Gil Friend: PoliticsPolitical economy, political comedy, political tragedy, geopolitics, and other issues of our timesNot that this will help...- January 30, 2005 Corporate Welfare Runs Amok. Reforms to the corporate tax system must be debated on their merits, not under cover of some phony label like 'job creation.' NYT > Opinion Congress's ostensible purpose for allowing the holiday is to unleash a flood of money for job creation.... But few of the approved uses for the repatriated funds - such as debt redemption, advertising and a catchall category of 'financial stabilization' - will lead directly, if at all, to more jobs. One approved use - the...http://radio.weblogs.com/0109157/categories/politics/2005/01/30.html#a845 Trade deficits, reality deficits- January 30, 2005 John Robb: WSJ. The US trade deficit rose to $60.3 billion in November (is there a link to the elections). A new record. Despite a sinking dollar, the sale of US goods abroad dropped (down 2.3%). This is terrible news. The relative performance of the US vs. all other nations is on a slippery downward slope. While we focus on military power, the rest of the world is focused on economic power. Deficits we run with major trading partners. Here's the.http://radio.weblogs.com/0109157/categories/politics/2005/01/30.html#a844 World views, worlds apart- January 7, 2005 Two very interesting, and very different, big picture views of our current world and current situation have come across my view recently. Both are worth your attention. Meta-historian William Irwin Thompson, writes, with his typical grand sweep, of Al Qaeda, the Neocons, and the Transition from Nation-State to Noetic Polity in Ocean Arks International's Annals of Earth (but available on line here, about 23 down the page): This new historical situation is one in which we are shifting from the.http://radio.weblogs.com/0109157/categories/politics/2005/01/06.html#a835 |