I'll have to do some major code architecture changes so I have to think about how to put this together. Does seem we need a "3rd" new level, but I'm going to have to add additional code and other things to make sure someone's "diary" can't post if it's not properly formatted for one. DK has that and to write it, my hats off to them, not easy. I'll have to limit the capabilities...
anyway, I'm rambling but I'll see what to do architecturally and code wise to make something like this happen.
At the moment, comments actually have their own RSS feed and they do map back to each registered user so one can track each registered users comments if they want.
I agree with you 100% and I sure hope these proposals to reduce information gathering and compiling are defeated.
I'd sure love to know how many jobs here vs. overseas the big boys have. We need more statistics than ever today. In some cases, we also need to have more information requests become information demands backed up by law.
I have seen them used at other websites -- and I bet you have too -- where site members are allowed to put up posts on their own called "Diaries."
It's always been clear to me at those sites what's been written by the site's own writers and what is a diary by am Average-Joe, nonprofessional member.
As long as such distinctions were made and were obvious, that might be the solution you seek.
The reason Germany and France do so well, in part, is that they are also the beneficiaries of currency manipulation. The strong economies of Germany and France have been tied to the weak economies of Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Italy, and Spain, via the Euro. This gives Germany and France a cheaper currency than they had under the Deutschemark and Franc, making their exports and labor markets more attractive, just like China's exports and labor markets are beating the US'.
At the same time, the PIIGS get lower interest rates for their debt, but in a stronger currency, where they're ultimately unable to compete. Of course, the endgame for Europe will be different than for US+China.. In the US-China case, the debtor also controls the interest rates and value of the currency underlying the debt. The PIIGS won't be so fortunate.
Excerpted for review purposes from Johnston's Reuters blog (23 August 2011) --
[Johnston on trend over the past decade]
In 2001 GE’s American tax rate was a third higher than its foreign rate. Its American corporate income tax rate was 28.6 percent, compared to 21.1 percent on foreign profits. .... In every year since then, GE’s domestic tax rate has been much smaller than in 2001. It reported negative tax liabilities in four of the next nine years.
Offshore, however, GE reported a positive tax rate every year, always in double digits.
[And here's Johnston on GE's ROI from campaign contributions]
These facts all raise the question of whether our elected leaders in both parties will stop memorizing talking points and get to studying data points so we get reality-based tax policy. That means paying attention to nuance, including those business tax credits GE relies on so heavily, as well as posted tax rates.
Congress may be blind to such facts, though, because of the money GE spends to influence Washington. Last year GE spent $39.3 million lobbying Congress, roughly $73,000 for every senator and representative. That’s four times what it spent back when its American tax rates, and its share of profits taken in America, were both much higher.
How did 2011 become an election year? It's actually a redistricting and apportionment year!
Robert Oak:
You specify "someone electable" respecting call for a Democratic challenger ... yeah, that's okay, but it's 2011 and I am reporting on Kucinich not as a presidential challenger (he has by no means announced for the presidency) but as a sign of what 2012 may bring. Kucinich announcing for president in the Democratic Party would have the effect of throwing open the nomination process, at least to a much greater extent than it now is.
Anyway, I am of the "expect the unexpected" school of thought.
"Most of the time Kucinich is right on but he has some serious bad ideas that would guarantee a loss." -- Robert Oak
About "serious bad ideas" ... hmmm. Are you pointing at the American Monetary Institute and Kucinich's Monetary Reform Bill? ... or his National Emergency Employment Defense Act? ... but I think those are good ideas that might have a broad appeal in 2012. Or maybe you're just noting that it looks like he favors decriminalization of marijuana
.... but there, probably half the people of California agree with him, as does Jimmy Carter
Of course, Dorgan, Webb or Sanders would all make great candidates and maybe even great presidents. But it seems unlikely that any of them will run in the Democratic primaries in 2012, although such would be less unlikely if Kucinich announces.
And read my rebuttal arguments to objections raised by “Anonymous”...
http://www.computerworld.com/comments/node/9184659?page=1
It is argued that a very simple no tax-code one cent per byte is an excessive cost. To me, excessive IS GOOD.
