Free Countries and Lower Cost of Debt

Even so, corporations are drawn to totalitarian economics if they can gain monopolistic power, like in Haiti (baseball) or the United Fruit Company - and lets not forget the China lure, despite Google, every company worth its salt is queuing up in Beijing.

The eastern Family system is the basic support structure for Governance and takes awaythe huge burden of SOCIAL COST from govts.
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As the people saved less and spent more, they got into trillions of dollars of private debt; and as the government spent more, it also ran into tens of trillions of dollars of public debt. The result is that the government is bankrupt and so households are insolvent. More, the US, the largest creditor nation of the world three decades ago, is today the number one debtor of the world, with $12.5 trillion of debt.

"It is the other way. If they acted against their wards, the law would punish the parents for child abuse. So contracts replaced relations, and rule of law substituted for moral order. To what effect? The rise of unfettered individualism and undefined feminism have led to the erosion of families and a rise in divorces, singleparent families, unwed mothers, lesbians, gays and almost the collapse of traditional families. Over 50 per cent of the first marriages, 67 per cent of the second marriages, and 74 per cent of the third marriages end in divorce in the US. Over 40 per cent of births are outside wedlock. Almost half of the families are headed by a single parent.

The number is more in most of Europe. It was seen as cultural erosion first. But slowly it has turned into an economic disaster.

The contract-based model undermined families and led to low or no household savings, high personal debt, credit card based living, outsourcing of household functions including kitchen work. The erosion in relation-based lifestyle soon imposed a huge social security burden on the state because the family mechanism that supported the unemployed, infirm, aged and the rest and the state had to step in to aid them. Thus the family functions were taken over by the state. The families were nationalised. The overburdened state consequently had to shed its traditional functions, like public works, and privatise itself.

The socialisation of family functions obviated the need to save for a rainy day and led to even lower savings. With the growth of individualism to the exclusion of kinship and relations, corporates and the state alike promoted unrestrained consumerism.

Result, some 110 millions US households have some 1.2 billion credit cards, almost a dozen cards per household.

As the people saved less and spent more, they got into trillions of dollars of private debt; and as the government spent more, it also ran into tens of trillions of dollars of public debt. The result is that the government is bankrupt and so households are insolvent. More, the US, the largest creditor nation of the world three decades ago, is today the number one debtor of the world, with $12.5 trillion of debt.

A quick survey shows this: all individual- centric economies are deep in debt; but nations more family-oriented and less individual- centric, like Japan, China, India, and generally Asian nations, account for over three-fourths of global savings; the individualist West lives off the savings of family-centric Asia. Today the West says that, in the present crisis only Asia, which has huge savings thanks to family orientation, can save the West, which has almost lost its traditional family lifestyle.

So the idea of unbridled human rights and unrestrained personal freedom that have led to social and cultural degeneration are increasingly seen as the cause of the present economic crisis. Weeks ago, Thomas L Friedman, a leading economic journalist, wrote in the New York Times that he had told those eating in a restaurant that they could no more afford to eat out and they had better cook and eat at home. But how will they cook and eat at home unless families are re-created? If they do, how would the US compensate for loss of employment if restaurants, which exist because households have closed their kitchens, shut down? There seems to be no solution within economic laws to the present crisis of the West. Amoral economics once yielded higher returns. It now yields negative returns.
http://www.gurumurthy.net/articledisplay.pl?2009-02-26

Aaman

you are right, but the issue is that do they actually try to raise much funds from those countries? Not saying that they dont, but comparatively speaking, and this is based upon just a reading rather than any firm research, that they prefer to raise debt where its cheaper...After all, they need a good debt market....

thanks for the comments, Suresh, not sure what all to say, but..

1. Tom Friedman is an economics commentator??? hmmm, I have serious doubts, his analysis is, well, lets just say very light.

2. economics does not have much to do with morals. Ascribing morals usually fails.

3. Finally saying "unbridled human rights and personal freedom" seems to be going in the reverse direction. We really dont have that much of the human rights and personal freedom, do we really want to go backwards? In which areas would you suggest we impose restrictions on human rights and personal freedom? Also, who is seeing this as a problem?

