California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Peace is Not Just the Absence of War

by John Lawrence

As an advocate for a Department of Peace, I do not advocate eliminating the Department of War (Defense Department) altogether. I think both are necessary but in a more balanced way. Most efforts toward peace in the world should take place outside the arena of war, that is as a preventative to war. This includes economic development in parts of the world that are liable to gang control. In fact I would advocate the use of the US military to go after the gangs that are controlling certain parts of the world, for example in Mexico where gangs are trafficking humans to the US border and controlling the inflow of drugs into the US. Haiti is another candidate for the use of the US military to eliminate the gangs while the Peace Corps is helping with economic development. In areas of the world that don't have mature institutions that can provide security for the populace, the US military could provide that while the Peace Corps is building infrastructure. The two should operate hand in hand. What China is doing with its Belt and Road Initiative is instructive. China is winning friends and influencing people by building infrastructure in many parts of the world. But much more needs to be done that China is not doing. Low level infrastructure such as clean water and sanitation needs to be built out. Approximately half the world does not have clean water or adequate sanitation facilities.  3.6 billion people are still living with poor-quality toilets that damage their health and pollute their environment. Inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, contaminating water resources.China is building high level infrastructure such as ports, railroads and trains. The US should complement their efforts.

There are around 750 U.S. military bases in at least 80 countries. Most of these bases are unnecessary and represent a waste of money. They are also sitting ducks for attacks by the likes of ISIS. They should be eliminated and the resources redirected elsewhere. With US sea borne and satellite military resources there is no need for land based resources. The efforts should instead be put into developing  infrastructure both in terms of economics and in terms of political institutions. What is important is helping to create stable institutions in parts of the world where instability results in chaos ^e.g. Haiti. Also if life was good in countries where there is a lack of stability and economic development, people would not be flocking to the US and European borders and asking for asylum. So military assets as well as Peace Corps assets could work hand in hand. Once war breaks out these efforts at creating peace in the first place are useless. A Department of Peace needs to have a diplomatic aspect as well as the Peace Corps division. Also person to person exchanges help to build understanding. In fact the largest efforts need to be made with those who are considered our worst enemies.

As an anti-war protester in the 1960s, I am still one today. Peace efforts or efforts at creating peace in the world today do have both an economic and a military component. In some countries peace workers would be slaughtered by gangs if they weren't adequately protected by the US military while they go about doing their jobs. So while I am anti war, I am not anti military. I just think that the balance of human and financial resources is completely out of whack. Less money and manpower (womanpower?) needs to be devoted to the military and more money and womanpower needs to be devoted to the Department of Peace which should include the Peace Corps (economic development), the diplomatic corps (institutional development)  and exchange corps ( person to person friendship). Less effort needs to be spent on proving to the rest of the world that the US way is the best way and more effort needs to be spent on creating stable societies with the economic and institutional resources so that people in all parts of the world can have comfortable and secure lives.

Bringing the rest of the world up to economic and institutional speed is of utmost importance today because, unless the whole world is operating cooperatively, it will be impossible to do much about our common enemy - global warming. In fact we have met the enemy and it is us. Economic development in the developed world has proceeded in such a way as to have created the global warming crisis. Now it must proceed in such a way as to eliminate it. Sustainable development and environmental responsibility should be the order of the day. Countries that have vast fossil fuel resources have no incentive to curtail the economic development of those resources if they are considered to be pariah nations by the rest of the world. Nations that are considered pariah nations have no incentive to convert from war time expenditures to peace time expenditures if they are not brought into the community of nations in a respectful way. Nations that are at war right now have no incentive to negotiate a peaceful resolution if their interests and concerns are not taken into account.

Off the Top of My Head

The World's Policeman Cannot Even Police Its Own Borders

by John Lawrence

The U.S. has about 750 military bases across 80 countries in the world and had deployed 173,000 troops in 159 different countries as of July 2021. Yet it can't patrol or defend its own borders. This is the height of ridiculousness. While Congress persons debate some Rube Goldberg solution to border security, the Biden administration should do this if it wants to neutralize Trump's stand on border security: the Democrat policy should be "not one illegal border crossing should be tolerated. We stand for increasing legal immigration while decreasing illegal immigration to ZERO." The US spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, and yet is willing to tolerate people entering the country illegally. What a joke! If Biden wants to defeat Trump, he should take this issue away from him by declaring that his goal is: NOT ONE ILLEGAL ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES.

This means that, instead of spending money on 750 military bases in 80 countries all over the world, the US needs to spend money instead on policing its own border including, but not limited to, physical barriers. In addition there must be electronic barriers, satellite surveillance, and other sophisticated means of surveillance. Why not use AI, the supposed cure all for everything that ails us. Why not put 10 or 100 of those military bases circling the world right on the US border? To be clear I am not advocating withdrawing from being involved in world affairs, but that involvement which is manifested in being the world's policeman has got to change. It has been of very little value if you add it all up. The US can effectively patrol the whole world anyway from the sky, from space and from the sea. It doesn't need land based military bases. The US should be involved in the world by expanding its Peace Corp, building infrastructure like China is with its Belt and Road Initiative and mitigating climate change in vulnerable countries. In other words the US should be a force for good in the world not just a force for preserving US interests or the status quo.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed on January 28, 2024 in Jordan, while more than 40 other service members were injured following an uncrewed aerial system attack at a military base near the Syrian border. Then of course the US has to retaliate to avenge the deaths of those soldiers. Soldiers on many of these bases are sitting ducks and are provocative to those seeking to damage US interests.Yet the role of the US as the world's policeman is not even debated by politicians and probably won't be as the election season heats up. Instead the border debate is a big deal as it should be. Biden needs to assert that his goal is that not one person should enter the US illegally, but that legal immigration should be expanded. He should outTrump Trump on border security if he wants to be elected, and, while he is at it, he should demand that at least 25% of the bloated military budget which amounts to about a trillion dollars a year be redirected to border security. There is no reason why the US should not have the most sophisticated border security system in the world.

Off the Top of My Head

While China Builds Infrastructure in the Americas, the US is Disconcerted

by John Lawrence

How dare they, the Chinese that is, build infrastructure in South America! Why, that's our back yard, our sphere of influence. China is building an elaborate $3 billion port in Chancay, Peru. It wasn't that long ago that the US was complicit in a plot to overthrow the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende who was a socialist. Be that as it may, many countries are turning to China preferring the building of infrastructure to the building of military bases of which the US has constructed about 750 in some 80 countries throughout the world. China is even bailing out Argentina financially. According to Reuters, Argentina's central bank said on [October 18, 2023] that China has cleared a currency swap line totaling a freely accessible $6.5 billion, part of a broader deal the South American country has been using to help it defend the embattled local peso. Many countries throughout the world are effectively saying to the US, "What have you done for us lately?" So the question is how can the US compete with a country who is building economic assets in other countries while all the US has to offer is the construction of military bases? Is it the world's policeman versus the world's builder, and which role will be more appealing?

"In the district of Chancay, Huaral province, approximately 80 kilometers from the Peruvian capital, Lima, a major private investment project is being developed that promises to change the logistics landscape in Latin America. It is the New Multipurpose Port Terminal of Chancay, a joint project by the Chinese company COSCO Shipping Ports Limited (CSPL), which owns a 60 percent share, and the Peruvian company Volcan Compañía Minera, with the remaining 40 percent.

"With an investment budget of over $3 billion, this ambitious project is in the development stage, over 40 percent complete. Construction began in 2011, and the terminal is expected to start operations in the last quarter of 2024."

Back to Argentina: "China has increased the amount and instead of $5 billion we are getting $6.5 billion," Argentine President Alberto Fernandez told Radio 10 from the Asian country, where he is for an official trip.

"Every time we went through difficult times, Xi Jinping's government gave us its support," Fernandez added. "This is an important step so that production (in Argentina) does not stop."

This is the second swap line with China activated during Fernandez's presidency. According to an official bank source, the total amount of the swap line stood at 47 billion yuans .

The move comes as Argentines head to the ballots on Sunday for a presidential election. Libertarian Javier Milei, who has vowed to dollarize the economy and shut down the central bank, is seen as the front-runner.

Well, Javier Milei won the election. It's unclear whether Milei's tough talk regarding China will mean that he will not let China bail them out! " According to Reuters, "Argentinian president-elect Javier Milei has criticised China and Brazil, which are among his country's most important trading partners. A few months ago, Milei even likened the Chinese government to an "assassin" and said the people of China were "not free". Milei's tough talk on China stands in sharp contrast with a vow of cooperation by the outgoing president, Alberto Fernandez, who visited Beijing last month and hailed China as a "true friend" of Argentina."

China is South America’s top trading partner and a major source of both foreign direct investment and lending in energy and infrastructure, including through its massive Belt and Road Initiative. Can the US compete? China has surpassed the United States as South America’s largest trading partner. Beijing has also expanded its diplomatic, cultural, and military presence throughout the region. Most recently, it leveraged its support amid the COVID-19 pandemic, supplying the region with medical equipment, loans, and hundreds of millions of vaccine doses. U.S. President Joe Biden, who sees China as a “strategic competitor” in the region, has pledged greater economic cooperation with Latin America, but some analysts argue the United States should be doing more.