My goal is not trying to generate dollars of tax income. My idea is to induce General Electric and MULTI-SOVEREIGN corporations to bring America's JOBS back to America's WORKERS and to do that solely to avoid paying an “excessive tax”.
I am sure that you know that with the OFFSHORING of all of America's high tech jobs and America's manufacturing jobs, and America's state government jobs, there is no Federal Withholding Tax going to my government. No employer Social Security fund payment (although OFFSHORERS still expect to collect Benefits). No Medicare funding. No Unemployment Compensation tax. No employee Group Health Benefits. No Workmen's Compensation coverage. No OSHA. No EOE. No ADA. No vacations. No Minimum Wage. No Minimum Age. No Sick Leave. No Unions. No Family Leave. No environmental protections for clean air and clean water. No overtime on the 41st hour. No state income tax on payroll, when there is no payroll.
The "excessive TAX" is intended to be costlier than these other American payroll expenses. That is the goal.
Most of the time Kucinich is right on but he has some serious bad ideas that would guarantee a loss.
Someone like Byron Dorgan or Jim Webb, these people appeal to all sides, and they often have common sense attitudes. Dorgan especially has some strong economics on his side.
I honestly think Bernie Sanders could even win. He's take that socialist attack and say "oh yeah, so...have you been to Canada, Sweden, France and seen how good they have it?"
Is it possible there's somebody out there we don't know about or haven't thought of who'd be willing to make a run? Such a person would have to be more than willing of course. They'd also have to be able to survive the scrutiny and strain of a presidential campaign and get the money necessary to compete.
What a tall order!
Anybody who's a smart and not in the hip pocket of big donors is probably too sane to run.
Correct me if I'm wrong but does any other country have an election anything like our presidential election, in terms of money required and a year of craziness?
Maybe presidential politics is like healthcare -- are we paying far more than anybody in the world and getting less for it than anybody else in the world?
anonymous drive by said: In short, the American people have the congress and President they want ...
Not so. When it comes voting for Congress or President, Americans don't even get a decent choice. Both parties are corrupt, driven for campaign donations by catering to business and special interests.
I am already disgusted that it highly likely Americans will have no decent alternative in the next presidential election. Getting to choose between Obama and the Republican nominee is no choice - they both are owned by Wall St.
So Americans will either not vote or vote for the lesser of the two evils.
No, Americans do not have the Congress and President they want ... they never even had a chance.
Dennis Kucinich is officially campaigning as usual for his long-held seat in the US House representing Ohio's 10th Congressional district. But there are two or three notes of cognitive dissonance in that ...
1. Dennis' district is being carved up with the rest of Ohio by a Republican machine which will design things such that Kucinich will be in a very difficult position to run for Congress in 2012. 2011 will see the end of Ohio's 10th as we know it. (Four of the five members of the Ohio Apportionment Board, beginning their proceedings just this month, are Republican politicians, and the RNC has been targeting Dennis since he first won a seat in the US House.)
2. Dennis is currently receiving national media attention as "campaigning in Washington (the state of Washington).
3. Dennis is gaining attention by way of speaking at the Seattle HempFest! (Kucinich will not run against former colleagues who represent Cleveland, but the greater Cleveland area is destined to have two rather than three districts because of loss of population. Therefore, Dennis -- who has announced that he is going to run for Congress somewhere in 2012 -- will likely have to run in a socially conservative area.)
So far, Kucinich is on record (since late 2008) that he will not run for president again.
But what is he doing? I don't know enough about either Ohio redistricting or Washington election law to make anything like a prediction as to what Dennis Kucinich will do in 2012. I do know that he is an exceedingly savvy politician and even a statesman of national stature. He is also the Devil Incarnate to the RNC and the rest of the Money Party. He is viewed as suspect by the DNC, for having taking stands against party leadership on numerous occasions.
