User talk:James Horn

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Economy

Quote: “The call for free trade is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child for the moon. It has never existed; it will never exist.” ~ Henry Clay (1777-1852), Secretary of State, 1825-1829

From http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_22_4/tsc_22_4_quotes.shtml

"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the crows where they’d get their next day’s rations, it isn’t seventy millions of revenue the land would be paying — it’s seven hundred million", said he (Peachey Carnehan)... The Man Who Would Be King, Rudyard Kipling.

Economics

Modern Monetary Theory

  • J.D. Alt, "Enough Money", New Economic Perspectives, December 2, 2014.

Economists

James K. Galbraith
Website: Galbraith Page


Michael Hudson - one of the few who predicted the real estate market collapse
Website: Michael Hudson Page


Joseph E. Stiglitz
Website: Stiglitz Page


Paul Krugman
Website: Krugman Blog


Robert Reich
Website: Robert Reich Blog
Note: Robert Reich isn't an economist but I feel comfortable including him here for now.

Market Destruction, Circulation of Money

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary." ~ James Madison

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their good both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people." ~ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

"We may have democracy or we may have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis

"I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock of money, and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not accompanied by a severe depression." ~ Milton Friedman


Money does it's greatest good the broader and deeper it's circulation through the economy, generating greater GDP and tax revenues as it does so. Regardless the amount of money in the economy, it's the circulation of that money that has any effect. Money sitting idly does nothing. Alternatively, GDP and tax revenues fall as money circulation falls. The majority of the American people, the 'market' as our financial elitists would call them or the working class, are dependent on a salary or wage to meet at least the daily necessities of life and whatever else the discretionary portion of their income would afford them. When jobs become scarce, demand and thus GDP and tax revenues fall due to the diminished circulation of money. The 'market' shrinks as our illustrious economists would have us believe, however for economic purposes the 'market' is essentially destroyed if circulation is cut off for a certain length of time. The amount of time being dependent on the level of the incomes it has provided. The lower classes are the first to be affected in a process that Thorstein Veblen called the "slaughter of the innocents".

The offshoring of America's job base and the unequal distribution of economic production has led to a restriction in the broad circulation of money and it's accumulation in fewer and fewer hands. The money hasn't disappeared, but money so utilized is described as speculative hot money, producing nothing but distortion in the paper markets - stocks, bonds, futures,and their derivatives, etc. Thus, the short term interests of global capitalism has caused the destruction of it's own markets in the US and in a way that can quickly turn an investment into a rout and collapse. As long as the savings of America is held in these hands it can readily be destructed also.

The bankruptcies produced as a consequence of the economic policies pursued by government and economic interests can and will persevere to government itself if allowed to continue on it's path. The ability of many municipal and state governments to finance basic operations have already been impacted. We are making an elite few richer and foreign nations prosperous at our own destruction.

Unequal Distribution

Offshoring

  • Jack Rasmus, [inthesetimes.com/working/entry/7224/the_real_deficit_culprits_offshoring_and_corporate_tax_evasion/ "The Real Deficit Culprits: Offshoring and Corporate Tax Evasion"], In These Times, April 21, 2011.


Wikipedia

Progressive Policy Institute

Understanding the Offshoring Challenge - Robert D. Atkinson

Paul Craig Roberts

website: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

Offshoring has Destroyed the US Economy

"For a decade I have warned that US corporations, pressed by Wall Street and large retailers such as Wal-Mart, to move offshore their production for US consumer markets, were simultaneously moving offshore US GDP, US tax base, US consumer income, and irreplaceable career opportunities for American citizens. "

"Among the serious consequences of offshoring are the dismantling of the ladders of upward mobility that made the US an “opportunity society,” an extraordinary worsening of the income distribution, and large trade and federal budget deficits that cannot be closed by normal means. These deficits now threaten the US dollar’s role as world reserve currency."

Michael Spence

"...growth comes from three sources: the working population [jobs], capital investment, and technological progress."

Ralph Gomory

Gomory's critique has great political potential because it provides what the opponents of corporate-led globalization have generally lacked: a comprehensive intellectual platform for arguing that the US approach to globalization must be transformed to defend the national interest.

...their people will be paid a third, a quarter of what our people are paid. And it's unreasonable to think you can educate our people so well that they can produce four times as much in the United States.

Gomory's proposed solution would change two big things (and many lesser ones). First, the US government must intervene unilaterally to cap the nation's swollen trade deficit and force it to shrink until balanced trade is achieved with our trading partners. The mechanics for doing this are allowed under WTO rules, though the emergency action has never been invoked by a wealthy nation, much less the global system's putative leader. Capping US trade deficits would have wrenching consequences at home and abroad but could force other nations to consider reforms in how the trading system now functions.

Second, government must impose national policy direction on the behavior of US multinationals, directly influencing their investment decisions. Gomory thinks this can be done most effectively through the tax code. A reformed corporate income tax would penalize those firms that keep moving high-wage jobs and value-added production offshore while rewarding those that are investing in redeveloping the home country's economy.

