Economy is Great!
Out of context: Reply #15
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- spifflink0
its high-state level socialsm only for the super rich, the top 1% that control 40% of the nation's wealth.
as in the past, the costs and risks of the coming phases the industial economy were to be socialized, with the eventual profits privatized, a form of state-socialism for the rich on which much of the advanced US economy relies, particularly since WW2, but with precendents in the advanced economies back to the early days of the industrial revolution. In the past several decades, Pentagon funding for R&D has declined, while support through the National Institute of Health and other "health-related" componentss of the state sector has increased as the cutting edge of the economy of the future shifts from electronics to biotech. The longime chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan and other idealogues may hail the wonders of "entrepreneurial initiative" "consumer choice," and "free trade" but those who channel public funds to development of the economy and those who profit from these decisions know better.
It is sometimes argued that concealing development of high-tech industry under the cover of "defense" has been a valuable contribution to society. Those who do not share that contempt for democracy might ask what decisions the population would have made if they had been informed of the real options asnd allowed to choose among them. Perhaps they might have preferred more social spending for health, education, decent housing, a sustainable environment, and support for the United Nations, international law, and diplomacy, as polls regularly show. We can only guess, since fear of democracy barred the option of allowing the public into the political arena, or even informing them about what was being done in their name.
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sources
-Frances Williams, Financial Times, 20 October 2005.
-Tom Wright, International Herald Tribune, 30 September 2005
-"Hope and Folly" 1989