Why Not Perennial Stimulus?

On a long walk from home tonight I got a chance to mull something over that's been in my brain for a while. Namely that since the economy is a manmade system that one would hope is meant to maximize at first survival and second pleasure for all people, then why not make sure that always happens. Of course, this presupposes that as fact. Someone else might say that our economic system sets up fiefdoms and elites, but that is another posting.

In any case, it seems to me that most people enjoy working, especially when they are adequately rewarded and the job makes some sort of sense, in that the worker can feel some psychic sort of reward as well as material. And it also seems to me that there is lots of stuff all over the place, enough factories and fields as well as brainpower to produce as much gadgets, food and art as we can handle. It seems that instead of goods being scarce, as in the old days of the 19th century and earlier, it is money that is scarce.

And yet money is an ENTIRELY made up thing. It exists and has value because and to the extent that people believe that it exists and has value. Even gold has little intrinsic value, yet we are so inculcated in its value that we laugh at early native Americans when we read about how they valued gold much less than did Columbus and his old world companions as they entered a new world. Another belief by the way is land. We are all taught that Indians were somehow defective for 'selling' Manhattan for $24 worth of trinkets, as the story goes, and it's a big joke. Yet for people who had no concept of land having any sort of value, except as something to take care of while they were borrowing it from their god, it must have been nice to get the trinkets for what they would consider free.

In any case, this posting, which is to be continued, is to make the case that the government should print as much money as is needed, with the only problem being how to justly distribute it without destroying the normal everyday incentives that capitalism has taught us to feel is natural.

Maybe we need a global euro

It's been a while since I last wrote - I guess I had nothing more to say about the worst US presidency to date, and thank goodness he's gone and we now have hope for better. My latest interest (among many, actually) is currency, and that is what I will begin writing about - basically my thoughts about the need for a world currency, replacing all national currencies, something that John Stuart Mill wrote about as long ago as 1851.

Iraqi Propaganda
Regarding the news that the US pays Iraqi newspapers to get fake positive news published, Senator Ted Kennedy had the best response:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., characterized the program as a scheme that “speaks volumes about the president’s credibility gap. If Americans were truly welcomed in Iraq as liberators, we wouldn’t have to doctor the news for the Iraqi people.”

I wonder if Senator John Warner, who seems to think that we are doing the right thing 'because it's war,' ever read Pravda in the old days.

Bolton Followup

I think he's nuts. He thinks he speaks for everybody in the United States when he spouts nutty ideas... for what I mean see the last paragraph...

EU rejects US tactics on UN reform
Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:58 PM ET
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The European Union rejected on Wednesday a proposal by U.S. Ambassador John Bolton to delay adoption of a two-year U.N. budget until key reforms are approved by the 191-member General Assembly.
In a rare public disagreement with the United States, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters the 25 EU members did not believe in linking the budget to reform issues and thereby jeopardizing U.N. operations.

"We are not in favor of holding any individual items or the budget hostage to other issues but we do say very clearly that by the end of this year we need charity and a determination to tackle a better management for the United Nations," said Jones Parry, whose country holds the current EU presidency.

Diplomats fear a possible train wreck on the $3.6 billion 2006-2007 administrative budget, which is to be adopted by the end of the year and could involve New Year's Eve sessions. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said a delay in approving the budget would create a "serious financial crisis."

In an effort to prod states into action, Bolton on Tuesday proposed delaying the passage of the budget until key management reforms have been approved. To make his point he has organized a meeting among the organization's largest contributors, the so-called Geneva group.
Bolton told reporters the General Assembly could pass a temporary budget to finance U.N. operations through the first three or four months of 2006, a proposal U.N. officials say would leave them strapped for cash.

Western nations are encountering stiff resistance from developing countries who fear the United States wants to cut jobs and programs in the name of efficiency.

GROUP OF 77 CRITICISM
The largest coalition of some 132 developing nations, called the Group of 77, earlier this month issued a letter criticizing plans by Annan to establish an ethics office and to review General Assembly programs and mandates that should be shut down, among other proposals.
While Jones Parry made clear the EU was allied with the United States on the reform package, he disagreed with Bolton's tactics. He said the European Union had been working "very actively on the management dossier and putting forward proposals and driving it."
He said he expected a peace-building commission and a new body to replace the discredited Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission to be approved by the end of the year, along with several management proposals.

