For The Political Science Gurus - Video

[Black2003SS]

With some of the discussions beginning to form into political topics. I wanted to post a video we wtached in one of my Political Science courses in college recently. I found a full length free version on google videos. It deals with the economic collapse of Argentina and is just a glimpse of could possibly happen to the US. I ask is that you spend the 87 minutes this weekend and watch it with an open mind. The truly educated amongst will certainly be enlightened by the substance of the film. It does deal with some concepts like communism and anarchism, but more or less is geared towards the short comings of capitalism with corrupt machine politics. Please watch the documentary and then feel free to comment on it, but lets keep it civil. There is no swearing in the film and I would classify it as work safe. Some of the film is in subtitles.

 

 

The Take By Avi Lewis

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=81...lewis&hl=en

 

P.S. I have many more documentaries that I will post in the coming days for everyone to critique. Some will deal with slave labor in China and another will deal with Corporate Branding in a globalized economy.

[BlackSS04]

The economic collapse of Argentina is the latest failure of the one-size-fits-all model that the United States tries to impose on developing countries. Critics of this model are often attacked as protectionists, tools of special interest groups, anarchists, and worse. But in fact they include some of the world's most eminent economists.

The economic model that the United States exports, with the International Monetary Fund in the role of enforcer, works like this: Developing nations are supposed to open their economies wide to foreign investment - to allow their banks, public utilities, and anything else to be sold to the highest foreign bidder. They are to balance their budgets, restrict the role of government, discipline wages, and limit social outlays.

All of this is intended to subject the local economy to global competitive discipline and attract foreign private capital.

It sounds plausible, but there are several problems. For one thing, foreign investments are notoriously subject to fads and whims. Several otherwise sound economies in East Asia got into severe difficulty in the late 1990s after following the American recipe. Too much foreign capital poured in, and when the bubble burst, it poured right out again. The IMF then came in to shoot the wounded.

Another problem is that the United States is telling these countries: ''Do as I say, not as I do.'' When America was a developing nation in the 19th century, it had high tariffs to shelter infant industry. The government was heavily involved in economic development - everything from agriculture to radio to aircraft. The early Republic prohibited land purchases by foreign speculators.

And when our economy was in trouble in the 1930s, we ceased letting dollars trade freely, and we ran huge public deficits. The New Deal worked. If there had been an IMF, it would have blacklisted the country.

Argentina followed the IMF model more faithfully than almost any other nation. Its economy was opened wide; its peso was pegged to the dollar. For a few years this sparked an investment boom as foreigners bought most of the country's patrimony - its banks, phone companies, gas, water, electricity, railroads, airlines, airports, postal service, even its subways.

As long as this money came in, there were enough dollars to keep plenty of pesos in circulation. But the dollar-peso peg led to an overvalued currency, which killed Argentine exports. And once there was little more to sell off, the dollars ceased coming in, which pulled money out of local circulation.

As Argentina tanked, the IMF's austerity program pushed the economy further into collapse.

The American Prospect, the magazine I edit, recently devoted an issue to mainstream critics of globalization. The 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, Joseph E. Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank, observed that the countries that have benefited most from globalization have been those that controlled the terms of engagement. They benefited ''by taking advantage of the global market for exports and by closing the technology gap.''

Those that suffered were the ones like Argentina that were coerced into just leaving themselves vulnerable to forces beyond their control. ''The international financial institutions,'' Stiglitz wrote, ''have pushed a particular ideology - market fundamentalism - that is both bad economics and bad politics.... The IMF has pushed these economics policies without a broader vision of society ... and it has pushed those policies in ways that have undermined emerging democracies.''

In a companion piece, Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobelist in economics, lamented the fact that the current brand of globalization is ''much more concerned with expanding the domain of market relations than with, say, establishing democracy, expanding elementary education, or enhancing the social opportunities of society's underdogs.''

Sen's scholarly work demonstrates that many different ways of sharing benefits and burdens of economic growth are consistent with dynamic capitalism. But the current model, promoted by the United States and the IMF, is tilted to benefit investors often at the expense of ordinary people, particularly in the Third World. The countries that have had the highest growth rates, such as Korea and China, as Stiglitz shows, are precisely those that have resisted much of the IMF model.

