[Vision2020] Socialism: Neither Cause nor Solution to Euro Crisis

[Bill London]

K-

If you are taking votes, I vote that you sign up with the Daily News as a Town Crier columnist (see below).  Your words need wider circulation.  BL

ps. same to you, Paul, Ted, and even G. Crabtree



TOWN CRIER V: We don't need no stinkin' syndicated columnists on our Opinion page. That's our belief, and we're stickin' to it. We want our own community to provide our columnists. A big part of that has been our Town Criers.

Our fourth crew of 13 Town Criers has reached the end of its two-year commitment to the Daily News and the community.

We would like to say thanks to John Carlson, Don Cox, Dan David, Jerry Finch, Nick Gier, Penelope Gonzales, Larry Kirkland, Eric McGilp, Donald C. Orlich, Michael Riley, Matthew Wappett, W. A. Warren and Nina Woodford. They have given us much to think about and argue over.

So, it's time to put out a call for the Town Crier V squad.

What would be expected of you? Each member will need to write a column of 650 words four times a year for two years. It can be on any topic, national or local, the same topic every time or a wide range of topics, inflammatory or informative, serious or funny, personal or political. We'll edit for style, spelling, grammar, syntax and libel, but the topics and point of view are yours alone.

Who should apply? Anyone who has eight things to say, can write 650 interesting words and can hit a deadline every 13 weeks. We would like to see more women and more working people apply this time. The last group was dominated by retired men, not that there's anything wrong with being either retired or a man.

Apply by sending an email to Murf Raquet, the editor the Opinion page, at murf at dnews.com. Give him your background and an example of your writing.












From: keely emerinemix 
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 2:51 PM
To: ngier006 at gmail.com ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Socialism: Neither Cause nor Solution to Euro Crisis

Nick, this couldn't be better written or more timely, especially in light of Rick Perry's sober contention that Barack Obama is a socialist.  

That he's not, of course, matters little to Perry and his ilk, even if they could grasp why it is that he's not.  Also, in the same vein as the "Government Out Of My Medicare" posters at Tea Party events, I'm fairly certain that Perry, et al, are really pretty glad to have what we could call socialized police forces and fire fighters.  It's worked well for us, generally; the abuse and racism present among the police is an argument for continued State control, not for private control.  I'll keep my socialized police protection, thanks.  Same for LBJ's vaunted Texas and national socialist highway beautification programs -- the outgrowth of that nasty socialist Dwight Eisenhower's interstate highway program advances.  

No, Obama must be a "socialist" to these folks because he's not one of them, in ways both true and significant as well as untrue and insignificant.  He is, unlike the power players in today's GOP, a reasonable, intelligent man who believes that government has done and can and should continue to do good for people; unlike them, and I suspect this is the Right's primary concern, he's "not one of  them" because he's not a conservative, not a Republican, not a Bible-banger, not from a rural background, not possessing a suitably "American" name, and not a white guy.  Anything he supports or proposes, and especially if it's even remotely close to where the GOP center was forty or fifty years ago, is going to sound downright dangerous to Perry and his "underinformed" followers.  "Socialism" in politics is lamentably like "faggot" on the playground:  An ugly, disgusting, hateful weapon of ignorance that doesn't even have to be true -- it's so awful in the eyes of the one who wields it that what it means and if it even applies doesn't matter.  I agree that unlike "faggot," there's a legitimate use of the word "socialist," but I contend that Perry and his pals only know that they think being one or the other is really bad, and so they let the name-calling fly, hoping to attract others who like calling Obama anything nasty, even if they can't remember why it is that it's bad.  

Disgusting.  Thanks, Nick, for a little truth-telling.  

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:21:06 -0800
From: ngier006 at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Socialism: Neither Cause nor Solution to Euro Crisis


Good Morning Visionaries:




This is the second part of my column on the Euro Crisis.  Both parts were published together in the Sunday edition of the Idaho State Journal, which does even a better job of saving money by having no syndicated columnists.




If the Daily News wants to spend money, they should choose much better conservatives and liberals.




The full version is attached.




