Times Op-Ed, Foreseen

Today, Terry McKenna continues his weird (and frankly rather eerie) habit of anticipating Paul Krugman columns. I will swear on a stack of Qurans (or satiric cartoons, whichever you prefer) that McKenna sends me these posts well ahead of the appearance of the Krugman columns (in this case, he was two days ahead of Krugman). Now this is about the third time this has happened, so unless Terry is (a) psychic or (b) friends with Paul Krugman, something is happening that surpasses the normal grasp of serendipity. I've just got to do a better job of getting these online as soon as I get them.

So if you have access to Times Select, check out the Krugman piece here, and then follow Terry as he explores the same conceptual territory as the Professor from Princeton. Mr. McKenna, the blog is yours.

Outsourcing is a familiar topic, but since the president brought it up during his trip to Asia, I thought I’d have a go at it as well. Speaking to a group of Asian students, George Bush warned us that we can either wall ourselves off from foreign competition, or we can protect ourselves from the pitfalls by our getting the education necessary for us to compete in a global economy.

As usual, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The sad fact of the matter is that even with the best education, a job seeker in the modern world can be done in by e-technology. Thus in my own part of the financial services industry, the maintenance programming necessary for our legacy systems is often outsourced, and in some cases, so is routine transaction processing. High dollar value transactions are still managed by various home offices, but as web technology and imaging (replacing paper) become the rule, it will be possible to farm out all of our work to the lowest bidder. Thus, there are no guarantees of a livelihood unless your career demands your physical presence in your own locale. Hmm, better to be a carpenter than an accountant? Maybe.

Is this a better world?

The president favors a simplistic yes answer. But his yes is based upon a fear that any economic restraints become shackles similar to those of planned economies (the sort that failed under communism). But it has never been that simple. Vigorous economies can exist despite many layers of taxes, labor regulations and import controls. (Thus we see prosperous Europe with high taxes and generous social welfare benefits*). Furthermore, opening ourselves up to all manner of competition only works if our competitors are playing the same game – but they clearly are not. Thus, China, for one example, takes our raw materials, but only buys the finished goods that it is not yet prepared to make. And if an American merchant wants in, he or she must find a local partner. Trade with Japan is similarly impacted by business practices that are illegal but allowed. Thus industry cartels control bidding on lucrative contracts, and the share that goes to foreigners is as little as the cartel can get away with. (Japan has promised to change – but don’t hold your breath.)

So over the past 40 years, in the US, we have encouraged manufacturing to all but disappear - for the false promise that the beneficiaries would buy more from us. They do buy more, but not enough to offset the mess that job losses have made to regional economies from the Great Lakes to the American South.

And no, I’m not saying that most of these losses were not inevitable, but had we developed a more nuanced trade policy with residual protective tariffs, the pace of change might have slowed. And surely, more manufacturers might have remained afloat (for one example, read this).

And to think, it started not because of economics, but because of foreign policy. America sacrificed its economic advantage after WW2 in favor of Japan and Europe – especially Japan. By the late 1950’s, the US needed Japan as an ally against the “communist menace.” The federal government ignored the dumping that was going on, and gradually our consumer electronics industry disappeared. Over time, we also lost fine printing, machine tools and even shoe manufacturing. Four decade later, we are even losing furniture to the Chinese – who have almost no wood.

Go figure.

—T. McKenna
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* Regarding Europe: there is some indication that European labor laws are so restrictive that they inhibit hiring; thus Europe’s high unemployment. But any discussion of the difference between US and European unemployment must include an understanding that US figures do not include discouraged nor part timers – so may be falsely low.

How Much is That Dogma in the Window?

Maybe you're in a similar economic position to mine right now: tax time's bearing down and I'm not even in cell phone range of the top 1% of wage earners—those folks who can look forward to tax cuts, rebates, and other gestures of financial genital-licking on the part of the government of the United Snakes of America.

What me, bitter? Nah. So the cost of the war is about to hit the quarter-trillion dollar mark, and according to most estimates, runs something in the range of $150-200 million per day. So maybe there's been a slight under-estimation of certain ancillary costs for defending freedom (Don Rumsfeld's freedom, that is); but look at what our tax dollars are buying us now—another historic Presidential mission to the far corners of the Earth, aboard Air Force One—a bargain at a mere $57,000 per hour. Here's a sampling of the statesmanship and the leadership that we're paying for:

Mr Bush said: "We discussed the civilian nuclear programme and I explained to him that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories."

