I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. -- Thomas Jefferson (How appropriate and up-to-date! -- dgb)
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? -- Thomas Jefferson (Gotta like that one...dgb)
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
-- Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
-- Thomas Jefferson (As long as my neighbor doesn't attack me for saying something different -- dgb).
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
-- Thomas Jefferson
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
-- Thomas Jefferson
It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
-- Thomas Jefferson (Especially when what you know is good for you in the long run is going to hurt you a lot in the short term. -- dgb)
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
-- Thomas Jefferson (That would leave about 95% of business owners and CEOs out of a job, as well as bankers, investors, advertisers, and a lot of politicians -- and I have probably just scratched the surface...dgb)
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
-- Thomas Jefferson (Global Capitalism in a nutshell. -- dgb.)
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
-- Thomas Jefferson
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
-- Thomas Jefferson
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
-- Thomas Jefferson
One man with courage is a majority.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
-- Thomas Jefferson
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
-- Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
-- Thomas Jefferson
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Google Brainy Quotes, Thomas Jefferson for these and other Jefferson quotes...dgb
....................................................
And now, from the more general...to the more specific...as pertains to the present Republican candidate race in 2011...
In my opinion, the two best Conservative/Republican thinkers inside or outside this election race are Donald Trump and Ron Paul. Mitt Romney continues to try to patrol a very 'wide centrefield' that makes you ask whether he is dedicated more to his own political and economic ideology or to his 'electability status'.
Trump and Paul remain consistent to their Capitalist and Conservative ideals which is probably what America needs more than anything else right now -- as long as these 'ideals' include all of America, and not just the upper 5 percent...
Paul seems radical at first take, but he's not really. He's just 'a good, old fashioned, Conservative, Republican, Capitalist. No bullcrap. He tells you the way he believes it...Some of the Republican 'flip-floppers' and 'avoiders' and 'abstractionists' are falling by the wayside of public opinion...which is a good thing...
Paul calls it the way he sees it...America can't or won't get out of debt by printing more and more money, nor by going deeper and deeper into debt...
The spending has to stop...there is no other way that you are going to get yourself out of debt unless unless you tax the American people until they have no money left...or unless private and public income starts to soar again which will only happen when American manufacturing jobs that are now located in all the cheapest jobs markets in the world -- which unfortunuately, does not include America -- come back home. And for them to come back home again, all 'free -- and unfair -- trade agreements' -- have to be dismantled. All these free trade agreements have put America at a gross disadvantage in terms of 'labor issues'. Either labor prices have to crash to meet global competition in countries like China, Mexico, South Korea, India, South American countries...where labor practises are often oppressive, dehumanizing, and would set back American labor practices 100 years...Or, again, these 'allegedly free trade agreements' -- which are only 'free' to the global capitalists who can take advantage of them -- need to be dismantled, and 'protectionist tariffs' would have to be re-instated in their place.
As Trump boldly stated, you don't see Japan buying American Chevrolets...Why is the rest of the world allowed to maintain their 'nationalstic protectionist policies' while America and Canada are not? It would be easy to blame Reagan and Mulroney for the beginning of the The Free Trade Agreement, but no President or Prime Minister since has tried to rescind it...Why? Because it benefits the Global Capitalists who have helped to finance and keep these Presidents and Prime Ministers in power...
Obama made waves about The Free Trade Agreement when he first came into power....but those waves were quickly squashed...and there has been no mention of The Free Trade Agreement since by most political and/or economic men in power...except a very vocal Trump in a CNN interview a few days ago...
Obama came into power at the worst possible time...a time when the American debt was skyrocketing...and he wanted or still wants to bring in his new medical policies....Socialized medicine -- i.e., medicine for the poor as well as the rich, and medicine that doesn't not bankrupt a certain proportion of Americans -- is a good thing, just not necessarily the right thing to bring in at the right time, when the country as a whole is 'drowning in debt'...
And the American people, I do not believe, will ever forgive Obama for doing what he said -- or at least implied -- he wouldn't do: bail out the robbers on Wall Street which is why Wall Street is being 'occupied' right now...
The American people were led to believe by Obama's strong and charismatic campaign speeches that Obama had the strength and courage to stand up against 'American political and economic corruption' -- the lobbyists in Washington, the collusions and crooked back room deals both in Washington and on Wall Street...And that hasn't happened... In fact, there was not only one but two Wall Street Bail Outs under Obama's watch...Payments to the robbers on Wall Street with 'public chastisements not to do it again'...No one went to jail...Some very guilty CEOs and top executives could have been held accountable for what happened, either arrested on fraudulent charges, and/or left to try to 'swim in their own self-created bankruptcy'....But instead, they were given 'billions of taxpayers dollars' to make their banks and mortgage companies 'solvent' again, while the rest of America that got 'ripped off' had to 'eat their own financial losses'
Where is the 'free market' -- and 'invisible hand' -- justice in that Wall Street fiasco? Adam Smith is turning over and 'vomitting' in his grave...He...and I think Jefferson...never did trust 'bankers', told us to 'watch them closely', not to let them have a 'free, unadulterated, narcissistic licence to do whatever they wanted to do'...and if anything, it was perhaps the American government, under an earlier President, who initiated these 'manipulative, back-end loaded, exploding mortgages'..
'Let's get more people into their own homes -- even if they have to evacuate them, or we have to evict them, when they can't meet their rising interest levels deeper in the contract.'
Wow -- that was certainly a brilliant idea, but certainly not for these new homeowners. American Capitalism at its narcissistic -- best or worst -- depending on your perspective. Great for the bankers and mortgage companies at first -- until they had a financial disaster bigger than Hurricane Katrina on their hands...
I like Trump, and I like Paul, because those two tell us what they believe, do not mince words, and do not squirm in their respective seats under pressure, and hard questions...
Question to Trump: How do you get Americans working again?
Answer by Trump as I can recall it, with my own extension: Well, the first thing you have to do is to stop American manufacturing companies from leaving America...Bring back American manufacturing companies to America by re-introducing tariffs (25%) on on imported goods (and services). Stop getting financially ripped off by countries all around the world. America used to be the most powerful financial company in the world. Now, it is practically the laughing-stock of the world. Why? Because other countries 'rip us off in business and economic negotiations' and we continue to let them do it to us, without so much as a wimper... 'International political correctness and niceness' has led to 'national business and economic disaster within America'. And America is being internationally manipulated all the way to national bankruptcy...
That is what practically every American politican is afraid to say...
And Trump wasn't afraid to say it...
I believe that Paul would probably echo much the same opinion...
Those are the only two opinions that I hear these days...
That I believe have the capability of actually pulling America out of debt...
Another four years of the same or worse type of 'internationally politically nice ideology'...and it will probably be too late to fix anything...at least in America...
I like Obama's 'Enlightenment Ideals'... I think that Obama 'turned soft' on a few things that he shouldn't have -- like 'The Free Trade Agreement' -- and overall, I just do not believe that Obama has the 'right type of stuff' to turn America's financial situation around and put it back on track again....You can't just keep spending and printing money...
............................................
If I have been a little 'loose' on my generalizations, understand that I believe that there are still some very ethical businessmen out there conducting business who I have the greatest respect for -- especially when they are good to both their customers and their employees...The sad -- even tragic -- part is that I believe that such businessmen are becoming fewer and fewer between...It's like 'do what the greedy, the colluding, and manipulative are doing lest I be left behind...Which reminds me that I left out a couple of quotes that I need to go back and look for...' -- dgb
...................................................
And back from the more specific to the more general in terms of two more anecdotal quotes from another one of our most famous political-economic predecessors...
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. -- Adam Smith
To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature. -- Adam Smith
.......................................
-- dgb, October 30th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Money Changes Everything...
Great speeches are not all that make up a great president. You can have all the 'ethical idealism' in the world -- and the most charismatic way of communicating this ethical idealism -- but in the end, it is 'the trench work' -- the courage and substance a president shows in backing up all his or her ethical idealism, that will make or break the legacy of a president.
More than this, a president needs to show a certain amount of 'flexibility' in terms of changing -- or at least -- modifying his or her gameplan in the light of changing, particularly emergency, national priorities.
President Obama's medical plan is still an ethical ideal that is worth striving for. I think that an integrative 'public-private' insurance and/or non-insurance system might be the way to go.
The rich can pursue the 'best medical specialists' that they are looking for whatever their medical emergency or urgency may be -- assuming they are willing to pay the 'going rate' for these 'best medical specialists'.
All other Americans ideally should be covered under some sort of affordable 'medical insurance plan' -- either public and/or private -- in such a way, that no person or family is 'left medically unattended' and/or 'bankrupted' by a serious medical emergency.
This, in my opinion, should be the 'ethical ideal', albeit significantly compromised and modified by the speed -- or lack of it -- at which the American Economy can take it there -- and still be 'stable and balanced'. That could take a long time.
A country that is plummeting towards bankruptcy -- if it isn't essentially there already -- is not in a position to totally focus on 'medical insurance ideals' above all else.
For good, bad, or worse,
Economics rules.
