A chink in the wall:
Of course I find the ECONOMIST delightful as well as valuable. You cannot help having noticed that I quote it repeatedly. Their editorial position is and has always been, “Nothing must restrict the free movement of goods, services, capital or people. This will optimize money made.” One does not look to them to see a fair and independent assessment of anything. Their pitch is slanted absolutely always.
Of course this plays right into the hands of the super rich, who are in a position to benefit from things like globalization. I can make toy puppets and sell them locally, but if the market turns out to be substantial there will soon be a container full of better puppets coming from some place where the cost of living is far below what it is here. This benefits consumers unless one recons that the local product is slightly more appealing to them. But the real windfall goes to the business person who ruined me.
It is a matter of scorn and hissing how the people who have the power in corporate America pay themselves enormous amounts. Over the past ten or so years the value of stocks has not increased at all. Bonds have yielded regular returns, because after all one has to have some money available in order to do business. Stocks may be overvalued, but not that overvalued. So far as I can see it, the entire profit of the American commercial enterprise has been pocketed by the bosses. Maybe I’m wrong, but don’t look to my favorite economics publication to give a fair opinion. That simply is not their interest, and they are quite happy to say as much.
So in a manner of speaking the publication is my favorite enemy. Of course they are always on the side of migration for economic purposes. And if someone objects that this is altering the local scene, they are quick to point out that immigrants make a society more “vibrant.”
But they slipped a gear tooth. Of course they are all in favor of the “Arab Spring,” or anything else that might increase the reach of western ways they celebrate. I am ill at ease with our escapade in Libya. I am always opposed to wars, not in grand principle perhaps, but in detail. Our mission in Libya was to “protect civilians,” but there was not great soul searching the day it turned out that atrocities were being committed on the rebel side as well as the loyalist side.
Many of us will not be surprised if Libya turns into the kind of nightmare we have created elsewhere. Not so, says my eager journalist. (Going, going, gone ECONOMIST vol. 400 no. 8746 August 27, 2011 page 11) There are, say they, no great cultural divisions in Libya. The place is reasonably homogenous. Therefore things should turn out well.
One must wonder whether they read their own stuff. What happened to “vibrant”?
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