If you'd have to choose any politician outside your country

The gang aspect is an overatted problem indigenous to Rio. The wealth divide is, indeed, one of the widest on earth. I've seen houses made of sticks leaning up against the walls to a huge mansion. And as usual the stark contrast to he realities first worlders know makes these factors eclipse the more relative factors.

The first time I saw Brazil I was too young to remember any third world country I had previously lived in and the poverty was adepessing shock. The factors that were less relevant at the time was that since Argentina's decline Brazil was well of as far as the rest of South America is concerned. Brazil is consistently among the worlds largest economies and if there were a "2nd world" Brazil would have claim to candidacy.

Fernando Enrique Cardoso did much to move Brazil toward a part with it's past.



The chasm had not really increased, and though not enough was done to decrease it the bottom line is that the economic stability was a herculean feat. The stability would have eventually trickled down but the masses were hurt by something inevitable (the restructuring of a nation's economy).

In the past Brazil had corrected inflation's effect on the public by padding savings accounts. This practice accelerated hyperinflation to ridiculous levels (e.g. I went to buy wine in the morning, wanted more in the afternoon and it was a different price). To ease the suffering of the masses their savings accounts were corrected by the inflation index. This had the effect of dilluting the currency even further and Brazil was stuck in a cycle inw hich inflation would lead to endless currency change. The cruzeiro, crusado etc. The bills would start around a dollar's level and then go into the thousands ( I have a couple 100,000 bills). The metal the coins were minted from were worth more than their stated value.

Time and time again new currency was tried. FHC made the changes Brazil needed. I noticed that I've said that a few times without being specific. I will detail them below.





An outsider might point at the wealth divide as the number one problem. As a former insider I point at the hyperinflation as the number one problem Brazil faced. Exacerbated by a decline in the quality of public education Brazil's economy was the impediment to full employment. The lack of employment causes poverty.

Due to the hyperinflation and other red tape there is a phenomenon called "custo Brasil" (the cost of Brazil) this is an added cost of working in a country whose systems need an overhaul.

Cardoso did just that. In his two terms he:

A) Ended hyperinflation. I was in Brazil to see a few currency changes, and many zeros being crossed off useless bills. FHC ended this with the "Plano Real". That sole factor made him widely recognized as Brazil's greatest leader in its history (hey, the Democracy is young) at the time and his second term was won on this feat.

B) Modernized Brazilian markets. Brazilian markets desperately needed to advance. From sports to banking things needed to modernize. Brazil collects less that 50% of the tax it owes. The "custo Brasil" hurts everyone. FHC implemented changes in Banking that made it harder to launder money and cheat the government.

C) Opened Brazil's markets. Brazil had been protectionist and it's companies needed the international competition badly. I lived in Brazil 3 times and the last time looked like a different country than the first. Brazil's products had begun to improve in quality due to foreign investment and competition. Foreign investments were changing the face of Brazil.

D) Privatized dinosaurs. I know privatization is a tricky issue, in Brazil the masses think of it as selling the country. But the bottom line is that the privatization revamped manysegments of the society. The government employees were not motivated to excel because their jobs are pretty much guaranteed. The last time I was in Brazil the major telephone companies were made private and after initial difficulty the revolutionized the Brazilian telecommunications industry (making it one of the fastest growing in the world). The dinosaur companies that did not privatize are still plagued with inefficiency. Example: Petrobras is Brazil's #1 company, it's the state-owned oil company. It's plagued with spills and inefficiency while Telefonica modernized São Paulo's telecommunications industry after taking over with Telesp's (state run) responsibilities. The result of this is seen online as Brazil's online use is growing very quickly.

FHC did this without neglecting humanitarian staples. The healthcare in Brazil gained worldwide respect. It was an example nation in the 3rd world. Their anti AIDS efforts have been lauded by everyone. Even America (Clinton) has to compliment them on this. The healthcare battle was hard fought. Cultural changes were attempted (quick e.g. is that Brazil is one of few countries in the world where condom use in pornography is the rule rather than the exception, this in a Catholic country is a feat and it is an integral part of the anti-AIDS campaign), and hard battles with 1st world corporations were won.

While the discontent with the recent global economic downturn made people forget the progress and caused discontent it's not fair to portray the electoral campaign and the "people's president" versus the eltist.

