed. The cabinet appointees, unsurprisingly, have been heads of multinational corporations and/or independently wealthy, as well as, leading a charge to privatize every aspect of our economy. The “America first” policy, accordingly, clearly must ring hollow to most, appearing to only apply to the “little people,” the working middle class and poor American citizens. In the face of an administration overflowing with wealth and corporate influence, how are regular American citizens supposed to navigate the rhetoric in order to know the real impact of the policies of this administration. Among the nationalism and globalism paradox, American citizens seek basic needs and attainable resources, such as, healthcare, education and housing. American citizens, thus, may do well to identify and expose the financial rather than perceived patriotic interests behind legislation impacting our basic human needs.

“America first,” is a great slogan. Nostalgic, though tragically near to impossible to achieve, in an age of transnational corporations. The America first policy might mislead one to believe that the end result of such a policy would be to the benefit of American citizens. Nationalism evokes notions of guaranteed work and an attainable lifestyle. Nationalism, in an era of globalization, however, merely exists in isolated instances, imposing protectionism and unfair markets for the sake of preserving employment for a particular labor pool of a corporate interest, or local crafts, trades and unions.

Nationalism sounds nice, favoring jobs for local labor over off-shore / outsourced labor. Nationalism promotes strong borders, as a response to claims that immigrants drain public services without reimbursement, dilute the labor pool, and diminish employment opportunities for locals. Nationalism mischaracterizes immigration as a problem to be solved or eliminated, even in light of a U.S. congressional report on immigration which noted that immigrants contribute a net increase to the gross domestic product (GDP). Nationalism is a protectionist policy often implemented using trade tariffs and other protectionist measures in an attempt to benefit local constituents. In the context of globalism, what appears as a local beneficiary, such as, a few dozen minimum wage jobs at Home Depot, is often the local presents of a transnational corporation.

Nationalism, despite the warm feelings evoked, costs Americans more in higher prices that in turn often subsidize the protected national markets. For example, when the U.S. administration imposes tariffs on agricultural products from China, and in response China imposes tariffs on agricultural products impacting American farmers, the U.S. administration then provides subsidies to the American farmers harmed by China’s tariffs, causing American citizens to pay for the subsidy. Higher prices for higher value crafts, trades and services, makes buying local compelling, but most struggling Americans unfortunately live happy to take advantage of the lowest price regardless of impact to local economies.

Globalization, in contrast to nationalism, promotes open borders and the free flow of labor and goods, all to bring us low low prices, but at what cost. Globalization is orchestrated by transnational corporations that coordinate resources in various nations and align intra-government policies, in order to realize a profit. As many as 70 transnationals make up the top 100 economic entities (countries and corporations) in the entire world. Only 30 out of some 200 countries are ranked in the list. The largest transnationals are considered more valued and influential than many countries and heads of states. Unpacking the basic nature of a transnational corporation, no national allegiance should be expected from a transnational, but if given, be at least suspicious of ulterior profit driven motives.

Vigilance may be required to identify globalist corporate interests disguised as nationalism. Transnational corporations sometime have common interests that appear to align with nationalists policies. A transnational private prison, for example, may lobby for one or more nationalist agenda issues, such as strong borders, in order to increase prison populations and thereby profits, while lobbying against human rights initiatives (mental health / healthcare) that would increase costs to operate. Regardless of nationalism or globalism leanings, understand that by supporting initiatives that allow corporations to exploit basic human needs and human rights, threatens the constitutional and human rights of all Americans.

A real nationalist message might say, “If you want to put your neighbor to work, employed on a livable wage, stop shopping at Walmart and Amazon.” More local stores and shops have been closed, and jobs eliminated because of Walmart and Amazon, two mega transnational corporations. Walmart is ranked tenth largest of all the economic entities of the world following the nine wealthiest countries, including the United States, China, Germany, Japan, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Brazil, and Canada. The general disregard by transnationals to adequately fund healthcare or provide a living wage should not be surprising, nor is the fact that one of the wealthiest people in the world is the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, who also employs thousands of minimum wage workers with little or no healthcare. Walmart, the largest minimum wage employer in the U.S., provides health insurance only to limited management roles. Transnationals lobby to suppress employer costs, including healthcare, wages, and impose restrictive employment arrangements. Walmart allows most workers to go without healthcare or a living wage. Expect Walmart to oppose pro-worker legislation. American citizens actively supporting worker rights may do well to identify legislators supported by Walmart, and expose the corporate interests and ties.

