Tag: crony capitalism

Discourse: Nationalization, Private Companies and Crony Capitalism

The neoliberal (a.k.a. crony capitalism) ruling of the world during the last 50 years is usually generalized as a “big fish eats small fish” relationship. The story continues, with the big fish in Washington, Brussels and Moscow fed themselves with the riches of the world and profited from globalization.  Meanwhile, the small fish continued breeding and feeding the always hungry lords.  This general discourse is repeated in most if not all the academic papers dealing with postcoloniality and globalization.

The impact of the ideas of these intellectuals is widespread and not easily observable for the ignorant masses.  As such, when you read the newspapers in Latin America or Africa in regard to the “new” nationalizations being undertaken by the “new” socialist/anti-neoliberal governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Greece, Lithuania, and Sri Lanka since 2011 people usually ignores that there is nothing “new” in these actions.

These nationalizations of privately owned assets have been in many of the cases actual renationalizations of companies that were not owned by the principles of free market ideas, but that had been privatized by corrupt social democratic governments 50, 40 or 10 years before and who created new privately owned privileged companies.  As a result of these social democrat and socialist governments many privately owned companies emerged as the bastions of crony capitalism, inefficiency and corruption.  The previous, generally increased as closer the national industries were owned by crony private companies that owned single-crop cultive exports and resource rich regions.

To mention short examples of the previous, recently in Argentina Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF; English: “Treasury Petroleum Fields”) was renationalized (not nationalized) by the government under claims of corruption, inefficiency and negative benefits to their national interests.  In Bolivia, Transportadora de Electricidad (TDE) was nationalized by Evo Morales government.  However, TDE was also a fruit of the neoliberal and crony capitalist deals established in 1952 after a coup d’état that established a military socialist democracy with the party  Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) which allied into a military-nationalist clique that lasted for 50 years.

Privately owned companies produce always more efficient and better products than state-owned companies.  However, privately owned companies that have benefited from government granted privileges for decades not necessarily will produce more and better services and products than state-owned companies.  The previous is something that few of us dare to identify and explain with a non-contradictory historical and philosophical background.  Meanwhile, the great majority of academics influenced by collectivist philosophies will start writing articles and books applauding the “successful” renationalizations and condemning those free-market authors who will write back and fight.

Indeed, there is a difficult road in defending private property and privately owned businesses in the context of countries and regions that lack respect for individual rights and the rule of law.  As such, to defend the private vs collective in those circles it is necessary that first we identify how the societies are currently organized around the collective inefficient systems of social and economic organization.  In the case of Bolivia and Argentina it is necessary for us to identify how these business and societies are not structured and organized around the principles of free market and individual rights.  By understanding and explaining this clearly there will be a chance to change the discourse of discussion from “why is renationalization good?” to “why laissez faire capitalism is better than the privately owned business of crony capitalism?”

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From Obama’s “The More Americans Succeed, The More America Succeeds” to the Truth

Today I was impressed to watch Obama’s Weekly Address of December 03, 2011 in which he literally called for Americans to unite against the Republicans.  He said that Republicans were not only opposing the American Jobs Act but that they were actually opposing to the reduction of taxes for middle class families by about $1,000.00. He was giving the speech of “we’ve got to cut taxes” and more so, that he had established a supposed computerized calculator to tell Americans how much money they were going to lose from their pockets if they don’t Stop Republicans. Here is the video,

Now, President Obama was lying once again and the reason lies behind the fact that he is calling for $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue. As professor Lew Rockwell from the Ludwig von Mises Institute noted,  the proposed cuts are not real cuts, but cuts in the rate of increase, says Rockwell. He pointed out that the tax hikes are aimed at young entrepreneurs and business people starting out, as the oligarchs don’t like new people moving up in society.

“Taxes are wealth destruction. So anybody that proposes more taxes seeks to make us poorer as a group. However, the elites will make a lot more money out of this.”

More so, Rockwell believes that Obama, funded by the biggest banks, wants to help the ruling class and stick it to the productive class. He argues that the elite bankers, military industrial complex, and big pharma are getting far too rich and must be cut back. Rockwell predicts global inflation will result from the current depression.