FHC bucked the US corporations in issues such as generic medicine. Brazil wanted to treat its AIDS patients and could not afford the premium that pharmaceutical companies were charging

The US contested this in the WTC but backed down because of the poor PR it got. I really must stop, FHC did very little wrong in my estimation. One of the things he did do wrong was when he was unpegging the real in 97-98. Unpegging from the dollar was gonna be tricky. The Real was overvalued and investors knew it. but since simple folk would only care about the inflation that would result from unpegging FHC held on till after the elections, and afterward instead of a controlled devaluation the fluctuating currency bobbed and scared skittish investors.

Brazil's economic stability was very young and capital was withdrawn in droves. It eventually stabilized.

BTW, the unpegging is another of FHC's feats. Look at the way Argentina unpegged.




Yes no experience governing. He had rhetoric but never a mandate.




I like to think he's at least sane enough to have curbed his rhetoric in part because he learned something but he also pulled a campaign makeover. While campaigning he courted the people who were dethly afraid of him. He wa smart enough to focus on small businesses (they are the most "mass" of the business market) and with tehir support seem to be at peace with teh business community (which he wasn't).



Not too soon to know, the mere fact that he was popular in polls made Brazil's economy shudder. Capital fled the country (remember, he had advocated appropriation by the state of some private enterprises in the past). Brazil's economy was already hurting in the circa 9/11 economic downturn. With the prospact of his election the exchange rate suffered. FHC had held national inflation down well since unpegging the Real from the dollar but Lula was scaring Brazil. With inflation showing its ugly head every now and then Lula campaigned off of it. If the price of bread went up (due to his risein popularity) he would use it to campaign against the incumbent party.

FHC could not be elected 92 term limit) his party did not have anyone with carisma. But Brazil's business community knew what they had done. The economic downturn made the masses forget what FHC's administration had wrought and through dissatisfaction good ole South American sentiments of revolution made people want change.

They really thought Lula would make a Brazil by the people and for the people. Little has changed. His vehement opposition to America's will in South America will have to be put on the back burner because Brazil had already signed up for the idea of the economic bloc (he calls it America buying Brazil).

Brazil was at a shaky stage in which everything had to go right to succed and continue the transition. He was the wrong thing at the wrong time. He brought back economic instability and his reputation alone is so bad for business that it is, in itself, a thing gone wrong. And I was serious about them needing everythingt o go ight. They need the starts to align right now to continue their pace toward the 1st world.




He is not able to implement his past rhetoric, it was mostly illegal. His past rhetoric has, however, hurt Brazil's risk accessment and it's foreign investment due to concerns about hs stability.

Re his party it would be considered Communist in America without actually being so. The PT (Partido Trabalhista or Worker's Party) used to be a radical opposition party. But they started to gain political positions and could no longer campaign as revolutionary oppositionists. They had power so they had to come up with solutions rather than complain about problems.

He was long considered by most (including masses) Brazilians to be too "out there" to be president. He was always the third wheel when he ran, he'd make a lot of noise but nobody ever treated him seriously. By curbing his insanity a bit he managed to paint himself as the solution and though he is not able to implement anything that he always talked about the memory of his crazy ideas and rhetoric was enough to play catalyst to a serious tremor in Brazil's economy.

His social programs are well intended (one of them gained America's praise and America only praises really practical social programs in South America these days) but economic health is what is needed to really help the Brazilian people. FHC made great strides and right when he could not be elected anymore due to term limits and when Brazil's economy was suffering transitional tremors (complicated by global economic downturn and the economic contagion from Argentina's meltdown) Lula came along to undo much of the progress both ideological and in "facts on the ground".

The previous government managed to wrangle a promise from him that he would not default on the loans Brazil needed. But the fear taht Brazil will end up as an Argentina in his hands had already set them back many years ad their credit rating is shaky.

I predict that though he has the potential for a disaster he won't rock the boat too much. But his tenure will be a break from the previous progress and it might not start up again.

Brazil's baby steps were a feat, that the walk ended is sad. And due to Lula's risk factor. My baby busniess died and my money's value went to pot so I left, many others sent their money elsehwhere (depriving Brazil of more capital) and the poor man will get it in the end. He will feel the economic downturn more so than the rich.

I'd also like to add Kofi Annan as another recent fella.

Since the UN is being cruxified he may not be popular but he is a fantastic leader who has no say in how UN nations vote anyway (so despite what you think about the UN he can still be evaluated as a separate entity).

What an interesting thread!

I agree that Walensa is a truly tragic figure....and Mandela a triumphant one, in despite of so much tragedy and horror - I have few illusions about South Africa, having had so many connections in my life to the African National Congress.