I think that when Obama was elected President, the American people were expecting -- or at least hoping -- against all skeptical, cynical 'naysayers' for a President who had the courage and substance to stand up against all 'Narcissistic Corporate-Government Collusions' that were taking significant amounts of money out of the pockets and bank accounts of ordinary middle and lower class Americans. I don't think that this has happened.
From the first two corporate bailouts under President Obama's sole watch, that seemed to follow ominously in the shadow and footprints of what President Bush had done before him, 'red flags' started to go up in the collective American psyche.
The American debt continued to rocket upwards like a solar launch, with no end in sight. Where was the money going to come from to pay for all these bailouts, changes in the medical system, and ongoing wars? Cost cuts? Taxes? No....or at least not immediately.
The money was simply being 'borrowed' and/or 'printed' -- like Monopoly money -- with no 'substance' behind the newly printed money, resulting in the downward spiral of the American dollar...and a downward spiraling global trust factor in the credibility of the American economic system and its international credit rating.
A chance for The Republican Party -- and the newly formed Republican 'Tea Party' -- to regain relevance and voting significance in the minds of the Collective American Psyche.
Obama's ongoing failure to 'plug holes' and make 'shipworthy' the American Economic Titanic were the Republican's Party's opportunity to 're-seize a majority' in The House of Representatives with a revitalized eye on The Presidency again...
How soon the American people are willing to forget past government travesties if there is another more recent President and Government who/which is not sufficiently fulfiling his/its proclaimed ideals...
Every President has a leash and President Obama is at the end of his 'leash' in terms of 'exuberant Government overspending'...
And the Republican majority in The House of Representatives won't let him 'tax' the American people -- rightly so for the most part -- when many American families are fighting for their very economic survival...
Why should the American people be constantly paying for the irresponsible financial overspending of their own government?
How many wars does it take to be involved in to bankrupt a country? I don't know but America may soon find out...
How many billion dollar corporate bailouts does it take to bankrupt a country? What was it -- one under Bush and two under Obama? Or was the second of three consumated by Bush and Obama in 'union' together?
Any way you look at it, it was a bad economic start to President Obama's allegedly 'counter-Establishment' ideals...'Oops there goes another hoped for Shining White Knight...'
In the end, economics rules.
And if President Obama can't get the economics right -- which he hasn't so far -- this will be the last term of his Presidency.
There are only two things that will turn around his Presidential legacy:
1. The American National Debt going down; and,
2. American jobs going up.
Obama had it right at one point...
He needed to take a very long and detailed look...
At the consequences that Global Capitalism and The various 'Free Trade' Agreements have had -- and are continuing to have -- on the American people.
Why keep a large 'American' Manufacturing Compnay in America if the same 'American' Manufacturing Company can moves its whole manufacturing operation to any of various parts of the world and pay a 'pittance' of the labour costs -- to 'non-Americans'?
Perhaps there was a reason why 'tariffs' on particular imported products existed for all but the last 20 years years or so.
Wasn't that Reagan and Mulroney operating in tandem in the 1980s -- who essentially started the destruction of The Manufacturing Industry in North America through the beginning of The Free Trade Agreement?
Most North American civilians back in the 1980s didn't have a clue what the future ramifications of 'The Free Trade Agreement' were (all they knew was that it included the word 'free' and that sounded 'good', not 'bad'). Little did they know where the next 20 years plus would take them. If they had known, The Free Trade Agreement would have never passed into law as it was the beginning of the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs in North America...
If President Obama had been a 'non-conformist, non-Establishment' President, he would have kept hammering away at the 'Deconstruction of The Various Free Trade Agreements' -- which are clearly not in the interest of The American Worker....But when America owes billions (or is it trillions) of dollars to China -- how do you have any economic clout left to veto any 'Free' Trade Agreement with China that is clearly in China's national interest when China could simply call in America's loan -- and America would be bankrupt?
One way or the other, someone, someones, or something, 'silenced' President Obama on confronting The Various Free Trade Agreements. Just like his rousing 'anti-lobbyist' rhetoric during his various campaign speeches disappeared after he was elected.
You can't have a President of The United States of America sounding like a combination of Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King in his campaign speeches -- and then sounding 'just like another elected politician, talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time' once he gets elected. Otherwise, 'character substance' is seen for what it really is -- 'politically manipulated social perception' that doesn't have much more 'substance' than smoke and mirrors.
What else can I say other than...
Money changes everything...including in The White House and in Congress...
-- dgb, August 16th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
More than this, a president needs to show a certain amount of 'flexibility' in terms of changing -- or at least -- modifying his or her gameplan in the light of changing, particularly emergency, national priorities.
President Obama's medical plan is still an ethical ideal that is worth striving for. I think that an integrative 'public-private' insurance and/or non-insurance system might be the way to go.
The rich can pursue the 'best medical specialists' that they are looking for whatever their medical emergency or urgency may be -- assuming they are willing to pay the 'going rate' for these 'best medical specialists'.
All other Americans ideally should be covered under some sort of affordable 'medical insurance plan' -- either public and/or private -- in such a way, that no person or family is 'left medically unattended' and/or 'bankrupted' by a serious medical emergency.
This, in my opinion, should be the 'ethical ideal', albeit significantly compromised and modified by the speed -- or lack of it -- at which the American Economy can take it there -- and still be 'stable and balanced'. That could take a long time.
A country that is plummeting towards bankruptcy -- if it isn't essentially there already -- is not in a position to totally focus on 'medical insurance ideals' above all else.
For good, bad, or worse,
Economics rules.
I think that when Obama was elected President, the American people were expecting -- or at least hoping -- against all skeptical, cynical 'naysayers' for a President who had the courage and substance to stand up against all 'Narcissistic Corporate-Government Collusions' that were taking significant amounts of money out of the pockets and bank accounts of ordinary middle and lower class Americans. I don't think that this has happened.
From the first two corporate bailouts under President Obama's sole watch, that seemed to follow ominously in the shadow and footprints of what President Bush had done before him, 'red flags' started to go up in the collective American psyche.
The American debt continued to rocket upwards like a solar launch, with no end in sight. Where was the money going to come from to pay for all these bailouts, changes in the medical system, and ongoing wars? Cost cuts? Taxes? No....or at least not immediately.
The money was simply being 'borrowed' and/or 'printed' -- like Monopoly money -- with no 'substance' behind the newly printed money, resulting in the downward spiral of the American dollar...and a downward spiraling global trust factor in the credibility of the American economic system and its international credit rating.
A chance for The Republican Party -- and the newly formed Republican 'Tea Party' -- to regain relevance and voting significance in the minds of the Collective American Psyche.
Obama's ongoing failure to 'plug holes' and make 'shipworthy' the American Economic Titanic were the Republican's Party's opportunity to 're-seize a majority' in The House of Representatives with a revitalized eye on The Presidency again...
How soon the American people are willing to forget past government travesties if there is another more recent President and Government who/which is not sufficiently fulfiling his/its proclaimed ideals...
Every President has a leash and President Obama is at the end of his 'leash' in terms of 'exuberant Government overspending'...
And the Republican majority in The House of Representatives won't let him 'tax' the American people -- rightly so for the most part -- when many American families are fighting for their very economic survival...
Why should the American people be constantly paying for the irresponsible financial overspending of their own government?
How many wars does it take to be involved in to bankrupt a country? I don't know but America may soon find out...
How many billion dollar corporate bailouts does it take to bankrupt a country? What was it -- one under Bush and two under Obama? Or was the second of three consumated by Bush and Obama in 'union' together?
Any way you look at it, it was a bad economic start to President Obama's allegedly 'counter-Establishment' ideals...'Oops there goes another hoped for Shining White Knight...'
In the end, economics rules.
And if President Obama can't get the economics right -- which he hasn't so far -- this will be the last term of his Presidency.
There are only two things that will turn around his Presidential legacy:
1. The American National Debt going down; and,
2. American jobs going up.
Obama had it right at one point...
He needed to take a very long and detailed look...
At the consequences that Global Capitalism and The various 'Free Trade' Agreements have had -- and are continuing to have -- on the American people.
Why keep a large 'American' Manufacturing Compnay in America if the same 'American' Manufacturing Company can moves its whole manufacturing operation to any of various parts of the world and pay a 'pittance' of the labour costs -- to 'non-Americans'?
Perhaps there was a reason why 'tariffs' on particular imported products existed for all but the last 20 years years or so.
Wasn't that Reagan and Mulroney operating in tandem in the 1980s -- who essentially started the destruction of The Manufacturing Industry in North America through the beginning of The Free Trade Agreement?
Most North American civilians back in the 1980s didn't have a clue what the future ramifications of 'The Free Trade Agreement' were (all they knew was that it included the word 'free' and that sounded 'good', not 'bad'). Little did they know where the next 20 years plus would take them. If they had known, The Free Trade Agreement would have never passed into law as it was the beginning of the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs in North America...
