#U.S. Economic Reform Proposals | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 months ago

Text

Matt Wuerker, Politico

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 30, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 31, 2024

On Friday, October 25, at a town hall held on his social media platform X, Elon Musk told the audience that if Trump wins, he expects to work in a Cabinet-level position to cut the federal government.

He told people to expect “temporary hardship” but that cuts would “ensure long-term prosperity.” At the Trump rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Musk said he plans to cut $2 trillion from the government. Economists point out that current discretionary spending in the budget is $1.7 trillion, meaning his promise would eliminate virtually all discretionary spending, which includes transportation, education, housing, and environmental programs.

Economists agree that Trump’s plans to place a high tariff wall around the U.S., replacing income taxes on high earners with tariffs paid for by middle-class Americans, and to deport as many as 20 million immigrants would crash the booming economy. Now Trump’s financial backer Musk is factoring in the loss of entire sectors of the government to the economy under Trump.

Trump has promised to appoint Musk to be the government’s “chief efficiency officer.” “Everyone’s going to have to take a haircut.… We can’t be a wastrel.… We need to live honestly,” Musk said on Friday. Rob Wile and Lora Kolodny of CNBC point out that Musk’s SpaceX aerospace venture has received $19 billion from the U.S. government since 2008.

An X user wrote: “I]f Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit—there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy…. Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy. History could be made in the coming two years.”

Musk commented: “Sounds about right[.]”

will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

Mellon, at least, was reacting to an economic crisis thrust upon an administration. Musk is seeking to create one.

Today the Commerce Department reported that from July through September, the nation’s economy grew at a solid 2.8%. Consumer spending is up, as is investment in business. The country added 254,000 jobs in September, and inflation has fallen back almost to the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.

It is extraordinarily rare for a country to be able to reduce inflation without creating a recession, but the Biden administration has managed to do so, producing what economists call a “soft landing,” rather like catching an egg on a plate. As Bryan Mena of CNN wrote today: “The US economy seems to have pulled off a remarkable and historic achievement.”

Both President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris have called for reducing the deficit not by slashing the government, as Musk proposes, but by restoring taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

As part of the Republicans’ plan to take the country back to the era before the 1930s ushered in a government that regulated business and provided a basic social safety net, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) expects to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

At a closed-door campaign event on Monday in Pennsylvania for a Republican House candidate, Johnson told supporters that Republicans will propose “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” if they take control of both the House and the Senate in November. “Health-care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda,” Johnson said. Their plan is to take a “blowtorch to the regulatory state,” which he says is “crushing the free market.” “Trump’s going to go big,” he said.” When an attendee asked, “No Obamacare?” he laughed and agreed: “No Obamacare…. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”

Ending a campaign with a promise to crash a booming economy and end the Affordable Care Act, which ended insurance companies’ ability to reject people with preexisting conditions, is an unusual strategy.

A post from Trump last night and another this morning suggest his internal polls are worrying him. Last night he claimed there was cheating in Pennsylvania’s York and Lancaster counties. Today he posted: “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before. REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!”

Trump appears to be setting up the argument he used in 2020, that he can lose only if he has been cheated. But it is increasingly apparent that the get-out-the-vote, or GOTV, efforts of the Trump campaign have been weak. When Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump and loyalist Michael Whatley became the co-chairs of the Republican National Committee in March 2024, they stopped the GOTV efforts underway and used the money instead for litigation. They outsourced GOTV efforts to super PACs, including Musk’s America PAC.

In Wired today, Jake Lahut reported that door-knockers for Musk’s PAC were driven around in the back of a U-Haul without seats and threatened with having to pay their own hotel bills if they didn’t meet high canvassing quotas. One of the canvassers told Lahut that they thought they were being hired to ask people who they would be voting for when they flew into Michigan, and was surprised to learn their actual role. The workers spoke to Lahut anonymously because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement (a practice the Biden administration has tried to stop).

Trump’s boast that he is responsible for the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion is one of the reasons his support is soft. In addition to popular dislike of the idea that the state, rather than a woman and her doctor, should make decisions about her healthcare, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision is now over two years old, and state examinations of maternal deaths are showing that women are dying from lack of reproductive healthcare.

Cassandra Jaramillo and Kavitha Surana of ProPublica reported today that at least two pregnant women have died in Texas when doctors delayed emergency care after a miscarriage until the fetal heartbeat stopped. The woman they highlighted today, Josseli Barnica, left behind a husband and a toddler.

At a rally this evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump said his team had advised him to stop talking about how he was going to protect women by ending crime and making sure they don’t have to be “thinking about abortion.” But Trump, who has boasted of sexual assault and been found liable for it, did not stop there. He went on to say that he had told his advisors, “I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.”

The Trump campaign remains concerned about the damage caused by the extraordinarily racist, sexist, and violent Sunday night rally at Madison Square Garden. Today the campaign seized on a misstatement President Biden made when condemning the statement from the Madison Square Garden event that referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” They tried to turn the tables to suggest that Biden was calling Trump supporters garbage, although the president has always been very careful to focus his condemnation on Trump alone.

In Wisconsin today, when he disembarked from his plane, Trump put on an orange reflective vest and had someone drive him around the tarmac in a garbage truck with TRUMP painted on the side. He complained about Biden to reporters from the cab of the truck but still refused to apologize for Sunday’s slur of Puerto Rico, saying he knew nothing about the comedian who appeared at his rally.

This, too, was an unusual strategy. Like his visit to McDonalds, where he wore an apron, the image of Trump in a sanitation truck was likely intended to show him as a man of the people. But his power has always rested not in his promise to be one of the people, but rather to lead them. The pictures of him in a bright orange vest and unusually dark makeup are quite different from his usual portrayal of himself.

Indeed, media captured a video of Trump’s stunt, and it did not convey strength. MSNBC’s Katie Phang watched him try to get into the truck and noted: “Trump stumbles, drags his right leg, almost falls over, and tries at least three times to open the door…. Some transparency with Trump’s medical records would be nice.”

The Las Vegas Sun today ran an editorial that detailed Trump’s increasingly obvious mental lapses and concluded that Trump is “crippled cognitively and showing clear signs of mental illness.” It noted that Trump now depends “on enablers who show a disturbing willingness to indulge his delusions, amplify his paranoia or steer his feeble mind toward their own goals.” It noted that if Trump cannot fulfill the duties of the presidency, they would fall to his running mate, J.D. Vance, who has suggested “he would subordinate constitutional principles for personal profit and power.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political cartoon #Matt Wuerker #Politico #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From an American #Las Vegas Sun #MAGA extremism #garbage truck stunt #women's health #reproductive rights #Musk #Affordable Care Act #Obamacare #project 2025 #MAGA's plans for you

28 notes · View notes

theculturedmarxist · 5 months ago

Text

How the Neocons Subverted Russia’s Financial Stabilization in the Early 1990s

by Jeffrey Sachs

In 1989 I served as an advisor to the first post-communist government of Poland, and helped to devise a strategy of financial stabilization and economic transformation. My recommendations in 1989 called for large-scale Western financial support for Poland’s economy in order to prevent a runaway inflation, enable a convertible Polish currency at a stable exchange rate, and an opening of trade and investment with the countries of the European Community (now the European Union). These recommendations were heeded by the US Government, the G7, and the International Monetary Fund.

Based on my advice, a $1 billion Zloty stabilization fund was established that served as the backing of Poland’s newly convertible currency. Poland was granted a standstill on debt servicing on the Soviet-era debt, and then a partial cancellation of that debt. Poland was granted significant development assistance in the form of grants and loans by the official international community.

Poland’s subsequent economic and social performance speaks for itself. Despite Poland’s economy having experienced a decade of collapse in the 1980s, Poland began a period of rapid economic growth in the early 1990s. The currency remained stable and inflation low. In 1990, Poland’s GDP per capita (measured in purchasing-power terms) was 33% of neighboring Germany. By 2024, it had reached 68% of Germany’s GDP per capita, following decades of rapid economic growth.

On the basis of Poland’s economic success, I was contacted in 1990 by Mr. Grigory Yavlinsky, economic advisor to President Mikhail Gorbachev, to offer similar advice to the Soviet Union, and in particular to help mobilize financial support for the economic stabilization and transformation of the Soviet Union. One outcome of that work was a 1991 project undertaken at the Harvard Kennedy School with Professors Graham Allison, Stanley Fisher, and Robert Blackwill. We jointly proposed a “Grand Bargain” to the US, G7, and Soviet Union, in which we advocated large-scale financial support by the US and G7 countries for Gorbachev’s ongoing economic and political reforms. The report was published as Window of Opportunity: The Grand Bargain for Democracy in the Soviet Union (1 October 1991).

The proposal for large-scale Western support for the Soviet Union was flatly rejected by the Cold Warriors in the White House. Gorbachev came to the G7 Summit in London in July 1991 asking for financial assistance, but left empty-handed. Upon his return to Moscow, he was abducted in the coup attempt of August 1991. At that point, Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation, assumed effective leadership of the crisis-ridden Soviet Union. By December, under the weight of decisions by Russia and other Soviet republics, the Soviet Union was dissolved with the emergence of 15 newly independent nations.

In September 1991, I was contacted by Yegor Gaidar, economic advisor to Yeltsin, and soon to be acting Prime Minister of newly independent Russian Federation as of December 1991. He requested that I come to Moscow to discuss the economic crisis and ways to stabilize the Russian economy. At that stage, Russia was on the verge of hyperinflation, financial default to the West, the collapse of international trade with the other republics and with the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe, and intense shortages of food in Russian cities resulting from the collapse of food deliveries from the farmlands and the pervasive black marketing of foodstuffs and other essential commodities.

I recommended that Russia reiterate the call for large-scale Western financial assistance, including an immediate standstill on debt servicing, longer-term debt relief, a currency stabilization fund for the ruble (as for the Zloty in Poland), large-scale grants of dollars and European currencies to support urgently needed food and medical imports and other essential commodity flows, and immediate financing by the IMF, World Bank, and other institutions to protect Russia’s social services (healthcare, education, and others).

In November 1991, Gaidar met with the G7 Deputies (the deputy finance ministers of the G7 countries) and requested a standstill on debt servicing. This request was flatly denied. To the contrary, Gaidar was told that unless Russia continued to service every last dollar as it came due, emergency food aid on the high seas heading to Russia would be immediately turned around and sent back to the home ports. I met with an ashen-faced Gaidar immediately after the G7 Deputies meeting.

In December 1991, I met with Yeltsin in the Kremlin to brief him on Russia’s financial crisis and on my continued hope and advocacy for emergency Western assistance, especially as Russia was now emerging as an independent, democratic nation after the end of the Soviet Union. He requested that I serve as an advisor to his economic team, with a focus on attempting to mobilize the needed large-scale financial support. I accepted that challenge and the advisory position on a strictly unpaid basis.

Upon returning from Moscow, I went to Washington to reiterate my call for a debt standstill, a currency stabilization fund, and emergency financial support. In my meeting with Mr. Richard Erb, Deputy Managing Director of the IMF in charge of overall relations with Russia, I learned that the US did not support this kind of financial package. I once again pleaded the economic and financial case, and was determined to change US policy. It had been my experience in other advisory contexts that it might require several months to sway Washington on its policy approach.

