Globalism

The theory behind Globalism is that more goods and services can be produced if their production occurs where there is a competitive advantage, resulting in greater wealth than would otherwise occur without it. This conclusion involves two fallacies. One is that greater wealth may not be the best yardstick of success. The other is that there is no global government to regulate Globalism. The latter makes it more of a contest of survival of the fittest, than a road to prosperity for all.

I probably won’t live to find out, but it will be interesting to see if it results in a reasonable standard of living for all people, or an opportunity for a smaller and smaller number of people to corner the market on more and more of the worlds resources while more and more people work for survival wages. It is not in the interest of whoever controls the dice to let people starve because they are not productive in that state, so it is likely that most of the world’s population will at least have a subsistence living and some measure of security. That’s not too bad considering how most of the world lives right now. And it may be all that’s needed to be happy.

What’s Happening to Our Democracy?

Our two party system seems now to be wholly owned by the corporations and the political donor class. Unfortunately, the movers and shakers in the media are also members of this upper crust, and seem to be taking their cues more from the politicians than from the people. It’s amazing to see legislation that gets passed in direct opposition to the will of the majority of the people, as indicated by the polls.

We have lost the integrity of our own borders, not due to bad laws, but due to lack of enforcement of the laws, since both parties seem to favor flooding the country with immigrants. And we seem to be more concerned about what is happening in other countries than what is happening in our own. If we don’t like what’s happening, we just roll out our military might and throw our weight around a little to get them to come around.

The Republicans have always been largely a party of business and the wealthy, allowing a little trickle down to pacify the peons. Their ideal seems to outsourcing labor, and importing cheap goods. For those jobs that can’t be outsourced, they rely on immigrant labor to drive down wages. They’ve now added the religious to their fold by electing born again Christians to solidify their hold on political power, although they, themselves, seem to worship at the church of GDP and totally free markets. They seem to have never met a victim of circumstances, or at least acknowledged them.

The Democrats, on the other hand, never met a victim they didn’t love. They used to be the party of American middle and lower classes. Unions also used to represent these people. But, now the Democrats and the Unions seem to have turned their attention to international victims, almost exclusively, leaving the American middle and lower classes to fend for themselves without a party to call their own. After all, with no border control and both parties ignoring immigration law, the demographics are rapidly shifting to unskilled, uneducated foreign immigrants, the better to inflate their voter rolls and union coffers.

The ruling class seems more interested in making money by churning money in the financial markets than actually making things and getting them to consumers. Why make things when you can get them cheaper from sweat shops in foreign countries? As long as the stock market is booming all is well for this group. Why should they be concerned when it’s not their jobs that are disappearing? If you control the boardrooms of corporate America you can always see to it that the profits go for big executive salaries and bonuses. With the principal stockholders being pension and insurance fund managers you don’t have to be worried about anyone raising a stink when you hire each others executives to sit on your corporate board. All the ruling class has to do is insure that it, and its cadre of hangers on and wannabees, is at least fifty percent of the electorate. Then it will be possible to drive down the wages of the lower half to subsistence levels, and feather their own nest. By using social issues like religion, human rights, and environmentalism and perceived foreign threats, it’s pretty easy to hoodwink the electorate for an extended period of time, particularly if they’re dominated by uneducated foreign immigrants.

Let’s face it, the system is broken and not about to change anytime soon. The ruling class has it figured out to their benefit, so why make waves. The same thing has been going on in Latin America for decades. In some countries there it’s become so bad that populist socialists have become all the rage once again. Is that what it will take to wake up America? Are we a country of all the people, or not?