So, in terms of air travel alone—let's leave out lodging, security (the guy needed a battalion around him just to get around, though the fact that Air Force One landed in Pakistan with the lights out and windows drawn must have saved some money), and other expenses—we're talking about (at a conservative estimate) 30 hours in the air, or $1.7 million.

That's about 25 years' salary for me. 25 years of work.

And one day of the Iraq War? 2,000 years of salary. One month of the War? 80,000 years. A year? Try a million years' worth of work.

But am I bitter? Just because in about five weeks from now I'll be staring down the barrel of a shotgun called bankruptcy, all because of my government's demands that I finance their global depredations and inveterate self-indulgence?

Maybe a little, but I'll get over it: I'm just going to keep repeating to myself: "the President and I are different people with different needs and different histories." And thank god for that.

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Note to Hillary: sit down, shut up, and listen to a real Democrat. Murtha '08.

Ego's Smallest Tricks

Maybe it is sometimes confusing to read this blog, I don't know for sure. Is the primary author of this thing a political observer, some kind of New Age psychologist, or just a tree-hugging fruitcake with shit for brains? Or a little of all three?

My other site deals with taking a holistic approach to psychological stress, conflict, and difficulties in relationships. I have written a book on the same topic, with an emphasis on enduring the psychological turmoil of a post-9/11 America. But working on Daily Rev has taught me that there's plenty of crossover between the realms of psychological exploration and political insight. The following, scribbled this morning on the subway after I had gotten my faceful of the daily news, is representative.

Ego's smallest tricks betray us. A Hallmark-card sentiment belies the complacency that will threaten to corrupt a court of law (Harriet Miers) or destroy the lives of millions (Katrina). A simple, grand-old-flag patriotism conceals and supports the blood-stained prejudice of the tyrant, whose malignant order will fill the cemeteries of a nation with young, blackened bodies and their grief-ravaged families. The playful passion for accumulation, better known as shopping, will turn the nameless, numberless poor around the planet into slaves. The softly-spoken words of a priest or a pedant will make drones of children; and grown men will become armed robots under the spell of that stinking breath of conditioned belief.

This is why I encourage you to hunt ego down within yourself, every day. When you find it, do not be merciful or compromising: slice its throat and watch Ego choke on its own blood as it struggles to make one last deal with your soul. This is the kind of killing that will renew your life, and extend its loving influence to the world.

No one needs to teach you who you truly are; you already know that, you already are that. Just do what the dead men in Washington have forgotten to do for themselves: kill the ego every day. For when ego is dead, the person is free.

To the Land of Gandhi: Apologies From America

On behalf of 66 per cent of the American people, I would like to extend my apologies to the people of India for the fact that our resident tyrant must see fit to despoil their beautiful land with his murderous, demonic presence. But be assured: you only have him for a week; the people of Iraq and residents of New Orleans must suffer the effects of his depredations for years to come.

As a gift to you, people of India, for relieving us of his grueling presence for a week, I offer another in my Life Lessons in a Time of War series, here.

Meanwhile, Terry McKenna, after his rigorous fashion, will return us for a moment to reality, to remind us of what horrors we have permitted to be perpetrated among us. My personal message from this is simple: defeat fear in yourself, and it will be defeated in the nation. Succeed in that, and we can be assured that this nightmare will never happen again. And now, Mr. McKenna:

Paul Bremmer has just released his memoir of his failed mission to Iraq, titled appropriately: My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. It’s already been reviewed in the Sunday New York Times, and in the NY Review of Books. And no, I haven’t read it, but I am familiar with the reviews, which tell me more than enough.

None of it is a surprise, but it should be to those on the Right who have consistently apologized for a President who went to war based upon a lie, and then bungled the job.

Some key points:

When Paul Bremmer embarked on his mission, he was accompanied by senior staff, none of whom spoke Arabic, and none of whom had any relevant expertise in dealing with the region; it became apparent early on that we needed maybe 40,000 more soldiers to protect Baghdad and the border; but none of the military commanders would go on record asking for more troops; and,if they had, we didn’t have more troops to spare.