Indeed, during 1991-94 I would advocate non-stop but without success for large-scale Western support for Russia’s crisis-ridden economy, and support for the other 14 newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. I made these appeals in countless speeches, meetings, conferences, op-eds, and academic articles. Mine was a lonely voice in the US in calling for such support. I had learned from economic history — most importantly the crucial writings of John Maynard Keynes (especially Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1919) — and from my own advisory experiences in Latin America and Eastern Europe, that external financial support for Russia could well be the make or break of Russia’s urgently needed stabilization effort.

It is worth quoting at length here from my article in the Washington Post in November 1991 to present the gist of my argument at the time:

This is the third time in this century in which the West must address the vanquished. When the German and Hapsburg Empires collapsed after World War I, the result was financial chaos and social dislocation. Keynes predicted in 1919 that this utter collapse in Germany and Austria, combined with a lack of vision from the victors, would conspire to produce a furious backlash towards military dictatorship in Central Europe. Even as brilliant a finance minister as Joseph Schumpeter in Austria could not stanch the torrent towards hyperinflation and hyper-nationalism, and the United States descended into the isolationism of the 1920s under the "leadership" of Warren G. Harding and Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge. After World War II, the victors were smarter. Harry Truman called for U.S. financial support to Germany and Japan, as well as the rest of Western Europe. The sums involved in the Marshall Plan, equal to a few percent of the recipient countries' GNPs, was not enough to actually rebuild Europe. It was, though, a political lifeline to the visionary builders of democratic capitalism in postwar Europe. Now the Cold War and the collapse of communism have left Russia as prostrate, frightened and unstable as was Germany after World War I and World War II. Inside Russia, Western aid would have the galvanizing psychological and political effect that the Marshall Plan had for Western Europe. Russia's psyche has been tormented by 1,000 years of brutal invasions, stretching from Genghis Khan to Napoleon and Hitler. Churchill judged that the Marshall Plan was history's "most unsordid act," and his view was shared by millions of Europeans for whom the aid was the first glimpse of hope in a collapsed world. In a collapsed Soviet Union, we have a remarkable opportunity to raise the hopes of the Russian people through an act of international understanding. The West can now inspire the Russian people with another unsordid act.

This advice went unheeded, but that did not deter me from continuing my advocacy. In early 1992, I was invited to make the case on the PBS news show The McNeil-Lehrer Report. I was on air with acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. After the show, he asked me to ride with him from the PBS studio in Arlington, Virginia back to Washington, D.C. Our conversation was the following. “Jeffrey, please let me explain to you that your request for large-scale aid is not going to happen. Even assuming that I agree with your arguments — and Poland’s finance minister [Leszek Balcerowicz] made the same points to me just last week — it’s not going to happen. Do you want to know why? Do you know what this year is?” “1992,” I answered. “Do you know that this means?” “An election year?” I replied. “Yes, this is an election year. It’s not going to happen.”

Russia’s economic crisis worsened rapidly in 1992. Gaidar lifted price controls at the start of 1992, not as some purported miracle cure but because the Soviet-era official fixed prices were irrelevant under the pressures of the black markets, the repressed inflation (that is, rapid inflation in the black-market prices and therefore the rising the gap with the official prices), the complete breakdown of the Soviet-era planning mechanism, and the massive corruption engendered by the few goods still being exchanged at the official prices far below the black-market prices.

Russia urgently needed a stabilization plan of the kind that Poland had undertaken, but such a plan was out of reach financially (because of the lack of external support) and politically (because the lack of external support also meant the lack of any internal consensus on what to do). The crisis was compounded by the collapse of trade among the newly independent post-Soviet nations and the collapse of trade between the former Soviet Union and its former satellite nations in Central and Eastern Europe, which were now receiving Western aid and were reorienting trade towards Western Europe and away from the former Soviet Union.

During 1992 I continued without any success to try to mobilize the large-scale Western financing that I believed to be ever-more urgent. I pinned my hopes on the newly elected Presidency of Bill Clinton. These hopes too were quickly dashed. Clinton’s key advisor on Russia, Johns Hopkins Professor Michael Mandelbaum, told me privately in November 1992 that the incoming Clinton team had rejected the concept of large-scale assistance for Russia. Mandelbaum soon announced publicly that he would not serve in the new administration. I met with Clinton’s new Russia advisor, Strobe Talbott, but discovered that he was largely unaware of the pressing economic realities. He asked me to send him some materials about hyperinflations, which I duly did.

At the end of 1992, after one year of trying to help Russia, I told Gaidar that I would step aside as my recommendations were not heeded in Washington or the European capitals. Yet around Christmas Day I received a phone call from Russia’s incoming financing minister, Mr. Boris Fyodorov. He asked me to meet him in Washington in the very first days of 1993. We met at the World Bank. Fyodorov, a gentleman and highly intelligent expert who tragically died young a few years later, implored me to remain as an advisor to him during 1993. I agreed to do so, and spent one more year attempting to help Russia implement a stabilization plan. I resigned in December 1993, and publicly announced my departure as advisor in the first days of 1994.

My continued advocacy in Washington once again fell on deaf ears in the first year of the Clinton Administration, and my own forebodings became greater. I repeatedly invoked the warnings of history in my public speaking and writing, as in this piece in the New Republic in January 1994, soon after I had stepped aside from the advisory role.

Above all, Clinton should not console himself with the thought that nothing too serious can happen in Russia. Many Western policymakers have confidently predicted that if the reformers leave now, they will be back in a year, after the Communists once again prove themselves unable to govern. This might happen, but chances are it will not. History has probably given the Clinton administration one chance for bringing Russia back from the brink; and it reveals an alarmingly simple pattern. The moderate Girondists did not follow Robespierre back into power. With rampant inflation, social disarray and falling living standards, revolutionary France opted for Napoleon instead. In revolutionary Russia, Aleksandr Kerensky did not return to power after Lenin's policies and civil war had led to hyperinflation. The disarray of the early 1920s opened the way for Stalin's rise to power. Nor was Bruning'sgovernment given another chance in Germany once Hitler came to power in 1933.

It is worth clarifying that my advisory role in Russia was limited to macroeconomic stabilization and international financing. I was not involved in Russia’s privatization program which took shape during 1993-4, nor in the various measures and programs (such as the notorious “shares-for-loans” scheme in 1996) that gave rise to the new Russian oligarchs. On the contrary, I opposed the various kinds of measures that Russia was undertaking, believing them to be rife with unfairness and corruption. I said as much in both the public and in private to Clinton officials, but they were not listening to me on that account either. Colleagues of mine at Harvard were involved in the privatization work, but they assiduously kept me far away from their work. Two were later charged by the US government with insider dealing in activities in Russia which I had absolutely no foreknowledge or involvement of any kind. My only role in that matter was to dismiss them from the Harvard Institute for International Development for violating the internal HIID rules against conflicts of interest in countries that HIID advised.

The failure of the West to provide large-scale and timely financial support to Russia and the other newly independent nations of the former Soviet Union definitely exacerbated the serious economic and financial crisis that faced those countries in the early 1990s. Inflation remained very high for several years. Trade and hence economic recovery were seriously impeded. Corruption flourished under the policies of parceling out valuable state assets to private hands.

All of these dislocations gravely weakened the public trust in the new governments of the region and the West. This collapse in social trust brought to my mind at the time the adage of Keynes in 1919, following the disaster Versailles settlement and the hyperinflations that followed: “There is no subtler, no surer means of over- turning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and it does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

During the tumultuous decade of the 1990s, Russia’s social services fell into decline. When this decline was coupled with the greatly increased stresses on society, the result was a sharp rise in Russia’s alcohol-related deaths. Whereas in Poland, the economic reforms were accompanied by a rise in life expectancy and public health, the very opposite occurred in crisis-riven Russia.

Even with all of these economic debacles, and with Russia’s default in 1998, the grave economic crisis and lack of Western support were not the definitive breaking points of US-Russian relations. In 1999, when Vladimir Putin became Prime Minister and in 2000 when he became President, Putin sought friendly and mutually supportive international relations between Russia and the West. Many European leaders, for example, Italy’s Romano Prodi, have spoken extensively about Putin’s goodwill and positive intentions towards strong Russia-EU relations in the first years of his presidency.

It was in military affairs rather than in economics that the Russian – Western relations ended up falling apart in the 2000s. As with finance, the West was militarily dominant in the 1990s, and certainly had the means to promote strong and positive relations with Russia. Yet the US was far more interested in Russia’s subservience to NATO that it was in stable relations with Russia.

At the time of German reunification, both the US and Germany repeatedly promised Gorbachev and then Yeltsin that the West would not take advantage of German reunification and the end of the Warsaw Pact by expanding the NATO military alliance eastward. Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin reiterated the importance of this US-NATO pledge. Yet within just a few years, Clinton completely reneged on the Western commitment, and began the process of NATO enlargement. Leading US diplomats, led by the great statesman-scholar George Kennan, warned at the time that the NATO enlargement would lead to disaster: “The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” So, it has proved.

Here is not the place to revisit all of the foreign policy disasters that have resulted from US arrogance towards Russia, but it suffices here to mention a brief and partial chronology of key events. In 1999, NATO bombed Belgrade for 78 days with the goal of breaking Serbia apart and giving rise to an independent Kosovo, now home to a major NATO base in the Balkans. In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russia’s strenuous objections. In 2003, the US and NATO allies repudiated the UN Security Council by going to war in Iraq on false pretenses. In 2004, the US continued with NATO enlargement, this time to the Baltic States and countries in the Black Sea region (Bulgaria and Romania) and the Balkans. In 2008, over Russia’s urgent and strenuous objections, the US pledged to expand NATO to Georgia and Ukraine.

In 2011, the US tasked the CIA to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Russia. In 2011, NATO bombed Libya in order to overthrow Moammar Qaddafi. In 2014, the US conspired with Ukrainian nationalist forces to overthrow Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych. In 2015, the US began to place Aegis anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe(Romania), a short distance from Russia. In 2016-2020, the US supported Ukraine in undermining the Minsk II agreement, despite its unanimous backing by the UN Security Council. In 2021, the new Biden Administration refused to negotiate with Russia over the question of NATO enlargement to Ukraine. In April 2022, the US called on Ukraine to withdraw from peace negotiations with Russia.

Looking back on the events around 1991-93, and to the events that followed, it is clear that the US was determined to say no to Russia’s aspirations for peaceful and mutually respectful integration of Russia and the West. The end of the Soviet period and the beginning of the Yeltsin Presidency occasioned the rise of the neoconservatives (neocons) to power in the United States. The neocons did not and do not want a mutually respectful relationship with Russia. They sought and until today seek a unipolar world led by a hegemonic US, in which Russia and other nations will be subservient.

In this US-led world order, the neocons envisioned that the US and the US alone will determine the utilization of the dollar-based banking system, the placement of overseas US military bases, the extent of NATO membership, and the deployment of US missile systems, without any veto or say by other countries, certainly including Russia. That arrogant foreign policy has led to several wars and to a widening rupture of relations between the US-led bloc of nations and the rest of the world. As an advisor to Russia during two years, late-1991 to late-93, I experienced first-hand the early days of neoconservatism applied to Russia, though it would take many years of events afterwards to recognize the full extent of the new and dangerous turn in US foreign policy that began in the early 1990s.