Thomas Lauren Friedman (born July 20, 1953) is an American journalist, columnist and multi Pulitzer Prize winning author. He is an op-ed contributor to The New York Times, whose column appears twice weekly. He has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East and environmental issues. He has won the Pulitzer Prize three times, twice for International Reporting (1983, 1988) and once for Commentary (2002). He has been a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 2004 until the present
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman

U.S. must stop exporting weapons of family
destruction
"To make things worse, senseless U.S. anti- family laws, which have literally destroyed trust between American men and women, are now being thrust on India, without any heed to cultural relevance, social consensus, or the presence of a suitable law enforcement system for their proper implementation."

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0207/0207indiafamily.htm

lol, I wouldnt call Tom Friedman as a economics correspondent by any stretch of the meaning or imagination, Suresh. He is a reporter and he does pretty facile analysis along with his op-eds.

Are you seriously suggesting he is an economics commentator?

thomas friedman is not even a light-weight commentator. he is worse than that! the fact that he is popular and his books sell, or that he gets a pulitzer now and then, mean shit.

BD:

"2. economics does not have much to do with morals. Ascribing morals usually fails."

every human activity has moral implications. economics is practised by humans. the moral implications and consequences are usually denied, but that does not make economics an amoral activity. economists such as keynes, hayek etc. did not claim that they were engage in amoral activity. quite the contrary. ditto for a newer generation of economists, from stiglitz to krugman to bhagwati and sen, BD etc. etc.

The other great book by Adam Smith which is unfortunately ignored.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments

commonsense, #8, what i meant to say is that trying to create moral economic laws do not work, some examples are like interest free economics or finance, doesnt work as I have explained in one of my previous essays based upon research in Malaysia.

Same thing with morality of looking after say parents has nothing to do with the economics of old age.

Suresh was saying "Amoral economics once yielded higher returns. It now yields negative returns." I do not know what that is.

//I wouldnt call Tom Friedman as a economics correspondent//
Should it be reason to reject his argument?
""More, the US, the largest creditor nation of the world three decades ago, is today the number one debtor of the world, with $12.5 trillion of debt."
""As the people saved less and spent more, they got into trillions of dollars of private debt; and as the government spent more, it also ran into tens of trillions of dollars of public debt.""


First we destroy Family system and ensure the people and govt to borrow.
Then say Cheap credit is available if you nationalize Families!!

Suresh ram

It does not matter who is Friedman. We can find many others who are equally recognized economists, authors, correspondents etc. who will disagree with him. Your point is that a creditor nation has become debtor and people are spending more and saving less. In spite of all that people in the US seem to be living materially better life than in most other countries. And people in India and elsewhere are doing any thing they can to immigrate to this big debtor nation.
I agree that they messed it up. Hopefully they will learn from it and rise again. They are there in Haiti to help. They will continue to do their share in spite of the huge debt.

No body has a monopoly for this or that kind of family system. India can do whatever people wish.
But social evolution will continue. What we thought good yesterday may not be considered good by the people of today. Do we know how many families fail to look after or simply neglect their parents? Are we to assume that all elders are properly taken care of? At least under so called socialized families there a safety net and all are taken care of one way or other.

Morris:

"In spite of all that people in the US seem to be living materially better life than in most other countries."

this is too general a statment! the gini coefficient that among other things, measures social inequality or the gap between the richest and the poorest, is one of the highest in the US, when it comes to industrialized/developed countries. And one of the lowest in Switzerland. Yet, whenever there is any attempt to reduce this gap, some "patriotic americans" scream "socialism is alien to our culture", "no redistribution of wealth" etc. etc. The same refrain when it comes to medicare reform. Look up actual figures: infant mortality rates in the US are the highest among the "developed" countries; medicare access for the general population, among the worst; 45 million have no coverage whatsoever (unthinkable for ANY "developed" country).

Those monitoring presumably anti-US sentiments, please note that this is a pro-US statement, from the viewpoint of regular citizens who could, given the size of the economy, could have a better life but are side-tracked by silly ideas such as is this value "american" or "non-american" etc. enforced by the non-silly folks who are constantly laughing all the way to the bank while banking on whipping up the bogey of "anti-americanism" to maintain their grip on power, and yes of course, the wealth...

CS

I agree with you. I am aware of their taboo about socialism. I do not believe they are any closer now under Obama. Perhaps they are not ready yet. That is why I said better life than in most other countries and not all other countries.
In spite of these problems, the US seems to lure people from all over the world. And it is about the US Suresh ram was talking about.