If President Obama had been a 'non-conformist, non-Establishment' President, he would have kept hammering away at the 'Deconstruction of The Various Free Trade Agreements' -- which are clearly not in the interest of The American Worker....But when America owes billions (or is it trillions) of dollars to China -- how do you have any economic clout left to veto any 'Free' Trade Agreement with China that is clearly in China's national interest when China could simply call in America's loan -- and America would be bankrupt?
One way or the other, someone, someones, or something, 'silenced' President Obama on confronting The Various Free Trade Agreements. Just like his rousing 'anti-lobbyist' rhetoric during his various campaign speeches disappeared after he was elected.
You can't have a President of The United States of America sounding like a combination of Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King in his campaign speeches -- and then sounding 'just like another elected politician, talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time' once he gets elected. Otherwise, 'character substance' is seen for what it really is -- 'politically manipulated social perception' that doesn't have much more 'substance' than smoke and mirrors.
What else can I say other than...
Money changes everything...including in The White House and in Congress...
-- dgb, August 16th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Six Common Sense Reasons For The Current American Economic Crisis
Without being an economist, here are six seemingly common sense reasons why America is spiralling towards bankruptcy (if it is not already there):
1. Printing money that has no 'substance' behind it which only lessens the value of the American dollar and will eventually raise interest rates and taxes;
2. Fighting too many wars in too many different coutnries that obviously America cannot afford. The only ones making money are those in 'The Military-Industrial Complex'. We don't seem to have heeded Dwight Eisenhower's famous farewell address;
3. Global Capitalism and The Various Free Trade Agreements...This has spelled the disasterous demise of North American Manufacturing Industries as large manufacturing companies everywhere in North America have vacated North America for cheaper labour markets in cheaper countries. This may be great for other countries, it may be great -- or simply necessary in order to compete -- for the large North American Corporations that have left, but it is terrible for The North American work force who have been abandoned by the companies that they used to work for;
4. 'Fish-hook' mortgage deals with 'low front end interest rates' and 'high back end interest rates' (same with credit card bank lenders);
5. Successive American governments that don't know how to -- or are unwilling to -- balance a budget. How can you ask the American people to balance their budgets when the American Government is the worst possible role model in this regard;
6. Dare I say Government and Large Corporation Collusion...Worded otherwise, successive governments that pander to America's largest corporations and corporation owners at the expense of the rest of the American people. Even billionare, Warren Buffet, has said as much.
-- -- dgb, Aug. 11th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
................................................
Billionaire Buffett's call to pay more tax
By Ephraim Hardcastle
Last updated at 8:13 AM on 16th August 2011
Why don’t billionaires offer to pay more tax when those on modest incomes are struggling? America’s most famous investor, Warren E. Buffett, 80, says the wealthy in his country are ‘coddled’ by government – as they are here – and ‘billionaires like me should pay more taxes’. Last year, he paid £4.2million in taxes but reveals: ‘What I paid was only 17.4 per cent of my taxable income.’ He adds: ‘If you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine – most likely by a lot.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2026456/Warren-Buffets-New-York-Times-article-calls-US-super-rich-pay-tax.html#ixzz1VCGkDgdt
........................................................
1. Printing money that has no 'substance' behind it which only lessens the value of the American dollar and will eventually raise interest rates and taxes;
2. Fighting too many wars in too many different coutnries that obviously America cannot afford. The only ones making money are those in 'The Military-Industrial Complex'. We don't seem to have heeded Dwight Eisenhower's famous farewell address;
3. Global Capitalism and The Various Free Trade Agreements...This has spelled the disasterous demise of North American Manufacturing Industries as large manufacturing companies everywhere in North America have vacated North America for cheaper labour markets in cheaper countries. This may be great for other countries, it may be great -- or simply necessary in order to compete -- for the large North American Corporations that have left, but it is terrible for The North American work force who have been abandoned by the companies that they used to work for;
4. 'Fish-hook' mortgage deals with 'low front end interest rates' and 'high back end interest rates' (same with credit card bank lenders);
5. Successive American governments that don't know how to -- or are unwilling to -- balance a budget. How can you ask the American people to balance their budgets when the American Government is the worst possible role model in this regard;
6. Dare I say Government and Large Corporation Collusion...Worded otherwise, successive governments that pander to America's largest corporations and corporation owners at the expense of the rest of the American people. Even billionare, Warren Buffet, has said as much.
-- -- dgb, Aug. 11th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
................................................
Billionaire Buffett's call to pay more tax
By Ephraim Hardcastle
Last updated at 8:13 AM on 16th August 2011
Why don’t billionaires offer to pay more tax when those on modest incomes are struggling? America’s most famous investor, Warren E. Buffett, 80, says the wealthy in his country are ‘coddled’ by government – as they are here – and ‘billionaires like me should pay more taxes’. Last year, he paid £4.2million in taxes but reveals: ‘What I paid was only 17.4 per cent of my taxable income.’ He adds: ‘If you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine – most likely by a lot.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2026456/Warren-Buffets-New-York-Times-article-calls-US-super-rich-pay-tax.html#ixzz1VCGkDgdt
........................................................
My Fellow American...
Hi David
America was built on the principles of equality and basic human rights for all. Recent mosque protests and congressional hearings on American Muslims are all unfortunate examples of a rising tide of fear that lead to intolerance and inequality. This climate of suspicion towards our fellow Americans compromises the great values that our country was founded upon. We've put together a 2 minute film in response that I believe you and the readers of Hegel's Hotel: American Politics...DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... will be interested in sharing, watching, and discussing:
http://myfellowamerican.us
It would be great if you could post or tweet about this video. The site also has many other cool features including the ability to share your own stories and you can even take the "My Fellow American" pledge. If you are able to help, please let me know - I'd love to share your post or tweet with my team. I am here if you have any questions. Thank you so much.
Elizabeth
America was built on the principles of equality and basic human rights for all. Recent mosque protests and congressional hearings on American Muslims are all unfortunate examples of a rising tide of fear that lead to intolerance and inequality. This climate of suspicion towards our fellow Americans compromises the great values that our country was founded upon. We've put together a 2 minute film in response that I believe you and the readers of Hegel's Hotel: American Politics...DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... will be interested in sharing, watching, and discussing:
http://myfellowamerican.us
It would be great if you could post or tweet about this video. The site also has many other cool features including the ability to share your own stories and you can even take the "My Fellow American" pledge. If you are able to help, please let me know - I'd love to share your post or tweet with my team. I am here if you have any questions. Thank you so much.
Elizabeth
Monday, April 25, 2011
If There is One Thing Good To Be Said About Global Capitalism...
If there is one thing good to say about Global Capitalism...it is perhaps this:
I am suffering such that millions of people in some of the poorest countries in the world --- who are much more impovertized and desparate than me -- can work -- and at least take something home to feed their families...
Having said this, China seems to be doing very well lately, much better than us, in fact, they probably 'own' us...
So with or without 'ruffling any international feathers', it might be time -- indeed, it is way past time -- to think of a new 're-balancing' act....something in the order of a new 'North American Workers' Protectionist Act' (NAWPA as opposed to NAFTA)...
Basic Principles For a North American Workers' Protectionist Act (NAWPA)...
Aimed at:
1. Creating a political-economic-business environment encouraging internationally based North American industries to come back to North America;
2. Thus, creating thousands and thousands of 'new-old' jobs and careers in North America;
3. Creating a rate of pay that is neither dominated by one-sided Big Union and/or Big Corporation power but rather by a 'resurrected and resurging' North American economy;
4. Creating a rate of pay that is partly protected by international tariffs on goods coming in from countries with much, much lower wages than in North America;
5. Re-creating a standard of living and rate of pay in North America that does not necessitate North American consumers -- because of their unemployment status and/or drop in corporate wages -- searching for the lowest priced internationally imported goods possible to find;
6. Encouraging and supporting healthy, stabilizing profits for North American companies that allow them to survive and flourish without gouging the public and/or exploiting workers -- creating what I call a 'Hegelian(Humanistic)-Existential-Ethical-Dialectic'(HEED) style and culture of 'capitalism' rather than a 'Narcissistic-Manipulative-My Way Or The Highway' style and culture of capitalism that essentially breeds pervasive civil distrust, disrespect, skepticism, pessimism, cynicism -- and paranoia against most corporations and governments -- regardless of what 'party name and/or ideology' they call themselves by;
A 'Protectionist Act' for North American Workers with some or all of the main principles outlined above...
Might do much to...
Get North American Goods and Services Industries...
'Rockin' and a rollin'...again...
Sitting around thinking about it...
Is going to keep our jobs overseas...
And let foreign economies rise...
While ours continues to fall...
-- dgb, April 25th, 2011
-- David Gordon Bain
I am suffering such that millions of people in some of the poorest countries in the world --- who are much more impovertized and desparate than me -- can work -- and at least take something home to feed their families...
Having said this, China seems to be doing very well lately, much better than us, in fact, they probably 'own' us...
So with or without 'ruffling any international feathers', it might be time -- indeed, it is way past time -- to think of a new 're-balancing' act....something in the order of a new 'North American Workers' Protectionist Act' (NAWPA as opposed to NAFTA)...
