In "Hitting China's Wall." Paul Krugman opines that "All the signs coming from the economic data show that China is in big trouble."
He does not do a very deep job at explaining what he means. He claims that China is running out of peasants... Although there are 600 millions of them out there. Anyway, I wanted to deepen the debate, so, I sent him this:
Economy and politics are entangled. China's economic problems are nothing relative to its political problems.
The number one consumption in the developed world is information. That's what Chinese consumers will really want in the end. That sort of consumption, the Chinese dictatorship cannot afford to let the People of China enjoy.
So the leadership is reluctant to allow ever more base material consumption: once that has proven unsatisfying, it would lead to ever more questions, of a deep emotional, rational, and then philosophical, thus political, nature. This is basically the psychological mechanism that led the children of the elite to turn against their parents at the time of Tiananmen.
On the other side of the mountains, India has opted for democracy. democracy depends upon openness and information. As time enfolds, India will be able to become increasingly the master of both, and that's what people want. Worldwide.
Thus the present Chinese political system blocks the long term production of the most advanced service, information. That's what really hobbles the Chinese economy: getting ten dollars making a 600 dollar i-phone gets you only that far.
The Chinese surveillance apparatus, with its 50,000 Internet censoring goons, is only dwarfed by the American one, with its 1.2 million watchdogs. It's an economy killer, be it there, or here.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Neoconservatism: Neofascism in Disguise, Best Defined by its Origin
Hal Horvath ("mostly from Austin, TX") opines that "A more sophisticated view of A. Rosenbaum (Rand) is that she wrote about artistic freedom and later freedom to innovate in contrast to totalitarian states (where she originated)... That she gradually went wacko is just a lesson to us all about overextending and overgeneralizing ideas. As with religion, many things are said in her name, under color of her, that are near 180 degrees opposite of what she believed."
All these people coming from fascist regimes (Hayek, Rand, etc.) came with the fascist mindset of believing in the providential man (the personality cult). The one who works more, or better than the rest, and thus rises above (Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and countless lesser imitators followed that justification).
Far from being freed from totalitarianism, those thinkers were born from it. The opposition was never between Stalin and Hitler, or Mussolini, but between them, and the French republic (France being where these trains of thought left the station, generations before.)
The opposition between Liberty and Equality is resolved by Fraternity. No subtlety Hayek, Rand, Neoconservatives, Neofascists, greedsters and plutophiles can get.
PA
All these people coming from fascist regimes (Hayek, Rand, etc.) came with the fascist mindset of believing in the providential man (the personality cult). The one who works more, or better than the rest, and thus rises above (Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and countless lesser imitators followed that justification).
Far from being freed from totalitarianism, those thinkers were born from it. The opposition was never between Stalin and Hitler, or Mussolini, but between them, and the French republic (France being where these trains of thought left the station, generations before.)
The opposition between Liberty and Equality is resolved by Fraternity. No subtlety Hayek, Rand, Neoconservatives, Neofascists, greedsters and plutophiles can get.
PA
Friday, May 4, 2012
Why do plutocracy and fascism rise, as the situation gets worse?
The answers are deep. Fascism goes to the very root of herd behavior. The nature of plutocracy goes to the very root of the loving, albeit demonic apes we are. Our brains are constructed to exhibit these behaviors.
The rise of civilization concentrated, and amplified power, a bit as in the cavity that make a laser work.
The rise of money complicated matters. Money is symbolized power. It becomes real power when it is transacted. (That is why financial transactions ought to be taxed.) Power onto others, real or potential, is how Pluto makes Himself manifest. To INTEREST people who have money to lend it, one had to use, well, INTEREST. But then this interest makes money grow proportionally to itself.
In other words, civilization with money and interest ("capitalism") is endowed with a mechanism to make Pluto grow exponentially.
This was long discovered, by countless civilizations. It has also been forgotten, countless times. When it is, a society becomes a plutocracy. A plutocracy, basically think like one. So, in the fullness of time, it becomes stupid, like North Korea.
Stupidity creates difficult situations readily, so plutocracy leads to situations of war that justify its further existence. Thus stupidity itself, although, in the end, it kills plutocracy, makes it blossom further, for a while. Here we are.
***
Fuller version soon on:
Ref.: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/krugman-plutocracy-paralysis-perplexity.html
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Cognizance Primes Governance
Nietzsche wanted to make a re-evaluation of all values. But we have also to re-evaluate our tastes and desires.
Before better governance, what is needed is better cognizance. And it does not matter what the world thinks, as long as the USA and the EU are at each others’ throats.
World democracy is an illusion. There are UN Security Council permanent members, they pack up more than 95% of the world military capability, and another name for that is global peace.
It is certainly better than global war.
The big problem right now is that a loose alliance of world plutocrats (and I include Chinese and Russian leaders in that) led by their main headquarters in Wall Street is fighting the better angels of the European leadership. So democracy which is pretty much reduced to North America, Europe and a few colonies thereof, is split.
