Klein and Greenspan
This is a response to the Democracy Now piece featuring Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine) and Alan Greenspan (The Age of Turbulence) September 24, 2007.
Greenspan said that capitalism is the only or best option for the world now that communism/socialism have demonstrably failed. My take on this is that we should not look to ideologies as an institutional framework but rather to mixed economies in which democratic societies select various institutional arrangements, which will vary according to technological dictates, and change them as needed. Capitalist institutions can do some things very well but are not appropriate as models to serve as a criterion of judgment; the same could be said of socialistic institutions.
Greenspan blamed income disparities on the failure of American schools to prepare citizens for information technology work, causing a shortage of skilled workers in the computer field. To me such disparities as these can hardly be called a problem, not to mention the fact that worldwide there is probably not a shortage of such workers. The problem actually is very different from this, involving largely the current practice of corporations to set exorbitant salaries for management.
Greenspan said he had approved the Bush administration's budget deficits on the ground that the economy should preserve deficits so that investors will have the option of buying Treasury bonds. Also that Social Security as presently arranged will be the problem and should be privatized and/or cut. As for the deficits, my memory is that he continued to support the Bush budget deficits long after they became much larger than necessary and desirable. As for Social Security, the best estimates at this time, as well as when Greenspan made these comments during his tenure as Fed chairman, is that the Social Security so-called trust fund will be sufficient to fund retirees' pensions until 2042 or 2052, or even until about 2075.
Greenspan's data on how successful the current global system has been in lessening world poverty need another look.
That's all for now. If other comments occur to me I'll be back with more.
Greenspan said that capitalism is the only or best option for the world now that communism/socialism have demonstrably failed. My take on this is that we should not look to ideologies as an institutional framework but rather to mixed economies in which democratic societies select various institutional arrangements, which will vary according to technological dictates, and change them as needed. Capitalist institutions can do some things very well but are not appropriate as models to serve as a criterion of judgment; the same could be said of socialistic institutions.
Greenspan blamed income disparities on the failure of American schools to prepare citizens for information technology work, causing a shortage of skilled workers in the computer field. To me such disparities as these can hardly be called a problem, not to mention the fact that worldwide there is probably not a shortage of such workers. The problem actually is very different from this, involving largely the current practice of corporations to set exorbitant salaries for management.
Greenspan said he had approved the Bush administration's budget deficits on the ground that the economy should preserve deficits so that investors will have the option of buying Treasury bonds. Also that Social Security as presently arranged will be the problem and should be privatized and/or cut. As for the deficits, my memory is that he continued to support the Bush budget deficits long after they became much larger than necessary and desirable. As for Social Security, the best estimates at this time, as well as when Greenspan made these comments during his tenure as Fed chairman, is that the Social Security so-called trust fund will be sufficient to fund retirees' pensions until 2042 or 2052, or even until about 2075.
Greenspan's data on how successful the current global system has been in lessening world poverty need another look.
That's all for now. If other comments occur to me I'll be back with more.
posted by Gladys at 9:55 AM
1 Comments:
Not having been successful at editing my blog of Klein/Greebspan, I'll just add this.
On lessening income disparities, there should be measures to increase the minimum wage, to instill a living wage, to promote collective bargaining, and to lower taxes on low incomes and on Social Security payroll decuctions.
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