Friday, October 7, 2011

Who Are The Job Creators?

That question is heard around the blogosphere, as well as in the main stream media, all the time now.

What is really meant by that question is "who can create enough jobs to get us out of this recession by hiring people?", which obviously means, in one sense, that employers are job creators.

But more than that, the question addresses who and/or what causes employers to hire, or not hire, employees.

And of course that also implies a business need to have employees, together with the capital to do so.

But doesn't the answer to our question also depend on the type of economy it applies to?

Can we say that it is the exact same answer for Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq, China, Britain, as well as the USA?

Is it the same in every state, county, and city?

Recalling what the Wall Street Journal said over a year ago, and harking back to what some university professors have said, if they are all correct, the answer to the question today is not the same as it was some years back.

I say that because it means that our current plutonomy is not the same as our democratic economy of old.

That is because, if we now have a plutonomy rather than a democratic economy driven substantially by the middle class and poor American consumers, that difference changes who the job creators are.

I hear politicians declaring that small businesses are the job creators, which is true in the old economy where they commanded the lions share of about 80% of jobs, give or take a few percentage points from time to time.

But in a plutonomy the super wealthy command the wealth of purchasing power, giving them command of the forces that work on employers, those forces that cause the need for employees.

The reality becomes at once obvious when one considers the many different forms of government that exist, or have existed, over time:
Androcracy, Aristocracy, Autocracy, Communist state, Confederation, Consociationalism, Corporatocracy, Corporatism, Demarchy, Democracy, Despotism, Empire, Ethnocracy, Fascist state, Federation, Feudalism, Garrison state, Gerontocracy, Green state, Hierocracy, Isocracy, Interregnum, Kakistocracy, Kratocracy, Kleptocracy, Kritarchy, Kritocracy, Kyriarchy, Logocracy, Matriarchy, Mediocracy, Meritocracy, Minarchism, Monarchy, Nanny state, Nation-state, Nomocracy, Noocracy, Ochlocracy, [Oilagarchy], Oligarchy, Panarchism, Pantisocracy, Parliamentary state, Patriarchy, Provisional government, Plantocracy, Plutocracy, Police state, Polyarchy, Presidential, Puppet state, Republic, Socialist state, Sociocracy, Squirearchy, Stratocracy, Sultanism, Superpower, Supranational union, Synarchy, Technocracy, Thalassocracy, Theocracy, Timocracy, Tribe, Tyranny, Unitary state, [Wartocracy], Welfare state
(Forms of Government). The creation of jobs in an Autocracy does not take place in the same manner as it does in a Communist state, for example.

The forces to be reckoned with basically boil down to a condition of prosperity that drives business expansion, or at least sustains business activity to the point of healthy employment numbers.

Who are these people who are responsible for millions of Americans suffering so badly from lack of employment, yes, suffering as a result of the deliberate actions of these "job creators"?





Thursday, October 6, 2011

Phase Four Of The Currency Wars? - 2

Two years ago on this date, Dredd Blog wondered about currency wars:
We recently asked if phase three of the currency wars had taken place.

There have been a series of events that show the world is in fact aligning against us since we became overpowered by idiot warmongers and idiot economists.

Now it looks like we have moved on to the fourth phase:
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
(Independent). The damage that was done to the U.S. reputation and economy during the Bush II years is breath taking, and may have done us in for real as an empire.
This issue is still around, the congress in a strange state of "mind":
So why the revival now? One obvious answer is the fleecing of American manufacturing jobs, which the supporters of the bill seem to agree is largely caused by China engaging in unfair trade practices -- such as currency manipulation -- at the expense of U.S. workers' livelihoods.
(The Atlantic). Hurry up and don't do anything.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The Damage Has Been Done - 4

Two years ago on this date Dredd Blog focused on the issue of drought, worldwide drought.

Since then the Texas drought began, and wildfires around the world have worsened.

Here is that post of two years ago:

The meaning of "the damage has been done" in the context of earth's biosphere does not always mean we can see the effects of the damage at this moment.

It is like when the engines on an aircraft cease to function, the damage has been done but the full effects which cannot be avoided do not appear until contact with the ground takes place.

The U.N. reports that the damage has been done when it comes to worldwide drought and great catastrophe:
"If we cannot find a solution to this problem ... in 2025, close to 70 percent [of the earth] could be affected [with drought]," Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, said Friday.

Drought currently affects at least 41 percent of the planet and environmental degradation has caused it to spike by 15 to 25 percent since 1990, according to a global climate report.

"There will not be global security without food security" in dry regions, Gnacadja said at the start of the ninth UN conference on the convention in the Argentine capital.

"A green deal is necessary" for developing countries working to combat drought, he stressed.

The next meeting on the convention is scheduled to take place in South Korea in 2010.
(Independent). About half of the planet is suffering, at this moment, from drought. This is not a case where substantial damage can be avoided by congress all of a sudden becoming sane, because there really is such a thing as being too late.

Perhaps that is why it appears more and more that all that world governments can do is prepare for the damage.

The US is fairing better today than the world at large was fairing at that time (41%) two years ago:
Based on the Palmer Drought Index, severe to extreme drought affected about 26 percent of the contiguous United States as of the end of August 2011, an increase of about 1 percent from last month.
(NOAA). Some climatologists are expecting the drought in the USA to continue for some time.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Innocent Tortured To Cover Up What? - 2

Two years ago, on this date, Dredd Blog posted the following:
A humanitarian went to Afghanistan near 9/11/01 to help those in need.

After the U.S. invasion there, he met soldiers there who were "fighting to preserve freedom" for Dick Cheney.

Either those soldiers or some lying bounty hunters accused the humanitarian of being a bad guy and took him to and fro to torture him, and he eventually ended up at GITMO.

A federal court has found that there is no evidence to support the military theory, but that his testimony of being a humanitarian is the true story:
The unclassified version issued Friday of U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's opinion directing the U.S. government to release Kuwaiti detainee and Pillsbury client Fouad Al Rabiah from Guantanamo Bay recounts the grueling eight-year-long ordeal the 50-year old aviation engineer and father of four has experienced, including being subjected to abusive and coercive interrogation methods to extract a false confession.

In the opinion, the Court denounces the government's case from the very opening lines. "The evidentiary record on which the Government seeks to justify [Fouad's] indefinite detention is surprisingly bare," Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote on page one. "If there exists a basis for Al Rabiah's indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this Court."

Moreover, Judge Kollar-Kotelly notes on page 44 that Al Rabiah was subjected, among other abuses, to the "frequent flier program" which "violated the Army Field Manual and the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" by deliberately disrupting and withholding sleep from detainees by perpetually moving them from cell to cell every few hours.
(Pillsbury Law). This is not the first person to use habeus corpus to show innocent people are being tortured for years in the name of the people of the United States against our will.

In the final analysis the torturing of America is being done by criminal elements within our own government.
Any change you can believe in?