These critics are not Seattle anarchists but Nobel Prize economists. Almost exactly four decades ago, John F. Kennedy, in announcing the Alliance for Progress, his new development policy for Latin America, pledged to ''make the world safe for diversity.'' The threat to diversity then was monolithic Soviet Communism. Today the threat is monolithic market fundamentalism. If the United States wants the world's support, much less its gratitude, it needs to let emerging economies follow their own paths.

[misterp]

... The New Deal worked. ...

My ass The New Deal worked - all but a couple of contemporary government economic issues can be traced directly to The New Deal. People just laud FDR, IMO he passed a bunch of legislation that benefitted his generation at the expense of ours 70+ years later. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, ungodly tax loads to pay for it all, the crushing inflation sound familiar? I freely admit I'm no economist but it doesn't take much education to see what all these major issues of today have in common (they're all born of The New Deal).

 

The New Deal didn't work, there was no way it could have - it was the massive spending required to prosecute WWII that pulled us out of the Great Depression, PERIOD. And it was America's industrial sole survivorship post-WWII that allowed the boom of the 50's and early 60's. FDR and his New Deal had almost nothing to do with mid-20th century prosperity, he/they were just making a political living telling people what they wanted to hear and totally improvising financial policy off the cuff as a consquence.

 

The other major bad guy was Nixon when he took us off the gold standard. We are in trouble. I do agree with Stiglitz, the economies doing best are those who refuse to just lay back and put out for the 1st world countries.

 

Mr. P.

[SS Silv]

Hang on, here we go

[Black2003SS]

Hang on, here we go

 

Oh its going to get better. I hope you of all people at least watched the video or plan to. This isn't meant to start political mud slinging, it is simply meant to invoke thought to possibly change a very troubled economy and provide a glimpse of legitimate alternatives to situations that plague this country, problems that are striking similar to the plight of the people of Argentina. I personally feel that there is a lot going in this country that needs to be addressed and I also feel that while there are still a lot of good people individually, they feel helpless and alone in their views even though they are not. It starts with a spark. And although I personally dont think any of this little discussion will change anything, its a start and perhaps just maybe some of you might understand that what we have in the United States is good, but it could be so much better.

[SS Silv]

Oh its going to get better. I hope you of all people at least watched the video or plan to. This isn't meant to start political mud slinging, it is simply meant to invoke thought to possibly change a very troubled economy and provide a glimpse of legitimate alternatives to situations that plague this country, problems that are striking similar to the plight of the people of Argentina. I personally feel that there is a lot going in this country that needs to be addressed and I also feel that while there are still a lot of good people individually, they feel helpless and alone in their views even though they are not. It starts with a spark. And although I personally dont think any of this little discussion will change anything, its a start and perhaps just maybe some of you might understand that what we have in the United States is good, but it could be so much better.

 

Dude, dicsussing politics on this forum gets old, especially when you are involved.

 

I am not a moderator but please read the site rules:

 

15. Please avoid discussing topics related to religion and POLITICS. However tempting it may be, these topics always get out of hand quickly and there are plenty of other websites where these topics can be discussed.

Edited August 23, 2008 by SS Silv (see edit history)

[Black2003SS]

Its gets old dealing with popcorn posts from uneducated or uninformed people as well.

 

Furthermore, nothing was getting out of hand until you decided to post something because of a perpetual fetish you have for me, hence the reason the rule is needed. There's no secret there is no love lost on your end in regards to me. Surprisingly, I have no hard feelings against you which confuses me as to why you have such an issue with me.

 

Mods: If you wish to delete this post, go right ahead. It certainly will not hurt my feelings.

Edited August 23, 2008 by Black2003SS (see edit history)

[brobradh77]

I feel there is no harm in politics i rarely care to read them because in the end ..politics is all a matter of opinion....I think its fine as long as people can refrain from mudslinging..if you dont like it dont open the thread IMO and i 99% will not...i dunno why i opened this but i did..lol..any way on another site there is good example of this with a now 17 page discussion about abortion being murder or not..now it doesnt get any more opinionated than a thread like that but excpet for the exception of one or 2 people the thread has been kept clean with respectful disagreements..in the end all can get his/hers point across on any matter with out stirring the pot..but unfortunatley thats the exception and not the case and therefor is why some forums pass rules about stuff like this/that and if there is indeed rules against it and from what i have seen there is then i guess rules are rules an should be followed/enforced.....maybe they need to be looked at?