Bailing Out Greece Means More Taxes For France & Germany

Naked capitalism has a ridiculous article adopting the fancy fantasy that bailing out Greece, Portugal, Ireland does not augment taxes on Northern Europe, France, Germany, Netherlands, etc. Because it augments debt only, a stupid journalist based in Ireland claims.

According to this, paying all due respect, complete idiot, there is something as free money: just borrow it, become Greek, irish, American, whatever...

See what happens next, as you get downgraded into oblivion, with no more social services... Like in Cameron's kingdom, now complete with entire blocks burning. Do like the city of Half Moon Bay, next to Silicon Valley, and fire your police department: it's safe. Exilarating even.

The main argument therein is contradicted by facts, and basic logic. Totally.

According to decisions taken by Merkel and Sarkozy, which apparently did not reach the Ireland worthy of showing up in "naked capitalism", the French government is to lower deficit/GDP to less than 3% by 2013 (it's 5.4% now). Germany and the Netherlands are similarly committed.

To do so, the French government has announced that it will increase taxes, all over. So EU taxpayers do pay, and the author should listen to French TV; the declarations of the gov are loud and clear.

BTW, how could it be otherwise? Debt is just delayed spending.
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Shamebook

The valuation of \"Facebook\" is rumored to be 100 billion dollars. It has more to do with very well organized crime than anything else (Goldman sachs is one of the main sponsors, of "Facebook", and the valuation). The company makes nearly no profits and has 2,000 employees, worldwide. Some French journalists surprised CIA employees they personally knew, at Facebook headquarters.


This sort of companies make it big, thanks to the enormous interior American market. A French company had a Facebook like company, but because of the smaller French market, and the lack of market manipulations American VCs are connected with the government for, it made just enough to get its ideas stolen.


Such Silicon Valley companies do not have really state of the art technology. American planners confuse tech superiority and market size. Hence a dangerous illusion, because organized crime tricks do not lead to real tech superiority, as the USSR demonstrated.

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Health Greed USA, Health care, UK

Americans do not realize how uncivilized their society increasingly looks from overseas. And worse is to come: HEALTH GREED instead of health care in the USA is only part of it. USA neoconservatives ask not whether Medicare saves money to society. They ask whether Medicare maximizes greed to their friends.

David Cameron, British PM, June 2011:

"Ask a Briton to describe “American-style” healthcare, and you’ll hear a catalog of horrors that include grossly expensive and unnecessary medical procedures and a privatized system that favors the rich. For a people accustomed to free healthcare for all, regardless of income, the fact that millions of their cousins across the Atlantic have no insurance and can’t afford decent treatment is a farce as well as a tragedy... We will not be selling off the NHS [National Health Service], we will not be moving towards an insurance scheme, we will not introduce an American-style private system...” insisted Prime Minister David Cameron to a group of healthcare workers in a nationally televised address."


Prime Minister David Cameron is, alike Sarkozy, Merkel and Berlusconi, a conservative. None of these leaders would dream to modify seriously their national health system with free basic coverage to all. The German universal health system originated with Chancellor Bismarck, more than 125 years ago.

So why is the USA heading the other way? Why is it devolving? because all civilization are threatened by plutocracy, and the later is a non linear phenomenon, as difficult to extirpate as metastic cancer. it comes to pervade the body politics.

In truth all too many of the people who are elected in the USA, run for office, only so that they will please the plutocrats, knowing full well that they will be rewarded, as the Clintons were rewarded.

We have got to the point, in the USA, where the political system selects particularly for the greedy unconscionable.

The French were very surprised and extremely shocked that the head of the IMF was treated worse than a wild and dangerous beast (beasts don't get chained). All this while he was presumed innocent (his gigantic young and muscular accuser, a dedicated Muslim, who has posed for racy pictures (!) risks only a "misdemeanor, if she invented the whole no-physical-injury "aggression"). Once the Europeans, and others, figure out that the present American plutocratic in its fully ravenous mode, their contempt will have adverse economic consequences for the USA. Banana republic, especially without bananas, do not look like a good place to invest anything whatsoever.
PA

Sex & Drug Legalization Unavoidable

"Sex Crime Unit", New York. The Pride Of A Big Apple, or Just One More Snake in the Garden of the Beasts?