BD

Don't you think this is nothing but a bias on the part of lender countries and IMF about political system. Often they even try to impose some similar conditions. When Soviets used to lend or help they gave favourable terms to socialists countries. So I do not think there is any logic about doing this. Does the study also tell us what happened to such loans(repaid or not etc) that vindicated their judgement about the terms? If it does not, then it is just a simple bias or inducement and a way to help.

Commonsense:

"""this is too general a statment! the gini coefficient that among other things, measures social inequality or the gap between the richest and the poorest, is one of the highest in the US, when it comes to industrialized/developed countries"""

Until recently the poor in US have led(or had the opportunity to lead) better lives than their European counterparts(both poor and lower middle class).

Additionally, the xenophobic Europeans and Japanese have not taken up the same level of burden as US when it comes to intake of immigrants.

Lets see how their(European) statistics compare when they have an underclass of 75 million hispanics and blacks. Even if blacks are to be excluded(as they are not immigrants), there is still a 40 million underclass of hispanics in US.

rani:

"Until recently the poor in US have led(or had the opportunity to lead) better lives than their European counterparts(both poor and lower middle class)"

to general, yet again! nobody legally in western europe/EU is without health insurance. health, as they say is wealth. US = 50 million REAL AMERICANS (not illegal immigrants) without health insurance; if the immigrants (illegal + legal) did not play a role in the economy, they would not be allowed in. the US, like any other country, is not a charity organization...

rani:

"the xenophobic Europeans and Japanese have not taken up the same level of burden as US when it comes to intake of immigrants."

"burden" my ass...no country takes immigrants out of pure goodwill. immigrants undercut wages, do shit work that others won't and allow the powers that be to laugh all the way to the bank. don't be naive...

and NOW he says it! one of the most right-wing, immoral, anti-poor heads of state:

"French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a fundamental rethink of capitalism in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

"We need deep profound change," he said in his keynote speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

His comments came as bankers and regulators clashed over proposals to break up banks that threaten the whole financial system.

Mr Sarkozy said he wished to restore a "moral dimension" to free trade."

Commonsense

---"burden" my ass...no country takes immigrants out of pure goodwill. immigrants undercut wages, do shit work that others won't and allow the powers that be to laugh all the way to the bank. don't be naive...---

The global corporations may make money from cheap labour, but it is others who have to pick the tab in US. Different topic anyway.

Commonsense:

"""to general, yet again! nobody legally in western europe/EU is without health insurance. health, as they say is wealth. US = 50 million REAL AMERICANS (not illegal immigrants) without health insurance; if the immigrants (illegal + legal) did not play a role in the economy, they would not be allowed in. the US, like any other country, is not a charity organization..."""

UN/WHO consistantly rates France as the top country in the world when it comes to healthcare. In a single year in early 2000's over 10000 people in old folks home were kiled in France were killed. The reason? No A/C in their retirement homes. So much for statistics. Romanticizing European health care as a gold standard is being naive.

Rani:

"UN/WHO consistantly rates France as the top country in the world when it comes to healthcare. In a single year in early 2000's over 10000 people in old folks home were kiled in France were killed. The reason? No A/C in their retirement homes. So much for statistics. Romanticizing European health care as a gold standard is being naive."

naive? yes! missing the proverbial big picture on health-care in favor of one freak heat-wave? naive? you bet!

as for heat-waves, read up on the chicago heat-waves.

for starters, try reading: Eric Klinenberg's _Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago_ won six scholarly and literary prizes (as well as a Favorite Book section from the Chicago Tribune) and was praised as “a dense and subtle portrait”

rani:

""UN/WHO consistantly rates France as the top country in the world when it comes to healthcare. In a single year in early 2000's over 10000 people in old folks home were kiled in France were killed. The reason? No A/C in their retirement homes. So much for statistics. Romanticizing European health care as a gold standard is being naive.""

naive i might be, but i have no doubt that the 40 milllion totally uninsured for health-care americans presumably all have air-conditioning at least. praise be to the lord! there is NO industrialized country without basic healthcare for all...

""Throw all the Democrats out along with Obama!'
Lee Iacocca Says:

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage with this so called president? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of tax cheating clueless leftists trying to steer our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even run a ridiculous cash-for-clunkers program without losing $26 billion of the taxpayers' money, much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'trust me the economy is getting better..'

Better? You've got to be kidding. This is America , not the damned, 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the Democrats out along with Obama!'

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore.
......................
Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America . In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: The 'Great Depression on,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years since 9/11.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/dubiousquotes/a/lee_iacocca.htm