(Kucinich carries a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution wherever he goes. He is also righteously law-abiding in all respects, especially campaign-finance law, and he is notoriously tight with campaign funds, ruthlessly depending on unpaid volunteers.)
One oft-mentioned possibility that I rate as very unlikely is a Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich independent ticket. The only reason anyone thinks that could happen is that Kucinich and Paul vote alike on some issues, especially constitutional issues such as war authorization. Both are among the very few in Congress who dare to criticize not only the current Fed, but the Fed system itself. While both suggest radical reform of the monetary system, their suggested reforms are radically opposed. Paul is of the von Mises Institute persuasion and Kucinich is allied with the American Monetary Institute -- that's like ice and fire, not particularly compatible. But anything is possible.
Voting and election reform can only be done state-by-state.
Congressional seats can be won for reform only congressional-district by congressional-district.
At the crucial and often overlooked vote-counting level, precinct (and up to county elections) workers or volunteers are of tremendous importance.
IMO, we need to give far less attention to the presidential circus and focus much more than we do on Congress. That strategy seems to have paid off for the Tea Party in 2010. Before Lincoln won, there were a number of Republicans in Congress.
Why not think outside the Money Party (whether Democrats or Republicans) and consider voting for candidates in any other party? We have three relatively good alternatives -- Libertarian, Green, Socialist -- there's some real choice for you! Take your pick!
Slogan for voting outside the two parties in 2012? "DON'T WASTE YOUR VOTE!"
ITBusinessEdge.com article ('No Easy Answers on Offshoring'), published 16 February 2009, is a description of the electronic outsourcing trend and of some economic problems created by that trend. In general, the article (posted by blogger Ann All, a business reporter specializing in ATMs and editor of ATMmarketplace.com), is pretty much without significance today in 2011. Yesterday's news. "Everybody knows."
"No easy answers"? Okay. What about proposals for difficult or challenging solutions? That's where Walter A. Nodelman comes in. Nodelman suggests a bit tax -- one bit (one eighth) of 1¢ on each electronic bit as it enters or leaves U.S. jurisdiction or, as Nodelman puts it, 1¢ per byte.
Nodelman also proposes unilateral withdrawal from all the FTAs. That's a little puzzling to me, because I would have thought that an advantage of the Nodelman tax would be that it could be conforming to WTO standards. Yes, it would probably involve defending ourselves in what passes for 'litigation' in the WTO quasi-judicial system, but the beauty of the idea is that there is no doubt that the federal government has the authority to tax electronic communication across our borders.
Nodelman's idea is similar to the concept of a 15% Across-the-Board Tariff justified as a charge for using U.S. ports (including air and land ports of entry) to access the U.S. infrastructure. IMO, these charges (fees, taxes, tariffs) are not ipso facto irreconcilable with WTO standards. If they are, then the USA is hardly the only nation in contempt of the WTO system.
The reason this these charges (fees, taxes, tariffs) could be allowable is that the charge is equitably applied across the board. In the case of a charge for port use, that would be imposed even when US products are reimported into the US, so there is no discrimination based on country of origin. Similarly, Nodelman's bit or byte tax is a charge levied to pay expenses involved in maintaining electronic communications systems within the USA.
The concept is similar to charges that many nations with medical systems or medical insurance (open to all) charge or have charged immigrants. No one has suggested that such charges are contrary to globalism, although they would never be allowed in the EU, which requires an adequate medical care safety net for any country that applies for EU membership. (The systems vary greatly but must meet EU standards, and the same is true for labor standards.)
The objection that Robert Oak raises to all such plans is that they would inevitably involve us in trade wars that would increase the price of petroleum imported into the US economy -- which would tank US domestic producers. However, Robert Oak thinks that we could get away with a Value Added Tax (VAT) scheme. It's amazing that Canada and many other nations have VAT, but for all we hear from our corporate media, we 'yanks' have never heard of the concept. Meanwhile, our effective at-border tax runs somewhere between 1% and 2%, whereas China is about 20%.
The question is this: Does our Congress -- not all of them, but enough of them to make the difference -- work for us or for our foreign competition?