#AES #soviet union #eastern bloc #cold war #us imperialism #russia #nato #bill clinton #ukraine #history #jeffrey sachs

14 notes · View notes

spotlightstory · 5 months ago

Text

The Michigan Medicis of Donald Trump’s America

Left, clockwise from top left Blackwater founder Erik Prince; U.S. Sec of Education Betsy DeVos (Prince); philanthropist Elsa and Prince Corporation founder Edgar Prince. Right, philanthropist Hellen and Amway co-founder Richard DeVos; standing, businessman Dick DeVos.

If you ever wondered where the weird Republican ideas came from or how did we get here, well, here's a piece of the puzzle. Buckle up, it's a long read. Link to full article above. I pulled out quotes on topics below.

"In the solar system of elite Republican contributors, Richard DeVos Sr., who died Thursday at age 92—one of the two founders of Amway, the direct-sale colossus—occupied an exalted place, and his offspring did too. Since the 1970s, members of the DeVos family had given as much as $200 million to the G.O.P. and been tireless promoters of the modern conservative movement—its ideas, its policies, and its crusades combining free-market economics, a push for privatization of many government functions, and Christian social values. While other far-right mega-donors may have become better known over the years (the Coorses and the Kochs, Sheldon Adelson and the Mercers), Michigan’s DeVos dynasty stands apart—for the duration, range, and depth of its influence."

Conservative think tanks, advocacy organizations, and colleges

Grand Valley State University; Calvin College, attended by several generations of DeVoses, including Rich’s daughter-in-law Betsy DeVos, Northwood University, her husband Dick’s alma mater. Hillsdale, the libertarian-plus-Christian liberal-arts college in southern Michigan.

Other recipients of DeVos largesse: the Heritage Foundation, the Institute for Justice, and the American Enterprise Institute

"The DeVoses’ preference for “values-oriented” candidates reflect the teachings of the Christian Reformed Church. A small breakaway denomination of its Dutch forerunner, it has some 300,000 adherents in North America, many living in the same western-Michigan towns where their immigrant ancestors settled in the 1840s to pursue a faith.."

SCHOOL REFORM: Who can forget Betsy DeVos’s campaign to undo the state’s public-education system and replace it with for-profit and charter schools that, as she had put it two decades earlier, shared her mission of “defending the Judeo-Christian values"?

“[Among] her big ‘accomplishments,’” says Diane Ravitch, the N.Y.U. professor and respected education historian, “have been reversing civil-rights enforcement for kids with disabilities, putting administrators from for-profit colleges in charge of monitoring for-profit colleges . . . stabbing in the back young people with heavy debt for their college education, and being a constant critic of public schools.” One saving grace, Ravitch contends, is that DeVos has gotten very few of her budget proposals through Congress.

LABOR UNIONS: Another target was labor unions. Amway and the Prince Corporation had no use for them. Now the family waged a public fight. After Dick DeVos was routed when he ran for governor of Michigan in 2006, he blamed his defeat, in part, on Michigan’s unions and began to push for a right-to-work law (weakening the unions’ economic power and political clout, a pillar of the state’s Democratic Party). In 2012, the bill got through, and Michigan—headquarters to the United Automobile Workers, no less—became yet another of the country’s right-to-work states.

FAMILY: "Betsy and Erik’s father, Edgar Prince, was a Chrysler-Plymouth salesman and then machine engineer who started a die-cast business and also had a tinkerer’s gift for inventions. One, the lighted vanity mirror on the flip-up sun visor (introduced in 1972), helped Prince become one of the wealthiest men in Michigan." (wow) "As he got richer, the elder Prince rewarded his hometown handsomely; Prince money has done much to preserve downtown Holland, which remains a 1950s time capsule of Candy Land façades."

The C.R.C.’s greatest figure, Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch theologian and prime minister who died almost a century ago, had declared, in words the faithful know by heart: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

The Princes and DeVoses—with neighboring homes in Holland—had effected a merger thanks to the 1979 marriage of their firstborn, Betsy Prince and Dick DeVos, then in their 20s. “Bible-reading jet-setter” was the description in a Detroit Free Press profile of Betsy.

Betsy and Dick own a 22,000-square-foot mansion on Lake Macatawa.

ERIK PRINCE was devoted to his father, who doted on him. He played four sports at Holland Christian and was the proudly straitlaced kid who, without being asked, put away the soccer balls after practice. Prince enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy in 1987 but was shocked by the frat-house atmosphere—too much for a junior culture warrior who’d been an intern at the Family Research Council. After three semesters, he transferred to Michigan’s Hillsdale College.

Today Hillsdale, under its president, Larry P. Arnn (former head of the Claremont Institute, a citadel of far-right ideology), is known as a feeder school for the Trump administration, including Betsy DeVos’s chief of staff, Josh Venable. In May, the week Vice President Pence gave the commencement address there, Politico called it “the college that wants to take over Washington”—citing many alums who are now D.C. power players.

In 1989, Erik had been invited to a “youth” inaugural ball for Bush—and there had met Joan Keating, the woman who would become his first wife. Prince even worked as a Bush White House intern. “I saw a lot of things I didn’t agree with,” he later said. “Homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of bills. I think the administration has been indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns.” He left that job for another, in the office of California congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who has often been called Vladimir Putin’s top Capitol Hill asset, so valued, the Times has reported, that he was given a Kremlin code name.

Prince spent four years with the SEALs in the early 90s but moved on after his wife was diagnosed with cancer and his father, aged 63, died of a heart attack. The elder Prince left behind a business with 4,500 employees. The family sold it for $1.3 billion, and Erik, at 25, now had a sizable inheritance.

One of Prince’s instructors in the SEALs, Al Clark, was also looking to set up a security-and-defense training company. Prince had money to invest. Out of this came Blackwater, which began as an instruction facility for law enforcement, the military, and special-ops squads in Moyock, North Carolina.

The article goes into detail about Blackwater and it is mind-blowing. Their involvement post 9/11, Russian arms dealings, US government contracts,

"The source says he resigned after he discovered that Prince had approved plans to illegally weaponize aircraft and “actively train former Chinese Red Army personnel that are now being deployed into Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar, and the Uighur region in China”—actions he perceived as supporting foreign interests above America’s. (Other Prince associates reportedly resigned for similar reasons.) Prince firmly denied the allegations."

#erik prince #betsy devos #michigan #religion #education #labor unions #pat buchanan #donald trump #republicans #conservative think tanks #heritage foundation #project 2025 #christian reformed church #vote blue #vote democrat

18 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 8 months ago

Text

In this super-election year 2024, one key election to watch is the European Parliament election. From June 6-9, around 360 million eligible voters across the 27 European Union (EU) member states will elect representatives to the European Parliament. The past five years have been a turbulent time for Europeans, from the global pandemic and subsequent economic slowdowns to an energy crisis and a reckoning on defense and security precipitated by the first major land war in Europe since World War II. The latest polling suggests that the outcome of the June election will produce strong results for far-right parties, with major policy implications for the EU and its partners around the globe, including the United States.

How do European Parliament elections work?

The European Parliament, together with the Council of the EU (which represents the governments of the EU’s member states), constitutes the EU’s legislative body. It has the authority to review, revise, and vote on legislation, endowing it with significant influence on the European policy agenda. Among the various EU institutions, the parliament is the union’s core democratic pillar as the only institution directly chosen by EU citizens. Strong voter turnout in the election is therefore key to the popular legitimacy and democratic nature of the European policy process. Following each legislative cycle, the parliament also has the role of confirming—or rejecting—a new EU Commission and commission president, the bloc’s executive, as proposed by the European Council (the EU’s top policy-setting institution, which brings together the heads of government of the member states, the president of the Council of the EU, and the president of the commission).

Since 1979, European parliamentary elections have taken place every five years. Voters elect national party candidates in their respective countries, who become part of a European parliamentary group as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) at the supra-national level. The European groupings mirror the national-level party structures:

The European People’s Party (EPP) on the center-right.

The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) on the center-left.

The Liberals (Renew Europe) between the center and the center left.

The Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) toward the left of the political spectrum.

The European Left on the far left.

The European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) on the conservative end.

The Identity and Democracy (ID) Group on the far right.

Non-aligned parties.

The number of MEPs for each member state is allocated based on population size, though there is a non-proportional factor favoring smaller member states, which means the population-to-seat ratio is much higher for larger states than smaller ones. (One German seat, for instance, represents almost 880,000 Germans whereas one Estonian seat represents only about 195,000 Estonians.) National parties receive seats in the European Parliament through a system of proportional representation, whose MEPs in turn become part of the European party groupings.

Through the Spitzenkandidat (German for “top candidate”) system, first used in 2014, European party groups also nominate a candidate for the commission presidency to personify their platforms and make the selection process for the EU’s chief executive more transparent. Nonetheless, there is no legal requirement for one of the Spitzenkandidaten to become the new commission president, which means the post could ultimately be filled by a different candidate. Like the U.S. presidential election, the Spitzenkandidaten also participate in public debates—the “Eurovision Debates”—to advocate for their parties’ policies and compete for voter support.

What issues are voters concerned about?

Even though European Parliament elections help determine the EU’s future policy direction, voters are fundamentally driven by issues that affect their daily lives, which inevitably include national-level concerns. Each member state’s election result should thus be viewed as a referendum on both the EU itself and its national government. In a recent Europe-wide survey ahead of the June election, Europeans overall indicated as their top priorities poverty and social exclusion, public health, economic support and job creation, as well as security and defense. Other top issues of concern were climate action, the EU’s future, and migration and asylum policy. All these issues have both a European and a national dimension, which have become increasingly intertwined.

In the past, European voters have used their votes to signal their discontent with local and national policies, due to perceptions that there is a disconnect between the European Parliament and bureaucratic EU processes, and that the parliament lacks relevance relative to other EU institutions. The previous EU election in 2019, however, exhibited the highest voter turnout since 1994 at nearly 51%, with climate change particularly mobilizing younger voters to participate. The 2024 Eurobarometer survey similarly shows that 60% of Europeans are “very” or “somewhat interested” in the election, with 71% indicating that they would be “likely” to vote if the election took place next week. Voters also demonstrated an appreciation for the EU’s role in their daily lives and on the world stage, as well as support for more EU engagement on matters of defense and security, energy resources and infrastructure, and food security and agriculture.

The European Parliament’s current and future composition

Since the last election in 2019, the European Parliament has been governed by a coalition of the center-right EPP, the center-left S&D, and the Liberals of Renew Europe with a combined majority of almost 60%. As the largest parliamentary grouping, the EPP had the prerogative of nominating their Spitzenkandidat, Manfred Weber, for the commission presidency, but he failed to reach a majority for his confirmation. The EPP thus proposed Ursula von der Leyen, who was able to gather greater support and become the EU’s new chief executive.

In terms of the parliament’s political composition, the 2019 vote produced the largest gains for the far-right ECR and ID groupings to date. Together, they have occupied close to 18% of seats as part of the parliamentary opposition, thus increasing their capacity to shape EU policy debates. This has been particularly evident on issues such as migration and asylum policy as well as climate regulation. Nonetheless, there are noteworthy differences between the far-right parliamentary groups, particularly on foreign policy issues such as EU policy toward Russia, China, and the trans-Atlantic relationship. These differences will play a greater role given a probable shift toward the political right after the 2024 election.