And that’s it. Bremmer knew the game was over before the 2004 election. Most Democrats did too. And yes, Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat, but with the threat of Iraq gone, Iran is almost unstoppable.

Now to my own conclusion: the United States is weaker than ever. Our vaunted military cannot defend us against terror. And George Bush doesn’t know how to. (He’s so afraid to make businesses spend any money, that he can’t even make cargo carriers pay for the cost of a full fledged inspection program – done overseas, before the goods are even shipped).

—T. McKenna

The Middle Class: Death By Division

The American middle class is dying, quickly. Well, let's not put too fine a point on this: the American middle class is being murdered. The killers are George W. Bush and his Circus of Murderers, better known as his cabinet, the neocon Congress, and the mainstream media (case in point: did anyone see this on any of the MSM TV news shows? did we really have to wait until Letterman got hold of it?).

Let's start with some basic statistics. First, this, which I found in the text of a recent Bill Moyers speech (I recommend you read the whole thing, it's outstanding):

In 1960 the gap between the top 20% and the bottom 20% was 30 fold. Now it is 75 fold. Thirty years ago the average annual compensation of the top 100 chief executives in the country was 30 times the pay of the average worker. Today it is 1000 times the pay of the average worker.

Now this, from Paul Krugman's Monday column in the New York Times:

Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big income gains....Income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint. Just to give you a sense of who we're talking about: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that this year the 99th percentile will correspond to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of $1,672,726. The center doesn't give a number for the 99.99th percentile, but it's probably well over $6 million a year.

Yes, I know: the statistics cover a period of over 30 years, which includes three Democratic presidential terms and a number of years in which the Dems held a majority in Congress. But let's give credit where it's due: everything that the Bushies are doing, everything they have done, has been designed and executed, with a surgical precision, to exacerbate the trend of the bipolar economy, and widen that statistical division.

Case in point: the ports deal with the Dubai company of the UAE. Most of the focus of the bipartisan outcry over this debacle has been on security issues: three of the 9/11 terrorists came from the UAE, and the idea of turning over the stewardship of our major ports to a company owned by an Arab monarchy leaves no one feeling warm and fuzzy. But there is a deeper and, I think, a more pervasive threat posed by this handover of economic and logistical control of our shipping routes and ports to a foreign power, and that is the economic threat that we should all be familiar with by now.

When you hand over your national economy to a group of foreign plutocrats, you are creating a geopolitical mafia. That's what we have now: the Chinese government is America's banker, and they are doing the same thing to our government that the credit card companies do to us and our families—they hand us the economic shovel with which we continue to dig a deeper and deeper hole for ourselves. Once that hole has reached the appropriate depth, you can be sure that the dirt will be piled back in with a backhoe-style rapidity, and we will be buried alive. And now we are turning over our ports and critical shipping centers to another tyrannical and plutocratic government that not only represses free speech and the principles of human equality, but endorses the most predatory of oppressors (the UAE is one of three nations that recognized the Taliban government of Afghanistan).

So, let's set aside the security concerns for a moment, valid as they may be; and tell me: what do you think will be the economic effect of this deal? Is it not likely to become another gift of graft for that 99.99th percentile that Mr. Krugman mentioned? Is it not likely to reinforce America's dependence on foreign oil and the filthy-rich desert despots who control its flow and movement? Is it not likely to widen the gap through which the middle class is falling? Is it not likely, in fact, to become yet another nail in the coffin of democracy? How will a corporation of Arabian plutocrats, given their track record, deal with unions, do you think? Or with women in the workforce, or gays? How are they likely to treat their workers across the board, in terms of salary, incentives, vacation time, bonuses, and the like?

But there is a far more palpable and convincing metric than mere statistics or geopolitical speculation to assess the state of the American middle class, and it is known as experience. Consult your own experience, ask yourself some of those core questions that the opposition party candidates always urge us to ask at election time: are you better off than you were last year or five years ago, or ten? Are you living, or just surviving?

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The Department of the Surreal-But-All-Too-Real:

I found this on one of my favorite blogs, which I'd recommend you bookmark, Deficient Brain:

Look sorry, this isn't a very long story because I only caught the end of an interview with Richard Perle that took place just a moment ago on BBC Worldservice radio - Newshour. But the news from Perle concerning Iraq is SO GOOD I feel compelled to post it anyway: "It's not as bad as Rwanda"