These include an ethics committee, a whistle-blower policy and some strengthening of a U.N. oversight body. But some of the proposals, such as an external oversight body, will not be enacted until next year, if ever.

U.S. officials fear the General Assembly, which controls management and budget, is ignoring findings of an investigation into the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq that recommended a number of management changes.

The assembly's decisions on budgets are taken by consensus and allow the United States, which pays 22 percent of the budget, to block them. Privately, EU members, who collectively pay some 35 percent of the budget, fear the Bolton plan might backfire, with developing nations rejecting all reform plans.

In interviews and comments to reporters in the past two weeks, Bolton has warned the United States might bypass the United Nations if it does not undergo radical changes.
"Americans are a very practical people and they don't view the U.N. through theological lenses," he said. "They look at it as a competitor in the marketplace for global problem-solving and if it's successful at solving problems they'll be inclined to use it."

They Don't Get It

Today the Senate voted to try and disengage ourselves from Iraq by demanding that the Iraqis get their shit together. Senator John Warner is quoted "The message that Iraqis should take from the Senate action, Mr. Warner said, is that "we have stood with you, we have done our part," and now it is time for them to do theirs. He said 2006 would be a pivotal year for the campaign in Iraq."

Well, easier said than done. Iraq has a long history of living under the dominance of one country or despot or another with a commensurate amount of violence done to its people. When we released the stopper and let the pendulum move, it moved way to the other side before hopefully eventually settling in the middle. The French revolution was violent because life before it under the monarcy and the church was violent. I am sure that there are plenty of Iraqi torturers in their prisons getting their revenge on the people they feel were responsible for their misery in the past.

So the Senate might think that in passing a resolution by magic Iraq will get their shit together. They are probably thinking that our welfare bill was effective in setting limits on the amount of time one can collect public assistance before one has to go out and find a job... but Iraq is a whole different ball of wax with a different history and sadly only time and patience and more sad lessons will probably have to happen before a liberal democratic state could eventually evolve.

Today I asked John Bolton a question.
I went to see him at a luncheon at the 20th floor rooftop mansion hall at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan. As a member of a group called the Foreign Policy Association, which is a business friendly organization that I charecterize as the poor mans Council of Foreign Relations, I was allowed to break bread with this epitome of the Bush administration.

I kind of wanted to see this type of person in person - and he did not disappoint. He started a little timidly, but as he ripped into the what he characterized as a culture of do-nothing at the UN, his passion grew, as he criticized them for not being harsher on Syria, for not being friendlier to Israel, for doing nothing on Iraq, for saying nice things about Cuba, and on and on. His big claim to fame is that he once had something to do with a resolution that rescinded the UN's resolution against Zionism, and of course that's what he spoke about first. His self-promotion at the expense of the world's internationalist organization speaks volumes to how our current leaders feel about anything not American. Like zippo.

You know, I'm in the mailing business, and I actually have some idea of how much mail the post office is required to deliver each day - a staggering amount. However, they are never commended for delivering most of them, you only hear about the relatively miniscule amount that get lost in the system. Somebody who hates the Post Office will focus on those few, and ignore everything else they do. Substitute UN for PO and that's Bolton, and he is every American's (well US American) representative to that body.

I was recognized in the question and answer session, and so I got to ask a question. I asked whether he thought that the UN deserves any credit at all for the fact that we haven't had to endure a World War Three.

He said no, it was the US that deserved all the credit. He did say that a couple times the UN did what we wanted to so it served at least some purpose.

Using the Power of Office to Avoid Jail

Paul Krugman's column today ends like this:

"Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation. "

Not only do I heartily agree with this, which is why I believe that Cheney will run in '08 to keep the lid on himself and all his cronies, but I believe the same situation keeps both Chirac and Berlusconi working hard to maintain their power in their cases specifically to avoid prosecution for offenses they have committed before the ascension to the highest posts in their country. Berlesconi in Italy not only stays in power to maintain immunity, but he appoints his personal lawyers to positions of power specifically so they can rewrite laws to keep his businesses legal.

I don't think that we're yet in a highly advanced stage of governance in this world. Someday perhaps we will be described as 'premodern.'