Indeed, the latest polling indicates that the June election will result in even greater gains for European far-right parties, with analysts predicting they could occupy between 20-25% of parliamentary seats. Such a result implies a smaller centrist coalition governing the EU, making EU leadership more unstable and susceptible to right-wing influence. Von der Leyen, the current commission president who is running as the Spitzenkandidat for the EPP, has even indicated her willingness to break the firewall to the far-right and collaborate with the ECR—which includes parties such as Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy—to form a governing majority. Von der Leyen is running for another five years as the EU chief executive, yet the prospect of right-wing gains has cast doubt on whether she would be confirmed by a more right-leaning parliament or whether a more conservative candidate may be needed to attain a majority.

Why the European Parliament election matters to the United States

Democracy and the rule of law. The European Union and its individual member states are the United States’ most important partners in defending the international order, characterized by liberal democratic institutions and processes, the rule of law, protection of fundamental rights, and international cooperation through multilateral fora. Particularly in this time of heightened geopolitical tensions, renewed great power competition, and authoritarian threats (internal and external) against democracy, it is of strategic value for the United States to have like-minded partners in the European Union—the parliament and the commission—who are committed to these values at home and abroad.

Defense and security. The United States and the European Union are also deeply interconnected in the realm of defense and security: 23 of the 27 EU member states are formal U.S. allies within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—the largest security alliance in the world. In Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty, member states have pledged to come to one another’s defense in the case of an attack. This collective deterrence principle has prevented territorial wars in NATO countries since the alliance’s founding in 1949. The trans-Atlantic allies have also been strong partners in providing support to Ukraine in response to Russia’s brutal and illegal full-scale war, with EU institutions and individual member states contributing military, financial, and humanitarian aid, including care for millions of Ukrainian refugees who have fled to Europe. Having European partners who share U.S. assessments of security threats in the North Atlantic theater and are committed to investing in their national defenses to strengthen the alliance is thus relevant to the United States’ own security and defense posture.

Moreover, covert Russian influence operations targeting the European ECR and ID groups and some national far-right parties’ open friendliness toward the Kremlin not only imperil European security but also that of the United States and trans-Atlantic community. Notably, von der Leyen has announced the establishment of an EU defense commissioner to enhance Europe’s defense industrial capacity and coordinate defense matters across member states, should she be reelected as the commission’s president. This intra-European defense coordination would complement—not substitute—NATO and serve to strengthen the European pillar in the alliance.

Economics and trade. As the world’s largest single market and free trade area, the European Union is also the United States’ most important commercial partner in terms of trade in goods and services as well as foreign affiliate sales and investment streams. The EU’s economic power also makes it an influential player in U.S. strategy toward China, as Europe navigates questions of economic security and interdependence. In 2019, the EU officially defined China as a “partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival,” yet it has preserved space for closer ties than American policy permits in areas such as trade, investment, and climate. Finally, the European Union—as a community of like-minded liberal democracies—is a critical partner in developing global governance structures for technology and artificial intelligence, energy and natural resources, and climate change.

President of the European Commission. Over the past five years, von der Leyen has transformed the role of commission president, becoming an EU interlocutor to world leaders in her own right, whereas previously the European Council was seen as the power center of the union. Von der Leyen has de facto expanded the commission’s policy reach through her leadership on public health matters in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as on defense and security following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the process, the EU became a more autonomous and resilient international player and von der Leyen established herself as a respected U.S. partner in matters of transnational governance; on trade issues, however, the relationship has been much more difficult. Von der Leyen was also criticized by some in Europe for being too close to the United States and not sufficiently prioritizing European interests. Yet having won EPP backing and amid attacks on the European Union’s values and unity from authoritarian regimes in Russia and China as well as illiberal forces within Europe, she now hopes to defend and deepen her legacy in another five-year term. Whether she is able to do that will depend on the inroads the hard right makes in the upcoming elections.

12 notes · View notes

fiveeven · 5 days ago

Text

It doesn't end with Tiktok, my opinion!

ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, also owns other popular apps like Lemon8 and CapCut. TikTok itself emerged after ByteDance acquired and merged with the app Musical.ly in 2018, creating a global social media powerhouse. (Note: Musical.ly was a separate app, not Vine, which was owned by Twitter and shut down in 2017.) The U.S. government's scrutiny of TikTok and similar apps is not just about individual platforms but is part of a broader effort to address potential security risks posed by technology companies based in adversarial nations, such as China and Russia. These concerns stem from laws in these countries, like China's National Intelligence Law, which can compel companies to share data with their governments.

Another major Chinese company under scrutiny is Tencent, a tech and entertainment giant with stakes in numerous video game companies. Tencent fully owns Riot Games (League of Legends, Valorant), has a significant minority stake in Epic Games (Fortnite), and collaborates with Activision on Call of Duty: Mobile. Tencent also has ownership in mobile gaming leader Supercell and a variety of other entertainment and tech platforms.

The U.S. government, including agencies like the Department of Justice and Department of Defense, has raised concerns about Tencent's connections to the Chinese government and military. While no bans have been enacted yet, Tencent's global reach in gaming and entertainment makes it a potential target for further investigation, as geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China continue to escalate.

In my view, this isn't actually rooted in data or a legitimate security risk. It appears to be more about American companies being outcompeted on a global stage. However, the security risk argument serves as a convenient precedent (much like the rhetoric around terrorism and WMDs) for justifying aggressive actions that align with specific political agendas, such as those laid out in Project 2025.

Project 2025, as part of the broader "America First" agenda, proposes significant rollbacks on progressive policies implemented over the past four decades. These include restrictions on media, video games, women's rights, immigration reforms, and minority rights. While framed as promoting national security and traditional values, these measures align with a broader conservative agenda aimed at reshaping cultural and economic landscapes in favor of nationalist priorities.

I think words like "compromised data" are going to be thrown around like "terrorist" or "terrorism" was in the early 2000's and its going to be a catch all for policy in the same way!

#democracy #bytedance #data #mydata #tiktok #meta #zuckerberg #elon musk #jeff bezos #capitialism #terrorism #terrorist #corrupt congress #tiktok ban #selling data #your data #Cambridge Analytica

3 notes · View notes

darkmaga-returns · 3 months ago

Text

Crash our economies, then come in to save the day with a new plan including only electronic money, followed by a social credit score and energy rations

Meryl Nass Oct 29, 2024

https://www.devex.com/news/devex-newswire-how-trump-and-russia-could-tank-the-un-s-finance-ambitions-108631

The U.N. wants a hand at revamping the international financial system, but Trump and Russia could ruin those plans.

By Anna Gawel // 29 October 2024

The United Nations wants a greater say in the global financial order. That may not go down well with Donald Trump or Russia.

For over a week, we’ve been keeping you posted on what everyone at the all-important World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings have been talking about: Reforming the global financial architecture to better reflect today’s challenges — and address the gross power imbalance between the global north and south.

But the U.N. is getting in on the act — that is, if the U.S. and Russia don’t stand in the way.

The U.N. Pact for the Future, agreed to after plenty of hand-wringing and arm-twisting at the U.N. General Assembly in September, proposes revamping the international financial system, among other things. While the body has historically played a bit role in international finance, as the world’s most representative organization, with 193 member states — many of them without a voice at the World Bank and IMF — the U.N. has been pressing for a broader say in decision-making, my colleague Colum Lynch writes.

“The system was conceived by a group of rich countries and naturally it basically benefits rich countries,” António Guterres, the U.N.’s secretary-general, has said.

But those countries are loath to give up those perks. What’s more, if Donald Trump is elected to a second term in the White House, the situation could become even more chaotic.

“Are people concerned? Of course they’re concerned,” says Bob Rae, Canada’s U.N. ambassador and this year’s president of the U.N. Economic and Social Council. “I mean, I would sound like a bit of an idiot if I said nobody’s talking about it.”

But in the end, Rae says, “the American public will make up their own mind as to what they are going to do. So what we think is not really relevant to the outcome.”

Russia — which vehemently opposed the Pact for the Future — isn’t helping matters, though Rae has a reality check for Moscow.

Russia, he says, is just a “disruptor.”

“They are not even a significant lender,” he says. “They’re not a major economic power. They are just interested in being disruptive. And that is the Russian contribution to the world order….”

4 notes · View notes

yourreddancer · 3 months ago

Text

Heather Cox Richardson 10.30.24

Musk commented: “Sounds about right[.]”

This exchange echoes the prescription of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, whose theories had done much to create the Great Crash of 1929, for restoring a healthy economy. “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” he told President Herbert Hoover. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

Mellon, at least, was reacting to an economic crisis thrust upon an administration. Musk is seeking to create one.

—

3 notes · View notes

septictankie · 5 months ago

Text

The 1968 Prague Spring: Separating Fact from Fiction

Much of the below is translated or adapted from an article written by the Russian historian and political scientist Nikolay Platoshkin. The article can be found here. You can find an identical blog post with hyperlinks to sources here.

Victors write history, and the historical narratives concerning the events of the Cold War are no different. The “Prague Spring” of 1968 is often shrouded in myths that serve the political interests of the hegemonic capitalist countries. The prevailing narrative typically presents the events as follows: economic and political reforms in Czechoslovakia, sparked by the election of the intrepid Alexander Dubček as First Secretary of the Communist Party in January 1968, were brutally suppressed by the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops on August 20-21. Naturally, the sympathies of the “free world,” particularly the United States, are portrayed as being aligned with the brave Czechoslovak reformers. However, the reality is more complex.

Genuine political and economic reforms in Czechoslovakia began long before the “Prague Spring,” influenced by developments in the Soviet Union during the early 1960s. As the Soviet Union under Khrushchev embarked on a period of de-Stalinization, it sparked a wave of reformist thinking across its satellite states. Under the leadership of Antonín Novotný, who had been President of Czechoslovakia and General Secretary of the Communist Party since 1953, the country initiated the rehabilitation of victims arrested during the Stalinist period. (The future leader of Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, Gustáv Husák, was one of these, arrested in 1950 and released in 1963, a committed communist throughout.) Censorship was eased significantly, and Czechoslovak cinema, particularly the “New Wave” movement, gained recognition across Europe, with directors like Miloš Forman emerging internationally, as seen with his film Black Peter. A pivotal moment in this period was the adoption of a new economic policy in 1965, directly inspired by the Soviet Union’s Kosygin reforms. This policy aimed to decentralize economic planning, granting enterprises greater autonomy within a framework of business accounting.

The Soviet Union acted as the primary catalyst for reforms in Czechoslovakia, particularly after the new Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev came to power in October 1964, which further accelerated reforms in Moscow and Prague. However, by late 1967, internal conflict within the Czechoslovak Communist Party intensified. Students from the Strahov dormitories in Prague launched a sizable protest over power outages, prompting Novotný to cease reforms and ban liberal journals and films. The widespread unpopularity of these moves led members of the party’s Central Committee to oust Novotný. This coalition of strange bedfellows included noted liberal reformers like Husák, Čestmír Císař, and Jozef Lenárt joining forces with conservatives like Vasil Biľak, Drahomír Kolder, and Jiří Hendrych. When Novotný sought a lifeline from Brezhnev in December 1967, Brezhnev refused, partly because he viewed Novotný as an ally of his Soviet rival, Alexei Kosygin.

