You shouldn't read this, as it is not about the primaries- and it is not a light read

[Fovea]

Taxes, Tariffs, and the world as it is and will be.

There comes a time in the course of affairs that a long standing paradigm fails, often suddenly, and is supplanted by a new order. We have reached such a time. What are we doing now regarding our economy as a part of the world economy, and what needs to be done for the future?

The common wisdom is that tariffs are a bad thing, taxes are a bad thing, and government should be weak. Trade would control the policies and governance would support trade. Somehow, structural matters would be resolved by the market's invisible hand. The practical effect of this philosophy is to create corporate entities that are not only citizens, but almost deified in their power. The other practical effect is that a government that has been corrupted by the money and power that corporate cooperation supplies will not suddenly act in an ethical fashion in all other situations. Indeed, we have reached a point where the guardians of the public sphere are more likely than not to tell you that the public sphere is better off in private hands, under the barrel of a privately owned gunman.

We need to re-populate the public trust with people who actually believe that there is such a thing as a public trust. We must re-think and recapitalize government/infrastructure. Taxes and Tariffs both provide methods to achieve this and change the nature
of the world economy to a more sustainable, more rational topology.

Structurally, globalism is doomed, at least in its current form. The flow of goods from producer nations to consumer nations will diminish as the cost of transportation increases and the standard of living rises in the producer nations. Movable Services such as IT and call centers will not be affected as much, due to the nature of their products and their immunity from transport prices.

Remember that my fundamental theory is that our society has reached and exceeded a point of diminishing return regarding worker productivity. We are now so productive that we need not hire workers, which is good, because suddenly, mysteriously, there is no market for our goods. Inefficiency in production and a social service structure that fully supports basic needs act as an anchor against the upward concentration in capital. Tariffs act directly to compensate the harmful aspects of trade. There are better ways to ensure peace than excessively enmeshing the economies of producer nations to consumer nations.

The financial, legal, and physical elements of globalism must be brought under control because they have already begun to predate on the collapsing system they built. For example, Enron's energy marketers in California in 2000 express the true nature of 'savage capitalism'. Global captialism as a defining concept for the world has always had an iron fist in its velvet glove. The economic hit men of disaster capitalism have started to resemble the SS whose
ideological fervor is matched by ruthlessness.

Globalism allows economic and environmental detrimental effects to concentrate in prismatic producer nations whose savage productivity then inspires anti-middle class, anti-worker policies that drag diffracted consumer nations *back* into the prismatic conditions we usually consider the exclusive province of 'developing nations' and totalitarian despotisms. They result in an individual of diminished involvment in public life, a waxy consumer, disaffected with government and a cynical trader in the cash nexus.

Tariffs should be employed to stimulate domestic production. Value added economies have greater stability and vitality. Remember, our future role will not to increase growth, but manage contraction of the planet's human footprint to survivable levels while producing the goods and services that support a quality human experience. Goods that are legitimately immune to tariffs are those that are not economically producible be American agriculture or fabrication technique. Every other good should be subject to a tariff that offsets the tax revenue and local economic velocity of in-sourcing.

Taxes as a domestic halt on excessive capital concentration is black letter economics. We need a return the the tax curve of Harry Truman.
A much more complex argument could be made for this, but it is really self evident at this point.

To paraphrase a famous Neo-con, and corporatist pin up boy, we need to weaken globalism to the point where we can drown it in a bathtub. We need a big government at the local level. We need to start building a 21st century carbon light infrastructure at a furious rate. Public transportation and public health care will result in a steady econmic engine and governor for the middle class driven economy.

Taxes and Tariffs were instituted as a revenue source and a set of controls on capitalism. Those had to be de-activated to allow globalism to triumph. We have abrogated those mechanisms by treaty and through political propaganda.

That must end.

[CK_John]

1. OK, I didn't. n/t

[Fovea]

3. But at least you got to spend a moment in a candidate free zone

and surely that is worth something?

[OwnedByFerrets]

2. K & R