WE (USA) NEED TRADE BARRIERS. TRADE BARRIERS ARE A NECESSARY PART OF ANY SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM OF GLOBAL COOPERATION.
The currency mercantilist system of international trade today is characterized by trade barriers. That's the game.
The now widely-acknowledged global Second Great Depression is proof that the WTO system of finance capitalism fosters social instability and is unsustainable.
Call it a 'recession' if you want. What it is!
BTW: There's a comment at the ITBusinessEdge.com article to KeepAmericaAtWork.com. It's faulty to me that organizations such as KeepAmericaAtWork while exposing the problems, fail to make any use whatsoever of words 'tariff' or 'VAT'. What's the point? Sometimes what isn't mentioned reveals more than what is loudly proclaimed.
Nodelman's tax is almost unimaginable because of the amount of the tax revenues, running probably into $$$ gazillions. However, I agree that criticism or condemnation of outsourcing and off-shoring, without specific reform proposals, is useless.
Yes, we do as a nation have the means to solve our problems. But our solutions will impact other nations -- if we ever get around to effectively demanding government in our own enlightened self-interest.
Scroll on down and check out the comments on joint ventures.
Let's face it, this is the war between the radical religious right donors and the multinational corporate, military-industrial complex class. Assuredly not an election for little ole' American citizens.
Someone needs to break ranks, tradition and run against Obama in the Democratic primary. Alternatively, someone who can get the funding of the few super rich left with a conscience, to run as an independent. To run as an independent means they have to get on the ballot in all 50 states and that is wrought with political lockdowns so an ind. cannot get on the ballot. Ask Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan about that one.
I'll have to do some major code architecture changes so I have to think about how to put this together. Does seem we need a "3rd" new level, but I'm going to have to add additional code and other things to make sure someone's "diary" can't post if it's not properly formatted for one. DK has that and to write it, my hats off to them, not easy. I'll have to limit the capabilities...
anyway, I'm rambling but I'll see what to do architecturally and code wise to make something like this happen.
At the moment, comments actually have their own RSS feed and they do map back to each registered user so one can track each registered users comments if they want.
I agree with you 100% and I sure hope these proposals to reduce information gathering and compiling are defeated.
I'd sure love to know how many jobs here vs. overseas the big boys have. We need more statistics than ever today. In some cases, we also need to have more information requests become information demands backed up by law.
More info, less hiding.
Sounds like a good campaign slogan.
I have seen them used at other websites -- and I bet you have too -- where site members are allowed to put up posts on their own called "Diaries."
It's always been clear to me at those sites what's been written by the site's own writers and what is a diary by am Average-Joe, nonprofessional member.
As long as such distinctions were made and were obvious, that might be the solution you seek.
The reason Germany and France do so well, in part, is that they are also the beneficiaries of currency manipulation. The strong economies of Germany and France have been tied to the weak economies of Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Italy, and Spain, via the Euro. This gives Germany and France a cheaper currency than they had under the Deutschemark and Franc, making their exports and labor markets more attractive, just like China's exports and labor markets are beating the US'.
At the same time, the PIIGS get lower interest rates for their debt, but in a stronger currency, where they're ultimately unable to compete. Of course, the endgame for Europe will be different than for US+China.. In the US-China case, the debtor also controls the interest rates and value of the currency underlying the debt. The PIIGS won't be so fortunate.
Checking out David Cay Johnston's current blog --
'America is GE's tax haven'
Excerpted for review purposes from Johnston's Reuters blog (23 August 2011) --
[Johnston on trend over the past decade]
[And here's Johnston on GE's ROI from campaign contributions]
Thanks for clarifying your views. Agreed on the fundamental problem.
How did 2011 become an election year? It's actually a redistricting and apportionment year!
Robert Oak:
You specify "someone electable" respecting call for a Democratic challenger ... yeah, that's okay, but it's 2011 and I am reporting on Kucinich not as a presidential challenger (he has by no means announced for the presidency) but as a sign of what 2012 may bring. Kucinich announcing for president in the Democratic Party would have the effect of throwing open the nomination process, at least to a much greater extent than it now is.