During heated debates within the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s Central Committee, which began in October 1967, Novotný suggested Alexander Dubček as a compromise candidate for First Secretary, a proposal that Brezhnev accepted. Dubček, who had lived in the USSR from 1925 to 1938 (where he was a classmate of Brezhnev) and was seen as a reliable ally, was considered a weak political figure, making him acceptable to both liberal and conservative factions within the party. He was also of Slovak descent, which would appease Slovak nationalists who opposed the unitary state. On January 5, 1968, Dubček was narrowly elected First Secretary by just one vote. Brezhnev’s unexpected visit to Prague in December 1967 was interpreted by the U.S. as a reluctant intervention in the party’s internal struggles, given the lack of a clear alternative to Novotný. Far from the enterprising reformer portrayed in Western media, Dubček was initially meant to hold the party line, something that he promised to do, part of a pattern of deception and careerism.

In February 1968, the U.S. State Department agreed with the U.S. Embassy in Prague’s recommendation to refrain from showing goodwill toward Dubček’s regime, viewing it as an unstable coalition of right and left forces. The U.S. chose not to act despite holding significant leverage at the time, stemming from the U.S. Army’s seizure of Czechoslovakia’s gold reserves during the liberation of western Czechoslovakia in 1945. The gold had been taken by the Germans after their 1939 occupation. Despite repeated requests from the Czechoslovak government, the U.S. avoided returning the gold, citing various pretexts. In 1961, the U.S. agreed to return the gold in exchange for settling claims of American citizens affected by post-1948 nationalization in Czechoslovakia. Both sides initially agreed on a sum of around $10 million, but the U.S. later quadrupled the demand due to Washington’s displeasure over Czechoslovakia’s arms supplies to Vietnam. Additionally, the U.S. delayed granting Czechoslovakia most-favored-nation trade status, linking it to the unresolved gold issue. At the onset of the “Prague Spring,” U.S. policy was frosty toward Dubček.

On March 22, 1968, Antonín Novotný resigned as President, and General Ludvík Svoboda, a former commander of Czechoslovak forces on the Soviet-German front, succeeded him. The day before, Czechoslovak Ambassador to Washington, Karel Duda, told U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Walter J. Stoessel, that the new leadership would likely seek better relations with the U.S. He dismissed the possibility of foreign interference in Czechoslovakia’s internal affairs, which the Americans interpreted as a reference to Moscow, but warned that internal conflict could escalate if it led to violence. This affirmed the view that Dubček’s regime was meant to stabilize Czechoslovakia, at least for the time being, not usher in a wave of reforms that would destabilize the country.

On February 25, Major General Jan Šejna, a Novotný supporter who led the Defense Ministry’s party organization, defected to the U.S. with his young mistress. Czechoslovakia demanded his extradition, accusing him of corruption and plotting a military coup for Novotný, but the U.S. refused. Despite being deemed a criminal by the Dubček government and once considered a hardliner, Šejna became a key CIA informant on Czechoslovakia and received political asylum. Given the choice between sheltering an individual it once considered a “Stalinist” for a military advantage or diplomatic measures meant to thaw relations with a Cold War adversary, the U.S. government eagerly pursued the former option.

The U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Jacob Beam, held a low opinion of the new Dubček regime, viewing any push for liberalization as secondary to ousting Novotný, after which the government would likely seek stability. Nonetheless, Beam believed that the unfolding events in Czechoslovakia aligned with U.S. interests. On April 26, he recommended to Under Secretary of State for European Affairs, Charles E. Bohlen, a more flexible stance on the issue of Czechoslovakia’s gold reserves as a diplomatic gesture toward the new Prague leadership. Beam suggested returning “Nazi gold” to Czechoslovakia in exchange for an initial payment to compensate individuals whose wealth was expropriated during communist nationalization, with additional payments to follow. He also proposed using most-favored-nation trade status as a potential incentive, which would mean low tariffs or high import quotas for Czechoslovakia. Beam believed these steps could enhance U.S. influence within the communist world. However, Beam’s modest proposal was not supported. The State Department agreed only to express approval of Czechoslovakia’s liberalization. Due to Czechoslovakia’s role as the third-largest arms supplier to North Vietnam, direct financial or economic aid from the U.S. was deemed impossible.

During this period, a significant debate unfolded in Washington between “hawks” and “doves” in the U.S. leadership. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had decided not to seek re-election in October 1968, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk prioritized détente with the USSR. They believed this thaw in relations could help end the Vietnam War with Soviet assistance. Johnson even planned a potential visit to Moscow in October 1968, becoming the first U.S. President to do so. Johnson was concerned that excessive liberalization in Czechoslovakia might jeopardize the improving U.S.-Soviet relations.

In contrast, the “hawk” faction, led by Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Walt Rostow, saw an opportunity to weaken the USSR globally by attempting to pull Czechoslovakia out of the Warsaw Pact. Rostow believed this could distract the Soviets from Vietnam and possibly allow the U.S. to end the war on more favorable terms. Rostow is remembered as one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Vietnam War, claiming that strategic bombing of North Vietnam alone would be sufficient to win the war. This was based on Rostow’s belief that there was no genuine support for communism in South Vietnam and that ending the war was as simple as destroying North Vietnam’s infrastructure.

On May 10, 1968, Rostow sent Rusk a memorandum titled “Soviet Threats to Czechoslovakia,” interpreting Warsaw Pact maneuvers in Poland as a sign of Soviet hesitation and urging Johnson to summon the Soviet Ambassador to demand an explanation. Rostow also proposed creating a special high-level NATO group to monitor the situation in Czechoslovakia and prepare a response plan. However, both Rusk and Johnson rejected Rostow’s alarmist stance.

The U.S. Embassy in West Germany shared a cautious view for different reasons. Unlike the 1956 Hungarian crisis, the Embassy noted in a telegram on May 10 that moving American troops closer to or across the Czech border to counter a Soviet attack was conceivable due to the shared border between Czechoslovakia and West Germany. However, the West German government, including the Social Democrats, strongly opposed any U.S. military action from West German territory. The West German Deputy Foreign Minister even urged the U.S. Ambassador to moderate anti-Czechoslovak propaganda from Radio Free Europe in Munich and RIAS in West Berlin, leading the U.S. Ambassador to West Germany, George McGhee, to consider joint actions with West Germany against Czechoslovakia unrealistic.

On May 11, Secretary of State Dean Rusk initiated a continuous exchange of opinions between NATO countries concerning the situation in Czechoslovakia. However, in a telegram to the U.S. mission to NATO, he recommended holding off on actions that might be perceived as NATO showing “unusual concern” about Czechoslovakia.

Despite this, the U.S. remained unwilling to address the pressing bilateral issues with Czechoslovakia. On May 28, Jiří Hájek, the new Czechoslovak Foreign Minister and a reformer, expressed frustration to the U.S. ambassador that bilateral relations had not improved since 1962 and had even regressed in some respects. Hájek reiterated demands for the return of Czechoslovakia’s gold reserves, pointing out that the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia had occurred with the West’s, including the U.S.’s, acquiescence. Ambassador Beam was unable to provide a concrete response but reported to the State Department that Prague was likely using the gold issue to bolster its authority within the communist bloc and to curb any growing pro-American sentiments within the country.

On June 13, the CIA provided a memorandum titled “Czechoslovakia: Dubcek’s Pause” to the top U.S. leadership. The memo assessed that the crisis in Czechoslovakia, both internal and external, had lost its immediacy, leading to a “pause.” The Soviet Union had been reassured by Dubček’s firm commitment to keeping the reform process under Communist Party control. In return, the Czechs were granted some autonomy in domestic matters by the USSR. The CIA noted that the Soviets were keen to avoid military intervention in Czechoslovakia, due to concerns that the country might leave the Warsaw Pact, given that Czechoslovakia had the largest army per capita within the Pact, totaling 230,000 soldiers.

Despite Moscow’s objections to the anti-Soviet rhetoric in the Czechoslovak media, the CIA reported that this rhetoric had “reached astonishing proportions” in recent weeks. The media blamed the USSR not only for the Stalinist repression of the early 1950s but also for the current economic difficulties in Czechoslovakia. However, it was precisely cheap raw materials from the USSR that were able to provide Czechoslovakia with high rates of economic growth and an improvement in the standard of living of the population. For all its embrace of market reforms, the Czechoslovak economy did not grow out of its moribund status, as goods produced in the country simply were not competitive enough. Inflation soon followed, leading to cuts to social services, which only led to greater public dissent.

The CIA concluded that due to the compromise between Prague and Moscow, “Moscow decided not to use force, at least for the time being.” Interestingly, the CIA noted that Dubček himself might benefit from this situation, as his perceived indecisiveness in implementing reforms could be attributed to Soviet pressure. U.S. intelligence, citing Czech sources, also reported growing disagreements within the Soviet leadership over Czechoslovakia. Leonid Brezhnev, who had placed Dubček in power, was under pressure as Dubček’s policies were increasingly seen as anti-Soviet. This situation could potentially be exploited by Brezhnev’s opponents within the Soviet leadership, including Kosygin.

U.S. intelligence, correctly assessing the situation, believed that Dubček was merely stalling by agreeing to Brezhnev’s terms and promising to maintain socialism in Czechoslovakia. They anticipated that at the upcoming Communist Party congress in September 1968, reformist views would be formally adopted as the party’s official program, revealing to the Soviets that they had been misled. The CIA also assessed that Dubček lacked firm convictions of his own and was influenced by the reformers Oldřich Černík and Zdeněk Mlynář, who were expected to play a crucial role after the congress. The CIA concluded that there was a significant likelihood of renewed tension between Prague and Moscow. Although Soviet leaders, or at least most of them, preferred to avoid sharp and costly military action, they might resort to threatening Czech borders if Dubček’s control appeared to be collapsing or if Czech policies became “counterrevolutionary” from Moscow’s perspective.

By this time, the CIA was heavily influenced by its primary “expert” on Czechoslovakia, General Šejna, who was pursuing his own agenda to discredit Dubček. On July 24, the CIA reported that the crisis in Czechoslovakia had subsided, according to Šejna, who believed that the Czechoslovaks would likely capitulate to Soviet demands and reverse the reforms. Šejna also suggested that such a rollback would not provoke significant public protests, as neither workers nor Slovaks were actively engaged in the liberalization process. The CIA noted that the “Prague Spring” was largely driven by intellectuals and parts of the party apparatus without improving the material conditions of the general population. Furthermore, anti-Soviet sentiment in the Czech press did not resonate with Slovakia. The CIA’s internal notes reflected concerns that Šejna might be underestimating the national factor, noting that military and police forces, being “conservative and pro-Soviet,” could quickly suppress any potential demonstrations against the rollback of reforms.

The CIA memo highlighted that the Soviets were facing substantial pressure from conservative forces within Czechoslovakia, as well as from the leaders of Poland and East Germany, who demanded more stringent control over the situation in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Šejna believed that while the Soviets favored using political influence, they were prepared to use military force if necessary, which would likely involve a rapid advance of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. The CIA accurately assessed that Moscow was becoming aware that Dubček and the “liberals” were not fulfilling their promises to keep Czechoslovakia within the Soviet sphere of influence, specifically the Warsaw Pact.