The USA keeps believing in it’s exploitative mentality, thanks to colossal propaganda from the fossil fuel, health, military-industrial, banking and academic plutocracies. The EU itself is under American plutocratic assault (OK, it’s their fault, but…).
Before governance, what is needed is cognizance, that means that the history, and even economic history, and the philosophy thereof, of the last 2,000 years needs to be dissected. Professor Diamond did a bit of that, much more needs to be done, hence my labors on:
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Before better governance, what is needed is better cognizance. And it does not matter what the world thinks, as long as the USA and the EU are at each others’ throats.
World democracy is an illusion. There are UN Security Council permanent members, they pack up more than 95% of the world military capability, and another name for that is global peace.
It is certainly better than global war.
The big problem right now is that a loose alliance of world plutocrats (and I include Chinese and Russian leaders in that) led by their main headquarters in Wall Street is fighting the better angels of the European leadership. So democracy which is pretty much reduced to North America, Europe and a few colonies thereof, is split.
The USA keeps believing in it’s exploitative mentality, thanks to colossal propaganda from the fossil fuel, health, military-industrial, banking and academic plutocracies. The EU itself is under American plutocratic assault (OK, it’s their fault, but…).
Before governance, what is needed is cognizance, that means that the history, and even economic history, and the philosophy thereof, of the last 2,000 years needs to be dissected. Professor Diamond did a bit of that, much more needs to be done, hence my labors on:
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Friday, March 2, 2012
Abrahamism Does NOT Have The Monopoly Of Faith
Those who believe in a particular superstition do not have the monopoly of faith. As the site below will soon argue in more detail, faith is indispensable for a creature of culture to have a mind (OK, this is extremely advanced philosophy). The adulators of the child molester Abraham should be reminded of this.
On another note, the growth of religious fanaticism in the USA is directly related to its sinking into plutocracy. It's part of a general decerebration, and expresses, just as the despicable Abraham does, the willingness to hurt the child to please the boss.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
On another note, the growth of religious fanaticism in the USA is directly related to its sinking into plutocracy. It's part of a general decerebration, and expresses, just as the despicable Abraham does, the willingness to hurt the child to please the boss.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Sunday, January 29, 2012
On Muslim Immigration In The EU
Tyranosopher
January 27th, 2012.
Europe, per its many nations coming together in an union, is a place of debate, therein its strength: many ideas are proposed, the best ones mate together and produce better sorts of ideas.
As far as anti-Muslim racism is concerned, let's notice the following. More than a millennium ago, France silently incorporated an important Muslim population, without any coercion (we know this from genetic analysis). If the High Middle Ages could do it, so can we.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
la.výritý in reply to Tyranosopher
January 29th The damaging effects of Muslim immigration into the secular societies of Western Europe is caused by 'a millennium' of religious-ethical, cultural and scientifical stagnation of the immigrating Muslim culture (and its insistence to cling to it); while the host culture is-as-it-is exactly because it shook off, during and after the Age of Enlightenment, the yoke of a -religiously- too tight interpretation of the world.
A millennium ago it was the other way around: The Muslim world was culturally and scientifically more advanced than medieval Europe.
Personally, I think that a Muslim background is no hindrances to enter successfully a secular Western society . . . but the insistence to cling to the very narrow religious guidelines for social cohabitation, especially with another culture, makes the current Muslim culture more or less incompatible with the 'open-society-model' so commonly-received among Europeans.
This is why some social-scientific thinkers reflect upon the end of 'multicultural tolerance' after masses of Muslim immigrants sought economic refuge within European countries' political borders.
Tyranosopher in reply to la.výritý
Dear la.vyrity:
I understand what you say. I am myself a cultural supremacist, and an enemy of superstition. I am also from Africa. There is no contradiction; a lot of "Muslims" have left Africa (say), precisely to enjoy a secular republican state in Europe.
There should be not favor extended to Islam which is not extended to other superstitions, such as Judaism (say) and Muslim "law" should not be tolerated in the slightest.
The assertion that the Muslim world was more advanced a millenium ago is widespread, but not true. It is a legend created by very dishonest pseudo intellectuals.
For example the empire of the Franks tolerated Jews and Muslims... With equal rights. Catholics became Jews in droves: that was OK.
In the Iberian Caliphate next door, switching from Muslim to Christian, even for an ex-Christian, was the cause for a very painful execution.
Technologically, the Franks had superior steel by 721 CE (this allowed them to annihilate the army of the Arab Caliphate, in a war, 721-750 CE, which fell to the Iranians by 750 CE, as a result). Europeans also invented the first mechanical clocks (let alone plenty of new species of plants, including beans, and animals).
There is much more along these unconventional lines of wisdom on the site Patrice Ayme (Google!)
January 27th, 2012.
Europe, per its many nations coming together in an union, is a place of debate, therein its strength: many ideas are proposed, the best ones mate together and produce better sorts of ideas.