Yours for increased revenues to balance deficits,




Nick

SOCIALISM: NEITHER CAUSE NOR SOLUTION FOR EURO CRISIS





GOP leaders are quick to claim that Europe’s problems are due to its “socialist” governments and that, as a fellow traveler, Obama’s policies will take the U.S. into an economic abyss. As Republican Congressman Paul Ryan predicts: “What we are seeing is the failure of European socialism and the social welfare states.” The facts prove Ryan wrong.

The dictionary definition of “socialism” requires that the state own the means of production, and only Cuba and North Korea qualify as socialist states in this sense.  In Europe the means of production are in the hands of world-class private companies operating in market economies. 

The World Economic Forum’s list of competitive economies for 2011 includes seven European welfare states : Switzerland (1st), Sweden (3rd) , Finland (4th), Germany (6th), the Netherlands (7th), Denmark (8th), and the UK (10th). The U.S. is in fifth place. The free market Economist has chosen Denmark as the most business friendly and it hailed Finland was the most innovative. 

One way to measure the strength of any nation to manage debt is to look at its credit rating.  Good credit means that governments are able to issue bonds at low interest rates.  Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain (GIIPS) are now paying so much interest on their bonds that they will never be able pay off their debts.

Even before it lost its AAA rating, the U.S. did not make the top ten credit worthy nations, but 8 European welfare states did.  The latest ratings from Standard and Poors indicate that there are 15 countries with AAA ratings before the U.S. at AA+.  Except for Hong Kong all of these countries have higher tax rates than the U.S.

The number of European nations led by Labor, Social Democratic, or Socialist parties has been declining over 20 years and now stands at an all time low.  Iceland, Ireland, Italy, and Greece ran up their bills (all over 100 percent of Gross National Product) under center-right governments.  

In Ireland, where the Labor Party always ran third, the budget deficit reached 32 percent last year and unemployment is running at 14 percent.  By 2007 Ireland’s Anglo-Irish bank has loaned out $91 billion. As a proportion of population this would be the equivalent of an American bank loaning out $3.4 trillion.   

Those European countries with the highest taxes have some of the lowest national debt. This is not the result of socialism, but a common sense financial philosophy that one should balance expenses with sufficient revenue.  Congressman Ryan’s budget proposal which dramatically cuts taxes and spending—but wipes out America’s social safety net—will reduce deficits by a paltry $155 billion over ten years. 

Current national debt per GDP in the Nordic countries was 36.7 percent for Sweden, 43.7 percent for Denmark, 48.2 percent for Finland, and 48.9 percent for Norway.  Sweden is the fastest growing economy in Europe (4.2%) and Denmark—thanks to Social Democratic programs in the early 1990s—has had an unemployment rate of 3-4 percent for 20 years.  A Social Democratic jobs plan allowed Germany to increase employment during the Great Recession.

Norway is currently running high budget surpluses (13.1%) and Sweden’s financial books are balanced. Denmark and Finland have been running very low budget deficits (3.9% and 2.5% respectively).  From 2000-2010 Finland has had budget surpluses in 8 of those years. 

The current budget deficit for the 17-member Eurozone is 4.1 percent, and that includes debt-ridden Greece, Portugal, and Ireland.  Only Finland, Estonia, and Luxembourg have abided by the 3 percent deficit agreed on in 1999. Even Germany was one of seven that busted the 3 percent barrier in 2001.  From 2000-2010 twelve other euro economies, including France, stayed below the limit more consistently than Germany.

Comparable figures for low tax U.S. are 100 percent of GDP for total national debt and a budget deficit of 8.6 percent.  The U.S. has run up more than twice as much national debt as Europe. Each person in the EU owes $19,522, but each American is $48,860 in debt.  

A recent cartoon depicted the Statue of Liberty warning off a boat loaded with euros.  She cries out: “We don’t want your economic policies!”  Actually both American and European governments have very similar austerity plans: dramatic spending cuts (especially in Britain, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Greece), which make it impossible for these economies to grow enough to hire new workers and pay off their huge debts.  

There is strong correlation between economic growth under Obama’s stimulus plan the slide towards recession after the money was spent.  The right-wing’s call for austerity driven economic expansion is a dangerous illusion.  It’s not working in Europe and it won’t work here either.

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.


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