  • Huffington Post -

Therefore the fundamental social role of organizations, usually corporations, is both to produce the goods and services that are consumed in the modern world and to enable people to participate in that production, so that they earn a share of the value produced for themselves and their families.

The Ketchum Goals:

(1) We want companies that are productive, each contributing as much as possible to the total of goods and services produced in the United States. It is the sum of these efforts that make America a prosperous nation.

(2) We want these companies to provide productive and well-paying jobs so that the value the companies create is widely shared by Americans. It is this widely shared wealth that gives the nation and its people economic security and stability.

...it would be a positive development if we had a capitalism that once again focused on making things rather than deals.

The Reagan-Thatcher model, which favored finance over domestic manufacturing, has collapsed.

We must take two absolutely fundamental steps to move toward the Ketchum Goals.

(1) We must have balanced trade. Without balanced trade productive companies operating in the United States are open to continuing assault from foreign entities advantaged by their governments.
(2) We must encourage and reward the productive companies that do provide productive jobs in the United States.

It is interesting that Theodore Roosevelt saw the role of corporations quite differently from the current dominant perspective. When necessary, Roosevelt was willing to influence corporations to act in the public interest. "Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions," he stated in his 1901 State of the Union message. "And it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions."

Ben Bernanke noted earlier this year: "In my view, however, it is impossible to understand this crisis without reference to the global imbalances in trade and capital flows that began in the latter half of the 1990s."

Note: a good layman's explanation of comparative advantage. In light of a critical article from the Hayek followers one wonders if this was a response in kind. J.H.

Vague talk about future innovations, about a post-industrial society, or of an enormous explosion of services exports to where they can balance the manufacturing trade deficit is not the stuff on which to bet the prosperity of a nation.

From Under Us. Here's A Way To Fix The Problem--And We Need To Do It Now]

For decades the world has struggled with a shifting maze of punitive tariffs, export subsidies, quotas, dollar-locked currencies, and the like. Many of these import-inhibiting and export-encouraging devices have long been employed by major exporting countries trying to amass ever larger surpluses--yet significant trade wars have not erupted. Surely one will not be precipitated by a proposal that simply aims at balancing the books of the world's largest trade debtor.

I believe that our government should visibly and clearly adopt two national economic goals:

(1) To be a productive nation steadily growing a large per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
(2) To share widely the prosperity made possible by that productivity.

We hear that because of low Asian wages we must innovate because we cannot really compete in anything else. Inventive Americans will do the R&D and let the rest of the world, usually China, do the dull work of actually making things. Or we'll do programming design but let the rest of the world, usually India, do low-level programming. This is a totally mistaken belief and one that, if accepted, will consign this nation to second- or third-class status.

Specializing in R&D, but sending its fruits on to others is a strange and completely unworkable strategy for a nation.

...Mankiw and his defenders underestimated both the importance of offshoring and its disruptive effect on wealthy countries. Sometimes a quantitative change is so large that it brings about qualitative changes, as offshoring likely will. We have so far barely seen the tip of the offshoring iceberg, the eventual dimensions of which may be staggering.

Our nation's continuing massive trade deficits are destroying important sectors of American industry and eliminating desperately needed jobs; yet balancing trade is not even on our government's agenda. This is happening because we are not facing reality, the reality that we are not living in a free trade world but that we are dealing with countries that practice mercantilism.

...a mercantilist trading partner, such as China, does not need to wait and slowly develop its industries to enter the most productive sectors, and it is not obliged to limit the scale of its entry to what matches its imports. By mispricing its currency, using subsidies, and demanding technology transfer in exchange for access to their market, a mercantilist nation can enter the most productive sectors very quickly.

The IMF states in Article I of its charter that one of its purposes is the balanced growth of international trade, while the WTO states in its preamble the aim of securing reciprocal and mutually advantageous trade.

...lies, damned lies and statistics.

The problem today is not the tyranny of government, but rather the concentration of money, and hence power, in Wall Street and in the largest corporations.

...despite the economic hardship that Wall Street's self-serving policies inflicted on the nation, Wall Street and the major corporations are having record years while the rest of the country struggles. They have demonstrated clearly that their fortunes are not linked to those of most Americans.

Occupy Wall Street deserves our respect for stubbornly refusing to let us avert our eyes from what is happening to our country.

Labeling Corporations so that their products can be scanned according to what they do. Technology already exists.

We are a nation of corporations, but our press and our conventional politics do not in any systematic way make visible the effect of corporate actions on the country. Let us as citizens make up for that significant omission.

Maximizing profits excuses the offshoring of millions of U.S. jobs and of American technology. It also explains many of the perverse financial industry practices that contributed to the crash.

As a nation, we have reached a turning point where we must decide how much power we will allow large corporations and the extremely wealthy to have over our lives and our political system. Making their activities visible and transparent is a first step toward ensuring that we don’t become a nation for the rich but rather one that works to provide a good life for all.

Given the real world we live in, and the current motivation of our great global corporations, it is time to apply to our own situation the immortal words of Pogo: "we have met the enemy and he is us". To solve our manufacturing problem we will first have to face up to our political one.

