Real, or is Rod Serling just playing with our minds again?

 

As you may have read in the news, Prez-elect Donald Trump is strongly considering ExxonMobil  CEO  Rex Tillerson to fill the position of Secretary of State.  The argument for him is that he has developed a close relationship with Russia's Vladimir Putin and others of questionable repute, and has a foot already in their door.  The argument against him is that he has a close relationship with Russia's Vladimir Putin and others of questionable repute, and already has a foot in their door.  Those supporting him say that, yes, he is a super-smart businessman and negotiator who has used his skills to benefit ExxonMobil, and he will now be able to use his skills to benefit the USA.

And this, my friends, is the central issue in my dim view of "globalization".  What this argument essentially says is that Exxon is looking out for Exxon, and IBM is looking out for IBM, and Caterpillar is looking out for Caterpillar, etc, and if that means throwing the interests of the United States, the country that has allowed them to grow and thrive, under the bus, so be it.  Shareholders come before fellow countrymen and taxpayers.

I fully understand the Genie is never going back into the bottle.  Globalization is here to stay.  Yes, it has enabled us to buy everyday stuff at Walmart far cheaper than if we made it here, but because of the wet blanket it has put on American worker's incomes, we HAVE to buy stuff cheaper because that's all we can afford.  We're not really any better off.  Well, a few high up the food chain ladder might be, but it has not been across-the-board beneficial to most of us.  We have more cheap "stuff", but at what cost?  More stuff does not necessarily equal a better life.

Have you ever heard of The New World Order?  I have, vaguely, but if I step back and look at where we are today and where it looks like we might be headed, I have to wonder.  Here is the NWO, condensed version:

The conspiracy theorists say The New World Order is a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda that is conspiring to eventually rule the world.  They see this as the culmination of history's progress. Many influential historical and contemporary figures have therefore been purported to be part of a cabal that operates through many front organizations to orchestrate significant political and financial events, ranging from causing systemic crises to pushing through controversial policies, at both national and international levels, as steps in an ongoing plot to achieve world domination.

Worst case, if I stand back and squint just right, I can sorta see some of this happening right now.  Best case, I advise just kicking back and enjoying (?) the ride, 'cause there's no way us peons are going to stop it.

S 

It's not "what were we thinking?" but "ARE we thinking?"

It's said by middle class Americans that one class pays taxes, and another class gets the benefits.  That is probably greatly exaggerated, yet I would agree it still holds some truth.

Yes, we all benefit from police and fire protection, public sanitation, a strong military, the (increasingly irrelevant) postal system, etc, but individually, most of us in the middle class simply don't qualify for any public perk.  We pay for them, yet we "make too much" to qualify ourselves.  No wonder we're resentful.

Europeans pay considerably higher taxes than we do, but I've read that most pay it willingly (Greeks, Italians, and a few others excepted) because the average taxpayer there personally gets something in return.  Higher education is subsidized or is free, health care is subsidized or is free, day care is subsidized or is free, elderly care is subsidized or is free, and so forth. Not just for the poor, but for everyone.

I'm not saying we should necessarily emulate European socialism, but just pointing out how even middle class taxpayers there recieve something for their tax  dollars....er....Euros.  They're getting "bang for their buck".

If you're middle class in America, you're on your own.  You pay, you just don't get your money's worth in return.  As long as you have a good job and believe a bright future awaits you, you'll pay for your kid's daycare and college tuition, mom's nursing home, etc, out of your pocket and still pay your taxes and not think much of it.  But in this age of globalization, that often isn't possible any more.  

Anyone remember when Ross Perot ran for president back in 1992?  Free trade agreements were the hot topic back then (the opening salvo of globalization) and Ross said, "That giant sucking sound you hear will be American jobs going overseas." Prices were cheaper at Walmart, so (almost) everyone was happy.  We lost a few jobs initially, but no big deal.  

The next year, a few more jobs left, but the price of a toaster was cheaper still so who cared?...on and on.  Now the news (USA Today, Yahoo) reports that 4 of 5 middle class Americans are fearful of their future and are essentially just hanging on.  

Yes, we're creating new jobs once again, but they generally aren't anywhere near as high paying as the ones we've lost.  We're constantly lowering the bar.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A real world example of the mess we've caused for ourselves:  Our roads and bridges are crumbling.  They say it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to fix them, money the state and federal governments don't have.

Road maintenance and expansion are paid for with gasoline sales taxes.  Because new cars get better (mandated) mileage these days, more people can drive more cars more miles and still buy less gasoline.  They put more strain on our highways, yet pay less taxes to maintain them.  

We really need to *gasp* raise gas taxes.  In my state most of our new major roads are toll roads.  So now I'm not paying more taxes, but I'm paying tolls instead.  My wallet can't tell the difference.  

Paying more taxes isn't necessarily a bad thing IF YOU CAN SHOW ME I'M PERSONALLY GETTING SOMETHING OF VALUE FOR IT.

The politicians are just playing games with us.  Yet by touting their tax cutting record, we keep re-electing them.  We've become a nation of airheads.

S

Globalization....two thumbs up or a giant disaster?

Depends on where you're sitting.

I recently thought of Thomas Friedman's 2005 book The World is Flat that told us, like we didn't already know, that we're living squarely in the Age of Globalization.  And that reminded me of 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot's warning that "that giant sucking sound you hear" will be American jobs being sucked south and eventually overseas if the US passed the North American Free Trade Agreement.  

Perot lost, Clinton and Congress passed NAFTA, and he (Perot) was essentially proven correct.  New industries have since been created to make up for many of the lost jobs, but it's been an ongoing gut-wrenching transition.

International trade has been around for thousands of years, but things really kicked into high gear after WWII when America's revved-up wartime economy had the capacity to produce much more than we could consume at home and the world found itself with an abundance of surplus cargo ships.  

At first lots of our "stuff" went over there (thanks in large part to a Europe rebuilt by the Marshall Plan), and a few early VW Beetles and assorted cheap junk began coming back over here.  By-and-large, though, we were the big international trade winners.  Payback has been hell ever since.  

The irreversible tipping point came in the 1990's when the world's telecommunications companies grossly over-estimated the future demand for new world-wide fiber-optic cables.  Rates charged due to the glut of new capacity fell through the floor.  Now it wasn't just merchandise that was flowing back and forth across oceans, but ideas, aided by the fledgling internet, too.

Supporters of globalization say it's been a good thing because the choice of goods available to us here has multiplied exponentially, while costs have come way down.  Others say prices had to come down in order for us to afford them as the purchasing power of American middle class consumers has been essentially stagnant for the past 20 years.  

I personally don't see globalization as having been particularly kind to the American middle class, all things considered.  Sure, we have more "stuff", but at what price?  (Globalization isn't just about ideas and goods, but the flow of capital and jobs, too.)

I suppose whether globalization has overall been a good or bad thing (for Americans) will ultimately have to be reviewed over a number of decades by future historians, but from where I'm sitting today I see it as a prime example of unintended consequences run amok.

Regardless of what historians determine, all I know is the Globalization Genie isn't going back into the bottle. 

More on this subject tomorrow.  (Another snoozer, right?)

S