Full Transcript:
The full faith and credit of the United States is only held to be of value by those who are actually loyal to these United States. Foreign potentates, that want to retard our progress, don’t care about this country’s future viability. True conservatives know how to invest wisely while, to the penny-wise – pound foolish faux conservative, ‘investment’ is a dirty word. Those masquerading in conservative garb are redefining conservatism in ways that are thoroughly selfish. If, for example, the United States were to default, even for a short time, the money lenders would have an excuse to raise interest rates in perpetuity. The gamesmanship, with respect to the debt limit, is clearly designed to further enrich the grifters that effectively own and operate about half of the U.S. legislature.
Such dampers on our entrepreneurial enthusiasm operate through the Senate filibuster, the debt ceiling, and subservient politicians. Feigning concern for the family farm is just one recent example of the way the unrepresentative head fake the electorate. Consider the grain embargo upon the Soviet Union in January of 1980. American farmers were the ones that felt the brunt of the sanctions, while it had a much lesser effect on the USSR. While that embargo may have yielded unforeseen and unintended consequences as the Soviets sourced grain from Brazil, the 2019 trade war represents a failure to learn from history. Customers can always find another willing supplier and, considering the decades of work American farmers put into cultivating relationships with Chinese consumers, it is heartbreaking to see the fruits of such labor go up in smoke.
We would do well to remember that sometimes, when the Amazon is on fire, the American farmer is toast! On August 19, 2019, the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a natural-color image that revealed fires burning in the vicinity of Novo Progresso in the Brazilian state of Pará. The town is located along BR-163, a straight north-south running highway that connects farmers in the southern Amazon with a port for ocean-going vessels located on the Amazon river in Santarém. Pasture and croplands are clustered around the highway in ordered, rectangular plots.
Douglas Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, described the snapshot in this way: “Fire activity in the Amazon varies considerably from year-to-year and month-to-month, driven by changes in economic conditions and climate. August 2019 stands out because it has brought a noticeable increase in large, intense, and persistent fires burning along major roads in the central Brazilian Amazon. While drought has played a large role in exacerbating fires in the past, the timing and location of fire detections early in the 2019 dry season are more consistent with land clearing than with regional drought.”
The oligarchy is motivated by only one thing and that is profit margin. The closer they can get to the cost of slave labor in producing whatever they sell, the happier they are. I once attended a party that was hosted by someone who enjoyed a position of prominence at the commanding heights of the world’s economy. I was enjoying a glass of fine wine and, as I was setting my glass down, I happened to notice the advice on the napkin. It read: “Remember, first you pillage then you plunder.”
In what American business leaders once referred to as “Corporate Japan,” there is a deeply held tradition that could be of value, informing people of good will as we move forward to rebuild our economy. Although Japan’s businesses are known for being fiercely competitive, there is an undergirding question that explains a certain cohesiveness. In addition to the profit motivation, Japanese corporations all operate within the context of one common question, “What is good for the country?”
That particular country also has its fair share of lobbyists and special interest groups including guilds, clubs, economic federations, industry and trade associations, and professional societies. These too lead with a value proposition wherein all deliberations are conditioned by the national interests and those of their countrymen. Self-sacrifice is viewed as unnatural in light of Japan’s Confucian tradition. Even so, self-interest must dovetail within the nation’s commonly held framework of values as conditioned by its needs, goals, and aspirations.
In Germany,a so called conservative government has insured that no one is without health insurance. The country has one of the best public transportation systems in the world. The Constitution requires all citizens live with dignity and this includes government action to ensure all citizens have a home, food, clothing, toiletries, furniture, transportation, and enough money to cover the minimal expenses of life. They have a basic allowance to helps all poor people to meet their most basic needs. And, to insure their competitiveness throughout future time, the country provides free education up to the PHD and MD level.
In the USA there are certain “leaders” who take great pride in the avoidance of any tax while being the first to complain when their shiny new car hits a pothole on a poorly maintained road.