The "Sex Crime Unit" is famous for punishing the old, weak, overweight, sick, oxygen deprived, brainy head of the International Monetary Fund, the economist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, for "subjecting another person to sexual contact without the later person's consent". Apparently the Jew Strauss-Kahn "attempted" to cavort with a mysterious towering young muscular maid of the fanatical Muslim kind, whose legal migrant status is far from clear.

The old, weak, overweight, sick, oxygen deprived Dominique Strauss-Kahn is supposed to have overwhelmed the physically powerful, without causing any physical injury, probably using his dirty, powerful French mind. Powerful French minds, and the "French Theory", not far behind it, should be illegal, as they cause grave injury to the New York Centered World Trade plutocracy.

It is turning out that Ms tall, young and muscular victim, posed for racy and provocative pictures which ornament the frontcover of a magazine in Switzerland. You will not see those pictures in the USA, for obvious reasons of basic propaganda of the plutocratically financed politicians in New York. Don't be surprised if Ms Provocative shows up at the tribunal in a veil, clutching some beads, shaking all over with fear! Greed does that, sometimes, or more exactly the fear of not satisfying it.

The New York Sex Crime Unit is the object of a cult in America. It has 40 detectives: sex is big in New York, and its crimes numerous. Everybody says that the "Sex Crime Unit" is "very respected". It prosecutes, namely puts in cages and treats as dogs, 1,000 individuals a year. OK, one does not chain dogs, that would be cruel to animals, especially if innocent. Only 20 of those prosecutions of the "very respected Sex Crime Unit", result in condemnations, though. Let's think a second about what that means.

I am not saying that there should not 1,000 inquiries on "Sex Crimes". I think that any "Sex Crime" lead ought to be followed diligently, and even ferociously in the case of possible "pedophilia". But I think that, as for other suspicion of possible criminal activity, prosecution ought to be done very discreetly, to protect the innocent.

So let's consider the innocent. It turns out that the innocent are 98% of those the "very respected Sex Crime Unit" puritanizes and terrorizes every year.

I am just observing that 980 people a year get treated worse than dogs, like criminals, American style, and are found to be innocent, every year, in New York, about alleged sex crimes they did not commit. Although they were publicly humiliated, condemned in the court of public opinion, and punished for all to see, for crimes they did not commit. Punishing the innocent, especially publicly is outlawed in fully civilized society. that is actually why the law exists in the first place.

Now, if you beat a dog, he will turn nasty. especially if you do it for no good reason. Just try it. Moreover, far from being a deterrent, a rush to condemnation and condemnation encourages many to cross the Rubicon. Thus the question is this: is the "Sex Crime Unit" itself crime generating?

If police brutality itself is criminogen, a much needed explanation for the high rate of crime in the USA would offer itself. Criminogen police activity would go a long way towards explaining that about 10 million Americans are actively punished, under official condemnations, every year, with 2.5 million imprisonned. The highest rate in the world.
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Speaking of Criminogen Police Hyper Activity,

A prestigious United Nation commission found that the "War Against Drugs" has not worked any better than the famous prohibition against alcohol in the USA, in the 1920s. The later had increased considerably organized crime, by making many in the USA accomplice with the mobsters. Prohibition was terminated by president Roosevelt.

Interestingly "drug abuse", which is punished, implies that "drug use", a milder form, should go unpunished. The point is that very dangerous drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and various "medical" neurological drugs, some given to children (Ritalin), are authorized. So why is not mild use of some other drugs also authorized?

The president of Bolivia has insisted that some mild coca should be allowed for sale outside of Bolivia (where it is legal).

Funny aside: although I use tea and coffee, I have never ever used alcohol and tobacco. I just did not like the idea to have to drink something to be merry, or poison the atmosphere, to look cool. Happiness and calm ought to be spiritually generated, for those who live by the superiority

However I have resided at high altitude in Bolivia, and loved coca tea (sold there in grocery stores). It's quite different from normal tea, but extremely nice. Energetic, soothing, friendly to the mind.

I can't imagine how one could abuse it, and what is wrong with it. Thus I deduce the screaming against some drugs is highly hypocritical, and it's not our ex-"blow" (cocaine) using "black" president who is going to contradict me.

