How the West eats its children

????? Where do you see ANY indication in my one sentence post that there is a choice of either or? Seems to be your usual response, when you have nothing to respond with. Babble on about nonsense unrelated to what you are responding to and throw in an insult for good measure. Get a friggin argument.

 

Since you understand that corporations are NOT socially responsible it is up to the government of We the People to REGULATE them so that they do NOT cause harm to American citizens. Those regulations include requiring that they pay living wages with benefits and if they offshore those jobs instead then their profits in our nation are taxed by the same amount that they gained by moving those jobs to foreign nations.

 

Sow the wind - reap the storm. Destroy Libya - get the refugees. Support the coup in Ukraine - get the same at home.

The ashes of St. Bartholomew's night knock on our hearts!
The Foreign Ministries of France and Germany have already declared the inadmissibility of the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators. After all, have already stated? Could not fail to declare!
After all, peaceful demonstrators in Paris do exactly the same thing as in Kiev - they beat passers-by, attack policemen, burn tires (sometimes with cars), rob shops and smash museum expositions, dismantle cobbled streets and destroy the historical center of the city.
Therefore, the use of violence to the peacemakers is strongly unacceptable.
The dictator Macron, under pressure from the world democratic public, must disband 90,000 policemen mobilized to disperse demonstrations (first put them on their knees, make them apologize - and then fire them in shame!) And return the armored personnel carriers to the barracks. And it is better to distribute armored personnel carriers and tear gas to pensioners.
France is the prison of nations. The criminal regime of Macron has still not repented of the storming of Montsegur, the siege of La Rochelle and the burning of Vendee (the infernal columns of General Tyurro - we all remember!).
Four innocent people, true patriots of Armenian descent, are killed by evil French authorities. Their blood cries out for vengeance. Edward Philip - bloodsucker! Macron must go! "Let my people go!" Oh, this is from another opera ...

How many thousands of years they have been telling the world: that if you sow, you will reap. Sow the wind - reap the storm. Destroy Libya - get the refugees. Support the coup in Ukraine - get the same at home.

But seriously, tomorrow there will be a continuation of the banquet. And here, I think, there are two possible scenarios:

1. Macron does not disperse the protesters, and then the words of the first President of Ukraine Kravchuk that “Ukraine will become the second France” will be anti-prophetically fulfilled. It only happens the other way around - France will turn into a second Ukraine.
2. Macron hard disperses the protesters and for years to come turns into a "wicked possession", cruel tyrant, "bloody panda", and in France itself the seeds of civil conflict will be sown for a long time.

 

Capitalism is inevitably transformed into its antagonism - imperialism.
What we have now. I strongly advise you to read -
Lenin; "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism" https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

Contents

PREFACE 187
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH AND GERMAN EDITIONS 189
I. CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND MONOPOLIES 196
II. BANKS AND THEIR NEW ROLE 210
III. FINANCE CAPITAL AND THE FINANCIAL OLIGARCHY 226
IV. EXPORT OF CAPITAL 240
V. DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG CAPITALIST ASSOCIATIONS 246
VI. DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG THE GREAT POWERS 254
VII. IMPERIALISM AS A SPECIAL STAGE OF CAPITALISM 265
VIII. PARASITISM AND DECAY OF CAPITALISM 276
IX. CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM 285
X. THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY

You can start reading right away from chapter 7. You will immediately understand what is happening now in the world

 

Nothing to do with my post I see. Oh well, a nice diversion anyway.

 

Since we are resorting to dramatic hyperbole, I prefer mine castrated (after being wild caught with catch dogs) and penned and grain fed a few months, then slow roasted and served with kittens and puppies.

 

Roasted on a BBQ with a can of beer inserted in the anus, beer can children well known recipe.

 

Firstly, I have to answer briefly as I have to absent myself shortly...

I have no problem with the reality of the uber-wealthy, when you consider that 8 men own the collective wealth of half the world's population. If that is not a description of the super rich I don't know what is.

]quote]Governance is about balance - management of expectation. A Benthamite equation if you like of pleasure and pain. A topical issue, betting. There are over 400,000 UK citizens struggling with debt from gambling, if the Government banned Betfred or Coral or all these other abhorrent organisations that ply their trade what would be the state of the sports industry? How much money would the Government lose in tax? What effect would that have on social services? The industry tries to hide behind the absurd rubric of "gamble responsibly" which I suppose is to add this mask of social responsibility; alas I think the same rubric is apt for government policy. Political decisions are predicated upon the basis that the majority of people will agree with them - they're a gamble. They may be made for the best of intentions like Thatcher and the Poll Tax or Cameron and the EU but ultimately they are just gambles which can backfire.[/quote]

Government should be about balance, I agree, but the government we've seen this past forty years represents the interests and ideology of the few over the many. On the betting issue, Gordon Brown negotiated to bring the betting onshore from places like Malta where they operated from in a minor way. He wanted access to the tax revenue from their profits. Talk about blinkered. Thus he knowingly brought an industry that was largely operated by offshore crooks to the UK resulting in debt servitude for those who cannot control their habit. In my view it was deeply irresponsible.

Business operates within a framework of law and regulation? I wish. Big business operates as it pleases and deals with the consequences when (or if) caught by paying a relatively meagre fine imposed by a given regulator. No executives end up in the assizes for crimes committed - unlike you or I had we broken the criminal law - they simply have the corporation of which they are executive employees pay the fine on their behalf (basically robbing the shareholders). Not a penny comes out of their own pockets. If anyone considers this punishment then I have a well-known London bridge to sell them.

