Here's a brief further thought inspired by the previous post. The U.S. government spends a bit over two-and-a-half trillion dollars per year. If the government socialized the financial services industry -- and nothing else -- would the profits cover the budget? In other words, would there be any need for taxes?
(The financial services industry includes the insurance companies, so that solves the health care thing right there. Incidentally, the Wikipedia page on financial services is really, really bad.)
In other economic news: Robert Fisk reports that oil will soon be so over dollars. Thank you, Dubya! Maybe the time has come to re-think the economy from the ground up...
9 comments:
I'd certainly support nationalisation of the banks, without any equivocation, but the word 'socialising' kind of sounds peculiar when mooted with regard to the financial services industry as a whole. Even bearing in mind that nationalisation under the capitalist state isn't full-blooded socialism, I'd kind of want the government to whack most of this industry out of existence right after seizing it.
Capitalism is anti-social, essentially so, but most of its financial "industry" is extremely and especially so. If our rulers decide to cut the world's population by half, this is unlikely to be done by a faction whose main interests lie in industrial production. Finance capital is in the saddle to a much greater extent than it was in Marx's day or Hilferding's day. I think 2008 marked a big jump 'forward' in the march of finance capital, comparable to 1973.
One place that came to mind when I read your piece was Monaco. No income tax; the State gets huge revenues from the casino. Which could be rephrased: "the Grimaldi family gets huge profits from laundering drug money and other mafia funds"? Anyway, what's wrong with taxes? The more progressive an income tax, the better. America and Britain currently both have governments of loansharks' runners.
What does the barcode on the Google front page say, then? According to the Washington Post :
"as far as we can tell, [it] says 'Google'."
Oh yeah?
So the Google barcode contrib was too batty? :-) Seems to start 0100011 from the left hand side, taking the first two bars, with space between them, as a non-standard start pattern. That's for the digit 4, if it's UPC. Followed by 0100100, which means?? Not a digit, if we're in UPC anyway.
b
Boringly, the Washington Post says it just means "Google" using 128 rather than UPC, adding:
"It would be safe to assume that Google used their own open source barcode project, ZXing, to generate the barcode. The same library is used in Android for barcode recognition."
Yes, I'm sure that was safe to assume. Can't go wrong if you just cut and paste corporate puff. The Post even added:
"We had to double check that the barcode in this instance was correct (some of the geeks here insist the barcode isn't 100% correct), since Google has previously messed things up when they try and talk geek dirty.
Yes, it's not like it's PR or anything - a news item on what one of the world's biggest companies is using as a logo today - and a company which is developing barcode software too. Open source. Right. How altruistic of them.
You would have thought Google could get a string of a few dozen binary digits right. I'd kind of like to hear more about what the geeks had to say, and who overruled them if it wasn't other geeks.
Haven't checked it all yet myself. Got too much on today! Maybe someone else could take a look at this?
b
What I find disturbing is that as the middle east cooperates with China to undermine the US by abandoning US currency our anointed one quivers like a bowl of jello at the feet of Hu Jintao.
I think the fact Obama canceled the meeting with the Dalai Lama and told him to get to the back of the bus (unlike all the other European leaders) to kiss the ass of China is one of the most embarrassing things the US has done in a long time.
When Obama meets Hu someone should tell Hu to wear a fancy ring and see if he can get Obama to kiss it. It would make a great utube video.
What about the US isn't embarrassing? Another admission of weakness will be the holding-on-to helicopter-skids evacuation from Afghanistan. Notice how the Taliban statement that they don't want war with any other country has been pushed in the western media. Yeah right. Who invaded whom? Who's losing? Who's winning? When Mullah Omar rides back to Kabul, it's going to be portrayed as victory for American taste and good sense. (Of course, that's better than the invaders staying). War is sold to the home population as if it were a computer game nowadays.
Meanwhile, by trying to avoid pursuing the issue of the Gaza massacre in the UN arena, Abbas's vile Israeli-American stooge government has lost whatever legitimacy it still managed to cling onto after its leaders were exposed as taking a percentage from the cement for the wall (which is what caused Hamas to get elected in the first place).
Damn! The Google barcode does say "Google" in 128!
Well thy do say that every Snowflake is different....
AT last here's something Barak has done right... by prostrating to Hu and not the Tibetans, he probably helped stave off the sale of Greenbacks.
Do you really think if Mr. Didn't-close-Guantanamo, Secret-wire-tap got all preachy with Hu about the Deli Lamas, that anything would happen? Hu buddy, I know we're as bad as you nowadays, but could you help the Dalai (of whose politics we understand nothing in the west)
The way you say it, it was China's idea and the Middle East is co-opoerating with them. You really think they were sitting around saying "Hey, how can we wipe out the value of this two trillion dollar holding we have??"
According to the Globe & Mail; "At the same time, China, as well as other major U.S. dollar investors such as Saudi Arabia, have tried to support the greenback and criticized measures that would weaken the currency."
So thank Barak for once for doing something right. If O met with Lhamo Döndrub, rally, you think things would be "better" for Tibetans? Or would that add fuel to the fire of getting away from US Currency?
...and FWIW pre'59 Tibet wasn't a fou fou fairy candy-coated shangri la. Unless you consider getting tortured with mideval irons, and having your tongue pulled out-- for stealing a clump of food--- fun. None of the hippies i've talked with (bedeckd with tibetan peace flags) could explain the difference btween the Kagyu and the Gelug (the Glug won, killed off the Kagyu and destroyed or stole all of their monastaries)...
Döndrub was just a kid, but when he left Tibet in the late 50s, he left behind "185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen" The head of teh Army ha4,0,000 square km of land and 3,500 serfs. Now that's ascetic.
Read up on what serfs have said about Tiber before and after '59. Sure it sucked for those who were the ruling theocratic fudal lords, t yalall's are mang a s serious mistake when playing the "holier than thou" game with China.
(one last tidbit, who do you think it was who installed the very first Dali Lama? It was a Chinese emperor. You can't really separate the two.
Oh and you know what else Tibetan peasants get now (as opposed to getting rapid and tortured)? They get an education, and [eek] HEALTH CARE. The Yellow Hats never gave them shit, except the promise of a better 'karma' in their next life...
LOL. I think you would be easier to understand if you spoke in your native Chinese.
Just for your information and peace of mind, the Dalai Lama has about 1 billion supporters at present. About ten years ago there was a conference in Dharamsala of a lot of influential intellectuals who were supposed to discuss how to bring peace to the world.
The end result of the conference was that when they reported to the Dalai Lama they proposed organizing a worldwide boycott of China to crush the country and bring it to its knees until it withdraws from Tibet.
The Dalai Lama said he had an obligation to all people including the people in China and refused to sanction it.
I suspect that given China's inability to act in a civilized manner that eventually this plan will be launched and then-for all those people who have been abusing the poor man for 50 years-well- I expect the consequences will be ...severe.
As far as China pulling its money out of the US-let them. The US can then impose huge tarrifs on all their goods and well see who comes out on top. I doubt the Chinese Government would survive the social unrest that would ensue. The US on the other hand has safety nets in place and a flexible government. Wanna place a bet?
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