Basic Principles For a North American Workers' Protectionist Act (NAWPA)...
Aimed at:
1. Creating a political-economic-business environment encouraging internationally based North American industries to come back to North America;
2. Thus, creating thousands and thousands of 'new-old' jobs and careers in North America;
3. Creating a rate of pay that is neither dominated by one-sided Big Union and/or Big Corporation power but rather by a 'resurrected and resurging' North American economy;
4. Creating a rate of pay that is partly protected by international tariffs on goods coming in from countries with much, much lower wages than in North America;
5. Re-creating a standard of living and rate of pay in North America that does not necessitate North American consumers -- because of their unemployment status and/or drop in corporate wages -- searching for the lowest priced internationally imported goods possible to find;
6. Encouraging and supporting healthy, stabilizing profits for North American companies that allow them to survive and flourish without gouging the public and/or exploiting workers -- creating what I call a 'Hegelian(Humanistic)-Existential-Ethical-Dialectic'(HEED) style and culture of 'capitalism' rather than a 'Narcissistic-Manipulative-My Way Or The Highway' style and culture of capitalism that essentially breeds pervasive civil distrust, disrespect, skepticism, pessimism, cynicism -- and paranoia against most corporations and governments -- regardless of what 'party name and/or ideology' they call themselves by;
A 'Protectionist Act' for North American Workers with some or all of the main principles outlined above...
Might do much to...
Get North American Goods and Services Industries...
'Rockin' and a rollin'...again...
Sitting around thinking about it...
Is going to keep our jobs overseas...
And let foreign economies rise...
While ours continues to fall...
-- dgb, April 25th, 2011
-- David Gordon Bain
Saturday, April 23, 2011
The Greatest Cure in The World for 'Capitalism'...
Dialectic-(Democratic)-Homeostatic Balance (DHB) will always be disturbed, disrupted, bent out of shape and balance, by individual and group narcissistic bias, manipulation, money and power.
Restoring the DHB group (i.e., self, relationship, family, community, corporate, government, institutional) balance will always demand that 'fair-minded, ethical, DHB thinking and feeling' people will in the end defeat 'narcissistically blinded and/or bent out of shape' people in a rhetorical war of words -- or something unfortunately worse -- a political, economic and/or physical war of 'will to power'. Obviously, sometimes the 'good guys' don't always win -- or win in the first attempt. Some narcissistic dictators and/or manipulators may take years to finally 'defeat'. But in the end, generally, 'what goes around comes around'... The second oldest known philosopher in Greek history -- Anaximander gave us that last 'priceless and timeless gem' of ancient wisdom.
In this regard, we can all choose to be a part of the 'narcissistic individual and/or group problem' or we can step above this -- see other people beyond what we see in the closest mirror -- and be a part of an 'ethical, humanistic-existential conflict-negotiating and resolving team'.
Where do you draw the line between being an ethical, humanistic-existential negotiator vs. being a 'one-sided, narcissitic negotiator' who doesn't care a flying flip about the person you are negotiating with?
Ideally, you are supposed to be able to stand up for your own self, your own rights and wishes, while the other person looks after his or her own self, rights and wishes...And the 'finalized deal' is where each person in the deal meets somewhere in the 'middle' and agrees on this 'middle'.
But what do you do about fraudulent sellers and negotiators, people on the other side of the bargaining negotiation table who have told you something that isn't true, or know something about what he or she is selling that you don't -- and ethically should. Perhaps the salesman/woman knows that the car he/she is about to sell you has an engine that is about to blow up, and by rights, this is where you need to due your 'due dilligence' and have your own mechanic check the car, and/or get a warrenty, take it out for a good test drive, and/or work with a sales person who you feel comfortable that you can trust that he or she actually cares about you as well as, or on top of, or instead of, how much he or she wants to get rid of a 'bad car for the maximum possible price'.
The difference between 'narcissistic capitalism' and 'ethical-dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential capitalism' basically comes down to the following two questions:
1, Should I, or should I not be -- ethical?
2. How can I make this deal a 'win-win' deal where both of us walk out of the deal happier than when we walked into it, and, thus, both of us wanting to do business with each other again?
Ethics and integrity are never perfect, and narcissistic impulses are often strong -- indeed, a legitimate part of our everyday self-wants, self-needs, and self-expression as long as they don't cross social-ethical boundaries...into the realm of the unethical, the corrupt, the greedy, and/or the criminal...
Greed is almost an inherent vice -- or at least a potential inherent vice -- in human nature. Certainly, it has been around since as far back as recorded human history goes -- back to 'pillaging-plundering' tribes..
The simplest definition of both 'narcissitic capitalism' and 'pathological narcissism' is not caring a 'rat's ....' about the person and/or people around you who you are affecting...
Unfortunately, narcissistic capitalism breeds more and more narcissitic capitalists...in government, on Wall Street and Bay Street, in private corporations, in sellers and buyers, in lawyers who encourage their clients to be fraudulent in order to get a bigger insurance claim of which they get a percentage of, in family lawyers who are paid to get as much as they possibly can for their clients, at the expense of lives that are destroyed on the opposite side of the bargaining table...'Sorry, I had the better lawyer...you should have spent more on a better lawyer...I get the four bedroom house with the children, and you, if you are lucky, can maybe afford to rent a room in a house...and hopefully still have enough money left for at least food'...Or in other case scenarios, both sides are destroyed in a fight where only the lawyers go home with the 'spoils'...
Who doesn't want to be rich? Not too many of us...Being with money is, all else being equal, a much better life than being without money...I've experienced life on 'both sides of the track' -- or at least what I call 'middle class poverty' where you may live in a nice or at least decent place...but you can't afford to do anything else, and even keeping up with your bills becomes a struggle that sometimes -- or every day -- you fear losing... The war of diminishing 'take home income'...and increasing expenses...a combination of inflation and a floundering economy where the people at the top still manage to find a way to pull strings and get a bigger and bigger piece of the pie...Call it a mixture of global capitalism and corporate collusion, even government-corporate collusion...
Beware the biggest political party donators...and lobbyists...they are not 'donating out of the goodness of their hearts'...they are thinking about colluding and cashing in on another deal...
Narcissistic capitalists and narcissistic people in general worship the same Greek God -- 'Narcissus'... even if they don't know it...because the signature characteristic of the narcissistic personality is not to be able to see beyond the closest mirror....and we are all narcissistic to some extent...
I'm sure even Mother Teresa looked in the mirror...but that brings us back to The Spirit of Jesus Christ...and in this case, the woman who so completely lived in the Spirit of Jesus Christ -- Mother Teresa...
We idealize -- and idolize -- Gods, either because we are like them...or we want to be more like them...Often, they respresent our 'missing half'...We live too much of a 'narcissistic life'...and then we go to Church to 'learn' how to be more 'all loving' like Jesus Christ...or Mother Teresa...
I am going to write an essay one day on Mother Teresa... I read some of her quotes a few minutes ago that started to make me cry... Being Easter, I think it is entirely fitting that I share these with you...
.............................................
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
Mother Teresa
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. Mother Teresa
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa
Intense love does not measure, it just gives. Mother Teresa
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. Mother Teresa
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given. Mother Teresa
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. Mother Teresa
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. Mother Teresa
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action. Mother Teresa
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. Mother Teresa
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Mother Teresa
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mother_teresa.html
........................................................
The next time you go into a business deal -- or any other encounter and/or relationship at all, for that matter...
Imagine that you have Narcissus looking over your one shoulder...
And both Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa looking over your other shoulder...
Then go ahead and make your 'deal'...
I fathom a guess...
That that would be the greatest cure in the world...
For 'Capitalism'...
Or for any other ideology in the world...
For that matter...
In Hegel's Hotel...
'God' symbolizes 'self-strength' and 'self-assertion'...
Whereas 'Jesus Christ' more fully symbolizes 'empathy, social sensitivity, and loving/caring about others...'
In Hegel's Hotel, both God and Jesus Christ -- like Narcissus (The Greeek God of Self-Interest) and 'Altruissus' (The DGB God of Social Interest)-- flow together and dialectically unite into a 'Holy Trinity' -- 'The Holy Spirit' being the 'creative, dialectic union between self-and-social interest and love' in a way that helps to build a better world for both ourselves and the people we share this world with...because we all need each other in good times -- and especially in bad times...
Idealistic? Of course...
Realistic?
As Mother Teresa would say,
........................................
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them/us is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
.............................
-- dgb, April 23rd-24th, 2011.
-- Where Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- And Amazing, Creative Integrations...
-- Can happen...
Restoring the DHB group (i.e., self, relationship, family, community, corporate, government, institutional) balance will always demand that 'fair-minded, ethical, DHB thinking and feeling' people will in the end defeat 'narcissistically blinded and/or bent out of shape' people in a rhetorical war of words -- or something unfortunately worse -- a political, economic and/or physical war of 'will to power'. Obviously, sometimes the 'good guys' don't always win -- or win in the first attempt. Some narcissistic dictators and/or manipulators may take years to finally 'defeat'. But in the end, generally, 'what goes around comes around'... The second oldest known philosopher in Greek history -- Anaximander gave us that last 'priceless and timeless gem' of ancient wisdom.