Craven - I have read with great interest your explication of the policies of Lula - I am still digesting your very intimate point of view, which is a fuller story than I have ever heard from you before - especially in relation to your business. My question is, do you think this is Lula's "insanity" that has had this effect, or do you think that it is the reaction of the dominant religion of economic rationalism that has crafted this effect?

First off, if I could have any politician outside my country, I'd gladly volunteer Mr. Bush for exile.

Secondly, Mahatma Ghandi

... going waaaaay off-topic ...
Craven, thank you very much for your extensive explanation. There's a lot of information in there, which I always love in a post.

Your point about economic stability as what should be, say, the holy grail of Latin American politics gets across loud and clear. With the chaos going on in Argentine I can imagine the strong apprehension you feel about anyone who might rock the boat. Especially if the threat of it alone has cost you your business - that must have been very hurtful.

What you write about the successes of FHC and the subsequent electoral move to the left seems a fairly common, and not wholly illogical course of events, though. From what I gather FHC was intensely successful in curbing inflation, modernizing the economy and thus halting a slide downward, and I'm sure he made himself popular on those terms. But from your description I also gather that the all-out focus on economic stabilisation seems to have justified a provisional postponement of tackling poverty and social policy. Not saying that was wrong - you have to get the fundaments done if you want to start building, after all - just noting that it was apparently the case. You already pointed out that the chasm between the very rich and the masses of poor at the very least did not decrease; and that, pending an eventual trickling down of the effects of stability, the masses were actually hurt by the economy's restructuring. The privatisation of state businesses must have caused a boost in unemployment, for example. Is it too far off if I posit that, for the majority still below the burgeoning middle classes, the advantage of ceased hyperinflation was counterbalanced to a large extent by these costs of restructuring?

Now I can well imagine that, if the numerical majority of the population has seen the economy overall stabilise, but also seen how it hasnt decreased their actual poverty - i.e., that there wasnt much trickling down all the way to their level yet - that they looked at the stablised economy and said, say: "OK, that's done - that means we finally have a chance to tackle the problems we're coping with every day - and if the right doesnt seem all too bold about it, we'll opt for the left, instead - we can afford to, now".

I say this merely because, contrary to theories of Verelendung, the left actually often gets into power when the economy's started to do better - people get impatient about the disregard the macro-economic doctors might seem to show for the affairs that determine their day-to-day plight, say. All you need then is a leftist alternative who appears reasonable enough to trust that he won't wholly **** up the economic stability part. As you say, Lula does seem to have come a long way in at least cleaning up his image, and would thus have seemed to come to offer such an alternative.

And to what extent has he shamed this trust, as you had seemed to suggest before? You mention several times the tremors in the market his mere appearance has caused. This however doesnt say anything about his actual current policies, though. It says something about the notoriety his past rhetorics might have caused; it also says something about the apprehension, perhaps even prejudice, with which the business classes will look to any leftist leader - especially in a country where the class difference is so much one of entrenched cultures, too. For one, business leaders never like social-democrats; the market will always tremble when one gets elected. That in itself should never be reason not to vote one in - we might just have additional priorities to those of the stock brokers, that we might well be justified in considering overriding. Secondly, it is an experiment - after all, an elected leftist president is something Brazil's never seen before, I believe - and businessmen don't like experiments. Doesnt mean we should never embark on one.

I go on a little too much about that, perhaps, because it struck me in your post that apparently, no catastrophical moves by Lula-the-President are apparent yet. He hasn't defaulted on the debts. He apparently kept his social programs sensible, even acquiring American praise. His party has "had to come up with solutions rather than complain about problems". As you say, he won't "rock the boat too much". All he's done wrong so far, summarising your post, is his mere appearance having the psychological effect on the nation's investors it did - but that says as much about them as about him, I'd submit. Those investors spoke of him as if he were Chavez - but have any of his actual policies had anything like the predicted destabilising effects? Who knows - this leftist might just still become a more 'stable' factor than his "rationalist" rightist counterparts in Argentine ever were ...

I guess the dilemma is that, where you write:



people feel that they do need and deserve both - and Lula made them believe the combination is possible. I don't know enough about Lula, but I'd agree it would be. Anyone seen to be neglecting one at the cost of another is bound to be voted out in the end, and rightly so, I'd say.

<grins>



I'd have Ghandi as president, too - but he's dead, I think ;-)

Kofi Annan, Ghandi, Mandela, Walesa, Lula ...

do you guys have the distinct impression that if any of those guys would turn up in an actual presidential race in the US, he'd cause an instant 'red scare', too?

that's interesting ... this choice of lofty ideals from abroad when in practice at home the vote goes for the much more pragmatical-conservative type ...

