by Aviva Chomsky; Providence Journal; September 13, 2007
HARRY POTTER as a parable of immigrants’ rights? Both my kids thought I was crazy when I first suggested this notion, half-way through the book on a recent Saturday afternoon. The more I read, though, the more sense the idea made.
Among the crucial issues separating the bad guys from the good guys in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is their position on the rights of Muggles, half-bloods and Muggle-borns. For the non-initiated, let me clarify: Muggles are ordinary humans without wizarding powers. A half-blood is the offspring of a Muggle and a pure-blood wizard. Muggle-borns are people with wizard powers born into Muggle families, like the heroine Hermione.
The evil Malfoy family sniffs about its ancient lineage and its pure blood; young Draco torments Hermione at school about being a “Mud-blood,” contaminated by her Muggle background. When Voldemort’s followers take over the Ministry of Magic they establish a “Muggle-Born Registration Commission” and distribute a pamphlet entitled “Mudbloods and the Dangers they Pose to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society.”
Wizards fake their family trees to claim pure-blood status. A wizard accused of having Muggle parentage begs to be spared prison because he’s a half-blood—his father was a wizard, and he has written documentation of his legal status. The Registration Commission interrogates prisoners to determine their correct status, and punishes a woman of non-wizard parents for using a wand, a privilege reserved for wizards.
Some have suggested that Voldemort’s obsession with purity of blood and ancient wizarding families is meant to suggest a reference to Nazi Germany. But the Nazis were not the only historical example of a group claiming the right to dominate others based on ancestry, birth or blood. Spanish Christians relied on the concept to justify the expulsion of Muslims and Jews in 1492, and the domination and enslavement of Africans and indigenous Americans thereafter. U.S. law uses the concept today to justify the exclusion of millions of people in the United States: non-citizens, or even worse, those it defines as “illegal immigrants.”
“But U.S. nationality isn’t based on ideas about blood!” my readers will protest. “We are all immigrants here! Our laws explicitly prohibit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or national origin!”
And there’s the rub. While our laws do prohibit this kind of discrimination, they also prescribe it. Our immigration, citizenship and naturalization laws are based explicitly on discrimination on the basis of national origin. Where you were born, and what passport you carry, determine whether you have the right to come here, to visit, to work, or to live here.
It wasn’t always that way. Until the Civil War, U.S. citizenship was based on race rather than birthplace, and there were no restrictions on immigration. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that the concept of citizenship-by-birth was inscribed into U.S. law. Before that, whites could be citizens, no matter where they were born, while non-whites, which at the time meant primarily Native Americans and African Americans, could not be citizens, even if their ancestors were here long before any Englishmen arrived. People considered racially unfit for citizenship were welcomed, or even forced to immigrate, in the case of Africans, on condition that they and their descendants would remain a permanent underclass of non-citizens—physically present, but with few legal rights.
But citizenship-by-birth didn’t mean the end of racial discrimination. It meant that lawmakers scrambled to make sure that those they considered racially unfit couldn’t take advantage of the new citizenship law. Almost immediately after the new law was enacted, in 1866, Congress began restricting immigration. Chinese, Japanese and then all Asians were only the first to be told that they couldn’t come any more, because the government didn’t want their children to be able to obtain citizenship by birth.
I’m not claiming to be able to read J. K. Rowling’s mind. But for her readers in the United States, the desperate struggle of Muggle-borns and half-bloods to document their status, the punishments meted out by the Ministry of Magic to those who try to work or attend school without documents proving their lineage, and Voldemort’s obsession with determining just who has true wizard ancestry, and restricting and punishing those who don’t, have some pretty powerful resonances with the last massive legalized form of discrimination in our own society: discrimination against non-citizens.
I suppose it’s possible to make a general statement about tolerance and discrimination in a society characterized by serious legalized inequality, and yet discuss the issue entirely in the abstract, with no reference at all to the discrimination going on around you. But a tome about tolerance written in Nazi Germany, for example, would inevitably be read as a commentary on Nazi policies — either that, or as evidence of just how brainwashed the public was, that it could advocate tolerance while remaining oblivious to the intolerance of its own society.
The main audiences for Rowling’s book are in Britain and the United States. In both countries, tolerance is officially promoted at the same time that one group of people is conspicuously excluded: immigrants. Citizenship-by-birth may be racially blind if a country has open borders, but with walls, border patrols, and a long history of racially restrictive immigration laws, “citizenship” becomes just another means to enforce discrimination and exclusion.
Legalized discrimination in the United States goes way beyond the immigration-quota system that still prescribes different treatment for people from different countries.
What else can it be called, when millions of people are not allowed to work, not allowed to go to school, not allowed to live in certain places, not allowed access to all of the benefits that society offers to the rest of its members? When the police raid workplaces to round them up and deport them? When they live in fear that their very existence will be discovered, and they will be punished?
Perhaps we can all learn something from Rowling’s characters: from the Weasley family, ardent defenders of the rights of the non-wizard-born, on to Hermione, the “mud-blood” who out-wizards them all, and finally Harry, whose quest to defeat the evil Voldemort is inextricably bound up with the defense of the rights of those whom Voldemort seeks to expel, exploit and destroy. If we cannot see reflections of our own national discourse on immigrants in their struggle, perhaps we are closing our eyes to Rowling’s most important lesson.
Aviva Chomsky is a professor of history at Salem State College. Her new book, They Take Our Jobs! And 20 Other Myths About Immigration, was just published by Beacon Press.
“Blessed is the nation that doesn’t need heroes" Goethe. “Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.” Herbert Spencer
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Friday 14 September 2007
Thursday 13 September 2007
Getting Rich - Paul Mckenna
Final Day: The success strategy
The millionaires I have interviewed while devising this system have all shared the same fundamental route to success. Today I reveal the six stepping stones to wealth
Paul McKenna
One of the most amazing discoveries I had when studying the high achievers for this book was that, while they all have their individual styles in business, they all share the same fundamental strategy for creating wealth. Broadly speaking, that strategy involves thinking about a product, service or business in an entrepreneurial way.