But will the US do more? It can't even get modest amounts of aid for Israel and Ukraine passed by the Republican controlled House of Representatives. The Trumpist American Firsters don't want to spend money on other countries. However, they don't mind the trillion dollar military-industrial complex budgets. They are baked in the cake especially because all the financial and economic incentives align for the various interests. Lobbyists will make sure there is no reduction in that budget.

But China’s push comes as American wars overseas, unstable foreign policy election-to-election, and deep political polarization have intensified questions about US global leadership. Meanwhile, pressing issues like climate change, Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s assault on Gaza have sharpened discussion over whether the West is taking the right approach to respond.

All this coincides with longstanding calls from countries across the developing world for an international system where they have more say.

Many of those countries have substantially enhanced their economic ties with Beijing during Xi’s rule, including under a decade of his up to $1 trillion global infrastructure building drive, which leaders gathered to celebrate last month in the Chinese capital.

Economics tends to transcend politics in international relations. Up to now the economic success of the west and in particular the United States has exerted a pull on countries around the world. However, it can't be ignored that currently China is outpacing the US with its investments in other countries particularly with its Belt and Road initiative. Its alternative vision for economic development is very appealing. Its live and let live policy regarding lecturing other nations on their internal political systems also is seen by many as a refreshing alternative to the US' insistence that other countries should structure their political systems similarly to the US'.

Off the Top of My Head

Will There Ever Be a Department of Peace?

by John Lawrence

Let's face it. The US Department of Defense is really a misnomer. It's true name is the Department of War. Why not call it what it really is. That's its mission. That's its raison d'etre. In fact the United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, also bearing responsibility for naval affairs until the establishment of the Navy Department in 1798, and for most land-based air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force on September 18, 1947. The Secretary of War, a civilian with such responsibilities as finance and purchases and a minor role in directing military affairs, headed the War Department throughout its existence. The War Department existed from August 7, 1789 until September 18, 1947, when it split into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. The Department of the Army and Department of the Air Force later joined the Department of the Navy under the United States Department of Defense in 1949.

But there is no countervailing Department of Peace! I'm proposing one. Furthermore, the trillion dollar annual budget for the Department of War should be divided in two with half going to the Department of Peace. So $500 billion for war; $500 billion for peace. Please note that I'm not advocating doing away with the war department. I'm just advocating balancing it with a Department of Peace. Halving the Defense Department budget will still leave it with a larger military budget than any other country in the world. So when will it be a good idea to actively pursue peace if not now? Can the human mind even visualize what a Department of Peace would encompass or be involved in? Part of its mission would be to do just that - imagine what peace would look like. How do you spend the allotted resources in such a way as to bring about peace in the world? Dare I say that eliminating poverty and disease in the world, assuring educational opportunities and building infrastructure would be a good place to start. The Peace Corps would be incorporated into a Department of Peace, and its budget made commensurate with the budgets of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force. Instead of extracting resources from what used to be called the Third World, the Department of Peace should be in the business of providing resources to the Third World. Instead of being totally focused on US interests, how about focusing on the interests of others particularly those who have been exploited by more technically advanced nations.

Bear in mind I'm not proposing defunding the Defense Department, just halving its budget and spending the rest on peace. The Defense Department would always stand ready to fight and win any war if all efforts for peace fail. But efforts at peace should take place preemptively and proactively long before tensions fester. Part of creating peace just consists of showing respect for all parties. That costs nothing. As an example of what not to do consider Israel's relationship with the Palestinians. They let it fester until the horrible recent events resulting in much destruction, death and suffering on both sides. Israel, the US and other interested parties had years to come up with a solution that was fair to both sides. But, admittedly, there was some trying especially by President Clinton, who almost got Israel and the Palestinian Authority to agree to peace. Yasser Arafat just refused at the last minute to say yes. But wars have been fought by human beings for millennia. Homo Sapiens probably wiped out the Neanderthals and other humanoid species. Why should we believe anything else given the history of human warfare in most cases based on religion and/or ethnicity?

China, at least, is building infrastructure throughout the world, and in particular in Africa with its Belt and Road initiative. This is a peace building exercise which is not recognized or given credit by the US. The US is a Johnny-come-lately to the idea of building infrastructure in the Third World. It can hardly accomplish this at home. If it wasn't for Biden's excellent diplomatic skills, nothing in that regard would be happening in the US itself. The US can barely keep its government open. It's not a good prognosis for the leader of the free world especially in light of the fact that a multiply indicted authoritarian who tried to overthrow the government is favored to win the next election straight out of the German playbook circa 1932.

Off the Top of My Head

We Need a Department of Peace to Balance and Offset our War Department

by John Lawrence

Let's face it. the Department of Defense is a euphemism. It was called the Department of War until 1949. So let's call it what it really is. Don't get me wrong. There are times when war is necessary as occurred in WW II. However, we spend about $1 trillion on our War Department while spending little or nothing on peace. Is there really a Peace Corps? Yes, and its budget is about $400 million. That's about 4 ten thousandths of the War Department budget. My point is that we should be making at least the same effort towards peace as we're making towards war, and we should be putting our money where our mouth is. This doesn't mean we totally disarm ourselves. It means that we are making an effort towards creating peace in the world if at all possible and are willing to devote an equal amount of resources towards it. In our present state it's all about threatening war in order to to create a state of peace. It's Pax Americana similar to the Pax Romana which meant that you didn't mess with Rome or else you were threatened with violence. Instead of creating peace by means of a threat of war, we should be actively pursuing a peaceful world instead.

What would a Department of Peace actually do? Well, diplomacy would be under this department instead of the State Department for starters. Second, the American equivalent of China's Belt and Road initiative. Building infrastructure around the world just as China is doing. But what's most important at the present time is converting the world to green infrastructure. The middle class in India is growing. They want to live just like Americans. As more Indians enter the middle class they are consuming more fossil fuels to provide the energy to do so. This is contributing to the looming climate disaster. Just what we don't need is more carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere as a result of more people gentrifying into the middle class. Therefore, a Department of Peace, which should include the Peace Corps, would step up the efforts not only to change the fossil fuel habit in the US, but to actively change it around the world. About a half a trillion dollar budget would be about right while decreasing the War (Defense) budget which is 10 times the combined budgets of the rest of the world to half a trillion.

President Biden wants a Civilian Climate Corps reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps which President Roosevelt established to build parks and plant trees during the Great Depression. An excellent idea in view of the fact that planting a trillion trees would suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Unless we do that there is already enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 410 ppm to melt both poles. Why not require participation in the Civilian Conservation Corps for people receiving welfare benefits who aren't otherwise employed or who are unemployable in the prevailing economy. I'm thinking about the homeless and others for whom this might be a first step to getting back on their feet in the so-called real world. I'm in favor of the government being the employer of last resort, and employment in a Civilian Climate Corps is the perfect solution both for them and for the environment.

Building the elements of peace around the world would entail looking out for the health care needs of people outside the US in our era of pandemics. This is also good sense in a selfish way since viruses can transmit world wide in a matter of days if not hours. They don't respect national boundaries. People to people cultural contacts with people of other nations brings about understanding and the realization that, no matter what the religious or ethnic differences seem to be, human beings are all essentially the same deep down and all have the same needs and aspirations. Helping others to realize their aspirations creates peace in the world. Cultural and educational exchanges are an important way to increase mutual understanding. There are many ways to create peace in the world. The US shouldn't be always taking the stance of trying to put down those peoples and countries who don't follow the US way of life. Others might have a different way of setting up their societies, but rather than taking this as a threat, we should engage diplomatically and peacefully if at all possible knowing that in the final analysis, if push came to shove, we also have the means to defend ourselves. A Department of Peace and a Department of War should go hand in hand. Today it is lopsided in favor of war.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Were There Tens of Thousands of American Citizens and Foreign Nationals in Afghanistan?

by John Lawrence

There were only 2500 American military and 50,000 American citizens? What's wrong with this picture? And now a ragtag group is taking over the whole country having defeated the world's mightiest military force? What's wrong with this picture? This is totally F-ed up. I assume that all these civilians were there to make money. Maybe there were a few who genuinely wanted to help the Afghan people, but sending in the US military to facilitate that is not the way to do it. The US should be providing aid to people in the world that have less than we do. When you have a hammer, it seems like every problem is a nail. When you have the world's mightiest military every problem seems to have a solution by sending in the military to solve it. Having 50,000 American citizens in a war zone is completely nuts. and then the only way to extract ourselves from the situation is to have a massive, chaotic airlift as we are experiencing now?