By July 1968, the State Department was already considering raising the Czechoslovak issue at the United Nations, potentially as a protest against the slow withdrawal of Soviet troops following the end of the Warsaw Pact “Šumava” maneuvers on June 30. However, the U.S. was reluctant to take direct action at the U.N., preferring instead that the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, or potentially Romania and Yugoslavia, initiate the discussion.

On July 14-15, the leaders of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria met in Warsaw to discuss the events taking place in Czechoslovakia. On the heels of the publication of liberal manifesto “The Two Thousand Words,” the Warsaw Pact leaders feared that anti-communist forces were exploiting the liberalization to promote disorder. Although they stated their common desire not to interfere in Czechoslovak affairs, they shared anxieties that reactionary forces were preparing for counterrevolution:

The reactionary forces were given the opportunity, in public, to publish their political platform under the title “Two Thousand Words,” which contains an open call for a struggle against the communist party and against the constitutional system, as well as a call for strikes and chaos. This appeal is a serious threat to the party, the National Front, and the socialist state. It is an attempt to foment anarchy. The declaration is, in its essence, the organizational-political platform of counterrevolution.

On July 20, 1968, Rostow issued another memorandum to the Secretary of State, pressing for active measures to deter the USSR from acting against Czechoslovakia. Rostow acknowledged that Czechoslovakia was within the Soviet sphere of influence and that its departure from Moscow’s control would severely undermine Soviet positions globally, including in Vietnam and the Middle East. The memorandum proposed establishing a special NATO group to develop a unified response plan for potential crises involving the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, suggesting that this move would reinvigorate the alliance itself. Rostow, also serving as special assistant to the president, requested from the US military leadership, via the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO, information on NATO forces available for a possible intervention in Czechoslovakia. On July 23, the response indicated that a potential intervention could involve one US brigade, two French divisions, and two German divisions. The Joint Chiefs of Staff limited the U.S. contribution to one brigade due to the lengthy mobilization time required for a larger force.

Thus, the US was seriously contemplating a NATO intervention in Czechoslovakia a month before the Warsaw Pact troops entered the country. On July 22, the Soviet Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin, was summoned to the State Department, where Secretary of State Rusk lodged a de facto protest against Soviet media claims of NATO, Pentagon, and CIA subversive activities against Czechoslovakia. By July 24, President Johnson convened a meeting with the entire US political and military leadership, including the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and Director of the CIA. At this meeting, Rostow revised his earlier position, expressing doubts that the Soviets would take military action against Czechoslovakia. Rusk also declared that the “Czech crisis” had passed.

From July 25 to August 1, the top leadership of the USSR and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic convened in Čierna nad Tisou in southeastern Slovakia—a historic meeting, as it marked the only occasion when the entire Soviet leadership traveled abroad simultaneously. During these discussions, a compromise appeared to be reached. Dubček, in the presence of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, agreed to halt anti-Soviet rhetoric in the Czechoslovak media, bolster the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ leadership, and remove several anti-Soviet figures from key government positions, including the head of Czechoslovak television, Jiří Pelikán. In return, Brezhnev promised to end the Soviet media’s critiques of Czechoslovak policies.

In the meantime, a group of conservative communist politicians, including Vasil Biľak and Drahomír Kolder who had supported Dubček’s rise to power, authored a “letter of invitation” to Brezhnev and the Soviet government to intervene in Czechoslovakia. They saw the writing on the wall: the Dubček government was neither trustworthy nor competent, and if the situation was allowed to continue, Czechoslovakia was likely to degenerate into chaos, with ordinary people suffering the most. The capitalist West would not help the people but only exploit the situation according to their political interests. The only viable choice was to ask the Soviet Union to restore order and remove the Dubček government. Brezhnev would later cite this letter as a major justification for the later Warsaw Pact invasion.

The US Embassy in Prague, in a dispatch dated August 4, reported that while the meeting in Čierna might have temporarily eased tensions, Dubček would likely struggle to honor his commitments without undermining his domestic support. The embassy suggested that the State Department publicly commend the Čierna meeting’s results for resolving the immediate political crisis in Czechoslovakia. However, despite the agreement, anti-Soviet articles continued to appear in Czechoslovak newspapers post-Čierna, and Dubček did not fully meet his promises. Instead of the bold reformist hero, Dubček should be seen as an opportunist who told others what they wanted to hear at the time so long as it helped him stay in power. Instead of confrontation, he nominally chose compromise at Čierna.

On August 10, during a meeting with President Johnson and Republican presidential candidate Nixon, CIA Director Helms remarked that while the immediate severity of the Czechoslovak crisis had diminished, it was not fully resolved. He noted that the Czechoslovaks were increasingly seeking to reduce their participation in the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets wanted to avoid this at all costs, but had no honest leader to deal with.

On August 13, Brezhnev had an extensive telephone conversation with Dubček, which likely prompted the decision to introduce Warsaw Pact troops into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. During this call, Brezhnev implored Dubček to fulfill the commitments made at Čierna or at least specify when these would be met. In typical fashion, Dubček avoided providing a clear answer and revealed his intention to resign from his top party position at the upcoming Communist Party Congress in September. Moscow feared that the Czechoslovak party leadership might disintegrate imminently, prompting the decision to deploy troops to support Dubček and mitigate pressure from the liberals. Had Moscow simply wished to remove Dubček, it could have waited for the September Congress.

On August 19, Rostow conveyed to Dobrynin over dinner that the United States viewed the Soviet decisions at Čierna as “wise.” The Americans aimed to avoid exacerbating the situation in Czechoslovakia and were hopeful that the situation would stabilize following Čierna. On August 20, Dobrynin met with President Johnson. The President, in good spirits, discussed various topics, including Kosygin’s health and his own lack of a haircut, before addressing the main issue. Dobrynin informed Johnson of the Soviet leadership’s decision to deploy troops into Czechoslovakia, citing a threat to European peace and stating that the intervention was at the Czechoslovak government’s request. The message emphasized that the action was not intended to undermine American interests and assured the continuation of détente in Soviet-American relations. Johnson thanked Dobrynin and promised a response after consulting with Secretary of State Rusk. The conversation concluded amicably, with no condemnation of the Soviet action from the American side. Dobrynin was surprised by Johnson’s lack of immediate reaction, noting that the President seemed to underappreciate the gravity of the situation.

On August 20, Soviet forces were ordered to commence Operation Danube, marking the beginning of the troop deployment into Czechoslovakia. By approximately 11 p.m., Warsaw Pact troops from the USSR, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria began crossing the Czechoslovak border. Soviet airborne units landed at Prague’s Ruzyne Airport at 2:00 a.m. on August 21. The general directive for Soviet units in the event of encountering NATO forces was to halt and refrain from engaging.

Slovaks widely welcomed Soviet troops, joyfully hoping for a return of social guarantees and urban development, saying that “the Slovaks are not with Prague.” This sentiment reflected a deep-seated dissatisfaction with the central government’s policies, which many Slovaks saw as favoring Prague and the Czechs. The arrival of Soviet forces was seen by some as a chance to regain the social stability and economic progress that had been characteristic of earlier communist rule. Many Slovaks believed that aligning with the Soviet Union could secure better living standards, greater investment in infrastructure, and a reassertion of traditional socialist values that they felt were being eroded by the reformist agenda.

On August 20, President Johnson convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington. Both Secretary of State Rusk and Defense Secretary Clark Clifford expressed significant surprise at the Soviet decision to deploy troops. CIA Director Helms correctly identified the motivation behind the Soviet actions: Dubček’s failure to meet the commitments made in Čierna. Helms noted, “They (i.e., the USSR) wanted the Czechs to quiet the press. The Czechs did not do that.” Johnson labeled the troop deployment as aggression and inquired about possible responses from the United States. Rusk suggested that the U.S. could support Czechoslovakia at the United Nations if the Czechoslovaks raised the issue of the Soviet invasion there. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle Wheeler, stated that the United States lacked the strength for any forceful retaliation: “We do not have the forces to do it.” Vice President Hubert Humphrey concluded the discussion by emphasizing the need for restraint, noting, “All you can do is snort and talk.”

By August 26 most high-ranking Czechoslovak officials, including Dubček, signed the “Moscow Protocols” that required they pledge themselves to Marxism-Leninism, proletarian internationalism, and renew the struggle against bourgeois ideology. Notably, the Soviets did not simply install pro-Moscow conservatives as their puppets, unlike the U.S. and CIA, who regularly overthrew governments around the world during the Cold War to install dictators loyal to Washington. Instead, the new government included reformers like Gustáv Husák and Jozef Lenárt who favored not suppression but “normalization,” the peaceful return to the pre-Dubček period. Although Czechoslovakia was not permitted to go down the road to chaos or counterrevolution, many of the same individuals who held power before the Soviet intervention remained in power afterwards, unlike in cases of U.S. military interventions.

It is also worth stressing the degree to which the Soviet leadership went to negotiate with Czechoslovak leaders, first with Brezhnev’s personal intervention in late 1967, the Čierna meetings in late July 1968, and the negotiations over the subsequent Moscow Protocols. Clearly, the Soviet Union was willing to go to great diplomatic lengths to keep the country inside the Warsaw Pact. Compare this to the 2000s, when Czech protests over U.S. missiles and radar stations due to NATO membership prompted only shrugs from Washington. Moreover, the U.S. used a large number of Czech troops to shore up its illegal war in Iraq, something the Soviet Union never did during its bloody occupation of Afghanistan.

As we have seen, the U.S. government viewed the Dubček regime with caution, not optimism, considering it a loose coalition of various political forces and a transitional phenomenon. The “Prague Spring” lacked support from both the working class and the Slovak region of Czechoslovakia. Instead of using diplomacy, the United States contemplated the possibility of military intervention in Czechoslovakia by several NATO divisions. The USSR’s approach to Czechoslovakia was deemed prudent by the United States, and the compromise reached in Čierna was regarded as a “wise decision.” The CIA (correctly) assessed the introduction of Warsaw Pact troops on August 20-21, 1968, as a response to Dubček’s failure to keep his word and implement the Čierna agreements.

#socialism #communism #marxism #politics #prague spring #czechoslovakia #czech #slovakia #slovak #Čierna #Dubček #Husák #NATO #Soviet Union #Warsaw Pact #Soviet

4 notes · View notes

dailyanarchistposts · 1 month ago

Text

Topics: health care, monopoly

In a recent article for Tikkun, Dr. Arnold Relman argued that the versions of health care reform currently proposed by “progressives” all primarily involve financing health care and expanding coverage to the uninsured rather than addressing the way current models of service delivery make it so expensive. Editing out all the pro forma tut-tutting of “private markets,” the substance that’s left is considerable:

What are those inflationary forces? . . . [M]ost important among them are the incentives in the payment and organization of medical care that cause physicians, hospitals and other medical care facilities to focus at least as much on income and profit as on meeting the needs of patients. . . . The incentives in such a system reward and stimulate the delivery of more services. That is why medical expenditures in the U.S. are so much higher than in any other country, and are rising more rapidly. . . . Physicians, who supply the services, control most of the decisions to use medical resources. . . . The economic incentives in the medical market are attracting the great majority of physicians into specialty practice, and these incentives, combined with the continued introduction of new and more expensive technology, are a major factor in causing inflation of medical expenditures. Physicians and ambulatory care and diagnostic facilities are largely paid on a piecework basis for each item of service provided.