As far as anti-Muslim racism is concerned, let's notice the following. More than a millennium ago, France silently incorporated an important Muslim population, without any coercion (we know this from genetic analysis). If the High Middle Ages could do it, so can we.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
la.výritý in reply to Tyranosopher
January 29th The damaging effects of Muslim immigration into the secular societies of Western Europe is caused by 'a millennium' of religious-ethical, cultural and scientifical stagnation of the immigrating Muslim culture (and its insistence to cling to it); while the host culture is-as-it-is exactly because it shook off, during and after the Age of Enlightenment, the yoke of a -religiously- too tight interpretation of the world.
A millennium ago it was the other way around: The Muslim world was culturally and scientifically more advanced than medieval Europe.
Personally, I think that a Muslim background is no hindrances to enter successfully a secular Western society . . . but the insistence to cling to the very narrow religious guidelines for social cohabitation, especially with another culture, makes the current Muslim culture more or less incompatible with the 'open-society-model' so commonly-received among Europeans.
This is why some social-scientific thinkers reflect upon the end of 'multicultural tolerance' after masses of Muslim immigrants sought economic refuge within European countries' political borders.
Tyranosopher in reply to la.výritý
Dear la.vyrity:
I understand what you say. I am myself a cultural supremacist, and an enemy of superstition. I am also from Africa. There is no contradiction; a lot of "Muslims" have left Africa (say), precisely to enjoy a secular republican state in Europe.
There should be not favor extended to Islam which is not extended to other superstitions, such as Judaism (say) and Muslim "law" should not be tolerated in the slightest.
The assertion that the Muslim world was more advanced a millenium ago is widespread, but not true. It is a legend created by very dishonest pseudo intellectuals.
For example the empire of the Franks tolerated Jews and Muslims... With equal rights. Catholics became Jews in droves: that was OK.
In the Iberian Caliphate next door, switching from Muslim to Christian, even for an ex-Christian, was the cause for a very painful execution.
Technologically, the Franks had superior steel by 721 CE (this allowed them to annihilate the army of the Arab Caliphate, in a war, 721-750 CE, which fell to the Iranians by 750 CE, as a result). Europeans also invented the first mechanical clocks (let alone plenty of new species of plants, including beans, and animals).
There is much more along these unconventional lines of wisdom on the site Patrice Ayme (Google!)
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
GOLDMAN DEMONIC POWER VERSUS GRAND DIVINE PLAN
Economic performance is generally first measured by GDP, Gross Domestic Power. The gross power of domestics? Much too much of it is "financial", whatever that means.
GDP? Which GDP indeed? GDP as Goldman Demonic Power? Enough of that already!
The problem with the present GDP is that it is too dependent on the financial piracy part of it. It is a bit like saying that the bigger the one who is ravaged by metastatic cancer, the better, while most of her mass is a malignant tumor, and growing.
In truth we need a Grand Divine Plan. Why? Because our technology has what our ancestors would have viewed as divine powers. So we need to adapt our society, and, in particular, our decision making, to that.
To divine material powers have to correspond divine spiritual powers.
The essence of the crisis is that a few hidden secretive bankers are in charge of money creation, and, as they lay out of the reach of democracy, they lend to their co-conspirators. Throwing more public money at the problem of malignant GDP, through the banks, is throwing more gasoline into the roaring fire. While claiming disingenuously that, since it's liquidity, it should work.
Well not all liquids are the same, children! Money changes nature, according to what it is lent for. As demonstrated by the notion of money laundering: dirty money can be cleansed, and that is unlawful. Similarly, not all other ways to manipulate money ought to be lawful.
Fortunately, the Internet, by tapping the raw mental power of all of humankind will allow us to find solutions, a higher level of spirituality, of mental powers, which have escaped our leaders so far (supposing they care... against their own best interests...)
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
GDP? Which GDP indeed? GDP as Goldman Demonic Power? Enough of that already!
The problem with the present GDP is that it is too dependent on the financial piracy part of it. It is a bit like saying that the bigger the one who is ravaged by metastatic cancer, the better, while most of her mass is a malignant tumor, and growing.
In truth we need a Grand Divine Plan. Why? Because our technology has what our ancestors would have viewed as divine powers. So we need to adapt our society, and, in particular, our decision making, to that.
To divine material powers have to correspond divine spiritual powers.
The essence of the crisis is that a few hidden secretive bankers are in charge of money creation, and, as they lay out of the reach of democracy, they lend to their co-conspirators. Throwing more public money at the problem of malignant GDP, through the banks, is throwing more gasoline into the roaring fire. While claiming disingenuously that, since it's liquidity, it should work.
Well not all liquids are the same, children! Money changes nature, according to what it is lent for. As demonstrated by the notion of money laundering: dirty money can be cleansed, and that is unlawful. Similarly, not all other ways to manipulate money ought to be lawful.
Fortunately, the Internet, by tapping the raw mental power of all of humankind will allow us to find solutions, a higher level of spirituality, of mental powers, which have escaped our leaders so far (supposing they care... against their own best interests...)
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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