So now Biden has at least established the principal that the US military doesn't have to remain forever in every country it invades. But that seems to be the MO. There are almost 40,000 troops in Germany, 28,000 in Korea and 55,000 in Japan. The military of the United States is deployed in most countries around the world, with between 150,000 to 200,000 of its active-duty personnel stationed outside the United States and its territories. The US military maintains close to 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad. So is it even possible for the world to function without the presence of the US military in practically every country? What if they just all were withdrawn? Would the world's economic and political structure, such that it is, completely collapse?

Every empire in world history has collapsed due to its being overextended. The Roman Empire which lasted for about 1000 years (compared to the US' less than 100) collapsed because it extended itself into northern Europe instead of being content with just controlling lands around he Mediterranean. While the US vision of the world is that the US military will effectively occupy almost every country with the notable exceptions of China, Russia, Iran and now eventually Afghanistan, China's vision seems to be its Belt and Road initiative which ties many countries of the world to China economically. Can the US pivot from military occupation to peaceful economic and humanitarian development? Or even pivot to being a constructive force to ameliorate climate change in cooperation with China and Russia? Military assets could be converted to more peaceful purposes and be integrated into the Peace Corps. But that would take the incentives for glory and patriotism out of the equation. Could purple hearts ever be given to members of the Peace Corps? The principal that Biden has established that the US can leave a country is a game changer. It doesn't mean that the US will never have anything to do with Afghanistan again. It means that US involvement will be more along the lines of humanitarian assistance.

Off the Top of My Head

Our Grandchildren Won't Have to Pay Back Money Spent on a Green New Deal, But They Will Pay With Their Lives if We Don't Do It Now

by John Lawrence

It's a myth that a sovereign country with a sovereign currency and a floating exchange rate has to borrow money to pay its bills. The US can just issue the money. It doesn't need to tax in order to spend. So why isn't the US as well as all the other nations with sovereign currencies such as Japan, Britain and China going all out to supply as much money as necessary to prevent global warming from "going viral" as they say? The only restraint is the question of whether the human and physical resources to do the work are available. In a society such as China, if the government wanted its people to stop whatever they were doing and become part of the work force to forestall global warming, it would be done. In the US it would not be so easy to commandeer workers to leave their jobs as servers, bartenders, chefs, dealers, workers at Disneyland, workers on cruise ships etc to leave their jobs and go to work in Joe Biden's global warming and infrastructure rebuilding work force. The businesses large and small would have a conniption fit like they're having now getting these workers back to work because their pandemic unemployment has not run out.

The only time when workers went all out to solve a major global problem was World War II. Rosie the Riveter and all the others joined the work force to defeat Hitler. They even were willing to defer consumption so that the financial and material resources that were necessary weren't spent in the consumption market thus letting the necessary physical resources be available for the war effort. Today we have a nation consisting of a bunch of spoiled brats who wouldn't do anything the government asked them to do crying that their "freedom" to do whatever they wanted was paramount. We live in a society composed of consumers who demand to be endlessly entertained by movies, TV, theme parks cruise ships, athletes, restaurants, social media and Las Vegas. Half the country works as servers, baristas, bartenders, housekeepers, actors, athletes, dealers, entertainers and such like jobs to entertain the top half. Some of these are highly paid; most are not. Such was the nature of the "full employment" society before COVID hit. It was a full employment society consisting of trivial jobs at minimum wages for the most part. Biden will have to persuade workers to leave their jobs in the "entertainment" industry in order to create actual results in the real world such as building green infrastructure. The entertainment industry will not be pleased nor will the upper half of society which demands to be continually entertained. 70% of US GNP is consumption and a lot of what people want to consume is encompassed by sports bars, travel and tourism, the leisure and hospitality industry in general. The spoiled brats think its their birthright to have such services available, and the last thing they want to do is to roll up their sleeves and join a union.

Together with the presumed right to be entertained, we have a large percentage of the country that has been processed through the military and developed this consciousness that military prerogatives should prevail uber alles. These are the insurrectionists and Trump supporters that want civilian society to reinforce military values such as command and control. They want an autocrat for President. Freedom is the only value that counts for them. Democracy, equality, fraternity, social equity don't matter. They want to preserve the American way of life which, in addition to a right to be entertained wherever and whenever they have the resources to consume, includes also the right to exclude the prerogatives of minorities for social justice. Is it any wonder that the insurrectionists in January 6 contained a large number of current and former members of the military and police forces? Their attitude is that whatever is good for the military is good for American society in general. The military has become a way of life and consciousness for them. They think that, because they served, they are entitled. Spoiled brat militarists I'll call them. The endless wars, bloated military-industrial complex budget and the military bases in practically every country in the world provides the economic and job base of the nation unfortunately.

Biden thinks he is out to prove that American democracy can compete in the civilian world on an equally competent basis with other countries. That will be a hard nut to crack. The US is dooming itself in two ways: the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. Let's take the Second Amendment first. In no other major country in the world do citizens have a right to unlimited uncontrolled gun ownership including military style weapons. This is producing news cycles when, hardly is one mass murder out of the way, than another one comes along to dominate the news. The news channels can hardly keep up with them all. No other society including The US' major competitors would tolerate such a situation. The Second Amendment has become toxic and perverted, and in and of itself is enough to doom the US to second class status. In addition to that the First Amendment has become toxic and perverted, and the major reason for that is social media. Social media makes possible the vicious spread of toxic lies and untruths. Witness Trump's use of Twitter to corral and consolidate his followers around the thesis that he, not Biden, actually won the election. Social media allowed him to rally his supporters based on angry themes and memes connected with white supremacy and a return to the good old days when white, Protestant Anglo Saxons ran the country, the good old days when Negroes knew their place in society, the good old days when you didn't have multiple nationalities and religious groups asserting their rights under the Constitution to live freely and enjoy all the perquisites of American society, the good old days when gas guzzlers were the only vehicles in town and no one need be concerned about anything except maximizing their profits and living the American Dream, where the American Dream consisted of having more stuff than your parents did.

Joe Biden's first 100 days have been remarkable in that he has been able to get as much accomplished with slim majorities in both Houses of Congress. Is this enough though to move America forward at the pace that China, for instance, is moving? China is a more or less unified society. 99% or more of Chinese citizens are on the same page as the Chinese government. China is winning friends and allies all over the world with its Belt and Road initiative while the US withers away its resources on endless wars and confuses its allies with the possibility of radical swings with each change of administrations. China's military budget of $183.5 billion is dwarfed by a US military budget 5 times that amount. The US is a divided country where one of the major parties base their appeal on lies and deception, and its supporters are only too willing to eat it up because it's entertaining and represents military values of command and control. Good government, as Biden has illustrated, is somewhat boring because it is based on solving real human problems. Let's hope that Biden's version of reality based on truth and problem solving wins out over the lies based reality of the other side, and the US, even if it doesn't remain the world's dominant power, can become a constructive member of the world community helping to solve problems at home and abroad.

Off the Top of My Head

Unlike Trump, Biden's New Deal Will Actually Make America Great Again

by John Lawrence, April 4, 2021

GDP is the measure of national economic activity and is composed of 4 components: private consumer consumption, business investment, government investment and net of imports and exports. America's economy is 70% consumption compared to about 50% for most of our western allies. Government spending is about 17% compared to 40-50% for most of our allies. In fact for Norway, Belgium, Finland and France it's over 50%. Joe Biden's infrastructure plan will change all that bringing government spending on infrastructure both material and human more in line with the rest of the developed world. While most of our allies spend around 50% on consumption, America is primarily a consumer economy at 70%. That's about to change under Biden's New Deal. Government consumption and employment will increase while private consumption and employment will decrease. This is a good thing, but Republicans and states' rights advocates disagree. American infrastructure is falling to Third World status while Americans entertain themselves to death. Nothing has been invested and everything has been consumed. Biden's attempted change in these dynamics, which Mitch McConnell has vowed to fight "every step of the way" is a bid to preserve first world status for the US which is rapidly diminishing.

The one thing the US has going for itself right now is the fact that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. As such the US can spend large sums - trillions of dollars in fact - without fear of the dollar losing its value. So it might as well "go big" on spending because the dollar may not always retain that status. China is becoming the world's largest economy with major spending on infrastructure not only in China, but, with its Belt and Road Initiative, around the world. Meanwhile, what the US has to offer in that regard is using its bloated military to police the world. So if you were President of your country, which would you rather have - policing or investment. The answer seems clear to many, even to many US allies. China is consistent and values stability and unanimity of its citizens. The US government is subject to radical change every 2 or 4 years with deep divides among its populace, and more and more can't be counted upon by its allies even to the extent that a sizable number of US citizens invaded its Capitol! Autocratic countries may be brutal towards political dissidents, but they would never tolerate a threat to their very existence.

Some Americans will have to be brought kicking and screaming into the Biden economy. Just as they were cavalier about wearing masks, they could care less about good jobs at good wages. They just want good beer and football games. Cruises, spectator sports and abundant entertainment is what Americans have come to expect, and they prefer that to safer roads and rebuilt bridges. They are viscerally opposed to doing anything to prevent climate change or global warming. They don't want to work hard to make America great again. They want it all given to them on a silver platter preferably by an entertaining and charismatic President rather than a plodder who has their welfare at heart. There is a looming war between states rights Republicans who want the US to remain a private consumption economy and Democratic neo-New Dealers who want government to play a larger role in investing in American infrastructure, both material and human.There will be more and better paying jobs working in government infrastructure projects than there will be working in the entertainment industry. This infuriates some people.

