South Asian Socialism

Re: # 73

masadi mian,

....... i thought i had heard all the excuses from well fed hate-spewing islamists who buy halal meat with food stamps issued by uncle sam while they continue to beat up on the poor old man in a funny hat .............. but this is a new one : `` The earth is free for me to roam whereever I so choose, I reject all the official nonsense surrounding nation states and territories and the like``

........ does that mean you reject the nonsense of the first islamic state of medina and have given up on your dream of establishing the caliphate on god`s earth ? ......... and if you are free to roam the earth, why didn`t you roam on over to saudi arabia where you can officially get three more wives and be closer to al-lah ............ the hypocrisy of your ilk just kills me - no latte for you !

p.s. usda is handing out cheese at 45th and 3rd on tuesday at 10:00 am ..........

Re: # 79

chalta,

...... that is the conventional wisdom, but there is a school of thought that says that capital is essential for growth, and savings are essential for the creation of capital ......... and isn`t savings simply deferred growth ?

...... but this is a rather dull discussion and not fit for chowk where people who hate our way of life have declared war on us ........... these horrid people (islamists and communists) must be vanquished before we can talk about the effect of savings on the growth of starbucks ......

#80 by hamidm2 A.Hs like you keep repeating falsehoods regardless of how adequately those falsehoods might have been dismantled in the past. Give me one good reason why I should repeat myself and re-answer this ``hypocrisy`` claim that you are leveling on me and I will be happy to oblige. If you cannot, ( because you are running out of your gardeners, drivers, latte servers, house repairmen that you can offer as examples of the success of this tyrannous system in the US) then take your latte drinking, US a$$ licking, slave mentality to the place where it matters most, i.e. the detroit city sewer.

Respectfully submitted (as behram sahib would say),

``India`s poor is poorer than it was 50 years ago ...``
nasah,
i don`t know how u arrived at this - but let me tell u about the one person that i know very well``(wiseguyin)

my dear wiseguy -- against Hamidm`s charming ` bigotry` I had to spice it up a little as well -- I know I know -- only months ago I was in India -- India is indeed in much much better shape than it was 50 years ago --

....everybody is working and trading briskly including the Muslims -- everything is in growth -- including population AND poverty -- but in relative terms -- more people from rural areas are rushing to already crowded cities where the jobs are -- ending up on the footpath -- never seen so many homeless sleeping by the roadside side 50 years ago than now.....

the other sectors are in such explosive growth that the poorer sectors do look poorer...

wiseguy -- if u r really a wise guy be thankful that the leftists and communists are making inroads in Muslim`s spheres of influence -- because that will be a powerful and much needed insurance against fundamentalist Islamist extremism......

and wiseguy ur advice to barath is right on the target -- Hamidm is NOT a bigot -- in fact he is just the opposite -- he is a relentless fighter against bigotry of the Muslims most of the time -- Hindus, some time -- and against George Bush`s -- almost never......:)

Musa Sami sahib,

I am a bit unsure as to what is your article`s real point? Are you making a moral argument i.e., the poor should not be made to feed the rich? Or are you expressing wonder at why they do?

Leaving the morality of the whole issue aside, allow me to state the obvious universal law: might is right; it always has been and always will be until, of course, kingdom come...!!

Now speaking of might, it is an open secret that in the present world order the United States IS the empire by default. (Yes, people will jump at this and cry ``anti-American pinko propaganda``... but truth is its own defense.) To understand the term EMPIRE in today`s context we must understand the basic economics of an empire.

A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, shows the economic foundation of every empire is the taxation of other nations. The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military. One part of the subject taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire; the other part went to strengthen the military dominance necessary to enforce the collection of those taxes.

Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms—usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver. Historically, imperial taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the economic goods directly to the empire.

For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation. It did not enforce the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but distributed instead its own fiat currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of inflating and devaluing those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods—the difference capturing the U.S. imperial tax.

But now change is finally in the air. These are the names to learn and remember: ASEAN - ADB - ACU - AMF

A meeting has just taken place in Hyderabad, India. The Finance Ministers of the 13 ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) were joined by Japan, China and South Korea. The ASEAN plus the latter three nations are often called ASEAN + 3. These Asian Finance Ministers met at the annual meeting of the ADB (Asian Development Bank). Their meeting was titled: ``Towards Greater Financial Stability In The Asian Region.`` The spectre that haunts them all is the value of the US Dollar.