In this regard, we can all choose to be a part of the 'narcissistic individual and/or group problem' or we can step above this -- see other people beyond what we see in the closest mirror -- and be a part of an 'ethical, humanistic-existential conflict-negotiating and resolving team'.
Where do you draw the line between being an ethical, humanistic-existential negotiator vs. being a 'one-sided, narcissitic negotiator' who doesn't care a flying flip about the person you are negotiating with?
Ideally, you are supposed to be able to stand up for your own self, your own rights and wishes, while the other person looks after his or her own self, rights and wishes...And the 'finalized deal' is where each person in the deal meets somewhere in the 'middle' and agrees on this 'middle'.
But what do you do about fraudulent sellers and negotiators, people on the other side of the bargaining negotiation table who have told you something that isn't true, or know something about what he or she is selling that you don't -- and ethically should. Perhaps the salesman/woman knows that the car he/she is about to sell you has an engine that is about to blow up, and by rights, this is where you need to due your 'due dilligence' and have your own mechanic check the car, and/or get a warrenty, take it out for a good test drive, and/or work with a sales person who you feel comfortable that you can trust that he or she actually cares about you as well as, or on top of, or instead of, how much he or she wants to get rid of a 'bad car for the maximum possible price'.
The difference between 'narcissistic capitalism' and 'ethical-dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential capitalism' basically comes down to the following two questions:
1, Should I, or should I not be -- ethical?
2. How can I make this deal a 'win-win' deal where both of us walk out of the deal happier than when we walked into it, and, thus, both of us wanting to do business with each other again?
Ethics and integrity are never perfect, and narcissistic impulses are often strong -- indeed, a legitimate part of our everyday self-wants, self-needs, and self-expression as long as they don't cross social-ethical boundaries...into the realm of the unethical, the corrupt, the greedy, and/or the criminal...
Greed is almost an inherent vice -- or at least a potential inherent vice -- in human nature. Certainly, it has been around since as far back as recorded human history goes -- back to 'pillaging-plundering' tribes..
The simplest definition of both 'narcissitic capitalism' and 'pathological narcissism' is not caring a 'rat's ....' about the person and/or people around you who you are affecting...
Unfortunately, narcissistic capitalism breeds more and more narcissitic capitalists...in government, on Wall Street and Bay Street, in private corporations, in sellers and buyers, in lawyers who encourage their clients to be fraudulent in order to get a bigger insurance claim of which they get a percentage of, in family lawyers who are paid to get as much as they possibly can for their clients, at the expense of lives that are destroyed on the opposite side of the bargaining table...'Sorry, I had the better lawyer...you should have spent more on a better lawyer...I get the four bedroom house with the children, and you, if you are lucky, can maybe afford to rent a room in a house...and hopefully still have enough money left for at least food'...Or in other case scenarios, both sides are destroyed in a fight where only the lawyers go home with the 'spoils'...
Who doesn't want to be rich? Not too many of us...Being with money is, all else being equal, a much better life than being without money...I've experienced life on 'both sides of the track' -- or at least what I call 'middle class poverty' where you may live in a nice or at least decent place...but you can't afford to do anything else, and even keeping up with your bills becomes a struggle that sometimes -- or every day -- you fear losing... The war of diminishing 'take home income'...and increasing expenses...a combination of inflation and a floundering economy where the people at the top still manage to find a way to pull strings and get a bigger and bigger piece of the pie...Call it a mixture of global capitalism and corporate collusion, even government-corporate collusion...
Beware the biggest political party donators...and lobbyists...they are not 'donating out of the goodness of their hearts'...they are thinking about colluding and cashing in on another deal...
Narcissistic capitalists and narcissistic people in general worship the same Greek God -- 'Narcissus'... even if they don't know it...because the signature characteristic of the narcissistic personality is not to be able to see beyond the closest mirror....and we are all narcissistic to some extent...
I'm sure even Mother Teresa looked in the mirror...but that brings us back to The Spirit of Jesus Christ...and in this case, the woman who so completely lived in the Spirit of Jesus Christ -- Mother Teresa...
We idealize -- and idolize -- Gods, either because we are like them...or we want to be more like them...Often, they respresent our 'missing half'...We live too much of a 'narcissistic life'...and then we go to Church to 'learn' how to be more 'all loving' like Jesus Christ...or Mother Teresa...
I am going to write an essay one day on Mother Teresa... I read some of her quotes a few minutes ago that started to make me cry... Being Easter, I think it is entirely fitting that I share these with you...
.............................................
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
Mother Teresa
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. Mother Teresa
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa
Intense love does not measure, it just gives. Mother Teresa
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. Mother Teresa
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given. Mother Teresa
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. Mother Teresa
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. Mother Teresa
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action. Mother Teresa
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. Mother Teresa
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Mother Teresa
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mother_teresa.html
........................................................
The next time you go into a business deal -- or any other encounter and/or relationship at all, for that matter...
Imagine that you have Narcissus looking over your one shoulder...
And both Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa looking over your other shoulder...
Then go ahead and make your 'deal'...
I fathom a guess...
That that would be the greatest cure in the world...
For 'Capitalism'...
Or for any other ideology in the world...
For that matter...
In Hegel's Hotel...
'God' symbolizes 'self-strength' and 'self-assertion'...
Whereas 'Jesus Christ' more fully symbolizes 'empathy, social sensitivity, and loving/caring about others...'
In Hegel's Hotel, both God and Jesus Christ -- like Narcissus (The Greeek God of Self-Interest) and 'Altruissus' (The DGB God of Social Interest)-- flow together and dialectically unite into a 'Holy Trinity' -- 'The Holy Spirit' being the 'creative, dialectic union between self-and-social interest and love' in a way that helps to build a better world for both ourselves and the people we share this world with...because we all need each other in good times -- and especially in bad times...
Idealistic? Of course...
Realistic?
As Mother Teresa would say,
........................................
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them/us is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
.............................
-- dgb, April 23rd-24th, 2011.
-- Where Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- And Amazing, Creative Integrations...
-- Can happen...
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Deal That Got Away....
Don't assume a deal is done until the deal is finalized both verbally and on paper; otherwise, there are a myriad of reasons why one side or the other can back out at the last minute -- most notably perhaps, someone says the wrong thing at the wrong or the last moment, and capufff...the deal is gone...
Don't be presumptive and don't say something stupid in the heat of the negotiation, especially when it's coming down to the final lap. Otherwise, you'll be swinging at air, and going home with no signed cheque, nothing to celebrate, and the deal that got away...
-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Don't be presumptive and don't say something stupid in the heat of the negotiation, especially when it's coming down to the final lap. Otherwise, you'll be swinging at air, and going home with no signed cheque, nothing to celebrate, and the deal that got away...
-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
On 'Sound Bites', 'Writing Bites', and 'Action Bites'....
The things that we say, and the things that we do, are 'sound bites' and 'action bites' of who we are... I think that we should all strive to be assertive but sensitive, and sensitive but assertive, liberally conservative, and conservatively liberal, open-minded and flexible but strong on our most important self-boundaries, not too impulsive, not too restrained, capable of evolving in new directions, but strong in our central 'essence' of who we are...
Nobody is ever going to do any or all of this perfectly...nor will we all even try....I can berate -- and have berated -- myself furiously and often lately when I think that I've been either 'too weak' or 'too strong'...
When you are not happy with the way that you have come across -- either with your words and/or with your actions -- shake your head a few time, shake it off, and move on...
-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,
-- David Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,
-- Are Still In Process...
Nobody is ever going to do any or all of this perfectly...nor will we all even try....I can berate -- and have berated -- myself furiously and often lately when I think that I've been either 'too weak' or 'too strong'...
When you are not happy with the way that you have come across -- either with your words and/or with your actions -- shake your head a few time, shake it off, and move on...
-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,
-- David Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,
-- Are Still In Process...
The Psychiatrist, The Patient -- and The Used Car Sales Manager...
Some people use words primarily to hide their thoughts -- and their 'real beliefs' about what is going on in themselves and in the world. -- a slight modification and extension of Voltaire as I heard the quote first on 'Criminal Minds'. The actual quote by Voltaire, as taken off the internet, can be found later in the little 'psycho-drama' below) -- dgb
My Psyciatrist: I spoke to my psychiatrist yesterday (my psychiatrist is one of my many 'bi-polar or multiple personalities') -- and he said that I had a 'bordeline pscyhotic-paranoia disorder' as well as elements of BPD (bi-polar disorder) and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). He said that I was having a problem lately sorting out 'my truth reality' -- or worded otherwise -- sorting out fact from fiction, and truth-reality from phantasy.
The Patient (Me) : I said, 'Doc, but that's because I've been dealing with the same used car sales manager for over a week now. He's trying to bend my perception of reality.' He says that 'misperceptions' happen all the time between people and he is 'sorry' if I 'misperceived' what he meant when he said 'Sing to yourself' after I came back from a test ride on the vehicle I was planning to buy and I told him that the radio wasn't working...