Corporations dictate legislation in areas of basic human needs with million dollar lobbying budgets effectively preserving control. American citizens may do well to eliminate for-profit markets and prohibit corporate lobbying in areas of basic human needs, such as, healthcare, education, and housing, from which corporations have no interest to eliminate profit. American citizens may consider instituting a regulatory commission to over see administration of services directed to basic human needs in a similar manner to a regulatory commission for utility companies. For example, institute a single payer, like medicare/medicaid or Veterans Affairs, to set rates for medical services, housing and education. Regardless of the oxymoronic notions of American nationalism in the age of globalism, areas of basic human needs should be protected from opportunities for political oppression and corporate exploitation.

Fix Capitalism for the betterment of human development and quality of life.

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America’s Tariffs All In Strategy Overlooks U.S. Debt

 

The current 2018 White House administration has been imposing tariffs on China like a tourist in Las Vegas playing a hand of poker, who fails to appreciate that even with a pair of aces, there’s a long way from the opening bet to the final round. The initial consequence of U.S. imposed tariffs may seem appealing at first glance; charging more for imports does realize revenue to the government. The long term results of tariffs, however, as the effects of tariffs cycle through the economy, are adverse in several regards. Tariffs obviously raise the cost of imports for goods and material, increase prices to consumers and slow economic growth. Only industries covered by the tariffs benefit, while the rest of Americans pay for the programs that subsidize the tariffs. Multinational corporations, unlike U.S. based companies and individual Americans, have options to avoid the impacts of tariffs, such as by relocating operations globally so as to minimize impacts. Tariffs also cause layoffs in the workforce, as local employers contract in size as the economy slows due to rising costs for imported goods and materials.

A mutual question for both America and China to answer may be to what extreme is either side willing to go before reaching terms for a trade agreement. Americans are the biggest consumer of exports from China, while China holds almost as much U.S. debt as the 32% held by U.S. investors. America and China could benefit from cooperation, or cause substantial economic damage to both countries. The length to which America and China would go to harm the opposition before attempting to reach an agreement is uncharted. Questions for the White House administration to answer include whether a target goal in tariffs exists, where do the tariffs on China end, and how will the White House Administration support the U.S. economy in response to the negative impacts of the tariffs.

Lowering imports into America will not necessarily result in a corresponding raising of U.S. exports. Consider what happens if the rest of the world, including China’s economy, have no interest or capacity for more U.S. exports. Even if U.S. exports maintain a steady rate of growth, the world’s capacity to absorb U.S. exports is limited, regardless of U.S. tariffs on imports. Finding a reasonable level for tariffs, if any, accordingly, is delicate. A country with a steady rate of exports but low imports, which is where the White House appears to be heading America, reflects a textbook declining economy. Given that the U.S. Administration cannot expect China to match the U.S. in trade, China has a practical limit to negotiations on U.S. trade.

An increase in import costs for goods and materials will undoubtedly increase U.S. debt. America, however, already holds the greatest amount of debt of any country in the world, at $21.5 trillion as of 2018. Some will callously proclaim, what’s a little more U.S. debt to the American economy, American’s will continue to out pace the world in consumption for the foreseeable future, by just amassing more debt. China, interestingly to note, has amounted a total debt well above 250% of China’s gross domestic product (GDP), while the U.S. debt is about 105% of U.S. GDP.  Although China has been charged with currency manipulation of China’s yuan, the U.S. Treasury, unfortunately, has also maintained initiatives to weaken the U.S. dollar to just above where investors would walk away, in order to stimulate the world’s interest to purchase more U.S. debt through U.S. Treasury bonds. With China holding more than 5.5 % of U.S. debt, the largest holder of U.S. debt, the U.S. Treasury may not want to test whether the U.S. dollar can be further weakened with additional rate adjustments.