Anyway, I am of the "expect the unexpected" school of thought.
"Most of the time Kucinich is right on but he has some serious bad ideas that would guarantee a loss." -- Robert Oak
About "serious bad ideas" ... hmmm. Are you pointing at the American Monetary Institute and Kucinich's Monetary Reform Bill? ... or his National Emergency Employment Defense Act? ... but I think those are good ideas that might have a broad appeal in 2012. Or maybe you're just noting that it looks like he favors decriminalization of marijuana
.... but there, probably half the people of California agree with him, as does Jimmy Carter
Of course, Dorgan, Webb or Sanders would all make great candidates and maybe even great presidents. But it seems unlikely that any of them will run in the Democratic primaries in 2012, although such would be less unlikely if Kucinich announces.
you're lucky we allow moderated anonymous comments but this link to a link to a link is not ok.
If you have something to say, write it. Next "link" to read your "comment" won't be published.
Rebuttal to some of the objections to a Per-BYTE-Tax can be found in the COMMENTS at the following 2 LINKS....
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9184659/It_s_time_for_a_moratoriu...
And read my rebuttal arguments to objections raised by “Anonymous”...
http://www.computerworld.com/comments/node/9184659?page=1
It is argued that a very simple no tax-code one cent per byte is an excessive cost. To me, excessive IS GOOD.
My goal is not trying to generate dollars of tax income. My idea is to induce General Electric and MULTI-SOVEREIGN corporations to bring America's JOBS back to America's WORKERS and to do that solely to avoid paying an “excessive tax”.
I am sure that you know that with the OFFSHORING of all of America's high tech jobs and America's manufacturing jobs, and America's state government jobs, there is no Federal Withholding Tax going to my government. No employer Social Security fund payment (although OFFSHORERS still expect to collect Benefits). No Medicare funding. No Unemployment Compensation tax. No employee Group Health Benefits. No Workmen's Compensation coverage. No OSHA. No EOE. No ADA. No vacations. No Minimum Wage. No Minimum Age. No Sick Leave. No Unions. No Family Leave. No environmental protections for clean air and clean water. No overtime on the 41st hour. No state income tax on payroll, when there is no payroll.
The "excessive TAX" is intended to be costlier than these other American payroll expenses. That is the goal.
"Americans will either not vote or vote for the lesser of the two evils." -- Anon. Drive-by
Maybe. Maybe not.
But for the Perot experience, we would have to believe that Americans "never even had a chance" ... and that Americans never will have a chance.
I think Americans had a chance when Perot was running in the Reform Party in the 1990s.
Americans can accept their powerlessness or ...
Fight for fundamental reforms in States and congressional districts
At least, Americans can give 'em hell ...
Economy reform starts with Congress NOW
Freedom -- use it or lose it!
Most of the time Kucinich is right on but he has some serious bad ideas that would guarantee a loss.
Someone like Byron Dorgan or Jim Webb, these people appeal to all sides, and they often have common sense attitudes. Dorgan especially has some strong economics on his side.
I honestly think Bernie Sanders could even win. He's take that socialist attack and say "oh yeah, so...have you been to Canada, Sweden, France and seen how good they have it?"
Is it possible there's somebody out there we don't know about or haven't thought of who'd be willing to make a run? Such a person would have to be more than willing of course. They'd also have to be able to survive the scrutiny and strain of a presidential campaign and get the money necessary to compete.
What a tall order!
Anybody who's a smart and not in the hip pocket of big donors is probably too sane to run.
Correct me if I'm wrong but does any other country have an election anything like our presidential election, in terms of money required and a year of craziness?
Maybe presidential politics is like healthcare -- are we paying far more than anybody in the world and getting less for it than anybody else in the world?
As I have remarked above, gold could still end the year at $2000. I doubt that it will fall much below $1500, for sure not below $1000.
As I also have noted, extrinsic factors such as the recent Libya news actually have an effect on the gold markets.