Today I will show you how you can use this same wealth-creating template to create your own successful projects. I used to find the idea of “entrepreneurship” a bit daunting, but then I spoke with Peter Jones, widely acknowledged as one of Britain’s most successful young entrepreneurs.
Despite his modest beginnings, his businesses have an annual turnover of £200 million. He pointed out to me that the word “entrepreneur” simply means “someone who gets paid for adding value”. When you are willing to think of yourself as a value creator, your “job” becomes quite simple: identify a field where you would like to add value, then identify the value you would like to add.
Now I will outline the six steps to wealth that emerged again and again as I studied the business geniuses for this book. Do not worry if you are already in business or are determined to remain an employee – these same six steps will be of great use to you to find the hidden wealth in your current working situation, whatever it may be.
Let’s get things started . . .
Step 1: Choose something you have a passion for or genuine interest in
Sir Richard Branson began in magazines and then rock music; Peter Jones took his fascination with tennis and computers and used them first to set up a tennis academy and then a business selling computer accessories. In his words, “Having a passion for what you do is very important, especially when you are going to be working all hours to try and make the business work. In addition, your passion and belief will motivate others around you.”
Of course, your passion and interest can come from what you hate as much as what you love. When Dame Anita Roddick started the Body Shop, she was as determined to provide a safe and animal-friendly alternative to the standard operating practices of the cosmetics industry as she was to create a vehicle for putting her beliefs into action about what truly mattered in the world.
Step 2: Figure out where you can add value
Once you have identified something you have a genuine interest in and passion for, you then need to look for what you can bring to that field that isn’t already there.
Here are some of the questions the rich-thinking entrepreneurs ask themselves in examining the potential to add value to any business, product or service:
–– Who is already making money in this area?
–– What sets apart the most successful people in this field from the rest?
–– What’s missing? What isn’t being done?
–– What do the people who are already using this product or service really want?
–– What can I offer that’s different to everyone else?
Step 3: Vividly imagine every detail of how the business will work
One of the surprising differences between the most successful entrepreneurs I interviewed and the rest was their willingness to take the time to vividly imagine the details of every new enterprise before leaping into action. For example, Sol Kerzner designs a hotel in his mind long before he builds it in the real world. He imagines every detail – how it will look, how each surface will feel, how the whole environment will be. Sir Richard Branson makes pages and pages of detailed notes, describing every aspect of the business in great detail.
Peter Jones actually “interrogates” the whole concept, searching for both the obvious and hidden areas of potential profits and potential obstacles to its success. If the obstacles can be overcome and he can see the business working, he gets a massive burst of motivation. He vividly imagines the business working and keeps this visualisation regularly in mind.
He says: “I am a great believer that it is always easier to achieve something that you have already done, even though I may have achieved it only in my own mind. This gives me great confidence.” However you choose to do it, taking the time to build your business in your mind and/ or on paper is an essential step in the process. Be sure to look at the downside as well as the up – the more potential obstacles you can foresee and solve in advance, the fewer real obstacles you will face and the easier it will be to overcome them.
Step 4: Evaluate the risks and decide which ones are worth taking
Willingness to take risks after calculating the upside and downside is a common one among successful entrepreneurs. The genius film-maker George Lucas made billions from the merchandising rights to his Star Wars movies. When I spoke to him, he told me that he got the idea when he took a careful look at the potential upside and downside of the very first movie in the series. “Everyone has since thought this was a clever financial strategy,” said Lucas, “but the truth is that I was concerned that the film might not work commercially. I knew it had the potential to achieve cult status, so I figured if I could make money on the merchandising it would help me to fund another film.” Here’s a quick way to calculate the risk/reward ratio of any new enterprise for yourself . . .
Calculating risks
1. Think about a decision you are considering making that feels a bit risky.
2. On a scale from 1 to 10, how much good could come of taking this risk if you are successful?
3. On a scale from 1 to 10, how much of a negative impact would this risk not working have on your business or in your life?
4. If the first number is bigger than the second, the risk/reward ratio is weighted towards action; if the second number is bigger than the first, it’s probably best to find another way to proceed.
Step 5: Take massive action
Another thing I noticed about the rich thinkers and successful entrepreneurs was that there is virtually no gap between their decisions and their actions. Once they decided to go ahead with a project, the first action steps were generally taken within 24 hours.
When Mark Burnett arrived in LA in 1982, he had £300 in his pocket and no return ticket. His first job was selling T-shirts on Venice beach. Today he is the most successful TV producer in the world. He told me his motto is “jump in” – take action even if you are not entirely ready. He firmly believes that a major part of his success has been his willingness to go for what he’s passionate about, even if he isn’t completely convinced he can actually pull it off. For myself, I like to think of action as the great equaliser.
No matter what your level of intelligence, education or capital, a willingness to take massive action instantly puts you on an equal footing with the wealthiest men and women in the world.
Step 6: Expect obstacles, learn from setbacks and keep moving towards your goals
Although only some of the rich thinkers I worked with would describe themselves as optimists, all of them are realists. Nothing in life unfolds exactly as planned, and a road without bumps is almost certainly not headed anywhere worthwhile.
Rather than take obstacles as a reason to give up or a “sign from the universe”, the truly successful entrepreneurs simply use each obstacle as an opportunity for creative problem-solving and creative action. If a business ultimately doesn’t work out, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off and move on. This resilience comes from self-belief and thorough downside planning. Peter Jones shared his version of this process: if obstacles keep occurring, I stop and ask: What can I learn from this obstacle? What do we need to do differently to make it work? I then create a new visualisation of how the business needs to function and keep running this scenario in my mind until I know it will work. If another obstacle or challenge occurs further down the line, I can then return to my vision for guidance and motivation. While things may not always happen totally as I planned, I always get to my goal in the end.