My Psychiatrist: 'How do you feel about that'?
The Patient(me): I said, 'Doc, I feel seriously offended by what he said to me...that he was being hugely 'arrogant' and 'condescending' to me in saying what he said to me...And more than that, I feel seriously shaken. I wake up now in the middle of the night -- you might have to give me a sleeping pill or an 'anti-anxiety' pill -- with a case of the cold sweats. I don't know whether I am losing contact with reality or whether someone -- specifically, in this case, the used car sales manager -- is trying to push me over the brink, push me into losing contact with reality... What do you think about that?
My psychiatrist: 'Well, I've been getting a lot of these types of cases lately. I call it 'corporate-political illusionism'. It's where the truth tends to be 'bent' by certain 'narcissistic personalities' in the direction of the almighty dollar and/or in the direction of the corporate person's 'narcissistic self-protection'. The truth is hidden or disquised -- and illusion becomes the truth'. The great French philosopher -- Voltaire -- once wrote that 'One great use of words is to hide our thoughts'.
The Patient(me): Well thanks, Doc. That makes me feel much better. So it's not just me. Other people have been having this type of 'borderline psychotic-paranoia disorder' as well. I was beginning to think it was just me.
My psychiatrist: No, it's not just you, Dave, there is a lot of corporate illusion syndrome out there...
The Patient (Me): Yeah, the sales manager wanted to bill me $270 for a GPS that he said some contractor had put into the van that I hadn't even bought yet -- in other words, his van. Before I cancelled the deal because of his rather 'snotty' comment, I asked him where in the van the GPS was, and he said he didn't know -- that it was a 'trade secrt'. He said that a GPS can cost anywhere between $300 and $600 -- which was mainly labour -- but he was giving me a break: he was only charging me the $270 that he had been billed (he was still waiting for the bill) to put in the van. The 'chip' itself, he said, costs peanuts, hardly anything, but the labour is where the price is.
I said, 'Wow, does that contractor charge $600 to put his magic GPS into a cadillac? Or does he charge that much when you need a little more 'profit padding' to build up the profit margin on a deal that doesn't have enough 'meat' on it yet?
He said that he could bring the contractor back, and I could invite all my friends and family over to see the contractor take the 'magic GPS chip' out from under the hood...But he would have to charge me for that too...He'd give me a discount...only charge me half as much...
I said, 'Wow, do you do this often, and does the contractor give you a discount in these types of cases where he has to pull the chip back out from its secret hiding spot in the van to satisfy the skepticism of an unbelieving customer? And is the customer actually willing to pay another $150 to see the contractor do this? If so, that's quite a vaudeville act you and your contractor have going on there... It must be worth quite a bit of money...
Well, needless to say, I cancelled the deal that wasn't a deal yet, hadn't been signed yet -- was dead in the water because I didn't like to be told 'to sing to myself' when I was about to commit myself to paying $4700 for a van that was not even offically e-tested and certified -- and was still in his name, not mine. Everything was starting to feel very 'shady'...and 'quasi-metaphysical'...'reality and perceptions and misperceptions were starting to seriously playing with my mind'...
That was when he started to delve more seriously into his 'theory of misperceptions' and how people can 'misperceive' what they think they heard and didn't really hear...Then the 'guilt trip'... 'Wasn't I a man of my word', he asked me, even though no deal had ever been completely consumated, never signed, and here he was giving me a lecture on 'integrity' and 'being a man of my word' when the meaning, definition, description, monetary value, of his words -- 'administration fees', 'GPS fees', 'perceptions' and 'misperceptions' -- kept changing every minute I listened to him...
How could he say that there was a 'deal' when the 'deal' kept changing every day I walked into see him -- which is why I believe the deal was never written up in the first place. He was always looking for new 'sliders' -- things that he could either 'slide into' the deal (like 'administration fees' and 'GPS fees') and/or things that he could 'slide out' of the deal (like an e-test and safety-certification slip, and the ownership of the vehicle staying in his name...)...
My Psychiatrist: Sounds like this used car manager doesn't really do much of anything by the book and, as you say, that he is operating a rather 'shady' deal or no deal here...
The Patient (me): That's what I think......but that's where he starts going back into his 'theory of misperceptions'...and I start wondering whether I should be questioning my perception of reality or not..
The Psychiatrist: No, Dave, I take back my original preliminary, presumptive diagnosis...I think you have a pretty good grasp of 'perceptual reality'....We are all partly caught up in a world where Corporate and/or Political Capitalist Illusionism tries on a pretty regular basis to 'bend our perception of reality'...
The Patient: Well, Thanks Doc. This session was well worth the money. I never knew that a seemingly simple endeavor to try to buy a new van could lead me into such a murky world of perception and misperception, epistemology and metaphysics -- like, When is an 'almost sale' -- a sale, and when is an almost sale a 'not a sale'?, and 'when is a 'not a sale, a 'sale'...you get the idea....these perceptions and/or alleged 'misperceptions' were starting to really mess up my mind...
This session was very important to me because I have to see this guy again today and I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't 'losing it'...
My Psychiatrist: Well, Dave, be assertive, be strong, be firm...don't let him walk over you....Regarding one of your 'bi-polarities', be your Doberman, not your chihuahua...
Aftermath...I was probably more chihuahua than Doberman...actually at a loss for words when he gave me most of my deposit money back...case resolved...unfortunate words and probably some misperceptions...I wish that I could take some of my words back in the last session...I am a terrible negotiator...I shake my head and move on...
-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
-- David Gordon Bain
My Psyciatrist: I spoke to my psychiatrist yesterday (my psychiatrist is one of my many 'bi-polar or multiple personalities') -- and he said that I had a 'bordeline pscyhotic-paranoia disorder' as well as elements of BPD (bi-polar disorder) and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). He said that I was having a problem lately sorting out 'my truth reality' -- or worded otherwise -- sorting out fact from fiction, and truth-reality from phantasy.
The Patient (Me) : I said, 'Doc, but that's because I've been dealing with the same used car sales manager for over a week now. He's trying to bend my perception of reality.' He says that 'misperceptions' happen all the time between people and he is 'sorry' if I 'misperceived' what he meant when he said 'Sing to yourself' after I came back from a test ride on the vehicle I was planning to buy and I told him that the radio wasn't working...
My Psychiatrist: 'How do you feel about that'?
The Patient(me): I said, 'Doc, I feel seriously offended by what he said to me...that he was being hugely 'arrogant' and 'condescending' to me in saying what he said to me...And more than that, I feel seriously shaken. I wake up now in the middle of the night -- you might have to give me a sleeping pill or an 'anti-anxiety' pill -- with a case of the cold sweats. I don't know whether I am losing contact with reality or whether someone -- specifically, in this case, the used car sales manager -- is trying to push me over the brink, push me into losing contact with reality... What do you think about that?
My psychiatrist: 'Well, I've been getting a lot of these types of cases lately. I call it 'corporate-political illusionism'. It's where the truth tends to be 'bent' by certain 'narcissistic personalities' in the direction of the almighty dollar and/or in the direction of the corporate person's 'narcissistic self-protection'. The truth is hidden or disquised -- and illusion becomes the truth'. The great French philosopher -- Voltaire -- once wrote that 'One great use of words is to hide our thoughts'.
The Patient(me): Well thanks, Doc. That makes me feel much better. So it's not just me. Other people have been having this type of 'borderline psychotic-paranoia disorder' as well. I was beginning to think it was just me.
My psychiatrist: No, it's not just you, Dave, there is a lot of corporate illusion syndrome out there...
The Patient (Me): Yeah, the sales manager wanted to bill me $270 for a GPS that he said some contractor had put into the van that I hadn't even bought yet -- in other words, his van. Before I cancelled the deal because of his rather 'snotty' comment, I asked him where in the van the GPS was, and he said he didn't know -- that it was a 'trade secrt'. He said that a GPS can cost anywhere between $300 and $600 -- which was mainly labour -- but he was giving me a break: he was only charging me the $270 that he had been billed (he was still waiting for the bill) to put in the van. The 'chip' itself, he said, costs peanuts, hardly anything, but the labour is where the price is.
I said, 'Wow, does that contractor charge $600 to put his magic GPS into a cadillac? Or does he charge that much when you need a little more 'profit padding' to build up the profit margin on a deal that doesn't have enough 'meat' on it yet?
He said that he could bring the contractor back, and I could invite all my friends and family over to see the contractor take the 'magic GPS chip' out from under the hood...But he would have to charge me for that too...He'd give me a discount...only charge me half as much...
I said, 'Wow, do you do this often, and does the contractor give you a discount in these types of cases where he has to pull the chip back out from its secret hiding spot in the van to satisfy the skepticism of an unbelieving customer? And is the customer actually willing to pay another $150 to see the contractor do this? If so, that's quite a vaudeville act you and your contractor have going on there... It must be worth quite a bit of money...