Let's remember that coffee, at strong dosage, is forbidden at the Olympic Games. At very high doses (100 cups), coffee is lethal (so is water). However, correct usage of coffee is good for the mind, and for health in general (it has been proven to reduce Alzheimer).
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Rentiers, plutocracy, solutions...

Krugman wrote an editorial claiming the "rule by rentiers". I guess that is less controversial than "rule by Pluto". However, Krugman describes "rule by wealth", the usual, non philosophical, meaning of "plutocracy":

"America’s job drought... has already gone on so long that the average unemployed American has been out of work for almost 40 weeks. Yet there is no political will to do anything about the situation. Far from being ready to spend more on job creation, both parties agree that it’s time to slash spending — destroying jobs in the process — with the only difference being one of degree.


Nor is the Federal Reserve riding to the rescue. On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, acknowledged the grimness of the economic picture but indicated that he will do nothing about it.
... similar in Europe, but arguably even worse: European Central Bank’s hard-money, anti-debt-relief rhetoric... What lies behind this trans-Atlantic policy paralysis? I’m increasingly convinced that it’s a response to interest-group pressure. Consciously or not, policy makers are catering almost exclusively to the interests of rentiers — those who derive lots of income from assets, who lent large sums of money in the past, often unwisely, but are now being protected from loss at everyone else’s expense.

Of course, that’s not the way what I call the Pain Caucus makes its case. Instead, the argument against helping the unemployed is framed in terms of economic risks: Do anything to create jobs and interest rates will soar, runaway inflation will break out, and so on. But these risks keep not materializing... The reality is that both small businesses and workers are hurt far more by the weak economy than they would be by, say, modest inflation that helps promote recovery.

No, the only real beneficiaries of Pain Caucus policies (aside from the Chinese government) are the rentiers: bankers and wealthy individuals with lots of bonds in their portfolios.

And that explains why creditor interests bulk so large in policy; not only is this the class that makes big campaign contributions, it’s the class that has personal access to policy makers — many of whom go to work for these people when they exit government through the revolving door. The process of influence doesn’t have to involve raw corruption (although that happens, too). All it requires is the tendency to assume that what’s good for the people you hang out with, the people who seem so impressive in meetings — hey, they’re rich, they’re smart, and they have great tailors — must be good for the economy as a whole.

But the reality is just the opposite: creditor-friendly policies are crippling the economy. This is a negative-sum game, in which the attempt to protect the rentiers from any losses is inflicting much larger losses on everyone else. And the only way to get a real recovery is to stop playing that game. "

I have been saying this, for quite a while. So I will not disagree in first order. However, Krugman's semantics is conflating small rentiers, who typically live off interest from savings, and enormous plutocrats, who he metions, in so many words.

Moreover, as usual, Krugman is short on solutions. I commented the following, and the NYT published it:


4% inflation is best, 2% is too low. 2% is so low that there is not enough reserve, in case of recession. (If inflation becomes negative, durably so, lowering interest rates does not help, because they cannot be lowered below zero.)

Germany has led the pain caucus in Europe, and it has worked pretty well. So now the Germans (and the hard Franc architect Trichet, head of ECB) have the upper hand morally, intellectually, economically.

In any case none of this will not solve the globalization crisis. Which is the emigration of jobs to emerging countries. This is the underlying problem, and plutocracy has a direct hand in it, and it's hard to resist when equivalent jobs cost 5% overseas. What is the plan to invert that globalization, that flight of jobs, overseas, far away?

Well, let me answer it myself: no more speculation on finance by financiers, and massive investments in high tech, accompanied by tough IP protection, and a carbon trade tax, plus tough anti-slavery codes, worldwide.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Bits and Pieces, Early June 2011

American Aggression Against Aghanistan:
The president of the USA, Jimmy Carter, signed a secret order of attack on the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, July 3, 1979. Thus the Afghan war was started by the USA, not bin Laden, 32 years ago. In other news, Merkel is quite disappointing, indeed. On the other hand, when they have tried all the bad solutions, further integration will be all what's left.
And this is true for the southern, and eastern side of the Mediterranean too, which is more important to Europe than Russia. Because Russia has only one way to go, whereas the fascist-theocratic mix along the shores of the Med could mean unending wars. Thus it has to be developed in secular democracy.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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HEALTH GREED?
American health care is, overall, much more expensive than the better performing health care systems of comparable countries. Therein the first problem. So let's seriate, and do first things first.