The millionaire mindset
Donald Trump: “You have 50,000 thoughts a day. You might as well make them big ones”
I Can Make You Rich, by Paul McKenna, published on September 11 by Transworld Publishers, £18.99. Available for £17.09 from Times BooksFirst, 0870 1608080
The millionaires I have interviewed while devising this system have all shared the same fundamental route to success. Today I reveal the six stepping stones to wealth
Paul McKenna
One of the most amazing discoveries I had when studying the high achievers for this book was that, while they all have their individual styles in business, they all share the same fundamental strategy for creating wealth. Broadly speaking, that strategy involves thinking about a product, service or business in an entrepreneurial way.
Today I will show you how you can use this same wealth-creating template to create your own successful projects. I used to find the idea of “entrepreneurship” a bit daunting, but then I spoke with Peter Jones, widely acknowledged as one of Britain’s most successful young entrepreneurs.
Despite his modest beginnings, his businesses have an annual turnover of £200 million. He pointed out to me that the word “entrepreneur” simply means “someone who gets paid for adding value”. When you are willing to think of yourself as a value creator, your “job” becomes quite simple: identify a field where you would like to add value, then identify the value you would like to add.
Now I will outline the six steps to wealth that emerged again and again as I studied the business geniuses for this book. Do not worry if you are already in business or are determined to remain an employee – these same six steps will be of great use to you to find the hidden wealth in your current working situation, whatever it may be.
Let’s get things started . . .
Step 1: Choose something you have a passion for or genuine interest in
Sir Richard Branson began in magazines and then rock music; Peter Jones took his fascination with tennis and computers and used them first to set up a tennis academy and then a business selling computer accessories. In his words, “Having a passion for what you do is very important, especially when you are going to be working all hours to try and make the business work. In addition, your passion and belief will motivate others around you.”
Of course, your passion and interest can come from what you hate as much as what you love. When Dame Anita Roddick started the Body Shop, she was as determined to provide a safe and animal-friendly alternative to the standard operating practices of the cosmetics industry as she was to create a vehicle for putting her beliefs into action about what truly mattered in the world.
Step 2: Figure out where you can add value
Once you have identified something you have a genuine interest in and passion for, you then need to look for what you can bring to that field that isn’t already there.
Here are some of the questions the rich-thinking entrepreneurs ask themselves in examining the potential to add value to any business, product or service:
–– Who is already making money in this area?
–– What sets apart the most successful people in this field from the rest?
–– What’s missing? What isn’t being done?
–– What do the people who are already using this product or service really want?
–– What can I offer that’s different to everyone else?
Step 3: Vividly imagine every detail of how the business will work
One of the surprising differences between the most successful entrepreneurs I interviewed and the rest was their willingness to take the time to vividly imagine the details of every new enterprise before leaping into action. For example, Sol Kerzner designs a hotel in his mind long before he builds it in the real world. He imagines every detail – how it will look, how each surface will feel, how the whole environment will be. Sir Richard Branson makes pages and pages of detailed notes, describing every aspect of the business in great detail.
Peter Jones actually “interrogates” the whole concept, searching for both the obvious and hidden areas of potential profits and potential obstacles to its success. If the obstacles can be overcome and he can see the business working, he gets a massive burst of motivation. He vividly imagines the business working and keeps this visualisation regularly in mind.
He says: “I am a great believer that it is always easier to achieve something that you have already done, even though I may have achieved it only in my own mind. This gives me great confidence.” However you choose to do it, taking the time to build your business in your mind and/ or on paper is an essential step in the process. Be sure to look at the downside as well as the up – the more potential obstacles you can foresee and solve in advance, the fewer real obstacles you will face and the easier it will be to overcome them.
Step 4: Evaluate the risks and decide which ones are worth taking
Willingness to take risks after calculating the upside and downside is a common one among successful entrepreneurs. The genius film-maker George Lucas made billions from the merchandising rights to his Star Wars movies. When I spoke to him, he told me that he got the idea when he took a careful look at the potential upside and downside of the very first movie in the series. “Everyone has since thought this was a clever financial strategy,” said Lucas, “but the truth is that I was concerned that the film might not work commercially. I knew it had the potential to achieve cult status, so I figured if I could make money on the merchandising it would help me to fund another film.” Here’s a quick way to calculate the risk/reward ratio of any new enterprise for yourself . . .
Calculating risks
1. Think about a decision you are considering making that feels a bit risky.
2. On a scale from 1 to 10, how much good could come of taking this risk if you are successful?
3. On a scale from 1 to 10, how much of a negative impact would this risk not working have on your business or in your life?
4. If the first number is bigger than the second, the risk/reward ratio is weighted towards action; if the second number is bigger than the first, it’s probably best to find another way to proceed.
Step 5: Take massive action
Another thing I noticed about the rich thinkers and successful entrepreneurs was that there is virtually no gap between their decisions and their actions. Once they decided to go ahead with a project, the first action steps were generally taken within 24 hours.
When Mark Burnett arrived in LA in 1982, he had £300 in his pocket and no return ticket. His first job was selling T-shirts on Venice beach. Today he is the most successful TV producer in the world. He told me his motto is “jump in” – take action even if you are not entirely ready. He firmly believes that a major part of his success has been his willingness to go for what he’s passionate about, even if he isn’t completely convinced he can actually pull it off. For myself, I like to think of action as the great equaliser.
No matter what your level of intelligence, education or capital, a willingness to take massive action instantly puts you on an equal footing with the wealthiest men and women in the world.
Step 6: Expect obstacles, learn from setbacks and keep moving towards your goals
Although only some of the rich thinkers I worked with would describe themselves as optimists, all of them are realists. Nothing in life unfolds exactly as planned, and a road without bumps is almost certainly not headed anywhere worthwhile.
Rather than take obstacles as a reason to give up or a “sign from the universe”, the truly successful entrepreneurs simply use each obstacle as an opportunity for creative problem-solving and creative action. If a business ultimately doesn’t work out, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off and move on. This resilience comes from self-belief and thorough downside planning. Peter Jones shared his version of this process: if obstacles keep occurring, I stop and ask: What can I learn from this obstacle? What do we need to do differently to make it work? I then create a new visualisation of how the business needs to function and keep running this scenario in my mind until I know it will work. If another obstacle or challenge occurs further down the line, I can then return to my vision for guidance and motivation. While things may not always happen totally as I planned, I always get to my goal in the end.
