The "economic hit man"
BobbyG
the end of his talk. After a presentation such as that I listen for
the direction that the speaker is trying to steer the audience--
where's he "taking people?"
After having shown how un-reformable the corporate global economic
system really is, he then steered the audience back toward the notion
of reforming the big corporations toward some sort of humane
capitalism, or fair-trade capitalism, or some such.
I feel this is a dead-end road down which to lead people, especially
after the spectacular failures of multiple sectors of global
capitalism in late 2008.
The only reason the system hasn't come tumbling down, so far to date,
is the trillions of dollars of public money propping up these
corporations.
They're un-reformable IMHO.
Ironically, Mr. Perkins had the answer in his hand when he appeared in
the indigenous Amazon community in Ecuador--the co-operative
movement. It's just that he was bringing it to a people who weren't
even at the stage of social evolution where it would have made sense.
They already had co-operative society in an indigenous form.
But the co-operative movement certainly makes sense now at this
terminal phase of the global corporate economy.
I can't think of one sector of the economy--farming, manufacture,
banking and credit, medicine, high-tech innovation, etc., where
applying co-operative principles wouldn't be a whole lot healthier for
humankind than what he called "predatory capitalism"--allowing the
corporations to keep up these activities in pursuit of max. profits.
Expecting predators to change their nature--the tigers, sharks,
alligators of the business world--top order predators--to suddenly
change their nature just seems illogical in light of this man's
experience.
I was disappointed. Anyone else?
Bobby G.
D Wright Esq & Ann H Wright
worthwhile to hear folks that have been around.
However, he didn't do it for me. I know that Chicago school economics is not
real exciting for students and dishing out a real downer is also not going
to get you more speaking gigs. But the real story here is actually the
Milton Freedmen, Julian Simon economic policies and how they cost the lives
of hundreds of thousands of people and trashed many others. I think he
needed to lay that out more clearly and what the corporate tie-ins are to
that policy.
I also believe that trying to change corporations is pure nonsense. If
nothing else, it is too late. The same policies are still going on today.
And now that corporations are in control of all elections (Supreme Court
ruling), and not that they weren't before, it is almost impossible to get at
them. They can not be reformed. It is not how they work. So yes, Bobby, I
agree on that.
The most disturbing part of the talk to me is something I have been hearing
for years and it always drives me nuts. First off, he blames everything
that is wrong on America. We screwed everybody. While there is some truth in
this, there are many multinational corporations involved, even the Chinese
are doing it now and by the way they got it from Freedman. Exploit, exploit.
Then he went into this bit how we, I say WE, have to raise the standard of
living in these unfortunate countries, then everything will be just fine.
While he only briefly mentioned resource depletion, the truth is, if the
standard of living is raised even minimally for the 3 billion folks that are
going hungry every day, the world's resources will be well depleted in only
a few years. There simply is not enough energy, water, soil around to change
things very much. Now mind you, if we (that is all Americans) were to drop
our gluttony, then maybe there would be more for the hapless. That ain't
gonna happen. So this pies-in-the-sky, lets get together and will be all
right nonsense, just is not going to cover the problem. Sorry Perkins.
We will be lucky to save our own butts.
I once saw an analysis that showed that if the average Chinese dude had one
more beer a week than they have now (1.4 Billion) that the amount of barley
needed would require an unbelievable number of metric tons of grain--it was
not obtainable. That was just beer.
Just think, every four years there is an addition in the population of the
world of an amount equal to the present population of the USA. Let's see us
even come up with one more beer for them. How about electricity, a glass of
good water!
Somebody just needs to just lay it on the line and then maybe these kids
could actually get serious about solving all the problems we, and the
greatest generation, caused. I'm for reality. D Wright
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