I find deeply irrational markets to be troubling. Just my sense of fitness. So I welcome rationality.
anonymous drive by said: In short, the American people have the congress and President they want ...
Not so. When it comes voting for Congress or President, Americans don't even get a decent choice. Both parties are corrupt, driven for campaign donations by catering to business and special interests.
I am already disgusted that it highly likely Americans will have no decent alternative in the next presidential election. Getting to choose between Obama and the Republican nominee is no choice - they both are owned by Wall St.
So Americans will either not vote or vote for the lesser of the two evils.
No, Americans do not have the Congress and President they want ... they never even had a chance.
Dennis Kucinich is officially campaigning as usual for his long-held seat in the US House representing Ohio's 10th Congressional district. But there are two or three notes of cognitive dissonance in that ...
1. Dennis' district is being carved up with the rest of Ohio by a Republican machine which will design things such that Kucinich will be in a very difficult position to run for Congress in 2012. 2011 will see the end of Ohio's 10th as we know it. (Four of the five members of the Ohio Apportionment Board, beginning their proceedings just this month, are Republican politicians, and the RNC has been targeting Dennis since he first won a seat in the US House.)
2. Dennis is currently receiving national media attention as "campaigning in Washington (the state of Washington).
3. Dennis is gaining attention by way of speaking at the Seattle HempFest! (Kucinich will not run against former colleagues who represent Cleveland, but the greater Cleveland area is destined to have two rather than three districts because of loss of population. Therefore, Dennis -- who has announced that he is going to run for Congress somewhere in 2012 -- will likely have to run in a socially conservative area.)
YouTube video (MOX News)
So far, Kucinich is on record (since late 2008) that he will not run for president again.
But what is he doing? I don't know enough about either Ohio redistricting or Washington election law to make anything like a prediction as to what Dennis Kucinich will do in 2012. I do know that he is an exceedingly savvy politician and even a statesman of national stature. He is also the Devil Incarnate to the RNC and the rest of the Money Party. He is viewed as suspect by the DNC, for having taking stands against party leadership on numerous occasions.
(Kucinich carries a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution wherever he goes. He is also righteously law-abiding in all respects, especially campaign-finance law, and he is notoriously tight with campaign funds, ruthlessly depending on unpaid volunteers.)
One oft-mentioned possibility that I rate as very unlikely is a Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich independent ticket. The only reason anyone thinks that could happen is that Kucinich and Paul vote alike on some issues, especially constitutional issues such as war authorization. Both are among the very few in Congress who dare to criticize not only the current Fed, but the Fed system itself. While both suggest radical reform of the monetary system, their suggested reforms are radically opposed. Paul is of the von Mises Institute persuasion and Kucinich is allied with the American Monetary Institute -- that's like ice and fire, not particularly compatible. But anything is possible.
Text of speech, with link to video, at kucinich.us
Voting and election reform can only be done state-by-state.
Congressional seats can be won for reform only congressional-district by congressional-district.
At the crucial and often overlooked vote-counting level, precinct (and up to county elections) workers or volunteers are of tremendous importance.
IMO, we need to give far less attention to the presidential circus and focus much more than we do on Congress. That strategy seems to have paid off for the Tea Party in 2010. Before Lincoln won, there were a number of Republicans in Congress.
Why not think outside the Money Party (whether Democrats or Republicans) and consider voting for candidates in any other party? We have three relatively good alternatives -- Libertarian, Green, Socialist -- there's some real choice for you! Take your pick!
Slogan for voting outside the two parties in 2012? "DON'T WASTE YOUR VOTE!"
Do you acknowledge that something needs to be done in the way of fundamental economic reform in the USA?
Start with Congress and the votes to be held on three FTAs as soon as they return from their August recess -- during which many or most of them avoided their constituents like the plague.
ITBusinessEdge.com article ('No Easy Answers on Offshoring'), published 16 February 2009, is a description of the electronic outsourcing trend and of some economic problems created by that trend. In general, the article (posted by blogger Ann All, a business reporter specializing in ATMs and editor of ATMmarketplace.com), is pretty much without significance today in 2011. Yesterday's news. "Everybody knows."