Next up, someone will mention the Dalai Lama :-D

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=114

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=437

Re: ... going waaaaay off-topic ...


Not "might rock the boat". 1.70s-3.70s is not a possibility it's a shift in reality.



I didn't say that. FHC did as much if not more than Lula has with social programs.




A) Lula has not narrowed the chasm

B) the restructuring didn't hurt the poor half as much as the plummeting exchange rate did. The plummeting exchange rate was due to Lula's reputation



It didn't. It had the opposite effect due to foreign capital.




Yes



This isn't a right-left issue. FHC is FAR from right. This is a centrist versus a lunatic issue.



I disagree. I consider the fall Brazil took catastrophic. I consider the setback to progress and the stangnation catastropic.




I was unclear. His party had to stop whining but they have not proposed any viable solutions.



His statements far exceed Chavez's in extremity and stupidity.



He hasn't done anything yet. Good or bad or neutral. He is enjoying the office while the economy stagnates.




Once again, after the nation's currency devalues that much who cares about stability?

Once the capital has fled who cares what he does unless it returns?



Once again, Lula did not do any more in way of social programs than did FHC.

Thus far he has continued FHC's programs and merely talked about his own while destroying the economy.

Negative excerpts but what I aim to illustrate is that Lula's programs have not delivered and that he is still a question mark for businesses. The economy is still hurting while they figure out who he plans to be. The unconventional "people's president" or someone who listens to sane advisors.

Even worse is that Lula's gave power to a party that is even crazier than he:

Interesting thread development.

I would like to add my 2 cents.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso is the first half of Cardoso-Faletto, authors of a classic sociological book "Dependency and Development in Latin America".
That's a book I read at College, when I was a Marxist. Part of the radical bibliography.

Cardoso is FAR from the right. Craven is correct.
But he is man with common sense. You cannot just say "the hell with reality" if reality puts boundaries on what you can do.

Hyperinflation is hell. Craven is correct.
Brazil's and Argentina's inflations are the source for many jokes in the region.
(An old one: Hell is the place where the cook is British, the cop is German, the journalist is Soviet, the cabdriver is Indian and the currency is Brazilian)
Hyperinflations means there is no "social pact" about wealth distribution; everyone is for himself and God is against everyone -specially if you are a wage earner-; employment is destroyed and so are institutions. Look at the Weimar Republic and what came after.

I think the problem with Brazil is precisely the lack of sound political institutions. Governors are all-powerful. Politicians change parties as often as their clothes.
IT has also one of the worst income distributions in the world. A brilliant Brazilian economist, Edmar Bacha, described it as "Belindia": Belgium and India put together.

The Workers Party is originally Maoist. It has come a long way from its origins and is now some kind of a left-wing mosaic (left wing in the Latin American terms, where European Socialdemocrats are considered centrist and US Democrats are considered right-of-center).
I truly hope Lula will be able to deliver. At least that he will not deliver chaos.
I am a bit more optimistic than Craven, but he lived there in Brazil, and knows more about it. And I trust his opinions.

Very good point about the quicksand politics. With 16 parties holding positions of power, and with the musical chairs that is Brazilian politics (hey, the democracy is young) the political stability is a rare treasure.

The issue of governors is also interesting. Before FHC the states were allowed to spend with little restriction and the Federal government picked up the tab. This is the kind of stupidity that FHC sought to end and with fiscal responsibility gain the trust of foreign investors.

During FHC's last term a state governor challenged FHC and threatened to default on Minas Gerais' debt.

This relatively minor issue hurt the Brazilian economy. The political stability of FHC's two terms coupled with FHC's smart moves (his administration guy with the finger on the interest rate was comparable to Greenspan in talent) was the spark of hope. Pre FHC Brazil differs from post FHC Brazil visibly (i.e. you can tell the difference from a video).

The stability ended. The progress ended and now they'll have to wait. This isn't really a political or social rift. The damage was done on an international level. Foreign investors who are not partisan were the ones who found Lula too extreme to be worth Brazil's risk. FHC would be a leftist in the US. Lula would be under surveilance. :-)

I am not flaming you - you've lived there, you are much more intimately aware of all the facts and nuances. I can't quite take you on your word on the more interpretative labels ("insane" and the like), and I think the facts you offer allow other conclusions, too - but I'm grateful for the sheer amount of info you have given us. And in many respects your predictons might well turn out right: there are so many ways in which he could bungle it all - pressure from the extreme left, bureaucracy and ineffectiveness, sheer vanity, corruption ... Updates are always welcome, though I guess I have subverted my own thread here. One thing that struck me was that the criticism from the extreme left in his party could also be said to plead for Lula, indicating to what extent he stuck his neck out in deciding not to renege on debt payments and the like.