How come is USA health care so much more expensive? Because for example health care companies in the USA greed based system, advertize heavily. In most other countries, that's unlawful. The cost of the advertizing can exceed the research, for pharmaceuticals. That money is taken from patients, and is sent by health care plutocrats to their fellow advertizing plutocrats (and that may even be themselves, through shares!)
We call if health care, and that is what they have in many countries. But, in the USA, it ought to be called health greed. And that's not good.
PA
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The Pluto In Plutocracy:
Plutocracy is not just about wealth ruling, but also about Pluto ruling. The fundamental urge of plutocrats is to make the people suffer, and it's true all over. As they are more crafty on Wall Street than in Russia, more power to them! In any case, for all and any plutocrats, caring about their own country does not register any cash, so it's rarely done.
PA
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Emotional Dwarves:
Greed does not make the world go 'round. One needs more emotions than that. Public service one of them. This is what the People of the USA will have to learn someday, and throw the old demons out.
PA
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GOLDMAN SACHS YOU CAN BELIEVE IN:
Future historians will laugh, and wonder why fools such as me believed in Obama's slogan: "Change You Can Believe In!" Indeed, which change would Goldman Sachs, Obama's greatest contributor, believe in exactly? Well exactly zero change, once they pocketed the public money offered to them by their agents in Washington, of course.

So most public money was sent to the vultures feeding on the economy, instead of empowering the public programs which were apparently beyond the feeble imagination of the plutocratic agents to even imagine. In any case, the agents were not paid for that, such was not the mission conferred to them by their private, filthy rich sponsors.

As in many a great power, the nominal leaders have so much hubris that they believe their intricate entanglements of corrupt plots is the way it has to be, and the way it can keep on being. But, ultimately, they are just small servants of what they do not understand, the will, in some men, to hurt most men.
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High Speed Rail Versus High Idiocy

George Will, a salaried propagandist of the established order, condemns trains. I must admit that only private jets should get government subsidies, in a plutocracy. Whines Will:

"So why is America’s “win the future” administration so fixated on railroads, a technology that was the future two centuries ago? Because progressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior.

Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons—to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."

Trains are a lot more empowering and individualistic than planes, as anybody who has travelled in both will recognize — and planes, not cars, are the main alternative to high-speed rail. Besides, what is empowering at driving a car? One becomes a slave to the art of avoiding accidents and respecting all laws and regulations.

Says Krugman: "And there’s the bit about rail as an antiquated technology; try saying that after riding the Shanghai Maglev."

Will is a clever man, indeed. He goes where the money is, and serves who Adam Smith called \"the masters\" (generations before Karl Marx). Clever he is, but not moral.


American individualism, like American exceptionalism, or Hitler's celebrated attachment to the right of minorities in the name of human rights (one of his main electoral platform points!) are much exaggerated notions. If the American elite is that individualistic, how come most of them think all the same?


By the way, there is a lot of high tech in very high speed trains. Maglev has no advantage over steel wheels, but a lot of disadvantages. Maglev uses a lot of light but flammable materials, and extravagant high magnetic fields, there have been very bad accidents. Whereas steel wheels can go wherever there are rails, not so with maglev.


The maglev speed record is just a mile per hour or so above the (French) high speed, steel wheels record of 575 kilometers per hour. At these speeds non trivial shock waves and resonance have to be solved. Pantographs maintain contact through electronic piloting.


An intermediate technology exists, capable of 250 km/h on conventional lines, where the trains lean in the turns (Russia bought it from French Alstom, which bought it from Italy).


Notice the attack of Will against "progress". This is one of the main point of American plutocratic propaganda: progress itself is the problem. Why so? Of course progress came with laws against slavery, murder and torture all of which handicap the truly wealthy. But there is more. Ultimately plutocracy rests on military force, which rests on lack of progress. Savages need savagery to justify their own existence.

At this point, American technolgical superiority is pretty much reduced to superior people killing technology. No wonder neoconservatives are against progress. more than 50% of the weapons sold, worldwide, are American made. An American president said: "The business of America is business". Does that mean that, nowadays, the business of America has become death?

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