Watch Rockwell’s complete explanation in this video,

Occupy the Mind with Economics

Video: Occupy Wall Street & Capitalism: A Professor’s Response

“Karl Marx was an intellectual radical.  What that means is that he sought to get at the root cause of social ills with his analysis.  Despite my extreme disagreement with Marx on his diagnosis, I have always been attracted to intellectual radicalism.  Not the fashionable radical chic of rock stars, etc., but the nerdy radicalism of scholars and public intellectuals.  Not a radicalism evident where the cool-kids party while skipping school, but a radicalism born in the library and in reading dusty old books and studying long and hard to try and figure things out.  Think hard, read widely, think even harder, then attempt to write clearly — that is the intellectual radicalism that I find exciting.”

Continue reading via: Occupy the Mind with Economics

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Last day to Pre-Order the DVD of a Great Movie!

Today is the Last Day to Pre-Order the DVD of the movie “Atlas Shrugged Part 1” (watch the trailer), which was inspired by The most wonderful fiction book ever written (and my favorite). I strongly recommend you to buy it and enjoy the movie!

GUARANTEE  to be shipped by NOV. 8th

If you buy the DVD today, you get to to guarantee yours for the release date on November 8th. Don’t delay. PRE-ORDER NOW.

 

BLU-RAY

The Atlas Shrugged Special Edition Blu-Ray, which combines ALL of the exclusive content from ALL of the Special Edition DVDs (and then some), will not be available for pre-order until mid-November with a release date pending for late November.

HOWEVER, you can pre-order the standard edition 20th Century Fox version of the Blu-Ray on Amazon right now for release day delivery on Nov. 8th. It won’t be nearly as content rich as the Special Edition but, if you simply can’t wait for the movie, problem solved.

PRE-ORDER THE BLU-RAY NOW.
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China Is Asked for Investment in Euro Rescue

Euro
Image by Images_of_Money via Flickr

A new chapter is being written in the History of Money, Bank and Credit as news of how European leaders are asking for China to rescue them from the chaos they created. I wish this guys reconsidered before continue acting some of the most important principles of Deficit Financing, Freedom, Inflation, Money, Property Rights, Savings, Welfare State, Consumption, Credit; Gold Standard, Market Value, Objective Theory of Values, Production, Purchasing Power, Sanction of the Victim, Selfishness and the Trader Principle just to mention a few before going on making more business that en debts their country’s economy while make their citizens poorer.

And as Ayn Rand cleverly mentioned in regard to Deficit Financing,

The government has no source of revenue, except the taxes paid by the producers. To free itself—for a while—from the limits set by reality, the government initiates a credit con game on a scale which the private manipulator could not dream of. It borrows money from you today, which is to be repaid with money it will borrow from you tomorrow, which is to be repaid with money it will borrow from you day after tomorrow, and so on. This is known as “deficit financing.” It is made possible by the fact that the government cuts the connection between goods and money. It issues paper money, which is used as a claim check on actually existing goods—but that money is not backed by any goods, it is not backed by gold, it is backed by nothing. It is a promissory note issued to you in exchange for your goods, to be paid by you (in the form of taxes) out of your future production.

“Egalitarianism and Inflation,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 133

Read more of this news:

PARIS — A day after European leaders unveiled their latest plan to save the euro, top officials opened talks with China in an effort to lure tens of billions of dollars in additional cash, giving China perhaps its biggest opportunity yet to exercise financial clout in the Western world.

China is expected to demand significant concessions, including financial guarantees and limits on what Beijing sees as discriminatory trade policies, in exchange for any investment in Europe’s emergency stability fund. The head of the rescue fund, Klaus Regling, got a cautious reply from Chinese officials Friday during a visit to Beijing, where he said he did not expect to reach an investment deal with China anytime soon.

A senior Chinese official, Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao, said China — like the rest of the world — was still waiting for the Europeans to deliver crucial details on how the rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, would operate and be profitable before deciding on whether to participate. via: China Is Asked for Investment in Euro Rescue by Liz Alderman and David Barboza.

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