The U.S. dollar, weakened to a point, may cause U.S. exports to be appetizing to China. China, ironically, has maintained U.S. debt in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds for years, as a part of a strategy to assist America to buy China’s imports. However, China may find a further weakened U.S. dollar, more specifically, the U.S. Treasury bond rate adjusted in response to a weakened U.S. dollar, unappealing for investment. If China plays an all in strategy, dumping U.S. debt, in response to continued American tariffs, the U.S. economy might spiral into another recession, or at best hit a major bump. Whether China will walk away from U.S. Treasury bonds, accordingly, although remote due to the possible self inflicted harm to China that might result, is a real concern for the U.S. economy.

Anticipating the storm that accompanies trade wars, U.S. trade groups that stand to gain in the short term may do well to look toward long term actions that benefit all Americans. U.S. trade groups may lobby to limit tariffs to avoid further harm to the American economy. American consumers, as well, may actively push for legislative representatives to support limited tariffs on China imports to avoid the hardship certain to be suffered by all Americans.

 

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Corporate Money – Foreign Influence in American Politics

 

With the world of politics clamoring about foreigners using social media to influence American politics, what’s interesting is the absence of any discussion about foreign influence through U.S. corporations. In a globalized economy, undoubtedly foreigners allowed to invest do so with enthusiasm in U.S. corporations. Ownership in a U.S. Corporation is clearly a backdoor way to America’s political system, and thereby, opportunity to influence those with the right to participate in the political system. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the Citizens United case of 2010, pronounced corporate money as speech protected under the 1st Amendment. Foreign shareholders of U.S. Corporations, through the Citizens United ruling, gained 1st Amendment rights to participate in the American political system.

Any amount of foreign ownership in a corporation allowed to participate in the American political system should raise concern, one would think. Interestingly, however, only foreign individuals or foreign companies with at least 25% ownership interest must be reported to the IRS. Currently, a corporation may be held by any number of foreign shareholders without being disclosed, where none of the foreign shareholders individually hold 25% or more interest. U.S. communications and media corporations are increasingly being owned by foreigners, strengthened by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval in 2017 of 100% foreign ownership in U.S. broadcast stations, and as a specific example, allowing up to 49% foreign ownership in Pandora, which through ownership in another company, holds a U.S. radio station.

Consider a possible strategy of a supply company or media company that has foreign shareholders. A supply company would most likely lobby for, and support legislators willing to grant concessions, to the detriment of citizens, local businesses and economies. For example, lowering barriers for imports, and driving down wages, by dominating the local labor market, such as might be done by Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot, benefit corporate interests to the detriment of local services, trades and crafts people.

Foreign ownership in media companies, including television, journalism, as well as, technology companies like Facebook, Google, Netflix, and Microsoft, may strategize to influence the type of coverage provided on any number of issues to the benefit of foreign shareholders over the interest of American citizens. The corporate media has been known to miss the mark on unbiased reporting, deliberately withholding unflattering information about a politician or other party in the favor or control of the media company.

Shareholder influence on the lobbying and political support made by a corporation, even with just a single foreign shareholder, allows foreign influence, through a foreigner’s vote as shareholder in a U.S. corporation, and thereby, participation in America’s political system. To preserve America’s Democracy, eliminating corporate money in politics, in order to remove any foreign influence would seem logical. Unlike human citizens, corporations, and multinational corporations in particular, have no national allegiance, and often lobby interests counter to human citizens in industries effecting such areas as human development and quality of life; for example, the prisons and health insurance industries.

Whether the Supreme Court got it wrong with Citizens United is clear. The 1st Amendment rights of all corporations should not extend to political speech, noting that corporations are a legal fiction granted certain rights in order to operate, not the inalienable rights of human citizens. In the case of corporations with foreign shareholders, so as to avoid any possible foreign influence, the “one-drop rule” should apply to exclude corporations with any foreign ownership from political speech. The one-drop rule, from the Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court case in 1895, held that any person with even one ancestor of African ancestry is considered Black. A corporation with any foreign shareholders, similarly, can be considered to be influenced by foreign interests, and thereby, directed to influence the lobbying and political activities of those corporations in which foreign ownership is held.

