Re: [TNF] Re: Voice of the people

["Gary Santos" <evs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Henry,

Then I agree and understand what you mean -- that those who can save, by
definition, leave the money idle -- necessarily, in government debt. And, if
these savings are not mobilized, consumption suffers, obviously. And, with
your statement that, "With money as state credit, capital formation through
savings is unnecessary, which makes capitalism unnecessary." Again,
obviously. But, how are credits to be spent? Politicians and corporations
will just waste and concentrate money. I am not a socialist but at the same
time the present system leaves much to be desired.

Gary



----- Original Message -----
From: "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Gary Santos" <evs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <TheNewForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
<a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [TNF] Re: Voice of the people


It goes without saying that income disparity is the main source of
savings. Low income earners do not save. They spend 100% of their income
  and still cannot make ends meet.

Hnery C.K. Liu

Gary Santos wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> " Savings drains consumption and are regressive because economic growth
implies
> inevitable overcapacity. Savings drains consumption and exacerbates
> overcapacity - the major curse of economic progress and growth.  Savings
are the
> prime cause of economic depression.  With money as state credit, capital
> formation through savings is unnecessary, which makes capitalism
unnecessary."
> --------------------------------
> I would rather attribute overcapacity to income distribution within a
country
> and internationally than to savings primarily. It is the increasing
disparity in
> wealth that exacerbates overcapacity even making it inevitable. Whether
money as
> state credit is a solution is another question.
>
> Gary
>
>
>
> John Gelles wrote:
>
>>Sanders, below is the voice of informed reason. But it
>>is not the voice of PKT or of the rest of the American
>>people.
>>
>>    No voice is raised that gets to the heart of the matter:
>>    How do you subsidize manufacturing and insist on a
>>    prosperous work force without examining exactly what
>>    it takes to pay for a property-owning free enterprise
>>    monetary system of production to work?
>>
>>    It takes money.
>>
>>Money circulating in the commercial economy is not
>>enough. Certainly taxing money out of that system
>>only makes things worse.
>>
>>The commercial for profit system concentrates wealth.
>>Then the tax system aggravates that concentration and
>>creates a concentration of political power to complement
>>concentrated wealth.
>>
>>    If we would keep freedom of enterprise and break the
>>    back of over-concentration of wealth and power we
>>    must free the nation's spending power from its direct
>>    dependence on the commercial private sector.
>>
>>    All our reforms are throttled because we pretend we
>>    don't have the money -- we never claim to lack the
>>    people or industrial capacity to put through the reform.
>>
>>Socialism is dead. But the answer to its death, that also
>>answers the contradictions within capitalist accounting
>>for earnings and wages, was proposed by Keynes --
>>
>>        It is government spending.
>>
>>Lerner continued the thought by noting that the limit to
>>government spending was production -- not taxation of
>> existing earnings or wealth.
>>
>>Keynes, Lerner, Liu and Sanders sounded the alarm.
>>Does PKT respond?   Please don't tell me it's
>>re-distribution of income -- when GROWTH of that
>>income and the production it must represent is by far
>>the highest priority; and opposition to green growth,
>>fueled by a rational monetary system of production
>>does not exist.  I hope you all know that a nation once
>>nailed to a cross of gold is today nailed to a stalemate
>>between opposing sides on whom to tax--as long as
>>you don't tax me.
>>
>>    John Gelles
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>To: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
>
> <TheNewForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>>Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 5:03 PM
>>Subject: Voice of the people
>>
>>
>>Statement of Congressman Sanders on 7/16/2003 regarding:
>>Congressman Sanders' Questioning of Federal Reserve
>>Chairman Greenspan
>>
>>The following is the transcript of Rep. Sanders' question-
>>and-answer period with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
>>Greenspan during Tuesday's Financial Services hearing.
>>
>>SANDERS: Thank you, Madam Chair.
>>
>>And, Mr. Greenspan, nice to see you again.
>>
>>Mr. Greenspan, I have long been concerned that you are
>>way out of touch with the needs of the middle class and
>>working families of our country, that you see your major
>>function in your position as the need to represent the
>>wealthy and large corporations.
>>
>>And I must tell you that your testimony today only
>>confirms all of my suspicions, and I urge you -- and
>>I mean this seriously, because you're an honest person,
>>I think you just don't know what's going on in the real
>>world...
>>
>>I would urge you come with me to Vermont, meet
>>real people. The country club and the cocktail parties
>>are not real America. The millionaires and billionaires
>>are the exception to the rule.
>>
>>You talk about an improving economy while we have
>>lost 3 million private sector jobs in the last two years,
>>long-term unemployment is more than tripled,
>>unemployment is higher than it's been since 1994.
>>
>>We have a $4 trillion national debt,
>>
>>        [HERE WE SEE THE GREAT DILEMMA:
>>          SANDERS TALKS FO NATIONAL DEBT
>>          AS THOUGH THE MONEY WE NEED
>>          TO ADDRESS OUR PROBLEMS CAN
>>          COME FROM REDUCED NATIONAL
>>          SPENDING. OR AS THOUGH TAXES TO
>>          FURTHER DRAIN THE PRIVATE SECTOR
>>          MAKE AS MUCH SENSE AS KEYNSIAN-