As a health care worker, I have personally witnessed this kind of mutual log-rolling between specialists and the never-ending addition of tests to the bill without any explanation to the patient. The patient simply lies in bed and watches an endless parade of unknown doctors poking their heads in the door for a microsecond, along with an endless series of lab techs drawing body fluids for one test after another that’s “been ordered,” with no further explanation. The post-discharge avalanche of bills includes duns from two or three dozen doctors, most of whom the patient couldn’t pick out of a police lineup. It’s the same kind of quid pro quo that takes place in academia, with professors assigning each other’s (extremely expensive and copyrighted) texts and systematically citing each other’s works in order to game their stats in the Social Sciences Citation Index. (I was also a grad assistant once.) You might also consider Dilbert creator Scott Adams’s account of what happens when you pay programmers for the number of bugs they fix.

One solution to this particular problem is to have a one-to-one relationship between the patient and a general practitioner on retainer. That’s how the old “lodge practice” worked. (See David Beito’s “Lodge Doctors and the Poor,” The Freeman, May 1994).

But that’s illegal, you know. In New York City, John Muney recently introduced an updated version of lodge practice: the AMG Medical Group, which for a monthly premium of $79 and a flat office fee of $10 per visit provides a wide range of services (limited to what its own practitioners can perform in-house). But because AMG is a fixed-rate plan and doesn’t charge more for “unplanned procedures,” the New York Department of Insurance considers it an unlicensed insurance policy. Muney may agree, unwillingly, to a settlement arranged by his lawyer in which he charges more for unplanned procedures like treatment for a sudden ear infection. So the State is forcing a modern-day lodge practitioner to charge more, thereby keeping the medical and insurance cartels happy—all in the name of “protecting the public.” How’s that for irony?

Regarding expensive machinery, I wonder how much of the cost is embedded rent on patents or regulatorily mandated overhead. I’ll bet if you removed all the legal barriers that prevent a bunch of open-source hardware hackers from reverse-engineering a homebrew version of it, you could get an MRI machine with a twentyfold reduction in cost. I know that’s the case in an area I’m more familiar with: micromanufacturing technology. For example, the RepRap—a homebrew, open-source 3-D printer—costs roughly $500 in materials to make, compared to tens of thousands for proprietary commercial versions.

More generally, the system is racked by artificial scarcity, as editor Sheldon Richman observed in an interview a few months back. For example, licensing systems limit the number of practitioners and arbitrarily impose levels of educational overhead beyond the requirements of the procedures actually being performed.

Libertarians sometimes—and rightly—use “grocery insurance” as an analogy to explain medical price inflation: If there were such a thing as grocery insurance, with low deductibles, to provide third-party payments at the checkout register, people would be buying a lot more rib-eye and porterhouse steaks and a lot less hamburger.

The problem is we’ve got a regulatory system that outlaws hamburger and compels you to buy porterhouse if you’re going to buy anything at all. It’s a multiple-tier finance system with one tier of service. Dental hygienists can’t set up independent teeth-cleaning practices in most states, and nurse-practitioners are required to operate under a physician’s “supervision” (when he’s out golfing). No matter how simple and straightforward the procedure, you can’t hire someone who’s adequately trained just to perform the service you need; you’ve got to pay amortization on a full med school education and residency.

Drug patents have the same effect, increasing the cost per pill by up to 2,000 percent. They also have a perverse effect on drug development, diverting R&D money primarily into developing “me, too” drugs that tweak the formulas of drugs whose patents are about to expire just enough to allow repatenting. Drug-company propaganda about high R&D costs, as a justification for patents to recoup capital outlays, is highly misleading. A major part of the basic research for identifying therapeutic pathways is done in small biotech startups, or at taxpayer expense in university laboratories, and then bought up by big drug companies. The main expense of the drug companies is the FDA-imposed testing regimen—and most of that is not to test the version actually marketed, but to secure patent lockdown on other possible variants of the marketed version. In other words, gaming the patent system grossly inflates R&D spending.

The prescription medicine system, along with state licensing of pharmacists and Drug Enforcement Administration licensing of pharmacies, is another severe restraint on competition. At the local natural-foods cooperative I can buy foods in bulk, at a generic commodity price; even organic flour, sugar, and other items are usually cheaper than the name-brand conventional equivalent at the supermarket. Such food cooperatives have their origins in the food-buying clubs of the 1970s, which applied the principle of bulk purchasing. The pharmaceutical licensing system obviously prohibits such bulk purchasing (unless you can get a licensed pharmacist to cooperate).

I work with a nurse from a farming background who frequently buys veterinary-grade drugs to treat her family for common illnesses without paying either Big Pharma’s markup or the price of an office visit. Veterinary supply catalogs are also quite popular in the homesteading and survivalist movements, as I understand. Two years ago I had a bad case of poison ivy and made an expensive office visit to get a prescription for prednisone. The next year the poison ivy came back; I’d been weeding the same area on the edge of my garden and had exactly the same symptoms as before. But the doctor’s office refused to give me a new prescription without my first coming in for an office visit, at full price—for my own safety, of course. So I ordered prednisone from a foreign online pharmacy and got enough of the drug for half a dozen bouts of poison ivy—all for less money than that office visit would have cost me.

Of course people who resort to these kinds of measures are putting themselves at serious risk of harassment from law enforcement. But until 1914, as Sheldon Richman pointed out (“The Right to Self-Treatment,” Freedom Daily, January 1995), “adult citizens could enter a pharmacy and buy any drug they wished, from headache powders to opium.”

The main impetus to creating the licensing systems on which artificial scarcity depends came from the medical profession early in the twentieth century. As described by Richman:

Accreditation of medical schools regulated how many doctors would graduate each year. Licensing similarly metered the number of practitioners and prohibited competitors, such as nurses and paramedics, from performing services they were perfectly capable of performing. Finally, prescription laws guaranteed that people would have to see a doctor to obtain medicines they had previously been able to get on their own.

The medical licensing cartels were also the primary force behind the move to shut down lodge practice, mentioned above.

In the case of all these forms of artificial scarcity, the government creates a “honey pot” by making some forms of practice artificially lucrative. It’s only natural, under those circumstances, that health care business models gravitate to where the money is.

Health care is a classic example of what Ivan Illich, in Tools for Conviviality, called a “radical monopoly.” State-sponsored crowding out makes other, cheaper (but often more appropriate) forms of treatment less usable, and renders cheaper (but adequate) treatments artificially scarce. Artificially centralized, high-tech, and skill-intensive ways of doing things make it harder for ordinary people to translate their skills and knowledge into use-value. The State’s regulations put an artificial floor beneath overhead cost, so that there’s a markup of several hundred percent to do anything; decent, comfortable poverty becomes impossible.

A good analogy is subsidies to freeways and urban sprawl, which make our feet less usable and raise living expenses by enforcing artificial dependence on cars. Local building codes primarily reflect the influence of building contractors, so competition from low-cost unconventional techniques (T-slot and other modular designs, vernacular materials like bales and papercrete, and so on) is artificially locked out of the market. Charles Johnson described the way governments erect barriers to people meeting their own needs and make comfortable subsistence artificially costly, in the specific case of homelessness, in “Scratching By: How the Government Creates Poverty as We Know It” (The Freeman, December 2007).

The major proposals for health care “reform” that went before Congress would do little or nothing to address the institutional sources of high cost. As Jesse Walker argued at Reason.com, a 100 percent single-payer system, far from being a “radical” solution,

would still accept the institutional premises of the present medical system. Consider the typical American health care transaction. On one side of the exchange you’ll have one of an artificially limited number of providers, many of them concentrated in those enormous, faceless institutions called hospitals. On the other side, making the purchase, is not a patient but one of those enormous, faceless institutions called insurers. The insurers, some of which are actual arms of the government and some of which merely owe their customers to the government’s tax incentives and shape their coverage to fit the government’s mandates, are expected to pay all or a share of even routine medical expenses. The result is higher costs, less competition, less transparency, and, in general, a system where the consumer gets about as much autonomy and respect as the stethoscope. Radical reform would restore power to the patient. Instead, the issue on the table is whether the behemoths we answer to will be purely public or public-private partnerships. [“Obama is No Radical,” September 30, 2009]

I’m a strong advocate of cooperative models of health care finance, like the Ithaca Health Alliance (created by the same people, including Paul Glover, who created the Ithaca Hours local currency system), or the friendly societies and mutuals of the nineteenth century described by writers like Pyotr Kropotkin and E. P. Thompson. But far more important than reforming finance is reforming the way delivery of service is organized.

Consider the libertarian alternatives that might exist. A neighborhood cooperative clinic might keep a doctor of family medicine or a nurse practitioner on retainer, along the lines of the lodge-practice system. The doctor might have his med school debt and his malpractice premiums assumed by the clinic in return for accepting a reasonable upper middle-class salary.

As an alternative to arbitrarily inflated educational mandates, on the other hand, there might be many competing tiers of professional training depending on the patient’s needs and ability to pay. There might be a free-market equivalent of the Chinese “barefoot doctors.” Such practitioners might attend school for a year and learn enough to identify and treat common infectious diseases, simple traumas, and so on. For example, the “barefoot doctor” at the neighborhood cooperative clinic might listen to your chest, do a sputum culture, and give you a round of Zithro for your pneumonia; he might stitch up a laceration or set a simple fracture. His training would include recognizing cases that were clearly beyond his competence and calling in a doctor for backup when necessary. He might provide most services at the cooperative clinic, with several clinics keeping a common M.D. on retainer for more serious cases. He would be certified by a professional association or guild of his choice, chosen from among competing guilds based on its market reputation for enforcing high standards. (That’s how competing kosher certification bodies work today, without any government-defined standards). Such voluntary licensing bodies, unlike state licensing boards, would face competition—and hence, unlike state boards, would have a strong market incentive to police their memberships in order to maintain a reputation for quality.

The clinic would use generic medicines (of course, since that’s all that would exist in a free market). Since local juries or arbitration bodies would likely take a much more common-sense view of the standards for reasonable care, there would be far less pressure for expensive CYA testing and far lower malpractice premiums.

Basic care could be financed by monthly membership dues, with additional catastrophic-care insurance (cheap and with a high deductible) available to those who wanted it. The monthly dues might be as cheap as or even cheaper than Dr. Muney’s. It would be a no-frills, bare-bones system, true enough—but to the 40 million or so people who are currently uninsured, it would be a pretty damned good deal.

2 notes · View notes

beardedmrbean · 2 months ago

Text

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico's lower house of Congress approved on Wednesday a measure to abolish most of the autonomous bodies that regulate some economic sectors and ensure government transparency, a reform that could worsen tension with the U.S. and hit credit ratings.

The measure is among the constitutional reforms presented in February by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and backed by current President Claudia Sheinbaum, aimed at cutting public spending by centralizing the state apparatus.

Lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies voted 347 in favor with 128 against, and no abstentions, after hours of occasionally heated debate, with some jeers and personal insults exchanged.

A final vote on objections to details of the measure is expected on Thursday before it moves to the Senate, where ruling party Morena holds a large majority.