The transparency of ownership of a corporation would seem reasonable, at least where the corporation, through lobbying and political activities, adversely effects the lives of human citizens. Attempting to obtain corporate ownership information, however, is next to impossible unless one is a shareholder or a rare public disclosure is discovered. Corporations unwilling to make readily available to the public ownership by shareholder nationality, lobbying and political activities information should be excluded from lobbying and participating in any political efforts. Corporations with at least one foreign shareholder, moreover, may be reasonably excluded from political speech in any form in America.

Fix Capitalism for the betterment of human development and quality of life.

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Myth: Higher Profitability to Incarcerate than Educate or Immigrate

 

 

I remember my first job out of law school, and passing the company administrator, who asked me why I was smiling on my way into work. I replied that I was happy because I was getting paid to come do what I enjoyed. I was fortunate to escape the Law, despite growing up in Washington, D.C. in the 60’s and 70’s, a Black boy, the oldest of three, raised by a single mother. I saw more than a few friends and family disappear almost from existence and reappear some years later, as a consequence of getting caught up by the Law. Not without paranoia, nationally a third of Black men are in the legal system, and ironically, of the children arrested 32% are Black. Securing an education at all cost, full stop, seemed clear to me, given the chaos that accompanied living in the various neighbors in which we moved about throughout D.C. Notwithstanding, I was lucky, plain and simple!

Puzzled by the lack of opportunities which propel unnecessary numbers of poor and disadvantaged people to be incarcerated, I explored the source of the obvious root cause, that is, money. The fact has been known for decades that the cost to incarcerate an inmate is higher than the funding per public school student, in every U.S. State. Conservatively, each inmate costs $25,000 to $35,000 per year to incarcerate, compared to $10,000 on average per public school student to be educated. For comparison, ranked first in public education in the U.S. is the State of Massachusetts with funding at just shy of $16,000 per public school student.  One of the worse performing States in Education is Nevada, ranked 49th, funds less than $10,000 per public school student. The question is, why the disparity in the money spent between incarceration and education. Certainly a better educated person would be less prone to be snared by law enforcement.

The explanation for the disparity in money spent between incarceration and education would appear rational when you consider that public education is not a profit center for Government, but neither is the Defense Budget and the trillion dollar band continues to play. The prison system, in contrast to public education, is a $100 billion dollar industry with multinational corporations making billions and spending millions on lobbying for stricter law enforcement. The corporations that feed at the prison system trough directly benefit from growth in the incarcerated population. Show me a prison or prison supplier / contractor with a plan to reduce the incarcerated population, and I’ll tell you when the U.S. Forces plan to leave Afghanistan. Similarly, the reason for incarcerating immigrants in mass is by no means an accident, but a planned source of revenue for the prison system.

In order to ensure any chance of a level playing field for the poor and disadvantaged to escape the claws of the prison system, and to realize any chance of a life of purpose, why not eliminate political spending by those institutions that stand to benefit from incarcerating people. Corporations, in particular, are not human citizens and suffer no chance of being imprisoned, unlike human citizens. Police ticket quotas were eventually found to be obviously unconstitutional. Without much of a stretch, prohibiting institutions from participating in our political system, who stand to gain from incarcerating human citizens, would assist to prevent undue influence over legislators and law enforcement in any attempt to cast wider nets in the effort to maintain and grow the incarcerated population.

Legislators and the private education industry are no better than the prison system in preying on human citizens. Rather than multimillion dollar public education lobbying comparable to the prison industry, advocating for increased per public school student funding and higher public school teacher salaries, money is poured into efforts to privatize education, leaving the poor and disadvantaged inadequately prepared for life. Many inmates are incarcerated before 25 years old, at a time when the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed for making rational decisions. Properly funding programs designed to engage and channel undeveloped minds would leave little opportunity for poor and disadvantaged youth to be snared by law enforcement. Spending more money on the front end of a human life is logically to be more profitable to society than incarcerating a human being merely because of a lack of resources as a consequence of the zip code and/or circumstances one is born into.