Well, needless to say, I cancelled the deal that wasn't a deal yet, hadn't been signed yet -- was dead in the water because I didn't like to be told 'to sing to myself' when I was about to commit myself to paying $4700 for a van that was not even offically e-tested and certified -- and was still in his name, not mine. Everything was starting to feel very 'shady'...and 'quasi-metaphysical'...'reality and perceptions and misperceptions were starting to seriously playing with my mind'...
That was when he started to delve more seriously into his 'theory of misperceptions' and how people can 'misperceive' what they think they heard and didn't really hear...Then the 'guilt trip'... 'Wasn't I a man of my word', he asked me, even though no deal had ever been completely consumated, never signed, and here he was giving me a lecture on 'integrity' and 'being a man of my word' when the meaning, definition, description, monetary value, of his words -- 'administration fees', 'GPS fees', 'perceptions' and 'misperceptions' -- kept changing every minute I listened to him...
How could he say that there was a 'deal' when the 'deal' kept changing every day I walked into see him -- which is why I believe the deal was never written up in the first place. He was always looking for new 'sliders' -- things that he could either 'slide into' the deal (like 'administration fees' and 'GPS fees') and/or things that he could 'slide out' of the deal (like an e-test and safety-certification slip, and the ownership of the vehicle staying in his name...)...
My Psychiatrist: Sounds like this used car manager doesn't really do much of anything by the book and, as you say, that he is operating a rather 'shady' deal or no deal here...
The Patient (me): That's what I think......but that's where he starts going back into his 'theory of misperceptions'...and I start wondering whether I should be questioning my perception of reality or not..
The Psychiatrist: No, Dave, I take back my original preliminary, presumptive diagnosis...I think you have a pretty good grasp of 'perceptual reality'....We are all partly caught up in a world where Corporate and/or Political Capitalist Illusionism tries on a pretty regular basis to 'bend our perception of reality'...
The Patient: Well, Thanks Doc. This session was well worth the money. I never knew that a seemingly simple endeavor to try to buy a new van could lead me into such a murky world of perception and misperception, epistemology and metaphysics -- like, When is an 'almost sale' -- a sale, and when is an almost sale a 'not a sale'?, and 'when is a 'not a sale, a 'sale'...you get the idea....these perceptions and/or alleged 'misperceptions' were starting to really mess up my mind...
This session was very important to me because I have to see this guy again today and I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't 'losing it'...
My Psychiatrist: Well, Dave, be assertive, be strong, be firm...don't let him walk over you....Regarding one of your 'bi-polarities', be your Doberman, not your chihuahua...
Aftermath...I was probably more chihuahua than Doberman...actually at a loss for words when he gave me most of my deposit money back...case resolved...unfortunate words and probably some misperceptions...I wish that I could take some of my words back in the last session...I am a terrible negotiator...I shake my head and move on...
-- dgb, April 19th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
-- David Gordon Bain
Thursday, April 14, 2011
On The Relationship Between High North American Unemployment Levels and Global Capitalism...
This is a quick oversimplification of a whole myriad of very complicated business, economic and political problems...
However, like everything else, if you want to understand and/or do something better and better, you have to start at the beginning -- and/or the bottom -- and work your way up 'The Abstraction Knowledge, Skill and Performance Ladder', until you are -- metaphorically speaking -- 'swimming with the sharks'.
Although my 'knowledge expertise' is not geared specifically to business, economics, and politics, still the narcissistic, epistemological, and ethical principles that I have learned from studying philosophy and psychology in significantly more detail, are just as applicable to the study of business, economics, and politics -- indeed, any and every aspect of human culture and human living -- as where these principles came from in the study of philosophy, science, medicine, and psychology.
Let us start with the concept of a 'free market'.
Now this is an extremely complicated -- and 'ideal' (among 'free market capitalist' advocates) -- concept that has another complicated myriad of intertwining co-factors and forces attached to it that are impossible to explain or understand in one sitting.
However, I think that most of my readers will agree that there is a significant difference between an 'ethical free market' and an 'unethical free market', and also that in today's North American and International economy, there are a whole host of overt and covert, regulated and unregulated, controlled and uncontrolled, manipulated and unmanipulated, forces at work that make this market far from 'free' -- and far from 'fair', the latter concept of which is an 'adjective' that is often contrasted against 'free', implying that 'free' -- whatever your definition of 'free' is -- is not neccessarily anywhere in the same ballpark as the concept of 'fair'.
President Obama was right when he first was campaigning and put his 'accusing finger' on 'NAFTA' as one very important 'cause' of the 'very high unemployment levels' in both America and Canada -- and connected with this -- the 'abandonment' of North American 'manufacturing plants' and other 'goods and services' businesses from North America.
In a nutshell, why make goods in Canada or America if you can make them 10 times cheaper in Mexico -- or any other 'underdevloped, poor country' in the world -- that has no 'exporting tariffs' to deal with when businesses in these countries sell their goods and/or services to Canada or America? That line of thinking is not rocket science.
Then you go back to see who put their signatures on NAFTA and you find out that from America it was Bush and from Canada it was Mulroney -- Big Business and Corporation men -- and you start to understand why when you realize that 'more and more powerful Unions in North America' were making labour costs more and more expensive here -- and gave large (and medium size) Corporations an 'escape route' away from high labour costs and unions in North America by allowing them to 'freely set up shop' iin some of the 'poorest countries in the world' with the cheapest labour forces.
However, what was good for the largest Corporations in North America -- the ones who gave the largest 'support donations' to 'Conservative' and 'Republican' Political Parties (indeed, to ANY Political Party that is likely to be in power including the Liberals here in Canada and the Democrats in America) -- was obviously not good for North American workers, the middle class, and the lower class. Thus, 'Global Capitalism and Free International Trade Agreements' have set up the current 'Class Warfare' between the 'Richest Business Owners and Polticians in North America' -- and the middle and lower classes in North America who are finding less and less businesses to work in, because of the 'evacuation' of these businesses to 'third world countries' since the signing of NAFTA.
In effect, as what used to be the 'poorest and/or third world countries' in the world are becoming wealthier and more powerful -- to the point where both Canada and America are becoming 'financially enslaved' to these countries because they now own most of North America and/or are becoming larger and larger 'loan creditors' to Canadian and/or American governments and/or businesses -- essentially buying up North America because we can't -- or won't -- properly take care of our own businesses dometic business practices.
In essence, both America and Canada have given North America businesses more than enough sufficient motivation to simply abandon North America and take their good and/or services businesses to the 'cheapest labour -- and most pro-favorable corporate countries' -- in the world.
Welcome to the 21st Century and Global Capitalism. While the largest North American Corporations and Businesses are still finding ways of getting richer and richer from goods and services businesses that have been re-established elsewhere in the world, many, many North American workers -- and worded otherwise, the North American Middle and Lower Classes which have been under siege since the signing of NAFTA -- become poorer and poorer. Add into this equation, the amount of government money going to international wars, and massive immigration policies that simply exasperate the 'work problem' here in North America -- and you have a bad problem for a very significant portion of The North American workforce and middle and lower classes.
Get rid of these 'international free trade agreements' with the 'poorest countries and workforces in the world', start putting 'export-import tariffs' back on goods and services coming from these same countries, and let's see how long it takes for our internationally based North American businesses and corporations to 'come back home' again.
Now, let me make one more clear statement before I leave this little presentation.
I do not like to see, or want to see, any good business, with good business ethics, destroyed by overly high workers' wages, as may be arrived at in some cases by an overly 'narcissistic, aggressive, powerful Union'.
The same goes for any one-sided 'Collective Bargaining Agreement' that may be destroying a sports industry and/or franchise -- based again, on overly high player wages.
I was brought up by an 'Adam Smith/Ayn Rand idealistic business owner' for a dad, so I know all about the 'anti-union' argument'. Unions -- and Labour Boards -- are there for a reason: to make sure that 'powerful owners don't exploit powerless individual workers'. However, I know that Big, Bad Unions can be just as bad as Big Bad Corporate Owners -- and Big, Bad Bankers, and Big Bad Wall Street Investors, and Big, Bad Politicians... The Automobile Industry in North America seems to be in much better shape since the Automobile Unions were battled down to a seemingly much, more reasonable power size... Now that editorial comment is being made from a spectator's distance without any deep internal insight into the history and evolution of the industry, and each company, as a whole...
Any economic agreement has to work both ways -- for the individual worker and for the Corporation as a whole that should be entitled to a 'reasonable floating and self-sustaining profit margin' -- however, we 'reasonably' arrive at 'what a reasonable profit' it. That of course, is likely to be a continual source of theoretical and practical disagreement...and dialectic debate...How do you ever arrive at what imight be deemed 'reasonable' when the subject matter is -- money? The 'free market' capitalists, of course, would forever advocate that 'the market determine what is deemed reasonable' based on the principle of 'econonomic equillibrium' but again, the problem here, is that both the idea of the 'free market' and the idea of a 'fair market' are forever 'ideal concepts' that will never happen in reality.