The millionaire mindset
Donald Trump: “You have 50,000 thoughts a day. You might as well make them big ones”
I Can Make You Rich, by Paul McKenna, published on September 11 by Transworld Publishers, £18.99. Available for £17.09 from Times BooksFirst, 0870 1608080
Wednesday 12 September 2007
American Economy: R.I.P.
By Paul Craig Roberts
12 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The US economy continues its slow death before our eyes, but economists, policymakers, and most of the public are blind to the tottering fabled land of opportunity.
In August jobs in goods-producing industries declined by 64,000. The US economy lost 4,000 jobs overall. The private sector created a mere 24,000 jobs, all of which could be attributed to the 24,100 new jobs for waitresses and bartenders. The government sector lost 28,000 jobs.
In the 21st century the US economy has ceased to create jobs in export industries and in industries that compete with imports. US job growth has been confined to domestic services, principally to food services and drinking places (waitresses and bartenders), private education and health services (ambulatory health care and hospital orderlies), and construction (which now has tanked). The lack of job growth in higher productivity, higher paid occupations associated with the American middle and upper middle classes will eventually kill the US consumer market.
The unemployment rate held steady, but that is because 340,000 Americans unable to find jobs dropped out of the labor force in August. The US measures unemployment only among the active work force, which includes those seeking jobs. Those who are discouraged and have given up are not counted as unemployed.
With goods producing industries in long term decline as more and more production of US firms is moved offshore, the engineering professions are in decline. Managerial jobs are primarily confined to retail trade and financial services.
Franchises and chains have curtailed opportunities for independent family businesses, and the US government’s open borders policy denies unskilled jobs to the displaced members of the middle class.
When US companies offshore their production for US markets, the consequences for the US economy are highly detrimental. One consequence is that foreign labor is substituted for US labor, resulting in a shriveling of career opportunities and income growth in the US. Another is that US Gross Domestic Product is turned into imports. By turning US brand names into imports, offshoring has a double whammy on the US trade deficit. Simultaneously, imports rise by the amount of offshored production, and the supply of exportable manufactured goods declines by the same amount.
The US now has a trade deficit with every part of the world. In 2006 (the latest annual data), the US had a trade deficit totaling $838,271,000,000.
The US trade deficit with Europe was $142,538,000,000. With Canada the deficit was $75,085,000,000. With Latin America it was $112,579,000,000 (of which $67,303,000,000 was with Mexico). The deficit with Asia and Pacific was $409,765,000,000 (of which $233,087,000,000 was with China and $90,966,000,000 was with Japan). With the Middle East the deficit was $36,112,000,000, and with Africa the US trade deficit was $62,192,000,000.
Public worry for three decades about the US oil deficit has created a false impression among Americans that a self-sufficient America is impaired only by dependence on Middle East oil. The fact of the matter is that the total US deficit with OPEC, an organization that includes as many countries outside the Middle East as within it, is $106,260,000,000, or about one-eighth of the annual US trade deficit.
Moreover, the US gets most of its oil from outside the Middle East, and the US trade deficit reflects this fact. The US deficit with Nigeria, Mexico, and Venezuela is 3.3 times larger than the US trade deficit with the Middle East despite the fact that the US sells more to Venezuela and 18 times more to Mexico than it does to Saudi Arabia.
What is striking about US dependency on imports is that it is practically across the board. Americans are dependent on imports of foreign foods, feeds, and beverages in the amount of $8,975,000,000.
Americans are dependent on imports of foreign Industrial supplies and materials in the amount of $326,459,000,000--more than three times US dependency on OPEC.
Americans can no longer provide their own transportation. They are dependent on imports of automotive vehicles, parts, and engines in the amount of $149,499,000,000, or 1.5 times greater than the US dependency on OPEC.
In addition to the automobile dependency, Americans are 3.4 times more dependent on imports of manufactured consumer durable and nondurable goods than they are on OPEC. Americans no longer can produce their own clothes, shoes, or household appliances and have a trade deficit in consumer manufactured goods in the amount of $336,118,000,000.
The US “superpower” even has a deficit in capital goods, including machinery, electric generating machinery, machine tools, computers, and telecommunications equipment.
What does it mean that the US has a $800 billion trade deficit?
It means that Americans are consuming $800 billion more than they are producing.
How do Americans pay for it?
They pay for it by giving up ownership of existing assets--stocks, bonds, companies, real estate, commodities. America used to be a creditor nation. Now America is a debtor nation. Foreigners own $2.5 trillion more of American assets than Americans own of foreign assets. When foreigners acquire ownership of US assets, they also acquire ownership of the future income streams that the assets produce. More income shifts away from Americans.
How long can Americans consume more than they can produce?
American over-consumption can continue for as long as Americans can find ways to go deeper in personal debt in order to finance their consumption and for as long as the US dollar can remain the world reserve currency.
The 21st century has brought Americans (with the exception of CEOs, hedge fund managers and investment bankers) no growth in real median household income. Americans have increased their consumption by dropping their saving rate to the depression level of 1933 when there was massive unemployment and by spending their home equity and running up credit card bills. The ability of a population, severely impacted by the loss of good jobs to foreigners as a result of offshoring and H-1B work visas and by the bursting of the housing bubble, to continue to accumulate more personal debt is limited to say the least.
Foreigners accept US dollars in exchange for their real goods and services, because dollars can be used to settle every country’s international accounts. By running a trade deficit, the US insures the financing of its government budget deficit as the surplus dollars in foreign hands are invested in US Treasuries and other dollar-denominated assets.
The ability of the US dollar to retain its reserve currency status is eroding due to the continuous increases in US budget and trade deficits. Today the world is literally flooded with dollars. In attempts to reduce the rate at which they are accumulating dollars, foreign governments and investors are diversifying into other traded currencies. As a result, the dollar prices of the Euro, UK pound, Canadian dollar, Thai baht, and other currencies have been bid up. In the 21st century, the US dollar has declined about 33 percent against other currencies. The US dollar remains the reserve currency primarily due to habit and the lack of a clear alternative.