>>          LERNER TAX POLICY WOULD. SANDERS
>>          MAKES THE WHOLE POLITICAL CASE
>>          FOR REFORM FALL IN THE FACE OF
>>          AGE OLD SUSPICIONS THAT TAXES
>>          ARE NO FRIEND TO ANY VOTER.]
>>
>>1.4 million Americans have lost their health
>>insurance, millions of seniors can't afford
>>prescription drugs, middle-class families can't send
>>their kids to college because they don't have the
>>money to do that, bankruptcy cases have increased
>>by a record-breaking 23 percent, business investment
>>is at its lowest level in more than 50 years,
>>
>>        [BUSH's TAX CUTS ARE INTENDED TO
>>          HELP RAISE INVESTMENT. THEY FAIL
>>          IN THAT THEY DO NOT CUT TAXES
>>          ENOUGH FOR THE CONSUMERS WHO
>>          MUST SUPPORT INVESTMENT WITH
>>          CONSUMPTION. BUT BUSH's TAX CUTS
>>          DO HELP HALF THE PROBLEM -- THEY
>>          HELP MAKE POSSIBLE THE RISK TAKING
>>          UP FRONT INVESTMENT THAT IS MADE
>>          AHEAD OF THE TIME A BANKER CAN
>>          DISCOUNT EXPECTED FUTURE CASH
>>          FLOWS. SANDERS OUGHT TO HAVE
>>          THIS IN MIND -- EVEN IF HE LEAVES
>>          IT OUT OF THIS DIALOG.  DOES HE?
>>          DO WE ON PKT?]
>>
>>CEOs make more than 500 times of what their
>>workers make,
>>
>>        [HERE PKT, SANDERS AND I ARE ALL IN
>>          AGREEMENT: WORKER AND CONSUMER
>>          REPRESENTATION ON CORPORATE
>>          POLICY BOARDS OUGHT TO BE PART OF
>>          A REFORM AGENDA THAT ROLLED BACK
>>          TOP MANAGEMENT'S COMPENSATION TO
>>          A MULTIPLE OF WORKERS EARNINGS THAT
>>          CAN PASS A NATIONAL REFERENDUM--
>>          SOMETHING AROUND TEN OUGHT TO BE
>>          THE LIMIT IN FACT IF NOT THE LAW.]
>>
>>the middle class is shrinking, we have the greatest gap
>>between the rich and the poor of any industrialized
>>nation, and this is an economy that is improving.
>>I'd hate to see what would happen if our economy was
>>sinking.
>>
>>Now, today you may not have known this -- I suspect
>>that you don't -- but you have insulted tens of millions
>>of American workers.
>>
>>        You have defended over the years, among other
>>        things, the abolition of the minimum wage --
>>        ... and giving huge tax breaks to billionaires.
>>
>>        But today you have reached a new low, I think,
>>        by suggesting that manufacturing in America
>>        doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where the
>>        product is produced.
>>
>>        We've lost 2 million manufacturing jobs in the
>>        last two years alone; 10 percent of our work force.
>>        Wal-Mart has replaced General Motors as the
>>        [LARGEST] employer in America, paying people
>>        starvation wages rather than living wages, and all
>>        of that does not matter to you -- doesn't matter.
>>
>>        If it's produced in China where workers are making
>>        30 cents an hour, or produced in Vermont where
>>        workers can make 20 bucks an hour, it doesn't
>>        matter.
>>
>>You have told the American people that you support a
>>trade policy which is selling them out, which is only
>>working for the CEOs who can take our plants to China,
>>Mexico and India.
>>
>>You insulted Mr. Castle. Mr. Castle, a few moments ago
>>-- a good Republican -- told you that we're seeing not
>>only the decline of manufacturing jobs, but white-collar
>>information technology jobs.
>>
>>Forrester Research says that over the next 15 years, 3.3
>>million U.S. service industry jobs and $136 billion in
>>wages will move offshore to India, Russia, China and
>>the Philippines.
>>
>>Does any of this matter to you? ...[Have you no] nconcern
>>for the middle class and working families of this country?
>>That's my question.
>>
>>GREENSPAN: Congressman, we have the highest standard
>>of living in the world.
>>
>>SANDERS: No, we do not. You go to Scandinavia, and you
>>will find that people have a much higher standard of living,
>>in terms of education, health care and decent paying jobs.
>>Wrong, Mister.
>>
>>GREENSPAN: May I answer your question?
>>
>>SANDERS: You sure may.
>>
>>GREENSPAN: Thank you.
>>
>>For a major industrial country, we have created the most
>>advanced technologies, the highest standard of living for
>>a country of our size. Our economic growth is crucial to
>>us. The incomes, the purchasing power of our employees,
>>our workers, our people are, by far, more important than
>>what it is we produce.
>>
>>        [HERE, OF COURSE, GREENSPAN IS NUTS.
>>          AND ANYONE WHO WILL SAY THIS CRAZY
>>          STUFF OUT LOUD PLAYS INTO THE HANDS
>>          OF REFORMERS -- IT IS THE BEST AMMUNI-
>>         TION I'VE SEEN IN MANY A YEAR.]
>>
>>I submit to you -- may I?
>>
>>SANDERS: (inaudible)
>>
>>GREENSPAN: The major focus of monetary policy is to
>>create an environment in this country which enables capital
>>investment and innovation to advance. We are at the cutting
>>edge of technologies.... We are doing an extraordinary job
>>over the years.
>>
>>And people flock to the United States. Our immigration
>>rates are very high. And why? Because they think this is a
>>wonderful country to come to.
>>
>>SANDERS: That is an incredible answer.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
> Printer at Myinks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada.
> http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
> http://us.click.yahoo.com/sO0ANB/LIdGAA/ySSFAA/qkHolB/TM
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
> TNF has two guidelines designed to maintain a positive tone.
>
> (1) If you take offense at another member's message, write to that person
> privately; if you think the moderators should be informed, CC your private
> message to thenewforum-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> (2) Avoid on-list meta-discussions or co-moderation; address such matters
to the
> individuals involved and/or to the moderators.
>
>
>
> Address to unsubscribe: TheNewForum-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>
>
>