Taxing the rich also brings Republicans out of the woodwork to proclaim that Biden will end up taxing the middle class as well "to pay for it" even though he has said that everyone making under $400,000 a year will not pay one penny more in taxes. Republican lawmakers will chomp at the bit to naysay that bit of profundity by saying over and over on their media outlets that it is not true. The truth is that Biden wants to construct a stronger safety net while rebuilding and extending American infrastructure, and a lot of Trump supporters just don't care about any of those things. They just want to be entertained and to eat out while watching spectator sports.

Off the Top of My Head

China Has Been Taking Over the World ... Peacefully

by John Lawrence, February 11, 2021

As Trump was retreating from multilateralism with his America First approach, China was winning friends and influencing people by building infrastruture in countries around the world with its Belt and Road initiative. This model put excess Chinese labor to work pulling their families out of poverty and set up the groundwork for increased trade and friendly relations with with other countries. Latest example: Latin America. Meanwhile, the US has not even been able to build infrastructure in its own country. Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) publishes The Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, which grades the current state of national infrastructure categories on a scale of A through F. In 2017, the U.S. infrastructure earned a D+ average. Stay tuned for a new report later this year. Infrastructure looms large because now it must be built out as green infrastructure replacing fossil fuel infrastructure.

In Latin America, America's so-called back yard, 19 countries have signed up for China's Belt and Road Initiative. The value of trade between China and Brazil, Latin America's largest country is $100 billion. China is South America's largest trading partner. Only Paraguay is not on board because they're the only South American country that recognizes Taiwan and not Beijing as the legitimate Chinese government. In 2019 Chinese companies invested $12.8 billion in Latin America concentrating on regional infrastructure such as ports, roads, dams and railways. Meanwhile, America was focused on its entertainment and consumerist economy, now partially defunct due to COVID. Chinese purchases of minerals and agricultural commodities helped South America get through the worst effects of the 2008 financial crisis. While the US had an orgy of financial speculation that created the 2008 financial crisis, China was powering on keeping its shoulder to the wheel, ear to the ground and nose to the grindstone building infrastructure and providing full employment for the Chinese people. As the US was relying on its military power to maintain its influence in the world, China was employing peaceful means to expand its influence. In 2020 the US spent $738 billion on defense, an additional $35 billion on nuclear weapons and and additional $80 billion on intelligence programs, none of which by the way provided intelligence on the assault on the Capitol although it had been discussed widely and openly on the web in prior weeks. Meanwhile, China's 2020 defense budget was $178 billion.

China's Cosco Shipping is building a new $3 billion port in Peru, and there are plans for a transcontinental railroad linking South America's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Diplomatic opportunities for China have also been opened up due to COVID since China produces most of the world's PPE. The US was caught flat footed because it had to go hat in hand to China for PPE not much of which is manufactured domestically. Mask diplomacy has caused Washington to worry that China is gaining influence during the pandemic as China has provided PPE to 150 countries and 7 international organizations around the globe. While the US struggles to get vaccine into the arms of Americans, China has agreed to provide Pakistan with half a million doses of its Sinopharm vaccine free of charge. Time magazine reported:

"Yet China has won influence not by wielding sticks but by deftly distributing carrots. In Brazil, the region’s largest economy, bilateral trade with China rose from $2 billion in 2000 to $100 billion last year. Today, Brazil sends 30% of all exports to China, including 80% of its soybean crop and 60% of its iron ore. These entanglements are typically tightest with nations with goods to sell; China has supplied over $17 billion in financing to Argentina since 2007, according to Inter-American Dialogue, and is the world’s top importer of Argentine soybeans and beef.

"China is also now a preferred lender across the region. It hosts two international development banks–the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB) in Shanghai–that are both expanding their remit across the region. “Infrastructure development has shrunk the distance between Asia and Latin America,” AIIB president Jin Liqun tells TIME in his Beijing headquarters."

While China was deftly distributing carrots, the US was wielding sticks with Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo bullying the rest of the world to get them to fall in line behind the US. The US needs to cooperate with China to stave off the next big crisis - global warming - not start a new Cold War in an effort to overtake or compete with China. For the most part China has already won any competition to speak of by gaining cooperation and friendship with the rest of the world and achieving the world's largest economy while the US still struggles with COVID, its economy in shambles. "No country has put itself in a better position to become the world's renewable energy superpower than China,"says a recent report by the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation. In Brazil China's State Grid Corp. is the largest power generation and distribution company, while China's Three Gorges, the world's largest hydropower provider, controls 17 out of 48 hydro plants and 11 wind farms.

Joe Biden is doing his best to backtrack from Trump's disastrous America First policy, but American foreign policy is still on the track that it views China as a competitor rather than a nation that should be cooperated with in order to meet the challenge of global warming. Rather than gearing up for a military confrontation or quibbling and squabbling over human rights, the US must adopt a less belligerent foreign policy and learn to get along with the other nations of the world even those who have not been historic allies. The US should cut back on its bloated military and military-complex spending and devote the savings to virus research and green infrastructure implementation at home and around the world in cooperation with China and other nations.

Off the Top of My Head

The US Central Bank Can Print Money; The State of California Can't

by John Lawrence, December 27, 2020

One of the central tenets of Modern Monetary Currency (MMT) as explained in Stephanie Kelton's book, The Deficit Myth, is that a nation with a sovereign currency can always pay its debts by a few keystrokes on a computer at its central bank - the Federal Reserve in the US' case. A nation or a state without a sovereign currency must pay its debts by taxes or out of income. She dispels the myth that the US government pays its debts out of taxes or by Treasury bonds. However, the state of California must pay its debts the old fashioned way out of taxes and income. This reality hit hard in recent years in the case of Greece which gave up its sovereign currency, the drachma, when its joined the European Union. Unlike the UK which maintained its sovereign currency, the pound, Greece has to borrow money from private investors and pay its debts from the collection of taxes. Eventually, after much hardship the IMF and the European Central Bank helped Greece get back on its feet.

It's a myth that the US national debt must be paid off by our children or grandchildren or that we must suffer because of all the money owed via US Treasury bonds to China or Japan. Unlike Greece which saw its situation go from bad to worse as private investors demanded higher and higher rates of interest, the US Federal Reserve sets the interest rate (currently around zero) on the bonds it offers for sale. Other countries buy them because most of the world's business is conducted in dollars, and those countries need dollars which they get from Treasury bonds to conduct business. The US government is not competing with private corporations for loans because, when it needs money, it just prints it. Right now the way the rules are written the Fed can print money and give it to the banks, the way it did during the Great Recession when it just gave the banking system $4.5 trillion, but it cannot print money and give it to the US government without Congressional approval. It can provide direct relief to the banks, but it cannot provide direct relief to the American people. That's why the COVID relief package is being held up because, even though Congress did give it its stamp of approval, the law also requires that the President sign the bill which he has not.

In "The Deficit Myth" Kelton writes:

You've probably already seen MMT's central insights in action. ... Whenever the topic of Social Security comes up, or when someone in Congress wants to put more money into education or health care, there's a lot of talk about how everything must be "paid for" to avoid adding to the federal deficit. But have you noticed this never seems to be a problem when it comes to the defense budget, bailing out banks, or giving huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, even when these measures significantly raise the deficit.? As long as the votes are there, the federal government can always fund its priorities. That's how it works. Deficits didn't stop FDR from implementing the New Deal in the 1930s. They didn't dissuade John F. Kennedy from landing a man on the moon. And they never once stopped Congress from going to war.

In fact deficits don't matter as Kelton proclaims over and over again in her book. There are limits however. That limit has yet to be met as the huge bailouts of the 21st century for the Great Recession and COVID relief have yet to cause the least bit of inflation. Other big projects like a Green New Deal are pooh poohed by Congress because Congress is controlled by wealthy interests so tax breaks for the rich is no problem nor is going to war which benefits defense contractors, but anything that represents the interests of the average American is not favored by Congress. If and when Congress is controlled by the middle class, we will see large projects which promote the health and welfare of the American people in general and not just wealthy business interests.

The Chinese are building huge infrastructure projects all over China and even the rest of the world with its Belt and Road Initiative. They can do this because the Chinese renminbi is a sovereign currency and the money is available to keep the Chinese people fully employed doing constructive things. They have bought into MMT and know that Deficits Don't Matter. Besides they don't have to subject themselves to the whims of Congress. If the government wants to do it, it's full steam ahead. It seems to have worked for them as they have brought 850 million Chinese people out of poverty in the last 40 years. But as Pew Research reported, "But despite the strong labor market, wage growth has lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers." So to put a fine point on it, 850 million Chinese brought out of poverty in last 40 years; average Americans no wage growth in last 40 years.

