lolo-m said:
Man, who said capitalism is a bad thing ? I'm a capitalist. I just want to have a more regulated capitalism and most of all a more fair capitalism... To prevent future bubbles ( what at this moment prevent us from another bubble ?) and wars...
from a recent post... "a negative smack of unlimited hardcore-capitalism...."
Regarding preventing bubbles, and more specifically preventing business cycles, I have very mixed feelings about if this is even possible, and worthwhile.
Economic contractions are an opportunity to clear out dead wood and weak companies (creative destruction). I am also suspicious that all the Ponzi scheme and similar frauds we are uncovering now, were only revealed by the economic contraction. The joke goes, when the tide goes out you can see who isn't wearing swim trunks. If there is no contraction, frauds are harder to find.
Irak war is an example of pure cupidity :
Irak has got a lot of petrol. France has a long history of cooperation with Saddam Hussein to fight Iran ( providing him weapons... ). So France has got a lot of economic advantages on Irakian petrol.
Irak has got a lot of petrol. USA has got some too but thinking at the future wants to burn the others first ( I understand). So USA decide to get Irakian petrol and find a completely impossible story of mass destruction weapons. Axs nobody knows, americans trust their country and USA make a war in Irak.
At the same moment, France who was friend with Irak, Knows that if USA wins, they won't have irakian petrol, and if USA loose the war they will have it only if the don't do the war. So french government lies to french people saying it's not a fair war and all these long stories about the fact poelpe must deceide themselves wahat they want to do in their own country... And as poelpe don't know here in France too, they trust the government...
Saddam Hussein in both countries wasn't a problem, petrol cupidity was... France didn't do the war as USA did it for the same reasons, getting some petrol. And a lot of poeple died...
This has been argued at length and if all we wanted was oil we should invade Alaska, or San Diego.
Right now only the northern Kurdish region has active oil contracts happening, and they are not in sync with the Baghdad government who is having trouble closing similar deals because they are asking for a higher return than international oil companies are willing to pay.
I find it mildly amusing that some US citizens who thought this was a simple oil grab are wondering where the free oil is.
I guess I am one of the fools who believes in the value of self determination, while i am not very comfortable in arbitrary regime change. Saddam deserved to be hanged, and he was convicted by an Iraqi court.
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I suspect the recent popular protests following the Iranian election sham was influenced by the fledgling democracy next door. For any who are not still paying attention to world events, there were recent riots in Iran at a graveyard ceremony to honor innocents killed in the post election rioting. The Iranian mullahs understand the power of funerals to stir up revolution, as it was the mounting reaction from funeral rioting that spread and powered the first Iranian revolution. This time they outlawed funeral celebrations, to prevent this popular movement from building momentum but the movement is not going away.
Coincidentally the Iraqi military has just attacked an anti-Iranian dissident camp in Iraq the that the US military had left alone. This will surely win some points for the new Iraqi government with Iran.
I would cite this as evidence of Iraqi independence from US influence, but with our new administrations soft posture towards Tehran it's hard to tell.
JohnRoberts said:
Globalism usually means raising the standard of living for the poorest of us at some modest social cost to workers in wealthy countries. While unpleasant when we are those wealthy country workers, not really a bad thing to drag anybody up out of poverty.
Are you sure this is what's happening ? I can't see that here in Europe (nor in China):
The poorer european countries have still not enough money to eat correctly, and the richest have more and more difficulties to fill their plates... Social advantages of the wealthy are getting down every day while poorest are not rising significantly.
The way you see globalism is pleasing me and looks like what's happening here on DIY but it's not what happens in the world.
I was in China maybe 10 years ago, and even then there was a huge influx of poor workers from the north into the industrialized (Guangdong?) region to work for wages we consider a pittance, but new found wealth to them. I was told stories about young women, traveling south, saving most of their wages, and then returning home in a few years with enough savings to buy a plot of land. Once they own some land in the poor region they are (reportedly) set for life.
I'm sure they have changed a lot since I was there. As I recall it was bicycles every where when I was there. Now they have an emerging middle class buying cars. I suspect they are less enthusiastic about returning to the primitive regions and new cities are growing out of nowhere, for all these new city dwellers.
There are still very poor regions in China, and some minority populations are not sharing in the new, modest by our standards, wealth. But the country has grown private wealth impressively since getting Hong Kong back from GB and tasting the sweet fruits of capitalism.
JR
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