inkbluesky

wonderful symmetry 1600x. it is interesting how many life forms have a literal symmetry in forms such being radical or bilaterally symmetrical.

The Profit vs. Country Dilemma

Through its trade surpluses, China has accumulated 1.2 trillion dollars of foreign exchange reserves – mostly held in US treasury bills. Recently, China announced it will invest some of those funds in American equities, signaling the beginning of a new chapter that promises to further entrench existing policy.

This is because the new initiative will deepen Wall Street’s support for current policy by offering the prospect of huge fees and capital gains from re-investing China’s reserves. Consequently, Wall Street will now throw its full weight behind existing policy since the Street recognizes China needs continuing trade surpluses if it is to invest its foreign exchange holdings in risky assets such as equities. That augurs badly for the US and Main Street.

There was a smug little article recently by a conservative that pretended to be astounded that anyone could possibly object to China owning so much of our debt. This article is one answer to that. The trend toward making China America’s proxy manufacturer is something like a pyramid scheme. At the beginning a few people at the top make a lot of money and quite a few others, mostly working class citizens without much political clout lose their jobs. It somewhat evens out because the average Joes and Janes moved on to service jobs or whatever and also had some consolation in being able to buy low priced products sold at outlets like Wal-Mart made by people that have their old job. We’re a good ways along on this arc. Only the people at the top are getting richer, the the middle is thinning out and those just below are finding it even more difficult to break into the next economic strata. Some are under the impression that this is just capitalism at work. Not really. Capitalism didn’t appear whole out of the heavens writ on stone. While there have been times in the west’s history where business was over regulated, we’re now at the point that it is so unregulated that very powerful corporations determine our national economic policies. If you’re at the top of the pyramid it might be good times, but what happens when the bottom two thirds feels that the economic benefits of this style of capitalism seems to disproportionately benefit the wealthiest segment that does the least actual work.

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten -

(July 17, 1714 – May 26, 1762) was a German philosopher. He was a follower of Leibniz and Christian Wolff, and gave the term aesthetics its modern meaning.

*Note: I wish i had time to do rough drafts, do a first rewrite and then do a final version that I finally post, but I don’t. I frequently come back and do some rewriting of the post and make some corrections. For those that have to suffer through the first hastily written version, my apologies for the typos, grammar, and miscellaneous screw-ups.