Asia is beginning to take steps towards monetary independence. China`s Vice Minister for Finance, Mr Li Yong, has stated publicly at the meeting that he had heard a ``rumour`` that the US Dollar was on the verge of a 25 percent drop in its value against the currencies of Asia. He said that if that was true, the consequences would be ``shocking``. True enough. The Asian nations hold an ever climbing amount of US Dollars which they receive from the never slowing outflow from the US, as zeemax has indicated in an earlier message. These Asian nations are looking for a way out. South Korea`s Finance and Economy Minister Mr Han Duck-Soo announced Asia`s alternative to the US Dollar. He said this: ``South Korea, China and Japan have agreed on the concept of an - Asian Currency Unit (ACU) - and will start talks on its creation this year.`` The agreement was made to convert the present complex arrangements of bilateral currency swaps between Asian Central Banks into a full-scale multilateral format. This de facto establishes an AMF (Asian Monetary Fund). It was made abundantly clear at the Hyderabad meeting that the new Asian Monetary Fund would be entirely independent of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is a deadly threat to the US Dollar`s post WW II global hegemony. When the AMF is established with the ACU currency at its centre, the US will be faced with the Euro on its Atlantic side and with the ACU on its Pacific side. The world is on the verge of three very large regional global currencies.

The US Dollar is destined to go from global to regional. The Euro is already here. When the Asian ACU arrives, the US Dollar will be displaced from Asia as it mostly has been already from internal European Union settlements. Displacement means that a currency which was in large use in an economic area is no longer used for the same purposes. Economically, that means that it is sent to other areas where it is still in use and also back to where it came from. A currency suffering from displacement is compacted into an ever smaller area. And since the amount of saleable goods has not increased in that smaller area, the effect is a fall in its value.

This is how the sphere of the US empire begins to contract. The underpinning of American wealth and power is its paper. That is also its Achilles Heel.

...SR

#63 by nasah on May 14, 2006 11:02am PT


India`s poor is poorer than it was 50 years ago


Another ``fact`` leftists just assume to be true because if it weren`t, their whole ideology would collapse like the soviet union..

Re: # 68 by rf786 on May 14, 2006 12:36pm PT

> A world without capitalism would have crumbled in poverty, famines, diseases, genocides and civilization degenerating into its primordial state<

Well lets look at the world of capitalism: a billion live on less than a dollar a day, eight million die pa due to pollution, six million of malnutrition / starvation. 89 countries are worse off than 10 years ago. 35 have have had more of a fall than in the Great Depression. And ``Americans spend more on cosmetics and Europeans on icecream than it would cost to provide schooling for the 2 billion people who go without both``. (Figures taken from Chief Rabbi Sack`s `The Dignity of Difference.`). If you want to talk about capitalist wars then tell me what was the need for Vietnam, Korea, the Bay of Pigs, Iraq? How could a super power such as America feel teritorally threatened by these countries? If you want to talk about genocide lets also not forget that Hitler was violently anti-left and Nazism was built upon big business and could not have survived without it.

> Humanity has been migrating for centuries from one region tp another, sometimes by choice any many a time thru eviction. Were they also selling their souls?<

Economic migration, as I have said in the article, is a fact of life. It is a circumstance of history, not a matter of pride. But when we fail to self-reflect upon the circumstances that brought us here, then of-course one has simply sold himself to the highest bidder.

Re: # 67 by chaltahai on May 14, 2006 11:30am PT

> What the author is railing against is not really America..it is the fact that the muslim world is being left behind in dust by everyother group of people in the world<

Really? I’ve been talking precisely about the grievances of the other people of the world. I talked about South America and Africa. I notice you did not have much to say about them. I don’t actually recall mentioning Muslims. And what I have targeted specifically about America is the policies of the current American administration. Now, if you wish to defend them, be my guest, but you should know that it is an argument which fails to convince the vast majorities of the people of the world.

Re #58 by bharath on May 14, 2006 6:41am PT

>My question is WHAT IS YOUR ALTERNATIVE MODEL?<

Simply put: morality & self restraint. I would have answered in fuller detail but to be quite frank I found your posts a waste of time.

.... appended to 84 below...

Re-reading my message it seemed that the connection I was trying to describe between the US being an ``empire`` and its currency the US dollar was not made clear. Let me add to the explaination:

Economically, the American Empire was born with Bretton Woods in 1945. The U.S. dollar was not fully convertible to gold, but was made convertible to gold only to foreign governments. This established the dollar as the reserve currency of the world. It was possible, because during WWII, the United States had supplied its allies with provisions, demanding gold as payment, thus accumulating significant portion of the world’s gold. An Empire would not have been possible if, following the Bretton Woods arrangement, the dollar supply was kept limited and within the availability of gold, so as to fully exchange back dollars for gold. However, the guns-and-butter policy of the 1960’s was an imperial one: the dollar supply was relentlessly increased to finance Vietnam and LBJ’s Great Society. Most of those dollars were handed over to foreigners in exchange for economic goods, without the prospect of buying them back at the same value. The increase in dollar holdings of foreigners via persistent U.S. trade deficits was tantamount to a tax—the classical inflation tax that a country imposes on its own citizens, this time around an inflation tax that U.S. imposed on rest of the world.

When in 1970-1971 foreigners demanded payment for their dollars in gold, The U.S. Government defaulted on its payment on August 15, 1971. While the popular spin told the story of “severing the link between the dollar and gold”, in reality the denial to pay back in gold was an act of bankruptcy by the U.S. Government. Essentially, the U.S. declared itself an Empire. It had extracted an enormous amount of economic goods from the rest of the world, with no intention or ability to return those goods, and the world was powerless to respond— the world was taxed and it could not do anything about it.

