Tuesday, November 01, 2005

What The Hell's Wrong With Globalism?!

I expect to update this more than once, but my emotional reaction right off the bat, upon seeing this Blog Ad is:

[FOOLISHNESS DELETED]

Whoa!! Was I off base!

I finally got around to reading some of their stuff, and I have to say that I disagree with very little of it.

I agree that Big Government, Big Business, Big Labor and anybody else who's to Big for his Britches are too often entwined. I agree that nations should preserve their sovereignty. I don't like the UN, the IMF or the World Bank, but it's mostly because they misallocate capital [forcibly extracted tax money] in directions people would not choose on their own in a free market.

I don't believe in "market failure". In a free market people spend their money and give it away to causes they care about. When people hear about a problem, they try to help; that's why governments, businesses and charities are founded in the first place--I wouldn't even mind if governments were bossy about telling businesses and charities what to do about helping others, if they didn't have a tendency to send the cops and the army out to make it happen. Leaders don't hurt people, enforcers do. (It's been a while since I came up with a bumper sticker slogan.)

It's true that the problem most businesses are founded to solve is "I don't have enough money," but they have to fulfill somebody's desires in order to get that money.

Anyway, I agree that money ought to be gold or gold-backed. I think worries about deflation are overblown (inflated - ha ha) and central banks are unnecessary and somewhat harmful. Simply put, it's important to have money, and it's important that it's value be fairly stable, but it's not so important as to need a controlling authority. I should say "controlling" authority. Their control is weak at best, unless they want bubbles and recessions.

On the other hand, they've been doing a better job of stabilizing the money supply and inflation lately, though there are serious questions about that. The Tech Bubble and subsequent recession and our current housing bubble are the Fed's fault, pretty much, yet if you didn't lose your job life hasn't been all that bad. Of course you could say that about the Great Depression too.

The conspiracy angle? Not much of a secret. Everybody who cares knows about the Trilateral Commission and those other guys. This Bank for International Settlements? Is anybody surprised? They have a charter that says they will have "no oversight or knowledge of operations by any government authority" and a bunch of other things that sound pretty egregious, but even the author of the article says, "Of course, a corporate charter can say anything it wants to say and still be subject to outside authorities." But he continues, "Nevertheless, these were the immunities practiced and enjoyed from 1930 onward." All at the pleasure of the government.

So, who's dying over this? Bernie Sanders, quoted in the article, says Latin Americans are, and I suspect that IMF and World Bank actions there haven't been as helpful as they expected, but then, the governments of Latin America spent the money on liabilities rather than assets. Most people and businesses and governments do that when you hand them a wad of cash.

That's why most people aren't rich.

3 comments:

Al said...

Hm. Forgot the link.

Al said...

I'm a sober, thoughtful guy normally, and I thought I'd think better about this after more careful consideration, but you know, I think I got it right the first time.

ron said...

I am just a tad confused. Other than they ain't got nuthin goin on there what were you scootin about?