The data used in this article is freely available. It can be found at two official US government sites: http://www.bea.gov/international/
bp_web/simple.cfm?anon=71&table_id=20&area_id=3 and http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t14.htm
The jobs data and the absence of growth in real income for most of the population are inconsistent with reports of US GDP and productivity growth. Economists take for granted that the work force is paid in keeping with its productivity. A rise in productivity thus translates into a rise in real incomes of workers. Yet, we have had years of reported strong productivity growth but stagnant or declining household incomes. And somehow the GDP is rising, but not the incomes of the work force.
Something is wrong here. Either the data indicating productivity and GDP growth are wrong or Karl Marx was right that capitalism works to concentrate income in the hands of the few capitalists. A case can be made for both explanations.
Recently an economist, Susan Houseman, discovered that the reliability of some US economics statistics has been impaired by offshoring. Houseman found that cost reductions achieved by US firms shifting production offshore are being miscounted as GDP growth in the US and that productivity gains achieved by US firms when they move design, research, and development offshore are showing up as increases in US productivity. Obviously, production and productivity that occur abroad are not part of the US domestic economy.
Houseman’s discovery rated a Business Week cover story last June 18, but her important discovery seems already to have gone down the memory hole. The economics profession has over-committed itself to the “benefits” of offshoring, globalism, and the non-existent “New Economy.” Houseman’s discovery is too much of a threat to economists’ human capital, corporate research grants, and free market ideology.
The media have likewise let the story go, because in the 1990s the Clinton administration and Congress permitted a few mega-corporations to concentrate in their hands the ownership of the US media, which reports in keeping with corporate and government interests.
The case for Marx is that offshoring has boosted corporate earnings by lowering labor costs, thereby concentrating income growth in the hands of the owners and managers of capital. According to Forbes magazine, the top 20 earners among private equity and hedge fund managers are earning average yearly compensation of $657,500,000, with four actually earning more than $1 billion annually. The otherwise excessive $36,400,000 average annual pay of the 20 top earners among CEOs of publicly-held companies looks paltry by comparison. The careers and financial prospects of many Americans were destroyed to achieve these lofty earnings for the few.
Hubris prevents realization that Americans are losing their economic future along with their civil liberties and are on the verge of enserfment.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good
12 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The US economy continues its slow death before our eyes, but economists, policymakers, and most of the public are blind to the tottering fabled land of opportunity.
In August jobs in goods-producing industries declined by 64,000. The US economy lost 4,000 jobs overall. The private sector created a mere 24,000 jobs, all of which could be attributed to the 24,100 new jobs for waitresses and bartenders. The government sector lost 28,000 jobs.
In the 21st century the US economy has ceased to create jobs in export industries and in industries that compete with imports. US job growth has been confined to domestic services, principally to food services and drinking places (waitresses and bartenders), private education and health services (ambulatory health care and hospital orderlies), and construction (which now has tanked). The lack of job growth in higher productivity, higher paid occupations associated with the American middle and upper middle classes will eventually kill the US consumer market.
The unemployment rate held steady, but that is because 340,000 Americans unable to find jobs dropped out of the labor force in August. The US measures unemployment only among the active work force, which includes those seeking jobs. Those who are discouraged and have given up are not counted as unemployed.
With goods producing industries in long term decline as more and more production of US firms is moved offshore, the engineering professions are in decline. Managerial jobs are primarily confined to retail trade and financial services.
Franchises and chains have curtailed opportunities for independent family businesses, and the US government’s open borders policy denies unskilled jobs to the displaced members of the middle class.
When US companies offshore their production for US markets, the consequences for the US economy are highly detrimental. One consequence is that foreign labor is substituted for US labor, resulting in a shriveling of career opportunities and income growth in the US. Another is that US Gross Domestic Product is turned into imports. By turning US brand names into imports, offshoring has a double whammy on the US trade deficit. Simultaneously, imports rise by the amount of offshored production, and the supply of exportable manufactured goods declines by the same amount.
The US now has a trade deficit with every part of the world. In 2006 (the latest annual data), the US had a trade deficit totaling $838,271,000,000.
The US trade deficit with Europe was $142,538,000,000. With Canada the deficit was $75,085,000,000. With Latin America it was $112,579,000,000 (of which $67,303,000,000 was with Mexico). The deficit with Asia and Pacific was $409,765,000,000 (of which $233,087,000,000 was with China and $90,966,000,000 was with Japan). With the Middle East the deficit was $36,112,000,000, and with Africa the US trade deficit was $62,192,000,000.
Public worry for three decades about the US oil deficit has created a false impression among Americans that a self-sufficient America is impaired only by dependence on Middle East oil. The fact of the matter is that the total US deficit with OPEC, an organization that includes as many countries outside the Middle East as within it, is $106,260,000,000, or about one-eighth of the annual US trade deficit.
Moreover, the US gets most of its oil from outside the Middle East, and the US trade deficit reflects this fact. The US deficit with Nigeria, Mexico, and Venezuela is 3.3 times larger than the US trade deficit with the Middle East despite the fact that the US sells more to Venezuela and 18 times more to Mexico than it does to Saudi Arabia.
What is striking about US dependency on imports is that it is practically across the board. Americans are dependent on imports of foreign foods, feeds, and beverages in the amount of $8,975,000,000.
Americans are dependent on imports of foreign Industrial supplies and materials in the amount of $326,459,000,000--more than three times US dependency on OPEC.
Americans can no longer provide their own transportation. They are dependent on imports of automotive vehicles, parts, and engines in the amount of $149,499,000,000, or 1.5 times greater than the US dependency on OPEC.
In addition to the automobile dependency, Americans are 3.4 times more dependent on imports of manufactured consumer durable and nondurable goods than they are on OPEC. Americans no longer can produce their own clothes, shoes, or household appliances and have a trade deficit in consumer manufactured goods in the amount of $336,118,000,000.
The US “superpower” even has a deficit in capital goods, including machinery, electric generating machinery, machine tools, computers, and telecommunications equipment.
What does it mean that the US has a $800 billion trade deficit?