Re: # 76
WISEGUYIN ...{{{its not overall the same but there are
large pockets of hope.}}}}

Yaar....it is no rant ...very nice....thanks.

I understand what you are saying Hamidm is the best we could get of Paki education system.

Re: # 83
> ... because that will be a powerful and much needed insurance against fundamentalist
> Islamist extremism......

nasah,
in my view - there is no such thing as an insurance against fundamentalist Islamist extremism...
there is no such thing as a moderate islamist viewpoint.
the basic differences or notions of propriety are so different between h0m0 islamus and h0m0
sapiens that i don`t even know where to begin with.
as i have repeated here before - there is no way both these species can inherit this earth.
Only one will.
As for India - nope, I don`t think we are destined to enjoy the fruits of this period of growth &
stability. You see, by the time our generations grow up in an environment of... ummm ..lets
call it 2nd world development (rt now we are third world) ... they are going to face newer
challenges from the 5th column within and the muslims surrounding our state. They will
need to steel themselves for large scale riots and bloodletting.

Not that I am dissapointed or disheartened by this scenario. But this is the way I see it unravelling.

Re: # 86 OAK
{{{{{Simply put: morality & self restraint.}}}

Morality and self-restraint??????? Osama-bin-laden variety? U R A CLOSET ISLAMIST... at least have the balls to come out in open like Masadi....

.........If you have ``self-restraint`` and want less luxuries in life why are u in London? and
not in Paki ?????? Every one konws about the bad things in the Western system, but they have established the instituitions and you come here and enjoy all the benefits of the system, and u want to be a hypocrite bad mouthing the system.??????????

What`s the deal on this WESTERN CORRUPTION? ur cuntry is not corrupt?


{{{{{{I would have answered in fuller detail but to be quite frank I found your posts a waste of time}}}}}}

LOL. looks like I hit some raw nerves there....

Why doesn`t the author explain this to Japanese and Chinese central banks whose holdings of American bonds dwarfs the desis ?

Dear Masadi:

Please don`t get stuck with sabziwalla and cell phones, etc. In Brazil, those sabziwalla`s are selling sugarcanes, and that is getting expensive for everyone in the world.

Respectfully submitted,

behram1 #31

`` Why do champions of free markets need unions? Doctors is US are allowed to have unions? So much for their free market spirits. In this so-called free market, which is meant only for people from the lower economic rung, we have poor mexicans, who can really do so much. I am afraid that when they get more economic power, they might start working in the local Starbucks, and my cafe latte to go spanish. ``

Doctors in USA do not have unions. They use licensing to protect their turf.

`` But, the question still remains, why are there no life insurance companies from the State Life Corporation of Timbuktu? Why are the economists protected? Why is Henry Lu who writes continuously on atimes.com not in the mainstream of US economic conversation. Surely, we can have no geniuses from other than the white-skin anglo culture of the puritans. ``

There are insurance companies in India. They are not well run to the point where they can offer you insurance.

`` O! what a state of hypocrisy would it be, if there were somebody other than Bernanke talking about increase of interest rates. And this is the so-called free market, when intelligentias are hoarded inside merely 300 million people of the US, and the rest out of 6 billion people is just so dumn and stupid. ``

Bernake is listened to because he controls the central bank of the world`s largest economy.

`` Free market and its concept is totally nonsensical. It is only a corporatist`s blow horn. Why are those idiotic executive managers faces plastered on the local Barnes and Noble bookstores under small business? What has Jack Welch ever did as a small businessmen? And what a failure Carly Fiorina was? And what about Scott McNeely with his idiotic big grin? O! did we forget Global Crossing? Worldcom? Enron?

Corporatists were never capitalists. They are just looking out for themselves only. The true capitalists are the shareholders, and they get shafted by the shenanigans of these employess who know nothing better than to play the dirtiest of office politics. ``

For all their faults Corporations are a big improvement over family owned enterprises.

Re: # 84

SR ...........

you scared the crap out of me ! ......... tomorrow, as soon as the banks open, i am going to dump all my dollars and buy the euro, the ACU, the indian rupee, the dinar and maybe even a truck load of tulip bulbs !

Re: # 87

SR ....

..... your argument really appeals to my simple mind ........... but if i can understand it and have been scared into dump the few dollars that i have, why do the chinese keep on supplying the ``economic goods`` to the ``evil empire`` when they know they are going to get shafted in the end and will be left holding bags of tulip bulbs ? ............ is it possible that the real value is actualluy in the tulip bulbs and the chinese know it and it is all a big elaborate scheme cooked up by those ex-commies in peking ? ............ you know, i never trusted those chinks .....

........ heck with all this economic mumbo-jumbo, i am getting a triple shot of espresso in my latte tomorrow morning and see if it trickles down to me by lunch ...........