To ensure adequate funding to educate the disadvantaged and poor, consider eliminating education funding by zip code, and instead, equitably distribute funding per public school student regardless of address. An educated citizen is less likely to be involved with the criminal system; 80% of inmates are high school dropouts. A reduction by some $18 billion in annual crime costs has been estimated to result with merely a 5% increase in the high school male graduation rate.  With an undisputed direct correlation between incarceration and education, why not tie per public school student funding to the per inmate cost and/or profits of the prison industry.

Undocumented immigrants, similarly, with the opportunity to participate in our economy, provide a net increase to overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by some $11 billion in state and local taxes, as reported by a Congressional Budget Office report. Corporations game our political system, lining the pockets of the few who stand to gain from human suffering.  Vigilance, accordingly, is necessary to safeguard the human rights of immigrants fleeing persecution, because profit driven interests otherwise see immigrants as ripe for incarceration.  The loss to communities and love ones of the contributions known to be made by immigrants and undocumented immigrants specifically is undoubtedly greater than the profit from incarceration.

Citizens motivated to preserve the Constitutional Rights of individual citizens and Human Rights of all people realize the benefit to society in eliminating money in politics. Legislators, citizens and patriots have an active role to: drive profit out of incarcerating people; adequately fund public schools based on a cost to incarcerate-educate ratio; and dispel the myth that undocumented immigrants do not provide a net benefit to Americans’ quality of life and an overall increase to America’s GDP.

Fix Capitalism now for the betterment of human development and quality of life.

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America’s Market Driven Democracy

 

For many of us, not until our declining years, if at all, do we ever contemplate a better world to be inherited by future generations. Ample solutions abound to the essential areas of human development and quality of life, including healthcare, affordable housing, education and a living wage. America’s market driven democracy, however, misdirects priorities, not for the lack of resources, but for profit, preventing any possibility of success to escape to implementation.

An obvious conflict often overlooked is not the tension between conservative and liberal ideas, but the competing interests of human citizens and corporations. Corporations have one main objective, namely, to maximize profit in perpetuity without end. While human citizens have a limited lifespan in which to endure hopefully with all or some portion of our inalienable rights intact, such as “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Intuitively, one would think that our democracy was intended to provide a way for human citizens to realize their inalienable rights, while corporations would only be granted certain rights to operate in our system, but most certainly not a mechanism to dominate over masses of humans.

Oddly though, individual human citizens compete to be heard in our democracy, silenced by corporations and money allowed into the political system. The legal fiction that a corporation is a ‘person’ for the purpose of contracts with the rights of a person under the U.S. Constitution has been ruled on by the Supreme Court to extend protection under at least the 1st Amendment, which provides freedom of religion, speech and the press, and the 14th Amendment, which provides equal protection under the law. Corporations have at least two conservative Supreme Court rulings to thank for control over our democracy, San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road (“San Mateo County”) from 1882, and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (“Citizens United”) from 2010.

In 1882, former U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling, who had helped draft the 14th Amendment and left Congress to practice law, argued before the Supreme court for the Southern Pacific Rail Road that the drafters of the 14th Amendment used the word ‘person’ instead of ‘citizen’ to include corporations, the notion of which some allege was “a deliberate, brazen forgery.” A former Senator had cooped a law designed to assist the newly emancipated African Americans for the benefit and advantage of corporations. The money interests of railroads, a dominate corporate interest at that time in history, capitalized on a conservative Supreme Court and former U.S. Senator, who was also a drafter of the 14th Amendment, to extend the 14th Amendment to corporations.

In 2010, the Citizens United Supreme Court held that campaign funding by corporations is a form of speech protected by the U.S. Constitution under the 1st Amendment. The conservative nonprofit corporation named Citizens United was granted the right to air political advertisement during primary season, effectively permitting corporate money into politics as a form of protected speech. Subsequent Supreme Court decisions and Congressional legislation have continued to expand corporate rights in opposition to the rights of human citizens.

What the life cycle for an American politician at work, such as former U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling, where politicians and corporations run like water to every crevasse seeking opportunity to profit from government in favor of wealth over the People. The apparent invisibility of conflicts of interest from the revolving door between politicians and corporations, the regulated and regulator, perpetuate the corporate market interest over human support services.