It means that Americans are consuming $800 billion more than they are producing.
How do Americans pay for it?
They pay for it by giving up ownership of existing assets--stocks, bonds, companies, real estate, commodities. America used to be a creditor nation. Now America is a debtor nation. Foreigners own $2.5 trillion more of American assets than Americans own of foreign assets. When foreigners acquire ownership of US assets, they also acquire ownership of the future income streams that the assets produce. More income shifts away from Americans.
How long can Americans consume more than they can produce?
American over-consumption can continue for as long as Americans can find ways to go deeper in personal debt in order to finance their consumption and for as long as the US dollar can remain the world reserve currency.
The 21st century has brought Americans (with the exception of CEOs, hedge fund managers and investment bankers) no growth in real median household income. Americans have increased their consumption by dropping their saving rate to the depression level of 1933 when there was massive unemployment and by spending their home equity and running up credit card bills. The ability of a population, severely impacted by the loss of good jobs to foreigners as a result of offshoring and H-1B work visas and by the bursting of the housing bubble, to continue to accumulate more personal debt is limited to say the least.
Foreigners accept US dollars in exchange for their real goods and services, because dollars can be used to settle every country’s international accounts. By running a trade deficit, the US insures the financing of its government budget deficit as the surplus dollars in foreign hands are invested in US Treasuries and other dollar-denominated assets.
The ability of the US dollar to retain its reserve currency status is eroding due to the continuous increases in US budget and trade deficits. Today the world is literally flooded with dollars. In attempts to reduce the rate at which they are accumulating dollars, foreign governments and investors are diversifying into other traded currencies. As a result, the dollar prices of the Euro, UK pound, Canadian dollar, Thai baht, and other currencies have been bid up. In the 21st century, the US dollar has declined about 33 percent against other currencies. The US dollar remains the reserve currency primarily due to habit and the lack of a clear alternative.
The data used in this article is freely available. It can be found at two official US government sites: http://www.bea.gov/international/
bp_web/simple.cfm?anon=71&table_id=20&area_id=3 and http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t14.htm
The jobs data and the absence of growth in real income for most of the population are inconsistent with reports of US GDP and productivity growth. Economists take for granted that the work force is paid in keeping with its productivity. A rise in productivity thus translates into a rise in real incomes of workers. Yet, we have had years of reported strong productivity growth but stagnant or declining household incomes. And somehow the GDP is rising, but not the incomes of the work force.
Something is wrong here. Either the data indicating productivity and GDP growth are wrong or Karl Marx was right that capitalism works to concentrate income in the hands of the few capitalists. A case can be made for both explanations.
Recently an economist, Susan Houseman, discovered that the reliability of some US economics statistics has been impaired by offshoring. Houseman found that cost reductions achieved by US firms shifting production offshore are being miscounted as GDP growth in the US and that productivity gains achieved by US firms when they move design, research, and development offshore are showing up as increases in US productivity. Obviously, production and productivity that occur abroad are not part of the US domestic economy.
Houseman’s discovery rated a Business Week cover story last June 18, but her important discovery seems already to have gone down the memory hole. The economics profession has over-committed itself to the “benefits” of offshoring, globalism, and the non-existent “New Economy.” Houseman’s discovery is too much of a threat to economists’ human capital, corporate research grants, and free market ideology.
The media have likewise let the story go, because in the 1990s the Clinton administration and Congress permitted a few mega-corporations to concentrate in their hands the ownership of the US media, which reports in keeping with corporate and government interests.
The case for Marx is that offshoring has boosted corporate earnings by lowering labor costs, thereby concentrating income growth in the hands of the owners and managers of capital. According to Forbes magazine, the top 20 earners among private equity and hedge fund managers are earning average yearly compensation of $657,500,000, with four actually earning more than $1 billion annually. The otherwise excessive $36,400,000 average annual pay of the 20 top earners among CEOs of publicly-held companies looks paltry by comparison. The careers and financial prospects of many Americans were destroyed to achieve these lofty earnings for the few.
Hubris prevents realization that Americans are losing their economic future along with their civil liberties and are on the verge of enserfment.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good
Tuesday 11 September 2007
The Conservative morality
God: God is all good and all powerful, at the top of a natural hierarchy in which morality is linked with power. God wants good people to be in charge. Virtue is rewarded with power. God wants a hierarchical society in which there are moral authorities who should be obeyed.
Morality:
Morality:
Sunday 9 September 2007
A Notch Below The White Man, A Touch Above The Black
By Jawed Naqvi
09 September, 2007
The Dawn
I am not surprised at all by the revelations in The Guardian last week that British military scientists sent hundreds of Indian soldiers, their colonial cannon fodder of many a foreign campaign, into gas chambers and exposed them to mustard gas during World War II.
For the record we are talking of a chemical warfare agent first used by the German army during World War I. It causes skin disorders, blindness, cancer and finally death. President Saddam Hussein, who used it, was hanged under the watch of Iraq's Anglo-Saxon victors. Saddam's cousin was nicknamed Chemical Ali for using it in the 1988 Anfar campaign, killing thousands of Kurds. He got death for "genocide" this year. (Did we hear of anyone getting punished, much less executed, for using Agent Orange in Vietnam?)
Documents uncovered by The Guardian indicate that the British military did not check up on the Indian soldiers after the experiments to see if they developed any illnesses. Many of the soldiers suffered severe burns on their skin, including their genitals. Some had to be treated
in hospital.
According to the report, the controversial trials were thrown into the spotlight by newly discovered documents at the British National Archives, which have shown for the first time the full scale of the experiments. The Indian troops were serving under the command of the British military at a time when India was under colonial rule. The experiments took place over more than 10 years before and during World War II in a military installation at Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan.
Scientists from the Porton Down chemical warfare establishment in Wiltshire who had been posted to the subcontinent to develop poison gases to use against the Japanese had carried out the tests. The experiments are a little-known part of Porton's huge programme of chemical warfare testing on humans. More than 20,000 British soldiers were subjected to chemical warfare trials involving poison gases, such as nerve gas and mustard gas, at Porton between 1916 and 1989.
