Saturday, March 06, 2004

Nader Posted here Saturday, March 06, 2004 at 6:41:36 PM     Overheard Here are a few more of the factors that "cost" Gore "his" election: 1) Of those Americans who bothered to vote, nearly half voted for Bush. 2) Gore ran an inept campaign, shunning Clinton's stained coat-tails and walking away from Ohio and other key states. 3) The outcome of the election was decided by a political coup to which our corrupt electoral system assented, rather than suffer too close an examination into its processes (which, like sausage-making, are best not observed by the weak at heart). 4) The American public complacently accepts a system which increasingly serves the interests of the wealthiest citizens and corporations. 5) The Two Party System prevented Nader from participating in the electoral process. Possibly if his views received a fair hearing, he might have, oh I don't know, WON? In the baseball of politics, the Two-Party System has bought the stadium, the broadcast rights, the teams, and the sponsors. Anyone who doesn't want to play baseball will be locked out. Like Nader, they will be scapegoated and vilified by those protecting their interests. Voting patterns show that the electorate is looking for something aside from this game, but the one-party state called the Two-Party System won't let anything else on the air. Nader only "spoiled" the election if you believe that the presidency belongs to the Two Party System. If you happen to believe in the quaint notion that the presidency belongs to the citizenry, then it was Nader whose candidacy was "spoiled." ********

Posted here Saturday, March 06, 2004 at 4:39:15 PM     You can see the problem: who benefits. The "consumer", not the earner, except in so far as they "earn" through owning capital. Now, a course on outsourcing: MIT shows the way S Rajagopalan Washington, March 2 http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_596032,001300460000.htm Outsourcing is here to stay. And the tacit acknowledgement comes from the redoubtable Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by starting a regular course on outsourcing at its famed Alfred P Sloan School of Management. Whatever the current political rhetoric, the course that got under way last week is turning out to be hugely popular with business executives and management students. All 55 seats were picked up within 24 hours of the announcement and there is now a long waiting list. It is the first course of its kind in the US, but more business schools are expected to follow suit soon enough. Students from Harvard, not wanting to be left out, have begun flocking to Sloan with requests to stand in the aisle and benefit from the guest lectures! As on the jobs front, the curriculum on outsourcing is not without its Indian connection. The course is the brainchild of two senior faculty members, one of whom is an Indian American. Dr Amar Gupta, a product of IIT Kanpur, has been on the MIT faculty for the last 25 years. "As managers, our MBAs will have to deal with outsourcing. But their own jobs could potentially be outsourced. So on several levels, students need to be able to think clearly and fully about this important issue," Gupta told the Hindustan Times from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The course, he says, will make students aware of both the positive and negative aspects of outsourcing. "We know the pain that comes with lost jobs, but people don't necessarily appreciate some of the benefits we get every day because of outsourcing." He talks of lower consumer prices and higher dividends because of the corporate turnaround due to outsourcing. ********

Infrastructure costs.. Posted here Saturday, March 06, 2004 at 4:22:24 PM     The cost of the war in Iraq, the war on terror, the patriotism act and homeland security, is very large. the question is, what is really being protected? The twin towers ere home to leading financial types whose backroom operations had move to new Jersey or New Delhi. The main propose in being "there" was for deal making, so those with the power could visit each other fast and in real time. The security costs have to be measured against the assets being protected. No one is attacking South Dakota or Idaho. A few years ago a book was published, Collapse of Complex Societies, by Joseph Taintor. The idea is that societies overspend on their infrastructure.The costs rise fater than overall preoductivity.And elites own the infrasructure companies (like Haliburton) and do not notice the over trend towards declining and eventually negative surpluses.   ********

Bush, capital and long term trends. Posted here Saturday, March 06, 2004 at 3:59:33 PM       http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0401.florida.html On the creative economy and why the repubs are losing it.   Bush is not a great supporter of entrepreneurialst capitalism, and the promise of technology. He is an old line traditionalist who supports oil, banking, and land interests.   Nevertheless, the decline in american prospects must go back to the rise of the rest of the world, american indolence, and bad balance of payments.   We did not do things we needed to, spending money when we had it on infrastructure.   We ruined it further by turning security (a slightly Kenesian approoach) into the centerpiece of american identity, rather than staying with the american promise.   What is important is to see that we are facing a long term treand, which we needed to go with graefully, rather than in cowboy machismo. The trend was already going on while the rich in the US were getting mush richer during the clinton years. Furhter back, Reagan and thatcher represented the turn towards capital and away from a welfare state.     ********