It has become clear that the old way of thinking that national deficits have to be repaid out of taxes and Treasury bonds is incorrect. Any country with a sovereign currency can just print money by a few keystrokes on its central bank's computer. The US Fed does just that. The conversion to Green Infrastructure could easily be funded in this way if Congress approved. At the same time many good paying jobs could be created. Instead of competing with China by military threats or sanctions, we could instead compete by building Green infrastructure in the US and the rest of the world. Or maybe we could cooperate in saving the world from the ravages of global warming and also providing the same benefits to the average American which the average Chinese is increasingly able to enjoy.

Off the Top of My Head

China is the only country to land successfully on the moon in the 21st century, and has done it three times

by John Lawrence, December 19, 2020

While the US is in the midst of the greatest public health and economic crisis it has ever faced, China is surging ahead economically and in the space race. This December 2020 China's Chang’e-5 spacecraft gathered about 4.4 pounds of lunar samples in a three-week operation that underlined China’s growing prowess and ambition in space. It was China’s most successful mission to date; yet there was nothing reported about it on the nightly news. What has been reported on the nightly news is the fact that Russia has hacked into our defense department and other sensitive institutions. The fact that this is even happening represents sheer stupidity on behalf of the Defense Department. The internet is a public space that represents, as far as the Defense Department is concerned, a direct pipeline between itself and Russian hackers. It is asking for trouble.

Why hasn't the Defense Department detached itself from the internet and created a private intranet disconnected from anything Russian hackers could access? They could have an intranet which would just be a connection among those American actors and institutions that would need to interact with each other. If they need to interact with people in other parts of the world, they have had secure communication networks at least for the last 70 years. No one hacked them during the Second World War although the British were able to hack the Nazis. For American sensitive institutions to be using the public internet or even to be connected to the public internet is a travesty. There are different levels of internet communications that could be used. For nonsensitve communications and data storage a more public internet can be used, but for sensitive systems a private internet not connected to the public internet that Russian hackers have access to is more appropriate. Then hacking is a non-issue.

The US is falling behind China economically and in many other ways. China has mastered the art of using its public banks to build infrastructure at home and abroad. It has lifted 800 million people out of poverty in the last 30 years. Meanwhile, US infrastructure is rated a D+ by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Ellen Brown writes:

A publicly-owned national infrastructure bank, on the other hand, would be mandated to lend into the real economy; and if the loans were of the “self funding” sort characterizing most infrastructure projects (generating fees to pay off the loans), they would be repaid, canceling out the debt by which the money was created. That is how China built 12,000 miles of high-speed rail in a decade: credit created on the books of government-owned banks was advanced to pay for workers and materials, and the loans were repaid with profits from passenger fees. 

Unlike the QE pumped into financial markets, which creates asset bubbles in stocks and housing, this sort of public credit mechanism is not inflationary. Credit money advanced for productive purposes balances the circulating money supply with new goods and services in the real economy. Supply and demand rise together, keeping prices stable. China increased its money supply by nearly 1800% over 24 years (from 1996 to 2020) without driving up price inflation, by increasing GDP in step with the money supply.

In the US the Federal Reserve has poured money into banks, hedge funds and various other financial entities but is forbidden by law from helping average Americans or Main Street businesses. There is Quantitative Easing for the banks, but not Quantitative Easing for the People. China has no such legal barriers for their central bank and public banks. While the US Congress quibbles endlessly over minuscule issues, China is going full steam ahead with economic development which benefits large majorities of its people as well as people outside of China with its Belt and Road initiative. The World Bank reports: "If implemented fully, the initiative could lift 32 million people out of moderate poverty—those who live on less than $3.20 a day, the analysis found. It could boost global trade by up to 6.2 percent, and up to 9.7 percent for corridor economies. Global income could increase by as much 2.9 percent. For low-income corridor economies, foreign direct investment could rise by as much as 7.6 percent."

While China has mastered the technique of generating money for infrastructure development inside and outside of China while also increasing world trade and economic well being, the US has only increased poverty and destroyed infrastructure with its never ending wars. It has squandered money on a military infrastructure which is larger than the next 10 countries combined. The US dollar is still the world's reserve currency and major world financial institutions like the IMF are still oriented towards the dollar. This could all change, however, as the Chinese renminbi gains ground. The US has a chance to reconstruct itself under a Biden administration and reorient itself towards a middle class democratic society which benefits its people rather than its elite. It's a tall order but maybe Joe Biden and his appointees can pull it off. A Green New Deal is necessary not only for the sake of reestablishing the middle class but also for saving the planet from global warming.

Off the Top of My Head

Reparations and Universal Basic Income

by John Lawrence, July 14, 2020

Old Chinese proverb: Give someone a fish, and they will eat for a day. Teach them how to fish, and they will eat for the rest of their life. This is how I feel about cash payouts for both reparations and Universal Basic Incomes (UBI). I am for reparations in the sense of guaranteeing a living wage job for people who are able bodied. If not the social safety net should provide food, housing and medical care free of charge. In kind welfare is always better than cash payouts which can be squandered, gambled away, spent on drugs and alcohol or other foolish items. Besides billionaires and millionaires, black or white, don't need reparations or UBI.

I am for reparations in the sense of affirmative action for minorities and poor people in the sense of providing jobs either in the private sector or by the government as a last resort. I believe government should be the employer of last resort. In Sweden they have a national employment database which tracks every job opening in the whole country. They will do their best to hook you up with one of those jobs. This is not a bad idea. Then if no matches can be found, the government should be employer of last resort. There sure is a lot of work that needs to be done that can only be done by government like infrastructure repair and development, not only in this country but around the world.

China has exported its expertise and workers to the rest of the world to build infrastructure. This creates future trading opportunities for China, but it also guarantees that there will not be an unemployed class in China. China by virtue of its Belt and Road Initiative is a full employment society. The US could do the same. There is much to be done in terms of sanitation, health, education and job development to bring the rest of the world up to even a minimally acceptable standard of living. At the same time everyone, in both developed and developing societies needs to adopt a sustainable standard of living. The New American Dream should encompass not unlimited consumption but reasonable and sustainable consumption. Otherwise, the planet's resources will be rapidly, at least in geological terms, exhausted, and the result will be resource wars, poverty of the majority and over consumption of the few.

There is much work that needs to be done, but the private economy is not concerned with necessary work. It is only concerned with encouraging consumption that produces the most profits. It is not concerned with what is good for the environment. It is only concerned with exhausting resources if that is what produces the most profit in the shortest period of time. We need to be concerned with husbanding the earth's resources so that they are there for future generations. Renewable energy is a must instead of exhausting earth's fossil fuels. The same can be said for agriculture and other consumable items. They need to be harvested in a sustainable way. Forests need to be maintained instead of being clear cut. The environment needs to be protected. Food needs to be grown without being sprayed with chemicals. There are good practices which will sustain, maintain and renew earth's resources in such a way that everyone can be employed and everyone can benefit including future generations.

In the meantime there is much necessary and essential work to be done here at home and around the world in eliminating poverty, building housing along the Habitat for Humanity model, growing organic food, eliminating factory food operations, providing health care. China is building infrastructure, but it is not directly eliminating poverty around the world. That's a niche the US could fill. A good step would be converting the 800 military bases in various countries to hospitals, schools and affordable housing for local and indigenous people, defunding the military and reallocating resources to helping poor countries become developed in a sustainable way rather than exploiting their resources.

Off the Top of My Head

Defund the Police ... Defund the Military

by John Lawrence, June 11, 2020

Police have been given jobs social workers should be doing. They've criminalized everything from homelessness to mental illness to drug addiction. That's what defunding the police is all about. They should hire more social workers and less police. The police are asked to do a lot more than what police work should be all about. So has the military. Every problem overseas, many of which could be solved by teachers, social workers and doctors has been looked at as a problem for the military to solve. Many of these problems derive from the fact that people are in dire poverty. They need help building schools, houses, sanitation systems. Instead we send the military in to bomb them just as we send the police in at home to take them to jail by any means necessary.

We glorify police work with all kinds of TV shows just as we glorify the military. No one ever glorifies the Peace Corps though, and, if they were sent in more often, there would be more positive results. Instead of helping people, the first thought of American leaders is to send in the police or the military. The Washington Post reported:

To fix policing, we must first recognize how much we have come to over-rely on law enforcement. We turn to the police in situations where years of experience and common sense tell us that their involvement is unnecessary, and can make things worse. We ask police to take accident reports, respond to people who have overdosed and arrest, rather than cite, people who might have intentionally or not passed a counterfeit $20 bill. We call police to roust homeless people from corners and doorsteps, resolve verbal squabbles between family members and strangers alike, and arrest children for behavior that once would have been handled as a school disciplinary issue.

Police themselves often complain about having to “do too much,” including handling social problems for which they are ill-equipped. Some have been vocal about the need to decriminalize social problems and take police out of the equation. It is clear that we must reimagine the role they play in public safety.