I did want to pick up on one single fragment, as it still seems the main reproach against Lula your propose that he scared the investors off:

Foreign investors are not impartisan, nowhere. They are partisan in two ways.

One, their professional mission is exclusively about the interests of their businesses. Sometimes the interest of business and the country as a whole overlap, in overcoming hyperinflation, for example. But it's no equation. Every tax cut is good for business; not every tax cut is good for the country, or even for the economy. Some tax cuts have failed to reinvigorate the economy while still draining resources for education, healthcare and social services. Only the most far-sighted investors note that in the end, underbudgetting for education is to their disadvantage as well: most "business analysts" will simply decry every postponement of more tax cuts. Environmental regulation measures are good for the country as a whole, but not one business analyst welcomes them, and the very reason many investors have shifted capital from the North to Latin-America or Asia is because life's still easy for them in that respect.

Two, even investors are only human. They, too, can be prejudiced, think in stereotyped formats. Within limits, of course - should they be too prejudiced it would impact their business decisions and hurt their wallets, so it's curbed in that way - but I've read many an interview in which a banker or industrialist spouted the coarsest prejudices. Finally, sometimes investors just get it wrong. Asian Tigers. Dotcom. They do tend in increasing measure to rush to and fro in hype-like enthusiasms and hysterias. That just to remind us that it might not be necessarily wise to take the judgement of foreign investors as the be all and end all of the truth.

nimh

Thanks for your thoughtful and temperate remarks re investors/businessmen.

I agree, NIMH - that was the point of my question to Craven.

That's why I linked to previously posted news articles when deb asked me her question. My opinion is irrelevant. The fact that this is a widely shared opinion is relevant since the prevalence of this opinion is, in itself, a differentiating factor.




I agree, he's not a bad person. I think he will try to do what's right. His limitations are his past, his party, and his intellect.



Partial does not mean partisan, my point was that Brazil is not a politically polarized country. I did not meet a single person in Brazil who claimed to support a specific political party (not a single person, nobody says "I support this party or that party"). The Brazilians often can't remember the names of the parties (they are usually acronyms) so foreigners are even less likely to have a partisan opinion.

This does not mean they are impartial. Just that this is not a partisan conflict for the sake of partisanship. Businesses have a decided interest in the outcome of elections. But not because they care about the politics, they just acre about the results.

It's a no-brainer to say that businesses can be wrong. In the case of Lula their fears are exagerrated. In most cases 1st world businesses overestimate third world risk.

But whether they are right or wrong is absolutely pointless. It simply does not matter.

It's like saying a judge can be wrong when he sentences you to death. True but the relevant factor is that you are scheduled to die. Once you are executed the relevant factor to you is that you are dead. Whether it was just or not means nothing to you at the time.

Whether the business people are right or wrong they have pulled their capital. This hurts Brazil.

I'm not here to argue whether they were right or wrong, the fact that Lula's candidacy and election devastated Brazil is fact. Right or wrong is a nice notion that has nothing to do with facts on the ground in this case.


BTW, if you want me to split the Lula discussion to a new thread let me know.

Split would be nice, Craven.

(I'm still thinking of a foreign politician to choose, and having trouble finding one).

'S just cause the stories I read from Dutch correspondents in Brazil (there's one who does a regular feature from Rio) had quite a different perspective ... of course, they'd be looking at it with "Dutch" (ie, West-European) eyes, tho. So, anyway, I was simply trying to indicate that I appreciated the info you provided, about the valid concerns you had raised that are echoed in the quotes you pasted in here - I can certainly see them; will just consider the characterisations of the "insane" and "stupid" kind, which I don't see echoed in those news snippets at all, more of a matter of opinion instead. No less valid as a personal opinion, but not necessarily more true because of the sheer fact of the opiner living there.

But nebbermind. I really am not pro-Lula or even knowledgeable enough about the issue to go onto the barricades about it, and I certainly never meant to offend you. I thought we were having a valuable enough discussion, but apparently its just about me "just not wanting to see it", or something. <shrugs>

Wholly apart from the Lula issue, though still not quite on-topic, is another question you raise, though, which I think is crucial and rather disturbing in its implications for us all. It's like you write:



I mean, that's absolutely true. But frightening in its consequences. Back in the days of national economies, if some radical became PM, a few millionaires would cross the border into a tax haven - and that was it. I mean - he might still, err, "adversely influence" the economy with his actual policies, but not because capital could be boomed in or zipped out at the moment's political shock of his mere appearance (just to give it some rhetoric flourish).