The growing concentration of income and wealth threatens both the long-range productivity of the country, through extensive offshoring, and its long-range internal stability through a growing concentration of wealth that carries with it political as well as economic power.

Other Articles -

To deal successfully with the effect on this country of the rapid industrialization of China, our government needs to take steps to better align the goals of our corporations with the aspirations of our people. In a globalizing world where nations such as China advance their national interests with well thought out mercantilist policies, it becomes essential to balance trade if we are to control our own destiny. This too calls for new government policies.

References

[1] Ralph E. Gomory and William J. Baumol, Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests, MIT Press, 2000
[2] Pisano, Gary P., and Willy C. Shih. “Restoring American Competitiveness.” Harvard Business Review 87, nos. 7-8 (July – August 2009).
[3] Spence, Michael, “Globalization and Unemployment”, Foreign Affairs, June 2011

[4] Edward N. Wolff,” Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze – An Update to 2007”, Working Paper No. 589. Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

[5] Buffett Warren and Loomis Carol J., “The Nation’s Growing Trade Deficit is Selling the Nation Out From Under Us”, Fortune Magazine, November 10, 2003

[6] Grove, Andy, “How America Can Create Jobs”, Bloomberg Businessweek, July 1, 2010
[7] Samuelson, Paul, “Where Ricardo and Mill Rebut and Confirm Arguments of Mainstream Economists Supporting Globalization”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 18, Number3, Summer 2004

[8] Ralph. E. Gomory and William J. Baumol, “A Linear Ricardo Model With Varying Parameters,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 1995, Vol. 92, pp. 1205-1207.

Herman Daly

Ha-Joon Chang

Free-trade policy of the last quarter of a century has failed to deliver the prosperity that it had promised, and too many of its “losers” have not been compensated for their sacrifices.

Ian Fletcher

Peter Navarro

UWE E. REINHARDT

David Stockman

Articles

Tools for a New Economy:

External Resources

  • "Ellen Brown's Web of Debt site", "Our money system is not what we have been led to believe."
  • "American Monetary Institute", "The American Monetary Institute is a publicly supported charity founded in 1996. The real outcomes in society – whether there will be general economic justice or corrupt financial privileges for the few – are usually determined by the structure of a society’s monetary system."
  • Louis D. Brandeis, "Other People's Money", University of Louisville, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law.

External Articles

Henry C K Liu, "PAY, PROFIT AND GROWTH, Part 1: Stagnant wages feeding overcapacity", Asia Times Online, November 24, 2010.

Henry C K Liu, "DERIVATIVE MARKET REFORM, Part 1: The folly of deregulation", Asia Times Online, December 3, 2009.

Ellen Brown, "Today We're All Irish: Debt Serfdom Comes to America", "The Pennsylvania System of Benjamin Franklin's Day", webofdebt.com/articles, March 15th, 2008.

Note: Unrelated to Pollin article. Related to monetary reform.



Hi James,

Thanks for creating a page on the "John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007." I made some minor edits to the page, just to standardize it a bit with other Congresspedia legislation pages. Feel free to check out my work, and let me know if you have any questions or concerns. In any event, please keep editing!

--Elliott Fullmer 10:32, 26 July 2007 (EDT)

Hi James,

Also, I went ahead and switched the "Posse Comitatus" page (per your request) back to SourceWatch. In the future, however, we may wish to split the page into two sections: one documenting the controversy, commentary, and debate surrounding the issue, and another documenting the legal and technical changes brought on by the bill. In any event, thanks again for all of your work!

--Elliott Fullmer 10:46, 26 July 2007 (EDT)

Hi James,

Thanks for sending Lisa Graves a message re the water portal. Can you send me an email at sara [at] prwatch.org so I can respond?

Thank you! Sara Jerving

==Sustainable Forestry Initiative==

Sustainable Forestry Initiative
Sustainable Forestry Initiative - Who Is
SFI - Supporters and Partners
Wikipedia - Sustainable Forestry Initiative
FSC on SFI
Pennsylvania Sustainable Forestry Initiative
SFI - Georgia
SFI - Virginia

FSC

==Forest Capital Partners==

Forest Capital Partners - Hoovers
FCP - Linkedin

FCP and Aerial Spraying

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- FCP Donegan as Chairman of NAFO
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Forest Capital and SFI

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External resources

PR Newswire
The Energy Daily
Spokesman Review
Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan
Portland Business Journal
Portland Business Journal
Human Rights Assessment - Aerial Spraying
Oregon Innovation Council - Donegan
NAFO - Donegan
OBC - Donegan
FCRC - Metafore
FSC Watch
ASI
Mongabay - FSC
Interior Design, Penny Bonda on FSC
Forisk Consulting - TIMO's and REIT's
Businessweek - FCP Profile
Sierra Club - Forest Certification System
[http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/areera/reports/2006/LA/Combined.1862.LA.pdf LSU AG - 2006 Report, Funding - Pine Forests
US AG - Pesticide Related Issues
PAN North America - Atrazine

Boise Cascade/Office Max

endgame.org
landgrant.org
Who Rules?

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