Everything that could be said about the police could be said about the military. Instead of helping people overseas to escape from the poverty they experience, we police them instead. What a novel idea to spend less on the military and more on the Peace Corps. Let's reimagine the role they play in public safety. Policing has been the primary vehicle for using violence to perpetuate the unjustified white control over the bodies and lives of black people that has been with us since slavery. The military has been the primary vehicle to perpetuate American control over black and brown bodies in other parts of the world.

The Peace Corps budget is $410.5 million. The military budget is $934 billion. The military budget covers the DoD, overseas contingency operations, the VA, Homeland Security, the State Department, and many others that involve national security. By contrast in 2003, the military budget was less than half that - $437.4 billion. The US spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. If the Soviet Union collapsed because of overspending on the Cold War, the US is in danger of collapse from overspending on its military when it is not even engaged in a major war. Overspending on the military is just a jobs program that Congress will not curtail. Trump for all his bluster about wanting our NATO allies to spend more on defense, nevertheless, authorized a $34 billion increase in military spending for 2020. Meanwhile, China, the world's second largest spender on its military is spending $178.2 billion in 2020 while Russia spends a mere $70 billion.

The U.S. spends some $100 billion annually on policing — most of it coming from local budgets — and an additional $80 billion on incarceration, according to a detailed 2017 report by the Center for Popular Democracy. In cities across the country, policing alone can take up anything between a third and 60 percent of the entire annual budget. Many major cities spend as much as 40 percent of their municipal budgets on policing, leaving a dwindling pool of resources for poverty prevention, infrastructure and everything else. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated this dynamic: Cities facing steep revenue declines are trying to decide which services to cut to remain solvent, and mayors are often hesitant to cut law and order spending. Welfare spending has been on a long, uneven decline, while law and order spending ballooned almost unabated until about 2010, when it amounted to nearly 2.5 percent of national income. Since then, law and order spending has fallen to a hair under 2 percent, while welfare spending stands at about 0.8 percent of national income less than half what we spend on police.

The US domestic Peace Corps called AmeriCorps has a budget of $560 million. So the US spends a paltry $1 billion on its foreign and domestic Peace Corps while spending $180 billion on police and almost a trillion on its military. Without this spending the economy would surely collapse. Military and police jobs are jobs of last resort for non college educated youth. However, this could be turned around. This money could be spent on other pursuits like housing the homeless (Habitat for Humanity), social workers, teachers, sanitation systems in foreign countries lacking them, building green infrastructure (Green New Deal), eradicating poverty, education (giving "The Talk" as part of public school curriculum), sustainable agriculture, clean water, cleaning the oceans, cleaning the rivers and more.

While the US spends a huge amount of its budgets on police and military work, China is spending its budget building infrastructure all over the world with its Belt and Road initiative (BRI). Whatever you want to say about it, it represents peaceful development of countries outside of China while the US does nothing of the sort, preferring instead to police the world with its 800 military bases in more than 70 countries. So while the US presence outside the US is mainly military in nature, China's presence outside China is basically peaceful development. This development will also lead to economic advantages for China through increased trade.

China’s overall ambition for the BRI is staggering. To date, more than sixty countries—accounting for two-thirds of the world’s population—have signed on to projects or indicated an interest in doing so. Analysts estimate the largest so far to be the $68 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a collection of projects connecting China to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. In total, China has already spent an estimated $200 billion on such efforts. Morgan Stanley has predicted China’s overall expenses over the life of the BRI could reach $1.2–1.3 trillion by 2027, though estimates on total investments vary.

The US has sought to demonize China's BRI and to create a second Cold War to justify its military expenditures. Throw Russia into the mix as well. The US wants to line up its group of allies in a potential contest versus China and its allies. However, many US purported allies are jumping ship as they read the tea leaves and realize that the US sees its role in the world and at home as mainly police work. Poverty alleviation is something the US doesn't do. This needs to change if we are ever to combat our common enemy, the coronavirus and climate change, and forget about creating a Second Cold War which will only drain US resources while China goes ahead building infrastructure and increasing trade.

 

Off the Top of My Head

One of the Reasons Ventilators Weren't Available: They're Not Manufactured in the U.S.

by John Lawrence. April 6, 2020

The two major manufacturers of ventilators Medtronic and Hamilton Medical have their manufacturing facilities in Galway, Ireland and the idyllic Swiss Alps town of Bonaduz, respectively. In addition to the US, 100 other countries have placed orders with them. If the US had in country manufacturing capabilities, these could have been ramped up instead of asking GM and Ford, which know nothing about ventilators, manufacture them. As it is the US has to compete with hundreds of other countries for critical products.

Finally, President Trump is getting around to talking about infrastructure. Is that going to be included in the next round of stimulus? Worud't be a bad idea. The US is far behind many other countries in terms of infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the US a D+ grade in infrastructure. Meanwhile, China is not only building infrastructure in its own country. It is building infrastructure all over the world. The US has cautioned other countries not to cooperate with China in this initiative, but its allure is too great. The latest country to sign up with China is Italy. China is making friends and influencing people.

The Atlantic reported:

All these geopolitical complexities are tied up in this week’s [April 2019] Belt and Road Forum. The initiative, also known as One Belt, One Road, is the brainchild of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and aims to build railways, port facilities, power systems, and other infrastructure across the globe. Xi has sold it all as a model of peaceful development. “We should foster a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation,” he once said when discussing the initiative. Washington has painted a very different picture, of a self-serving scheme designed to extend Chinese strategic and economic influence. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently charged that the Belt and Road plan was “a non-economic offer,” and said Washington was “working diligently to make sure everyone in the world understands that threat.”

Of course China is extending its influence to other countries. It is offering other countries goodies whereas all the US is offering is military protection. However, the rest of the world does not see things in terms of a bipolar world of "us vs them" any more. Trade is too interconnected. Even the US which tries to downgrade China has most US manufacturing done there. If the US was really worried about its security vis a vis China, why would it let its manufacturing companies manufacture critical items there? Most of the ingredients for pharmaceuticals that Americans ingest are manufactured in China where the FDA can't even guarantee their purity. Recently, Zantac was taken off the market due to the fact that it contained contaminants.

The lousy state of US infrastructure is one reason global manufacturing corporations don't want to locate in the US. If the US wants companies to manufacture here, it needs to upgrade its infrastructure instead of discouraging other countries not to cooperate with China in upgrading theirs. The Trump administration has done its best to demonize Huawei, the Chinese company that is rolling out 5G. It has even told its European allies not to buy Huawei products, but they are buying them anyway. However, this did not stop the UK in January from approving limited use of Huawei’s gear in its forthcoming 5G networks. This move may portend well for Huawei in Europe, its second-most lucrative market after China, if the rest of Europe follows the UK’s lead. If so, it's sour grapes for the US which has done everything it can to stand in the way of this technology giant.

Off the Top of My Head

Maybe the Shut Down of Non-Essential Businesses Should Be Made Permanent

by John Lawrence, March 27, 2020

As long as we have electricity, the internet, clean water, waste water disposal, full grocery markets, pharmacies, excellent health care, gas stations, trash collection and other essential businesses, perhaps the shut down of non-essential businesses is a good thing. Already it has cleaned up the environment and significantly reduced the emission of greenhouse gasses. What about all those unemployed people, you say? Put them to work in the Green New Deal building and repairing infrastructure throughout the country. If this COVID-19 thing lasts till January 20, 2021, I'm hoping President Joe Biden will do just that. And we should help build essential businesses in other parts of the world instead of engaging in military adventurism. Billions of people don't even have clean water, adequate sanitation, the internet, full grocery markets and other essential businesses.

Once these essential needs are taken care of for the entire world's population in such a way that GHG emissions are reduced to zero, then maybe some non-essential businesses could be reestablished. The pandemic goes to show that much of the US economy is based on non-essential businesses and the provision of non-essential goods and services. In fact not only are many of them non-essential, they are downright deleterious. Consider the gambling industry: downright deleterious. The movie and TV industry: about 70% deleterious. The fast food industry: 90% deleterious creating obesity and diabetes. Why isn't the school system educating people about nutrition? Many people have essentially a fast food diet. The food is cheap and ubiquitous, and people don't have time to create nutritious meals any more the way Moms used to when they didn't have to work to pay the mortgage and car payments.

The American way of life including may non-essential businesses is sickness producing. The profit oriented health care industry makes money off of sick people, not keeping people healthy. If everyone were healthy or were encouraged to lead healthy lifestyles, there would be far less sickness. But the stress induced by both spouses having to work leads to unhealthy lifestyles. Some families need 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet. The children are also subjected to a competitively oriented style of learning in which they are forced to compete with other children to get good grades so they can get into the best colleges. Instead maybe they should be encouraged to think in terms of what they want to do in their lives which would be a service to society in addition to affording a comfortable living for themselves.

More businesses considered to be non-essential:

Theaters, Salons and Spas, Racetracks, Shopping malls, Bowling alleys, Sporting and Concert Venues, Liquor stores, Bars, Cruises, Golf Courses, Resorts, Hair and Nail Salons.