The reform proposes scrapping autonomous agencies such as antitrust watchdog Cofece, telecoms regulator IFT, energy regulator CRE, hydrocarbon regulator CNH and public information and data protection office INAI.

Their functions would be taken over by other government bodies, including the official statistics office, the electoral authority and government ministries.

Analysts warn the reform could potentially lead to conflicts with the United States and Canada, as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) mandates a telecoms regulator, particularly as the pact is due for review in mid-2026.

Sheinbaum has said the "technical independence" of the autonomous bodies would be maintained and special provisions would ensure compliance with USMCA requirements.

While advocates said more streamlined governance would save some $5 billion annually and reduce graft, critics argued it would strip funding from important projects, reduce transparency and oversight and concentrate power with the executive.

Some analysts have also warned the measure could trigger potential credit rating downgrades for Mexico, which now has investment-grade ratings from Fitch, Moody's, and S&P.

The reform "implies a further deterioration of Mexico's institutional framework, which increases the likelihood of credit rating downgrades," said Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis at Grupo Financiero BASE.

Ratings agency Moody's recently downgraded Mexico's outlook to negative from stable, citing institutional and policy weakening that threatens the economy and government accounts after a contentious judicial overhaul.

#nunyas news

2 notes · View notes

tomorrowusa · 1 year ago

Text

Filthy rich Republicans wish to tax poor people more so that the rich can get even more tax brakes when the GOP is in power. That's pretty much the story of Eric Hovde.

Hovde is running against incumbent Wisconsin US Senator Tammy Baldwin.

Wisconsin is a fairly moderate state. But it features some of the most despicable Republicans outside the old Confederacy.

In 2017, Sunwest Bank CEO Eric Hovde advocated for reforms that would raise taxes for 72 million Americans, including retirees and low-income earners. Hovde, a Republican, is expected to announce a U.S. Senate campaign in Wisconsin soon. Hovde, who has been endorsed by national Republicans to challenge Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in 2024, made the proposal in a Nov. 18, 2017, appearance on the radio program “The Vicki McKenna Show.” [ ... ] Analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found the plan would have also raised taxes for middle- and working-class families as well as retirees. “More than 80 percent of the tax increase would be paid by households making about $54,000 or less, and 97 percent would be paid by those making less than about $100,000,” wrote Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow with the organization. “Low-income families with children would pay the most: Achieving Scott’s goal would slash their after-tax incomes by more than $5,000, or more than 20 percent. A Scott-like plan would raise taxes on middle-income households by an average of $450.” Scott’s plan failed to pass, but he has not given up pushing for it. If Hovde were to join him in the Senate and support the measure, it could gain traction. In Wisconsin, Scott’s plan would have raised taxes for 32% of people, according to analysis by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Hovde wants to take away your healthcare in addition to raising your income tax (if you're not a millionaire).

Hovde ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2012, and during that campaign he called for a total repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which in 2022 made it possible for 212,209 individuals in Wisconsin to obtain affordable health insurance coverage.

The Eric Hovde and Donald Trump Agenda: Take Away Critical Health Care Protections From Wisconsinites

Hovde doesn't even live in Wisconsin. Just sayin'...

Bice: Eric Hovde may run for Senate in Wisconsin, but he's living large in Laguna Beach, California

Did I mention that Eric Hovde is an anti-abortion fanatic.

ERIC HOVDE ON ABORTION

#eric hovde #republicans #eric “california” hovde #wisconsin #us senate #eric hovde wants to raise your taxes #abortion #roe v. wade #the sanctity of reproductive freedom #eric hovde opposes women's rights #eric hovde wants to repeal obamacare #tammy baldwin #re-elect tammy baldwin #vote blue no matter who #vote democratic #election 2024

7 notes · View notes

theculturedmarxist · 1 year ago

Text

[...]

A long time ago, while conducting research for my master’s thesis on how the economic reforms of [French President] Emmanuel Macron had closed the circle started by [François] Mitterrand, I came to realize that the old Thatcherite idea, “There is no society, only individuals with the freedom of choice,” had become so commonly accepted in contemporary society that both right– and left-wing neoliberals today feel no need to emphasize it.

Social surveys have also found a shocking lack of empathy and solidarity among communities in the U.S. and Western Europe, exactly at the time the dominant political narratives have begun to insist on inclusiveness and tolerance toward others. Subtle distinctions in definitions can often reveal commonly understood and yet unspoken differences between terms that we prefer to use: Inclusiveness does not necessary oblige solidarity or empathy, just as tolerance in the absolute sense means merely withholding action based on existing animosities, which are acknowledged by the very need for the usage of the term in question. Tolerance, indeed, does not have to mean understanding and accepting increasingly distant “others.”

A question must be asked: Are we now, through ideological terminology, searching for exactly those things that we are in fact missing in our social reality? The need to define ideological terms prompts this question in that it arises only when certain notions have left the sphere of unspoken social consensus—the very frame of political and social thought.

In his latest book, The exiled terms, Todor Kuljić, who is among the most internationally recognized Serbian sociologists of the previous and current century, explains how four decades of neoliberal reforms have influenced significant changes in the language we use to discuss ideology and politics, noting that all the terms previously connected to class inequalities, Marxist ideologies, and collective struggles of the working class have been systematically replaced with less critical, less “communist sounding” terms.

In sociology curricula, the terms “exploitation,” “revolution,” and even “humanism” have been almost completely forsaken, while we can see increased usage of words such as “transition,” “transformation,” and “social exclusion.” The term “transition,” a case in point, normalises poverty and corruption in countries that need to be convinced that they will be much better off when they adopt neoliberal economic models.

The famous comedian George Carlin put forward a notion that there is a cultural tradition in the United States of constantly inventing new terms, and “exiling” the old-fashioned terms, which derives from the constant need to make the brutalities of everyday life more easily accommodated. “Americans have trouble facing the truth,” Carlin once said, “so they invent a kind of soft language to protect themselves from it.” If poor people used to live in slums, to cite one of Carlin’s standup routines, “now ‘the economically disadvantaged’ occupy ‘substandard housing’ in ‘inner cities.’”

Anthropological studies have shown that this tendency has certain connections with the totemistic belief of the earliest human societies that, by changing the way we verbally identify a certain aspect of reality we can change the reality itself. It appears that this has never been more relevant than in the case of the modern culture of political correctness, which proposes that we accept social problems as consequences of our subconscious thoughts and/or individual actions, and try to solve them by changing the language we use to define them—while never searching for their material causes.

Professor Jordan Peterson has claimed that modern-day political culture developed in a manner in which the previously presumed need for objectivity was replaced with subjective feelings and perceptions, while the very understanding of material reality has been, through relativization, reduced to little more than an inconvenience that can be regulated by state legislation and group stigmatization. On the other hand, Slavoj Žižek holds that it is precisely the abandonment of the collective (ideas) for the individual (interests) that has led our increasingly globalized political culture down this path. The neoliberal, postmodern left has merely followed the neoliberal right of the eighties in the project of eliminating undesirable terminology related to physical, class, and social reality—depending on the preference of each—from the common frames of political debate, since a consensus on understanding material reality is the first and necessary condition of the collective political struggle.

Žižek also claims that the phenomenon of New Age leftists striving toward zealous political correctness merely contributes to depriving formal and informal human relationships of what is the very essence of humanity. This is because following the increasingly strict standards of Newspeak, as Orwell would put it, necessarily increases the distance between people by making them focus on their differences, thus continuously reinforcing the same barriers neoliberal leftists wish to break free of, while, at the same time, leaving them unable to overcome the tensions of every-day interactions through humor and other forms of releasing the burdening contents of the individual and collective subconscious.

Further, if we take into account the previously mentioned thesis of Professor Kuljić, we can also propose the question: To what extent is the modern neoliberal leftist obsession with political correctness a consequence of the absence of a language and terminology by which young people could articulate the actual causes of their fear and anger and the need to express political radicalism? Of course, leftists of this persuasion remain thoroughly within the existing frame of the globally dominant ideology and never challenge the economic and political system.

At the same time, neoliberal right-wing policies continue to insist on the previously discussed narrative of personal responsibility—or, rather, personal “guilt”—not for the problems of cultural inequalities, which their leftist counterparts remain unable to relate to their actual causes in material reality, but rather for the position of the individual in the new economic order. Now in social media we witness the rise of an entire generation of young conservatives who present success and failure in life—mostly defined by the acquisition of wealth rather than personal happiness—as a consequence of individual decisions and actions, entirely decontextualized and removed from one’s personal circumstances, class background, and social context.

Unlike the previous authors of the self-help books from the early eighties, these new “life coaches” of the internet are heavily engaged in the relativization of ethics, with some going as far as to conclude that those who stay employed in times of low wages and worsening labor conditions, instead of risking their financial existence with private business gambles, have no one but themselves to blame for being exploited. Thus, in a perverted sense of logical framing, they arrive very close to an argument used by ancient Greek philosophers to justify slavery: “An Athenian would rather kill himself than become a slave.”

Neoliberal leftists legitimize the unfair treatment of others for personal gain with the condition that you address respectfully the same people whom you are exploiting—and, as well, disregard solidarity as the core value of the left. Contrarily, the neoliberal right wing insists that participation in the hierarchy of social and economic power is a goal necessary to achieve and a matter of personal choice, and not at all of social reality. It is as though they, the neoliberal right wing, have forgotten with how much effort traditional conservatives tried to uphold the principles of ethics—even if many of those principles were not part of the initial humanist–Enlightenment agenda, or universal values as Immanuel Kant would define them, but served only to preserve position and ensure reproduction of the upper classes—as though there truly was no society anymore.

Not even the Prussian militarists of the old German Empire ever went so far as to assert openly that there is no common good, not even a universal moral code, and that, rather, you should seek to enrich yourself at the expense of others just to prove your own capabilities to a society you don’t even believe in anymore. But modern-day conservatives have crossed this line by seducing today’s ever more fearful youth with the promises that, if they prove capable enough, they can assume the role of the oppressor themselves and exploit the weak, who deserve their fate for failing to seize the “boundless opportunities” of some neoliberal economic paradise.

Thus, prevalent neoliberal left– and right-wing ideologies have not just disregarded, fragmented, or redefined traditionally universalist principles of ethics; they have also forsaken many “core values”—an emphasis on collective solidarity or personal liberty, common wellbeing, or individual morality—which defined the differences between the significant left– and right-wing ideologies of the previous two centuries. Even more important, humanity has been almost completely exiled from the sphere of ideological priorities—in favor of politically correct formality in the case of the New Age left, or, in the case of the New Age right, in favor of a convenient indifference to social problems. The value of humanity, in the sense in which it was understood during the course of the 20th century, will therefore have a hard time finding its way back into the ideological frames of the new world order.

Luka Filipović, among the youngest Serbians ever to earn his doctorate, holds a Ph.D. awarded by the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade. He has published numerous articles regarding the history of labor movements, communist parties, neoliberal economic reforms, and political turmoil of the late 20th century in Europe and Serbia. His book, Eurokomunizam i Jugoslavija 1968-1980,(Eurocommunism and Yugoslavia 1968–1980), is published this month by the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade, where Filipović currently conducts his research.

#neoliberalism #reactionary ideology #reactionary politics #society

19 notes · View notes