EU: Radical Populism, Macroeconomics, Democracy

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

	-- I would urge ... all participants [here] to reflect
	on how we integrate nationalism, security issues , and
	macro-economics into a progressive understanding
	of Europe [and, impliedly, the news one finds at the
	Europa website   http://europa.eu.int/index-en.htm   ] --
	                        Writes Terence Murphy, today.

	Terence is supported in his views of radical populism
	in Europe by similar concerns in the USA for the
	populism of Pat Buchanan and the forces on his right
	that are lunatic and dangerous.

	So I will be content to read here the integrated
	discussion Terence invites.  In seeking, even
	demanding, macroeconomic reform, in the context
	of a democratic mixed economy, we must make
	common cause with the center and avoid counter-
	productive attacks on its imperfections:

	               The major fault with the center is not its
	embrace of bourgeois values and comforts, it is its
	avoidance of Keynesian macroeconomic views on
	full employment and governmental responsibility to
	protect individuals from rough market outcomes and
	markets from self-destructing.

	The beginning of emotional attachment to a wider
	world, (than ethnic hatreds will allow), that the euro
	may contribute to -- is "no small change".  It may be
	the most important element of the EU.  The industrial
	giants who draw our wrath fear their competition and
	their government's power to tax.  These fears create
	emotional barriers to our call for a mixed -- not an
	extremely neo-liberal economy.

	               Yet, a mixed economy offers the giants
	considerable protection from sweatshop competition.
	It evens offers government rescues, one after the other.

	               The fly in the oatmeal remains taxation.
	And the real problems remain inflation (and deflation),
	pollution, and high enough real output, (with the added
	portions of the pie distributed where needed to make
	a difference.)

	Let me ask this question:  Is there in this forum any
	knowledge of functional finance and how it might
	integrate the needs of giant firms, small business,
	and of individuals at work and in retirement?

	     o  A 35 hour work week -- yes for most people.
	     o  A guarantee of a job or self-employment -- yes.
	     o  Dues-free unions supported by a general turnover
	         tax -- [Is this one coming from out of nowhere?
	         Maybe.  It's most needed in the USA.]
	     o  Environmental industrial policy that moves massive
	         capital from the public treasury to the private sector
	         in ways imitative of the armaments economy.
	     o  Agricultural subsidies to favor family and cooperative
	         farming over agribusiness and destructive market
	         operations.
	     o  High enough minimum wages for mothers or fathers
	         to chose to be home with children.
	     o  A degree of managed trade between emerging
	         major regional markets -- euro, dollar, yen -- that
	         restrains giant firms and banks from pursuing profit
	         alone.
	              In return, stockholders would be permitted to
	         register their holdings in a regional trust pursuant
	         to regional central bank regulations, that protected
	         stockholders earned retirement, as it reduced their
	         freedom to pay management to operate without
	         regard to consequences.
	              [Where the hell did this one come from?
	         Look the euro IS a revolution.  It will succeed or
	         fail based on the courage and wits of the people it
	         serves.]
	     o  An end to taxes on income and wealth if savings
	         and turnover taxes can contain inflation.
	
	                   John Gelles