Highly polluting industries and activities which are non-essential:

Most airline travel, the cruise industry, the travel and tourism industry, most automobile travel (use mass transit instead), most of the trucking industry (use rail instead), the beef industry, the hog industry, agribusiness (encourage small organic farms instead), most military and military-industrial complex, the plastic industry, the fossil fuel industry.

In Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How. Mark Lawrence Schrad writes:

America has long equated patriotism with the armed forces. But you can’t shoot a virus. Those on the frontlines against coronavirus aren’t conscripts, mercenaries or enlisted men; they are our doctors, nurses, pharmacists, teachers, caregivers, store clerks, utility workers, small-business owners and employees. Like Li Wenliang and the doctors of Wuhan, many are suddenly saddled with unfathomable tasks, compounded by an increased risk of contamination and death they never signed up for.

When all is said and done, perhaps we will recognize their sacrifice as true patriotism, saluting our doctors and nurses, genuflecting and saying, “Thank you for your service,” as we now do for military veterans. We will give them guaranteed health benefits and corporate discounts, and build statues and have holidays for this new class of people who sacrifice their health and their lives for ours. Perhaps, too, we will finally start to understand patriotism more as cultivating the health and life of your community, rather than blowing up someone else’s community. Maybe the de-militarization of American patriotism and love of community will be one of the benefits to come out of this whole awful mess.

The same sentiments hold true for teachers and other caregivers. People that take care of people and encourage people to have better lives are the true heroes. The Peace Corps and AmeriCorps should be the preeminent national services not the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines. We need to spread good will in the world by spades instead of bullying the rest of the world with US sanctions. We should develop the equivalent of China's Belt and Road initiative and start building clean water plants, sanitation plants, industries which decrease pollution and plastic trash in the ocean. We need to clean the environment around the world not contribute to dirtying it. We need to help bring home all the refugees in refugee camps and guarantee the safety and security of Latin Americans so they don't become migrants and refugees.

Off the Top of My Head

China Out Capitalizes Capitalist Nations

by John Lawrence, March 23, 2020

Who would have thunk it? China has taken capitalist financial methods to the next level with the result that it is progressing more rapidly in material abundance and a consumer society than the proto-capitalist nations of the world: the US and Europe. Sure, politically, they are an authoritarian nation. But that expedites their development since all institutions are on the same wavelength. In particular their central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBC) funds infrastructure projects all over the world. This keeps China a full employment society. They put all the Chinese people to work building infrastructure which expands the money supply in a very widespread way. Essentially the PBC provides loans for all these projects which means it creates the money just as US banks do when they create loans or the Federal Reserve does when it provides "liquidity" to the markets through quantitative easing (QE).

The Federal Reserve has actually expanded the range of market interventions it can do. It used to be that the Fed could only set interest rates. That was it. Now it can buy corporate bonds, state and local bonds and give money directly to corporations to keep them afloat. In fact it can act more like the PBC which interacts directly in the Chinese economy. The Fed can take debts directly onto its balance sheet where they may remain forever. This is exactly what it did in the 2008 financial crash. It provided cash directly to banks in return for mortgage backed securities and Treasury bonds thus providing liquidity to the banks so that they would not go under. Now the banks are well capitalized, and, since they know that the Fed stands ready to bail them out again, they have no worries. In fact the term "bail them out" is actually a misnomer at this point. It can be replaced with "provide them with cash" as necessary.

There was an interesting interview on 60 Minutes with Neel Kashkari, Obama's Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who was in charge of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) during the Great Recession. He noted that TARP, which was supposed to help out actual people with their mortgages did not go far enough. They were too stingy with it, and not very many people got helped. He says that this prolonged the recession. Instead of being stingy as they were, they should have been "overly generous." That is the lesson he learned. So now in the coronavirus recession, his advice is that the Fed should be overly generous in providing relief to actual everyday people and not just to banks. At this time the banks are doing very well, thank you.

It is well known that money is created by the banks themselves when they create a loan which they do with a couple of keystrokes on a computer. Why is this possible? Because money has no relationship to gold or any other precious metal any more. That's why it's called "fiat money." So what bankers and economists are realizing (which has been the secret of China's success all along resulting in their bringing 800 million people out of poverty in 40 years) is that the US central bank, the Federal Reserve can do the exact same thing. It can create fiat money just like the banks do, like Wall Street does. The only concern is that money so created would lead to inflation, but, as Kashkari noted, there was no inflation even after the Fed created trillions of dollars in 2008 most of which went directly to bankers, hedge funds and rich individuals and not to the average American. Now Kashkari, who is President of the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve, is saying that the Fed could provide liquidity to the American people and not just to the banks. How this will probably happen is by Congress passing a bill on the "fiscal side" as they say. Then they will sell more Treasury bonds to cover the increased deficit. Wall Street banks will buy them since other countries are decreasing their purchase of US debt, and then the Fed will provide liquidity (cash) to Wall Street taking the Treasury bonds onto its balance sheet where they will reside forever probably. This is why the national deficits and debt are no problem because the Fed can print money to cover them ad infinitum. It's as if the Fed provided money directly to the US economy, but, by law, they have to do so indirectly.

Ellen Brown understood this possibility long before Neel Kaskari had his "awakening."

America’s chief competitor in the trade war is obviously China, which subsidizes not just worker costs but the costs of its businesses. The government owns 80% of the banks, which make loans on favorable terms to domestic businesses, especially state-owned businesses. Typically, if the businesses cannot repay the loans, neither the banks nor the businesses are put into bankruptcy, since that would mean losing jobs and factories. The non-performing loans are just carried on the books or written off. No private creditors are hurt, since the creditor is the government, and the loans were created on the banks’ books in the first place (following standard banking practice globally).

Precisely! So no need to worry about another Great Recession or Depression. The US could effectively provide a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to its citizens indefinitely as Andrew Yang proposed.

As observed by Jeff Spross in a May 2018 Reuters article titled “China’s Banks Are Big. Too Big?”:

[B]ecause the Chinese government owns most of the banks, and it prints the currency, it can technically keep those banks alive and lending forever.…

It may sound weird to say that China’s banks will never collapse, no matter how absurd their lending positions get. But banking systems are just about the flow of money.

Spross quoted former bank CEO Richard Vague, chair of The Governor’s Woods Foundation, who explained, “China has committed itself to a high level of growth. And growth, very simply, is contingent on financing. Beijing will come in and fix the profitability, fix the capital, fix the bad debt, of the state-owned banks … by any number of means that you and I would not see happen in the United States.”

There is no reason why the US could not emulate China. From an economic point of view QE or a UBI would not be inflationary as long as the dollars provided to the system were either invested in new plants and equipment, infrastructure or consumption. What is needed now is about $10 trillion worth of Green Infrastructure, a Green New Deal funded indirectly by the Fed. This money can be provided to the American people and not only rich billionaires as was done in 2008 and as China is providing directly to its workers who are kept busy building infrastructure in the Belt and Road initiative. It would also ease economic inequality and not induce inflation as long as the money is widely distributed.

Off the Top of My Head

Bernie Socks It To Them

by John Lawrence, February 25, 2020

The critics have piled on Bernie about how he's going to pay for his proposals for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, forgiving student loan debt and free college tuition. Now Bernie has come out with a detailed plan about how to do it. The obvious answer is how do other countries do it? Most other advanced countries have free universal health care and free college tuition. They take it for granted. I had some passengers from Calgary, Alberta whom I asked 'how do you like the Canadian health care system?'. He replied, "It's free." I said, "Yeah, but don't you have to pay for it in your taxes?" He said, "I guess so." So he wasn't really concerned that he was paying taxes through the nose to pay for "free" health care. He didn't even know what percentage of his taxes went to health care. I suspect that once the tax structure changes here so that rich people pay more and poor people pay less that everything will be like that too.

It will cost $2.2 trillion to make public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition-free and to cancel all student debt over the next decade. It is fully paid for by a modest tax on Wall Street speculation that will raise an estimated $2.4 trillion over ten years. A Financial Transaction Tax has been talked about for years. Bernie is the only one bold enough to actually make it part of his campaign platform. It needs to be done. The financialization of the economy is what led to the 2008 economic debacle in which the banks were bailed out by the American people to the tune of trillions of dollars. So now even though it's years later, let them pay to bail out the American people. It's a good thing.

Bernie’s bill to expand Social Security will increase benefits for low-income senior citizens and people with disabilities by more than $1,300 a year. It is fully paid for by making the wealthiest 1.8 percent of Americans – those with incomes over $250,000 a year – pay the same rate into Social Security as working families. I like that a lot. Right now even though I'm still working and paying into social security, I'm receiving less than $700. a month in social security. Another $1300. a month would bring my social security up to $2000. a month. Why it's even enough to rent an apartment!

