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Tag Archives: Ostriches

The Golden Goose

26 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on The Golden Goose

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Fareed Zakaria, healthy capitalism, individual and collective needs, Micheline's pension fund, Ostriches, repatriating jobs, the Golden Goose, WordPress

The Golden Goose

The Golden Goose

Mr Zakaria, I agree with you that the world is doing very little to prevent a major collapse of the new global economy.  People are sticking their head in the sand as everyone’s pension fund, including mine, is evaporating.

May I suggest that, financially, countries are poor bedfellows.  Hence the current state of the Euro.  The following example may not be the best, but it is the one that comes to mind at the moment.

I own one-ninth of an apartment building.  Five of a total of fourteen apartments are rented.  The sociétaires look after the apartment they have a right to occupy as fellow owners, but the building itself is rapidly deteriorating because of a lack of proper maintenance.

In my opinion, the problem here may be that the balance between individual and collective needs militates in favour of misunderstood individual needs.  Once an individual closes his or her suite’s door, he or she sees only the elegance and comfort of what he or she considers his or her “one-ninth.”

We inhabit a society where people are unable to grasp that individual needs will not be fulfilled if collective needs are not taken into consideration.  They do not realize that the two are inextricably linked.

Nor do they understand what I call a “healthy” form of capitalism.  As originally conceived, capitalism benefitted the people.  A few well-heeled individuals invested money in a business, employed people locally and, once the employees received their salary, they usually spent it within the community.

This is no longer the case.  Nowadays, capitalists have their products manufactured at the lowest possible cost and ignore all other societal factors.  In other words they export manufacturing jobs nilly willy.

No one can blame them, but it would be my opinion that efforts should be made to encourage companies that will employ locally.  Again, it’s a question of balance.

I am not an economist and cannot therefore comment in the same manner as an expert would.  But I have observed that the moment certain persons get rich they also become misers.   And I have also observed that, if people are well inside their cocoon, they are often quite willing to block other concerns from their consciousness, not realizing they will eventually be their own victims.

If one kills the golden goose, she can no longer produce golden eggs.  That is what some are doing in this society.  As a result, they are less than wise.

*   *   *

September 26, 2011

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The Compromise

05 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Fareed Zaharia, obstructionism, Ostriches, President Obama, the "enemy within"

To my surprise, in his August 2nd address, President Obama expressed a significant degree of satisfaction with respect to the debt-ceiling arrangement he had just signed into law.  Given that it leaves too much money in the pockets of the rich and of generals, it is a mere arrangement.  Americans need money to create jobs, support the unemployed, make life secure for retirees and the disabled, consolidate health-care reforms, alleviate poverty, etc.
However, having pondered the matter, I believe President Obama did not let anyone down.  The arrangement he signed is mostly flawed, but he may have felt that the bigger requirement was instilling within Congress a sense of nationhood.  Had hardline Republicans not come up with an arrangement, an executive order would have been essential, but it would not have helped bring more Republicans to the negotiation table in a state of readiness, i.e. ready to negotiate in good faith.  Moreover, Americans may have concluded that the President was the solution.  President Obama is a dream come true, if not a miracle.  Yet, the people are the solution. To elect a President only to put obstacles in his path is absurd.  There comes a point where this process is called obstructionism.

There are times when leaders must intervene and there is a sense in which President Obama did intervene.  On July 25th, he told the nation that the debt ceiling had to be raised by August 2nd.  His message was crystal clear and rather frightening, but he was calm.  As well, in his August 2nd address, President Obama was again calm, inspiring confidence.

As I noted in an earlier blog (The Damage so far), CNN’s Fareed Zakaria is right. The damage has already been done.  Markets were destabilized and remain so.  However if you do not panic, they will rally.  Some have begun to show signs of impending recovery and possible growth.
Dr Zakaria is also right in stating that the current arrangement simply kicks the can down the road.  Why spend so much money on defense?   Fareed Zakaria writes that,  where defense spending is concerned, “[…] let the guillotine fall.  It would be a much-needed adjustment to an out-of-control military-industrial complex.” (The Washington Post, August 3rd, 2011).  Besides, the nation’s worst enemy is an “enemy within.”  The Sarah Palins of America and the Tea Party members are the enemy.

Yet, mercifully, a ‘compromise’ does not deepen the rift in Washington, which is important.  President Obama is not throwing stones at Tea Party members.  Democrats and Republicans have to work together and work in a transparent manner.  No President should ever again take money out of the public purse to line the pockets of the rich and then engage in two wars, the validity of which cannot be justified easily.

With all due respect, President George W. Bush did not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, nor did he lead us to Bin Laden.  9/11 should not have led to further destruction, i.e. the death or maiming of hundreds of soldiers:  fathers, mothers, spouses, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins, friends…  All had/have a name.

Let me close by saying that, although President Obama settled for a compromise, he knew there was room for the hardline Republicans to make a public spectacle of their intransigence and, thereby, hurt themselves…  It was a circus and a cruel one.  At first, I worried, but I soon realized the Republicans were unlikely to allow the US to default on its debt.  I knew, moreover, that, in extremis, President Obama would come to the rescue of his nation.  But, as they dallied and markets flickered, scaring many of us, hardline Republicans got a lot of exposure and very little was flattering.

How sad it is that in so many countries there should be citizens who either bury their head in the sand:  Ostriches, sit on the fence with both ears to the ground, and vote “eyes wide shut.”

God bless America.

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