Markets can be -- and are - 'manipulated', left, right, and centre. Coming from CCNN, unethical Wall Street investors sell 'bad stocks' to 'naive, unknowing investment customers' -- then, the same unethical Wall Street investors 'bet against' the 'bad stock' they have just sold. How can that type of behavior ever move us toward a 'free -- and/or a fair -- market'?
If I were grasping at economic straws, I would pick 15% to 35% net profit margin off the top of my head for most products and/or services...but again, that is a 'shot in the dark', a largely to totally 'generic and unresearched, uninformed range of percentage numbers'...But it came from somewhere deep in my mmemory banks, maybe from working for my dad's company. More research needed...I am writing above my head right now...
The high-rolling Wall Street investors would probably be laughing at this range of percentage figures...but then again...some of them should probably be in jail right now...I shake my head that American politicians 'bailed them out' -- and more than once -- through two different administrations and political parties...So much for protecting the middle and lower classes...
A working 'economic equillibrium' (EE) -- or in my philosophy-psychology words, a working 'Homeostatic-Dialectic-Democratic Balance' (HDDB) -- needs to be successfully arrived at between employer/owner and worker/employee/player. If either side is being 'financially exploited', and perhaps, in the case of an owner or group of owners -- financially destroyed -- then it is time to either close down the business and/or the franchise, or work out a new EE/HDDB labour agreement.
-- dgb, April 14th-16th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
However, like everything else, if you want to understand and/or do something better and better, you have to start at the beginning -- and/or the bottom -- and work your way up 'The Abstraction Knowledge, Skill and Performance Ladder', until you are -- metaphorically speaking -- 'swimming with the sharks'.
Although my 'knowledge expertise' is not geared specifically to business, economics, and politics, still the narcissistic, epistemological, and ethical principles that I have learned from studying philosophy and psychology in significantly more detail, are just as applicable to the study of business, economics, and politics -- indeed, any and every aspect of human culture and human living -- as where these principles came from in the study of philosophy, science, medicine, and psychology.
Let us start with the concept of a 'free market'.
Now this is an extremely complicated -- and 'ideal' (among 'free market capitalist' advocates) -- concept that has another complicated myriad of intertwining co-factors and forces attached to it that are impossible to explain or understand in one sitting.
However, I think that most of my readers will agree that there is a significant difference between an 'ethical free market' and an 'unethical free market', and also that in today's North American and International economy, there are a whole host of overt and covert, regulated and unregulated, controlled and uncontrolled, manipulated and unmanipulated, forces at work that make this market far from 'free' -- and far from 'fair', the latter concept of which is an 'adjective' that is often contrasted against 'free', implying that 'free' -- whatever your definition of 'free' is -- is not neccessarily anywhere in the same ballpark as the concept of 'fair'.
President Obama was right when he first was campaigning and put his 'accusing finger' on 'NAFTA' as one very important 'cause' of the 'very high unemployment levels' in both America and Canada -- and connected with this -- the 'abandonment' of North American 'manufacturing plants' and other 'goods and services' businesses from North America.
In a nutshell, why make goods in Canada or America if you can make them 10 times cheaper in Mexico -- or any other 'underdevloped, poor country' in the world -- that has no 'exporting tariffs' to deal with when businesses in these countries sell their goods and/or services to Canada or America? That line of thinking is not rocket science.
Then you go back to see who put their signatures on NAFTA and you find out that from America it was Bush and from Canada it was Mulroney -- Big Business and Corporation men -- and you start to understand why when you realize that 'more and more powerful Unions in North America' were making labour costs more and more expensive here -- and gave large (and medium size) Corporations an 'escape route' away from high labour costs and unions in North America by allowing them to 'freely set up shop' iin some of the 'poorest countries in the world' with the cheapest labour forces.
However, what was good for the largest Corporations in North America -- the ones who gave the largest 'support donations' to 'Conservative' and 'Republican' Political Parties (indeed, to ANY Political Party that is likely to be in power including the Liberals here in Canada and the Democrats in America) -- was obviously not good for North American workers, the middle class, and the lower class. Thus, 'Global Capitalism and Free International Trade Agreements' have set up the current 'Class Warfare' between the 'Richest Business Owners and Polticians in North America' -- and the middle and lower classes in North America who are finding less and less businesses to work in, because of the 'evacuation' of these businesses to 'third world countries' since the signing of NAFTA.
In effect, as what used to be the 'poorest and/or third world countries' in the world are becoming wealthier and more powerful -- to the point where both Canada and America are becoming 'financially enslaved' to these countries because they now own most of North America and/or are becoming larger and larger 'loan creditors' to Canadian and/or American governments and/or businesses -- essentially buying up North America because we can't -- or won't -- properly take care of our own businesses dometic business practices.
In essence, both America and Canada have given North America businesses more than enough sufficient motivation to simply abandon North America and take their good and/or services businesses to the 'cheapest labour -- and most pro-favorable corporate countries' -- in the world.
Welcome to the 21st Century and Global Capitalism. While the largest North American Corporations and Businesses are still finding ways of getting richer and richer from goods and services businesses that have been re-established elsewhere in the world, many, many North American workers -- and worded otherwise, the North American Middle and Lower Classes which have been under siege since the signing of NAFTA -- become poorer and poorer. Add into this equation, the amount of government money going to international wars, and massive immigration policies that simply exasperate the 'work problem' here in North America -- and you have a bad problem for a very significant portion of The North American workforce and middle and lower classes.
Get rid of these 'international free trade agreements' with the 'poorest countries and workforces in the world', start putting 'export-import tariffs' back on goods and services coming from these same countries, and let's see how long it takes for our internationally based North American businesses and corporations to 'come back home' again.
Now, let me make one more clear statement before I leave this little presentation.
I do not like to see, or want to see, any good business, with good business ethics, destroyed by overly high workers' wages, as may be arrived at in some cases by an overly 'narcissistic, aggressive, powerful Union'.
The same goes for any one-sided 'Collective Bargaining Agreement' that may be destroying a sports industry and/or franchise -- based again, on overly high player wages.
I was brought up by an 'Adam Smith/Ayn Rand idealistic business owner' for a dad, so I know all about the 'anti-union' argument'. Unions -- and Labour Boards -- are there for a reason: to make sure that 'powerful owners don't exploit powerless individual workers'. However, I know that Big, Bad Unions can be just as bad as Big Bad Corporate Owners -- and Big, Bad Bankers, and Big Bad Wall Street Investors, and Big, Bad Politicians... The Automobile Industry in North America seems to be in much better shape since the Automobile Unions were battled down to a seemingly much, more reasonable power size... Now that editorial comment is being made from a spectator's distance without any deep internal insight into the history and evolution of the industry, and each company, as a whole...
Any economic agreement has to work both ways -- for the individual worker and for the Corporation as a whole that should be entitled to a 'reasonable floating and self-sustaining profit margin' -- however, we 'reasonably' arrive at 'what a reasonable profit' it. That of course, is likely to be a continual source of theoretical and practical disagreement...and dialectic debate...How do you ever arrive at what imight be deemed 'reasonable' when the subject matter is -- money? The 'free market' capitalists, of course, would forever advocate that 'the market determine what is deemed reasonable' based on the principle of 'econonomic equillibrium' but again, the problem here, is that both the idea of the 'free market' and the idea of a 'fair market' are forever 'ideal concepts' that will never happen in reality.
Markets can be -- and are - 'manipulated', left, right, and centre. Coming from CCNN, unethical Wall Street investors sell 'bad stocks' to 'naive, unknowing investment customers' -- then, the same unethical Wall Street investors 'bet against' the 'bad stock' they have just sold. How can that type of behavior ever move us toward a 'free -- and/or a fair -- market'?
If I were grasping at economic straws, I would pick 15% to 35% net profit margin off the top of my head for most products and/or services...but again, that is a 'shot in the dark', a largely to totally 'generic and unresearched, uninformed range of percentage numbers'...But it came from somewhere deep in my mmemory banks, maybe from working for my dad's company. More research needed...I am writing above my head right now...
The high-rolling Wall Street investors would probably be laughing at this range of percentage figures...but then again...some of them should probably be in jail right now...I shake my head that American politicians 'bailed them out' -- and more than once -- through two different administrations and political parties...So much for protecting the middle and lower classes...
A working 'economic equillibrium' (EE) -- or in my philosophy-psychology words, a working 'Homeostatic-Dialectic-Democratic Balance' (HDDB) -- needs to be successfully arrived at between employer/owner and worker/employee/player. If either side is being 'financially exploited', and perhaps, in the case of an owner or group of owners -- financially destroyed -- then it is time to either close down the business and/or the franchise, or work out a new EE/HDDB labour agreement.
-- dgb, April 14th-16th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The Death of Common Sense
An Obituary printed in the LondonTimes - Interesting and sadly, rather true.
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend,Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn), and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, are a few examples which only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents; Truth and Trust, by his wife; Discretion, by his daughter; Responsibility, and by his son; Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers:
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I'm A Victim
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend,Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn), and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, are a few examples which only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents; Truth and Trust, by his wife; Discretion, by his daughter; Responsibility, and by his son; Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers:
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I'm A Victim
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
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