Now, should you be the kind of voter - and again I'm not talking Brazil anymore here (but overall it does probably hold true in particular for developing countries) - who wouldnt mind a bit of a drastic shift from the neo-liberal standard, you're faced with two choices: go with your convictions and vote in the man who propagates that shift, but know that the investors will react by letting the guillotine blade of the market fall down on your country and make him unable to do anything anymore; or "adapt to reality" and vote in the man who doesnt even want to effect that shift. You can't win. At the bottom line, it's the principle of democracy subverted: you've just been robbed of the possibility to freely choose what course you would like the country to take. Anything the majority might like to happen will already in advance have to be adapted to what a certain minority considers right.

Well, thats great for the concept of minority rights, of course. And I just almost arrived at some vulgar marxist notion about how liberal democracy wont really allow you to change anything, and therefore the overthrow of the system itself is the only real choice - didnt I? <grins>

One for the "discontents of globalisation" thread that should have been started up somewhere around here a week or so ago, anyway ;-).

And with that, I'm back on topic again, too, I hope

Putin comes to mind, but his Chechen debacle is less to be desired. Much less, his gassing of the theater, maybe it was true that that was their last resort - but I have to believe that even if they had stormed the theater, it would have been better.

His political posturing is good and the people support him - he would be better than Bush and if he had money and a military, damnit - that throws him out again.

NIMH - I share your concerns about the enormous globalization and swift-movingness of capital.

It is fashionable in some parts of the left to see the results of this as a vast conspiracy - but I think, as Craven says, that they just respond to reality as they see it - which is, as you say, a very non-impartial and actually, I think, very emotional view - I see the movements of the market and, often, of international capital, as mimicking the motion of herds of skittish antelope or darting schools of fish - often starting at shadows.

Craven says it IS reality - and so it is - but a lot of this "reality" is created in the context of a herd mentality - or so I think - though I do not deny that there are conditions that go well generally for capitalists, and that some of their reaction is perfectly rational if they consider their own financial interests as paramount. Which they do.

Part of the problem, as I see it (with NO pretensions to understanding economics, I assure you!) is that, prior to the rise of the seriously supra-national financial system, many countries had developed a series of checks and balances on the power of capital - so that there was some balancing in the equation. With money being moved in and out of economies at the rate it is today, and with money having no loyalty to any country, I see no real force to balance the power of capital - especially for poor countries or countries with small economies - who must dance to the tune of foreign investors, or be punished in the form of high interest rates for the money they have borrowed, or the flight of momey from their economies - thus fulfilling the very prophecies that made the skittish herd run in the first place., and causing them to run harder and faster next time.

Craven - even you acknowledge that Lula is not so "insane" as the big money paints him - and while I get your point about this being "reality" whatever one likes to say about it - I think it is important to actually maintain a POV separate from that of global capital by which one can judge it, critique its effects and begin to think of ways to ameliorate some of the most negative ones.

There IS rising a new (old) way of thinking about all this - looking at social capital, critiquing the holy commandments of low tax, small public sector, "trickle-down" (been waiting for a ferking long time to see THAT - what I see is trickle-up!), untramelled markets etc etc.

My country has faithfully followed all the holy writ of economic rationalism - what has happened? Huge rise in people living below the poverty line - no observable trickle down - hollowing out of middle class - much longer hours and poorer working conditions for those in work - larger pool of unemployed - slightly bigger, much richer rich - lousy services - loss of educational, scientific, health and infrastructure excellence - oh - but the ECONOMY is very well, thank you - doing better than most countries including the USA - it is just the country that is stuffed! I also SEE the results of the erosion in supports for families and parenting - and it is very scary - I have never seen such a lot of seriously stuffed kids as I am seeing these last few years. I think the economics are insane.

I recognize, as you do, that governments must operate within the real world - and not destroy their countries - but I would also hope that governments will slowly be challenging the current status quo in pursuit of better conditions for their people - and hence gradually making it harder for international money to play one economy off against another - or that SOME structures will be created to balance competing powers and interests.......and I would see maintaining an awareness separate from that of the market as being an important thing to do - particularly in what I see as the quasi-religious international money theocracy operating today!


Prolly just fitting wings to pigs, I guess...sigh...