Many of these British soldiers have alleged that they were swindled into taking part in the tests, which damaged their health for years to come after the trials. The reports record that in some cases Indian soldiers were exposed to mustard gas protected only by a respirator. On one occasion the gas mask of an Indian sepoy slipped, leaving him with severe burns on his eyes and face. The tests were used to determine how much gas was needed to produce a casualty on the battlefield. In 1942, the Porton scientists reported that there had been a "large number" of burns from the gas among Indian and British test subjects.
The Guardian report doesn't surprise because we have always known that there was no major difference in the worldview, or the methods of sustaining it, between 15 years of Nazi rule in Europe and over 200 years of British colonialism across the world. Lest we forget, their
common approaches included entrenched anti-Semitism which both practised in different forms throughout their respective histories. But I am not sure that India's current ruling elite would share the comparison. Britain gave us vital civil values after all and good governance to boot, proclaimed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Oxford University a couple of years back. The comments of course reflected the arrival of the neo-con NRI-dominated middle class at the helms of affairs in India.
There are cultural accoutrements to go with this nouveau riche worldview. Here, the anti-colonial saga is easily mixed up with the country's communal fault lines. One school believes that fighting British rule was a heroic feat. The other takes its history further back to the resistance against India's Turko-Afghan rulers, followed by the uprisings against the Mughals. Thus rightwing zealots deride fellow Muslims as offspring of Mughal emperor Babar. The Dravid movement in the south and the Dalit movement in Maharashtra pushed the history of their "occupation" to the Vedic period. To the rational middle ground all three strands have their validity. Why should anyone defend megalomaniac rulers, be they Hindu, Muslim or of any other faith? But the current flavour is reflected in the recent unveiling of the statue at India's parliament house of the mediaeval warrior Rana Pratap. It comes across as an officially patronised Hindu-Muslim paradigm as much as it is a scrupulously calculated shift away from critiquing the former colonial masters, who happen to be today's neo-con allies. If patriotism can be defined by opposing Emperor Akbar, otherwise tomtomed as a secular icon, why needle Warren Hastings?
Sometimes inconvenient facts are masked; sometimes they are refurbished with a new spin on history. When New Delhi's India Gate was designed and built by Edward Lutyens, it was originally called the All India War Memorial in memory of the 90,000 Indian soldiers who died in the campaigns of World War I, the northwest frontier operations of the period, including the 1919 Afghan fiasco. On the walls of the structure are inscribed the names of all the Indian soldiers in the British army who perished. In other words, the memorial stands as a towering reminder of our erstwhile slavery. And though it got converted into a more contemporary version of war memorial, honouring the Indian soldiers who fought in the Bangladesh war, the walls of the India Gate memorial still bear the names of the fallen victims of colonial wars, not those who fell in 1971.
When we refer to the NRI-dominated middle class being today's dominant ideological force the allusion really is to those non-resident Indians (as well as the ones who stayed home) who have traditionally connived with colonialism for the crumbs they were rewarded with. The old-fashioned school of sociologists called them the comprador class. This lot shares the cultural manifestations, including racism, of their masters. In the opposition were those Indian expatriates who fought colonialism and its racist features wherever there was on occasion to stand their ground.
History has shown that for India's ruling elite, the most comfortable place on earth has been a notch below the white man and a touch above the black, so to speak. I always cite the example of South Africa's notorious tricameral parliament, which was specially created during the Botha regime to accommodate Indian immigrants as a buffer between the white rulers and the majority Africans. Therefore, when many of the Indian migrants in South Africa were fighting shoulder to shoulder with Nelson Mandela's ANC, the other half chose to join the Apartheid rulers in a system in which the Black majority remained disenfranchised.
This is of a piece with India's current stance on the nuclear issue. The argument is not too different. India can have the bomb but no other third world country is fit enough to deserve one.
This coming form a nation that spoke out against nuclear apartheid is nothing if not hypocritical. The same desperation is reflected in our vain quest for seat at the UN Security Council as a permanent member, no less, of the elite club, never mind that we were ready to be assigned a humiliating non-veto status in it. A little below the global ruling elite, and a little above fellow third world nations, an NRI-inspired worldview, always looking for that awkwardly added seat at the table, as those who have seen Peter Sellers in The Party would understand.
That's precisely why there will not be a statue of Bhagat Singh in the Indian parliament, the very place from where the rebel signalled his revolt against British rule. For that's where he dropped a small bomb from the visitors' gallery at the colonial assembly. That's why there will not be a statue of Bahadur Shah Zafar in the parliament, the last Mughal emperor who fought the British. That's why India, the self-proclaimed champion of human rights will not add its powerful voice against the daily outrages in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay. That's why there will be more conspiratorial silence than outrage over The Guardian story.
09 September, 2007
The Dawn
I am not surprised at all by the revelations in The Guardian last week that British military scientists sent hundreds of Indian soldiers, their colonial cannon fodder of many a foreign campaign, into gas chambers and exposed them to mustard gas during World War II.
For the record we are talking of a chemical warfare agent first used by the German army during World War I. It causes skin disorders, blindness, cancer and finally death. President Saddam Hussein, who used it, was hanged under the watch of Iraq's Anglo-Saxon victors. Saddam's cousin was nicknamed Chemical Ali for using it in the 1988 Anfar campaign, killing thousands of Kurds. He got death for "genocide" this year. (Did we hear of anyone getting punished, much less executed, for using Agent Orange in Vietnam?)
Documents uncovered by The Guardian indicate that the British military did not check up on the Indian soldiers after the experiments to see if they developed any illnesses. Many of the soldiers suffered severe burns on their skin, including their genitals. Some had to be treated
in hospital.
According to the report, the controversial trials were thrown into the spotlight by newly discovered documents at the British National Archives, which have shown for the first time the full scale of the experiments. The Indian troops were serving under the command of the British military at a time when India was under colonial rule. The experiments took place over more than 10 years before and during World War II in a military installation at Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan.