"No easy answers"? Okay. What about proposals for difficult or challenging solutions? That's where Walter A. Nodelman comes in. Nodelman suggests a bit tax -- one bit (one eighth) of 1¢ on each electronic bit as it enters or leaves U.S. jurisdiction or, as Nodelman puts it, 1¢ per byte.
Nodelman also proposes unilateral withdrawal from all the FTAs. That's a little puzzling to me, because I would have thought that an advantage of the Nodelman tax would be that it could be conforming to WTO standards. Yes, it would probably involve defending ourselves in what passes for 'litigation' in the WTO quasi-judicial system, but the beauty of the idea is that there is no doubt that the federal government has the authority to tax electronic communication across our borders.
Nodelman's idea is similar to the concept of a 15% Across-the-Board Tariff justified as a charge for using U.S. ports (including air and land ports of entry) to access the U.S. infrastructure. IMO, these charges (fees, taxes, tariffs) are not ipso facto irreconcilable with WTO standards. If they are, then the USA is hardly the only nation in contempt of the WTO system.
The reason this these charges (fees, taxes, tariffs) could be allowable is that the charge is equitably applied across the board. In the case of a charge for port use, that would be imposed even when US products are reimported into the US, so there is no discrimination based on country of origin. Similarly, Nodelman's bit or byte tax is a charge levied to pay expenses involved in maintaining electronic communications systems within the USA.
The concept is similar to charges that many nations with medical systems or medical insurance (open to all) charge or have charged immigrants. No one has suggested that such charges are contrary to globalism, although they would never be allowed in the EU, which requires an adequate medical care safety net for any country that applies for EU membership. (The systems vary greatly but must meet EU standards, and the same is true for labor standards.)
The objection that Robert Oak raises to all such plans is that they would inevitably involve us in trade wars that would increase the price of petroleum imported into the US economy -- which would tank US domestic producers. However, Robert Oak thinks that we could get away with a Value Added Tax (VAT) scheme. It's amazing that Canada and many other nations have VAT, but for all we hear from our corporate media, we 'yanks' have never heard of the concept. Meanwhile, our effective at-border tax runs somewhere between 1% and 2%, whereas China is about 20%.
The question is this: Does our Congress -- not all of them, but enough of them to make the difference -- work for us or for our foreign competition?
WE (USA) NEED TRADE BARRIERS. TRADE BARRIERS ARE A NECESSARY PART OF ANY SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM OF GLOBAL COOPERATION.
The currency mercantilist system of international trade today is characterized by trade barriers. That's the game.
The now widely-acknowledged global Second Great Depression is proof that the WTO system of finance capitalism fosters social instability and is unsustainable.
Call it a 'recession' if you want. What it is!
BTW: There's a comment at the ITBusinessEdge.com article to KeepAmericaAtWork.com. It's faulty to me that organizations such as KeepAmericaAtWork while exposing the problems, fail to make any use whatsoever of words 'tariff' or 'VAT'. What's the point? Sometimes what isn't mentioned reveals more than what is loudly proclaimed.
Nodelman's tax is almost unimaginable because of the amount of the tax revenues, running probably into $$$ gazillions. However, I agree that criticism or condemnation of outsourcing and off-shoring, without specific reform proposals, is useless.
Yes, we do as a nation have the means to solve our problems. But our solutions will impact other nations -- if we ever get around to effectively demanding government in our own enlightened self-interest.
Scroll on down and check out the comments on joint ventures.
Let's face it, this is the war between the radical religious right donors and the multinational corporate, military-industrial complex class. Assuredly not an election for little ole' American citizens.
Someone needs to break ranks, tradition and run against Obama in the Democratic primary. Alternatively, someone who can get the funding of the few super rich left with a conscience, to run as an independent. To run as an independent means they have to get on the ballot in all 50 states and that is wrought with political lockdowns so an ind. cannot get on the ballot. Ask Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan about that one.
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