Human support services, by nature need non-market driven profit-less structures in order to deliver even moderately adequate services. Curing sick people in the U.S., for example, should not be profit driven, no more than anyone question a single dollar of the U.S. military budget approaching ten times any other country in the world. The fact that the U.S. Government is already a single payer for millions of Americans, by way of the Veterans Administration and Medicaid / Medicare, however, does not cease the opposition lead by corporate interests operating to profit from healthcare at the expense of providing healthcare to all Americans. The argument opposing single payer, would of course be voiced by those threatened with elimination, namely, the heath insurance industry. Consider how different our democracy would work by excluding money from politics, and realize that satisfying basic needs for human development and quality of life is possible with restraint on for-profit corporate interests in the areas of politics, media, healthcare, housing, and education.

Yes, our political system has been bought by special interest money of corporations. However, more alarming, in a globalized economy, special interest money is often backed by multinational companies, and by way of shareholder interest, non-citizen foreigners. Currently, only corporations with at least 25% foreign ownership interest held directly or indirectly by an individual or foreign company must be reported to the IRS. However, many U.S. corporations are owned by foreigners who individually do not hold at least 25% ownership although in the aggregate do meet or exceed 25% ownership in a U.S. corporation. With corporate media often funded by multinational corporations, interestingly the silence is deafening in the debate as to why our political system would allow any possibility of foreign influence, directly or indirectly, through corporate participation in politics. Our U.S. communications and media corporations are increasingly being owned by foreigners, strengthened by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in 2017, approval of 100% foreign ownership in U.S. broadcast stations, and as a specific example, the FCC allowing up to 49% foreign ownership in Pandora, which through ownership in another company, holds a U.S. radio station.

Placing politics aside between conservatives and liberals, human citizens hopefully will recognize that corporations, in the goal to maximize profit, cannot be expected to voluntarily support profitless markets in healthcare, affordable housing, and education, let alone promote a livable wage. To the contrary, with unbridled rights to dominate our economic and political systems, corporations can be expected to maximize profits to the detriment of human development and quality of life, by:

preventing single payer healthcare from being implemented that would leverage the power of collective bargaining to limit and/or eliminate profit in healthcare;

failing to deliver affordable housing and fighting the enactment of laws directed to strict enforcement for developers to build affordable housing;

limiting and privatizing education to the few human citizens who can either afford to pay or willing to amass debt; and

suppressing wages well below a livable wage while automating to eliminate the need for human labor altogether.

Efforts may be directed to safeguard human citizens from our cohabitants in this market driven democracy, namely, corporations. Human citizens can support and vote for politicians that do not take corporate money, that do support campaign finance reform, single payer healthcare, strict mandatory affordable housing minimum ratio to market rate housing development, public education k-12 through the university level, and a living wage dynamically adjusted to a market index. Speak out against and divest from corporations opposed to any one or more of the essential areas of human development and quality of life, including healthcare, housing, education and a living wage. Expose corporations with foreign ownership interests involved in our political system, in particular those companies in media, healthcare, housing, and education.

Simply because wealth and corporate interest have dominated our democracy does not mean the trend need continue. Ask why not a different way, a more human citizen centric democracy, and be deliberate in your support of human citizens over corporations.  Consider your purchases and business dealings with corporations, excluding corporations with poor records of support for single payer healthcare, affordable housing, education and a living wage. Consider the possibilities of a market driven democracy with safeguards for human citizens to enjoy Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Fix Capitalism for the betterment of human development and quality of life.

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Speed Limits

Speed Limits – In the fast-paced life of modern day capitalism those on the fringe have been forgotten!  A society that ignores the needs of its most vulnerable citizens reflects signs of dysfunction and looming collapse.  The American Dream is out of reach for many Americans and at worse a nightmare.  America has become an oligarchy run by corporations!  Citizens must rise up and take back our government from corporate lobbyist, and support legislation directed to the health and welfare of citizens over corporations.  Universal Basic Income, Healthcare and Education are Human Rights!

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The Government – System Doesn’t Work

Scott L – Urban Off-Grid Resident – The Government – System Doesn’t Work. The rich get richer and the poor stay poor, and if you get caught in between then you’re just screwed. If you’re not from old money, you have no money. Everything is about money. Healthcare is not free unlike other countries that have free healthcare.