Scientists from the Porton Down chemical warfare establishment in Wiltshire who had been posted to the subcontinent to develop poison gases to use against the Japanese had carried out the tests. The experiments are a little-known part of Porton's huge programme of chemical warfare testing on humans. More than 20,000 British soldiers were subjected to chemical warfare trials involving poison gases, such as nerve gas and mustard gas, at Porton between 1916 and 1989.
Many of these British soldiers have alleged that they were swindled into taking part in the tests, which damaged their health for years to come after the trials. The reports record that in some cases Indian soldiers were exposed to mustard gas protected only by a respirator. On one occasion the gas mask of an Indian sepoy slipped, leaving him with severe burns on his eyes and face. The tests were used to determine how much gas was needed to produce a casualty on the battlefield. In 1942, the Porton scientists reported that there had been a "large number" of burns from the gas among Indian and British test subjects.
The Guardian report doesn't surprise because we have always known that there was no major difference in the worldview, or the methods of sustaining it, between 15 years of Nazi rule in Europe and over 200 years of British colonialism across the world. Lest we forget, their
common approaches included entrenched anti-Semitism which both practised in different forms throughout their respective histories. But I am not sure that India's current ruling elite would share the comparison. Britain gave us vital civil values after all and good governance to boot, proclaimed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Oxford University a couple of years back. The comments of course reflected the arrival of the neo-con NRI-dominated middle class at the helms of affairs in India.
There are cultural accoutrements to go with this nouveau riche worldview. Here, the anti-colonial saga is easily mixed up with the country's communal fault lines. One school believes that fighting British rule was a heroic feat. The other takes its history further back to the resistance against India's Turko-Afghan rulers, followed by the uprisings against the Mughals. Thus rightwing zealots deride fellow Muslims as offspring of Mughal emperor Babar. The Dravid movement in the south and the Dalit movement in Maharashtra pushed the history of their "occupation" to the Vedic period. To the rational middle ground all three strands have their validity. Why should anyone defend megalomaniac rulers, be they Hindu, Muslim or of any other faith? But the current flavour is reflected in the recent unveiling of the statue at India's parliament house of the mediaeval warrior Rana Pratap. It comes across as an officially patronised Hindu-Muslim paradigm as much as it is a scrupulously calculated shift away from critiquing the former colonial masters, who happen to be today's neo-con allies. If patriotism can be defined by opposing Emperor Akbar, otherwise tomtomed as a secular icon, why needle Warren Hastings?
Sometimes inconvenient facts are masked; sometimes they are refurbished with a new spin on history. When New Delhi's India Gate was designed and built by Edward Lutyens, it was originally called the All India War Memorial in memory of the 90,000 Indian soldiers who died in the campaigns of World War I, the northwest frontier operations of the period, including the 1919 Afghan fiasco. On the walls of the structure are inscribed the names of all the Indian soldiers in the British army who perished. In other words, the memorial stands as a towering reminder of our erstwhile slavery. And though it got converted into a more contemporary version of war memorial, honouring the Indian soldiers who fought in the Bangladesh war, the walls of the India Gate memorial still bear the names of the fallen victims of colonial wars, not those who fell in 1971.
When we refer to the NRI-dominated middle class being today's dominant ideological force the allusion really is to those non-resident Indians (as well as the ones who stayed home) who have traditionally connived with colonialism for the crumbs they were rewarded with. The old-fashioned school of sociologists called them the comprador class. This lot shares the cultural manifestations, including racism, of their masters. In the opposition were those Indian expatriates who fought colonialism and its racist features wherever there was on occasion to stand their ground.
History has shown that for India's ruling elite, the most comfortable place on earth has been a notch below the white man and a touch above the black, so to speak. I always cite the example of South Africa's notorious tricameral parliament, which was specially created during the Botha regime to accommodate Indian immigrants as a buffer between the white rulers and the majority Africans. Therefore, when many of the Indian migrants in South Africa were fighting shoulder to shoulder with Nelson Mandela's ANC, the other half chose to join the Apartheid rulers in a system in which the Black majority remained disenfranchised.
This is of a piece with India's current stance on the nuclear issue. The argument is not too different. India can have the bomb but no other third world country is fit enough to deserve one.
This coming form a nation that spoke out against nuclear apartheid is nothing if not hypocritical. The same desperation is reflected in our vain quest for seat at the UN Security Council as a permanent member, no less, of the elite club, never mind that we were ready to be assigned a humiliating non-veto status in it. A little below the global ruling elite, and a little above fellow third world nations, an NRI-inspired worldview, always looking for that awkwardly added seat at the table, as those who have seen Peter Sellers in The Party would understand.
That's precisely why there will not be a statue of Bhagat Singh in the Indian parliament, the very place from where the rebel signalled his revolt against British rule. For that's where he dropped a small bomb from the visitors' gallery at the colonial assembly. That's why there will not be a statue of Bahadur Shah Zafar in the parliament, the last Mughal emperor who fought the British. That's why India, the self-proclaimed champion of human rights will not add its powerful voice against the daily outrages in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay. That's why there will be more conspiratorial silence than outrage over The Guardian story.
Immigration
Its immigration say the Tories
The cause of all our worries
So lets shut the door
Keep the peril from our shore
And the BNP can make our curries
The fault may lie with the bankers
Managers, footballers and rich wankers
Yet its the always the brownman
yellowman and other bogeyman
Who will be showered with hard conkers
So lets shut the door
Keep the peril from our shore
And the BNP can make our curries
The cause of all our worries
So lets shut the door
Keep the peril from our shore
And the BNP can make our curries
The fault may lie with the bankers
Managers, footballers and rich wankers
Yet its the always the brownman
yellowman and other bogeyman
Who will be showered with hard conkers
So lets shut the door
Keep the peril from our shore
And the BNP can make our curries
Market Failure
Market failure is a condition
Created by the private business situation
Inability to produce public goods
Inadequate merit and surplus demerit goods
And hence requiring government intervention
Copyright - Girish Menon
Created by the private business situation
Inability to produce public goods
Inadequate merit and surplus demerit goods
And hence requiring government intervention
Copyright - Girish Menon
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