The problem with this argument, and I have some sympathy for it to a degree, is that France is like the UK a very wealthy nation. The concept of paying taxes is so that the nation is benefited by a variety of expenditures. People understand this and generally accept that it is for the common good. Or should be anyway. The problem arises when parts of the tax-take are spent by government to benefit only a certain segment of society. People do not understand this and quite rightly fight against it. In the UK, for example, the arms exporters are treated to special support by means of a government (read tax payers) backed export guarantee scheme that for a relatively small premium protects them against losses from overseas importer of British weapons should those importing nations decide not to pay (or can't) for the weapons (which happens). Thus all the country risk of the arms companies is offset by the British tax-payer in exchange for a paltry sum.

It's not really cricket is it...

Generally though I can understand where you're coming from but I fear that we don't yet know the right questions to ask in order to pick our way through the maze we..the voters have put ourselves in.[/QUOTE]

 

lol

 

You should see what I can do with some breadcrumbs, 11 herbs and spices and a pressure fryer

For some reason black kids taste best........

 

Some regulations are needed and pure capitalism can run amok as in the robber baron days and monopolies that needed broken up. There us a line though that if crossed kills the beast instead of controls it. Socialism crosses that line.

 

Only the extreme RW'ers post about socialism.

What Progressives are advocating Social Democracy which is NOT socialism. It eradicates the current Republican DEREGULATED capitalism that is destroying this country and replaces it with something that ensures that We the People have a FUTURE.

 

And what do you call this "something"?
By the way we are a mile from deregulated capitalism in this country.

 

The Social Democracy that Bernie outlined and that the Progressives used as a platform on which to get elected nationwide.

 

Presidential Palace under attack in France. Students in the streets and in jail. Macron on his way out. Merkel out. Riots spreading to Belgium and the Netherlands. Great news for people who want to be free people.

 

Bernie the self avowed socialists. So now we have come full circle to where you denied supporting socialism.

Bernie Sanders: Socialism isn't 'tainted,' it's mainstream

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/15/bernie-sanders-socialism-isnt-tainted-its-mainstre/

 

What Bernie was advocating was NOT socialism.

That you believe the bovine excrement of the extreme RW disinformation sources in NOT my problem.

 

Bernie's own words.

"Socialism has gone “mainstream” and is now supported by the majority of Americans", Sen. Bernard Sanders asserted this week, saying "Democrats should embrace rather than shun the term"as they campaign to win control of Congress."

 

Viva la France.

 

It’s the left wing that is “globalist”. They are “citizens of the world” and long for “one world government”.

The right wants nothing to do with globalism, as evidenced by Trump and Brexit.

If someone hates globalism, protest against the left wing, not the right wing.

 

Yep, but if you can get your leaders, political class and/or regulators to do what is necessary in what is now a clearly a totally corrupt regime you're a better man than I. They're wilfully deaf to the wishes and needs of their citizens. Only money counts today - and most of us don't have much of that to spare.

 

It seems from that that you are looking for better way of doing democracy...in terms of accountability....is there a more ethically accountable democracy over the liberal democracy which we have now? That could be a good discussion!

Government spending is not limited to arms sellers....I have no idea what proportion of the tax take is applied as subsidies on their behalf but I would imagine it to be a fraction of a %? You could apply the same principal to the unemployed or the mentally ill or the prison population who by definition are essentially non-productive members of society. I don't understand where you are going with this train of thought. I think maybe you're hitting out at the old demons. However, for me if the arms industry produces a product which is sold for profit (I would include the after sale items like training, spares and maintenance which are highly profitable) which they are, then why should export credit or political risks insurance not be available? Bearing in mind that the ultimate risks takers via reinsurance and alternative risk transfer of the credit/political risk are the Insurers at Lloyd's and Company Markets. They are a productive sector of the economy; they employ a huge amount of people they pay huge amounts of tax unlike the non-productive consumers of the tax take.

For me a better example would be the absurd amount of expenditure by government on a navy for example that is equipped with ships and weapons that to me have absolutely no practical use in a modern theatre of war. Do you think that this goes back to an earlier thought about accountability - is there a situation now where due to the sheer complexity of choice the business model of a liberal democracy is now beyond the intellectual means of the political party system - a kind of negligent entrustment of political control by society where the political elite? ****...an epiphany.....I think that's the route I was travelling!! Has society with its diversity and its demands and its choices become more complex than the current liberal democratic political business model is equipped to provide? @LafayetteBis asked me a perfectly reasonable question in another thread to which I had no reasonable answer in that he asked how much control should government have...coupled with this discussion I just wonder how much control CAN government be entrusted with based upon the competing complexities versus a principled (possibly even moral) balance or management of expectation.....??

Are the yellow vests and even the brexiteers for example being let down by an intellectual failure of the interchangable expectations of a socio-liberal political society which enjoys a certain level of consumption over the conflicting amoral designs of supply chains? Help me out with this!!!

 

Just one or two burning issues with that...

You could call it a "Hot Topic"

 

Incredible... he wrote this in 1916.. thank you, I'm going to put this on my reading list. Now wonder I don't like the capitalism of today... it's because it's Imperialism

 

Let me REPEAT, Bernie is talking about Social Democracy which is what has NOW gone mainstream.