Bernie’s proposal to guarantee housing as a human right and to eliminate homelessness will cost $2.5 trillion over the next decade. It is fully paid for by a wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent – those who have a net worth of at least $32 million. (Bernie’s wealth tax will raise a total of $4.35 trillion.) A wealth tax on the rich! I love it. Eliminating homelessness and finally implementing the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights - priceless! It's time the millionaires and billionaires paid to eliminate poverty in this country. The wealth tax will also pay for universal child care and pre-school. By the way maybe the Congress should get on board and finally ratify the 1948 Declaration.

The Green New Deal will transform this country and be the first step in saving the planet from ultimate destruction. It needs to be extended to the rest of the world eventually as well. We need to cooperate with other countries to implement it and share renewable energy technology. This means joining China's Belt and Road initiative in terms of making sure everything under development is based on renewable energy and is non-polluting. It goes without saying that the US should rejoin the Paris Accords on climate change, but extend it even further.

All in all Bernie's plans are a wonderful and refreshing change of pace for the US of A and the rest of the world. If they come to pass, i will be proud of my country again for implementing both humanitarian policies and policies which will save the earth from a global warming catastrophe.

Off the Top of My Head

Why the US Needs to Rid Itself of the Antagonistic Relationship with Russia and China: We Need Their Cooperation to Combat Global Warming

by John Lawrence, February 24, 2020

Trump has created an antagonistic relationship with both Russia and China. For all the brou ha ha about Trump liking Putin, the Trump administration has sanctioned Russia regarding the Nord Stream II pipeline which would deliver Russian natural gas to Germany. It has also sanctioned our ally Germany! With respect to China it has raised a stink over Huawei, the most advanced 5G company in the world, and discouraged if not sanctioned European countries from doing business with them. It's clear that, while  American corporations cannot gain a competitive advantage in the competitive market place, Trump stands ready to sanction Russian or Chinese corporations that can.

However, Russia and China can be crucial allies in the fight against global warming. In fact it doesn't go too far to say that, without their cooperation, we might just as well relax and let the earth burn up. China, although it has made many advances in renewable energy technology, is still building coal fired electricity generating plants.. Wired reports:

“For awhile it looked like China was moving away from coal toward clean energy, but coal is still a pretty big part of the country’s economy,” says Christine Shearer, the coal program director at the Global Energy Monitor. “We don’t have a lot of time in terms of emission reduction, but clean energy development is happening alongside coal plant construction rather than displacing it.”

To meet its climate goal as stipulated in the Paris agreement, China will need to reduce its coal power capacity by 40 percent over the next decade, according to Global Energy Monitor’s analysis. At present, this seems unrealistic. In addition to roughly 1,000 gigawatts of existing coal capacity, China has 121 gigawatts of coal plants under construction, which is more than is being built in the rest of the world combined.

Many of these coal fired plants are not operating at full capacity or may even be left idle as China revs up its renewable energy capacity. However, China is building coal fired plants in many other countries as part of its Belt and Road initiative. Edward Cunningham, a specialist on China and its energy markets at Harvard University, said that China is building or planning more than 300 coal plants in places as widely spread as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt and the Philippines. China knows how to build coal plants. It is the world's largest coal consumer, drawing more than 70 percent of its electricity from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But the Chinese engineers, metalworkers and laborers who built coal-fired power plants in China must be kept employed. And, Cunningham says, "many are going abroad." 

Russia is the third largest producer of fossil fuels in the world, holds the second largest proven reserves of natural gas, and the world's third largest reserve base of coal. This constitutes money in the bank for Russia. In 2017, 95 per cent of domestic energy production and 90 per cent of total energy supply in Russia came from fossil fuels. How are they going to be convinced to stop cashing in on these proven reserves especially when the US President is a global warming denier and has placed sanctions on Russian natural gas? To have a prayer of a chance to get Russia and China off of their commitments to fossil fuels will require global cooperation with countries which the US has gone out of its way to antagonize. The same holds true for Iran, a major oil producer.

It's not enough just to go to 100% renewable energy within the US. The United States produced 5.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2018 the second largest in the world after China and among the worst countries by greenhouse gas emissions per person. Because coal-fired power stations are gradually shutting down in the US, GHG emissions from electricity generation fell to second place behind transportation, which is now the largest single source. So it's imperative for the US to do a radical and massive shift from gas burning cars and trucks to transportation systems run on renewable energy. High speed rail is important to get planes, which are major polluters, out of the sky. Electrification of automobiles must be government subsidized. Charging stations must become as numerous as gas stations. Light rail and electrified trolley systems must be built out. In short infrastructure built with a Green New Deal is imperative.

Finally, the US must cooperate with other fossil fuel producing countries in a Green New Deal For The Entire World. Developing countries must be subsidized so that they develop based on renewable energy and not fossil fuels. Adversaries must become allies in the fight against global warming.

Off the Top of My Head

What the World Needs Now

by John Lawrence, October 28, 2019

No, we don't need another aircraft carrier. We don't need another Aegis weapon system. We don't need a Paladin tank. What the world needs now is proper sanitation. An estimated 1.8 billion people (25% of the world's population) don't have access to adequate sanitation. They have no running water. They have no flush toilets. Because of this, approximately 140 million people develop dysentery each year, and about 600,000 die. Most of these deaths occur in developing countries among children under age five. They all die for lack of something we take for granted - a flush toilet and an adequate sanitation system. Access to safe sanitation reduces child diarrhea by 30 percent and significantly increases school attendance by the way. 

Because latrines in developing countries are such gross and smelly places, about 892 million people, or 12 percent of the global population, practice open defecation. Seventy-six percent (678 million) of the 892 million people practicing open defecation in the world live in just seven countries, India being the largest. What happens with the latrines is that the poop is hand scooped out and dumped in the rivers where it contaminates the water that children play in, and they get dysentery. All for the lack of something that Americans and Europeans take for granted - a flush toilet.

Clean water and adequate sanitation should be the basics provided to every human being worldwide. Instead the US is more concerned with the development of weapons systems. It took one very wealthy and intelligent American, namely Bill Gates, to decide to do something about this problem. He attacked it with all the considerable resources at his disposal and came up with a sanitary toilet that required no electricity or running water. Also a sanitation system was developed that required no electricity or running water. The problem was that these inventions were too expensive to deploy on a mass basis.

Gates has also done much to eradicate polio in the world. Again due to his considerable mental and financial resources, polio was almost eradicated in Nigeria until Boko Haram intervened and started killing vaccination workers. In India polio has been entirely eradicated. In 1988, when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was launched, polio was present in more than 125 countries and paralyzed about 1,000 children per day. Thanks to immunization efforts that have reached nearly 3 billion children, the incidence of polio has decreased by 99 percent since then. India, which was long considered the most difficult place to end the disease, hasn’t reported a polio case since 2011. Today, polio is found only in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. These are the exact places that terrorism runs rampant. Maybe a functioning sanitation system would go a long way to eliminate terrorism as well.

But why isn't the United States with its considerable resources doing more to improve the lives of the world's population thus eliminating the breeding grounds for terrorism? There is USAID started by President John Kennedy. In FY 2016, USAID invested more than $441.5 million toward water and sanitation efforts in 47 countries and regions, including 13 high-priority countries. The Gates Foundation in and of itself spends almost that much in this area. Surely, a great country like the US could do a lot more. It spends 10,000 times as much on weapons systems development as it does on the development of basic life saving sanitation and clean water systems in the developing world. These are the US national priorities.

Bill Gates is trying to reinvent the toilet, not exactly a high tech undertaking. This is from the Gates website:

Bill Gates Launches Reinvented Toilet Expo Showcasing New Pathogen-Killing Sanitation Products That Don’t Require Sewers or Water Lines

Gates Foundation and Global Partners Announce Commitments to Advance Commercialization of Disruptive, Off-Grid Toilet Technologies

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

206-709-3400

[email protected]

follow @gatesfoundation

BEIJING, November 6, 2018 – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC), today joined global innovators, development banks, private-sector players, and governments at the Reinvented Toilet Expo in Beijing. Together, they committed to accelerate the commercialization and adoption of disruptive sanitation technologies world-wide over the next decade. Rapid expansion of new, off-grid sanitation products and systems could dramatically reduce the global human and economic toll of unsafe sanitation, including the deaths of half a million children under the age of 5 each year and the more than $200 billion that is lost due to health care costs and decreased income and productivity.

Note how involved China is. If the US wants to make America great again, perhaps they should take a page out of China's book and participate in making the world a better place instead of just a better place for US weapons sales. China is taking a leading role in making the world a better place with its Belt and Road initiative and now with its efforts to reinvent the toilet. All the US is trying to do is to slow down China in a pathetic attempt to compete with them.

Off the Top of My Head

Which is Better: Government So Small You Can Drown It in a Bathtub or Government so Large It Can Build a Silk Road Linking Most Countries in Europe and Asia?

by John Lawrence, October 27, 2019

The US has staked its claims on minimizing the role of government except for the military of course. China, on the other hand, has invested in infrastructure all over the world in addition to bringing 850 million of its own people out of poverty in 40 years. So Grover Norquist's dream of making government so small you can drown it in a bathtub, sadly, has about come true, but the result is that the once greatest country in the world has ceded that role to China. China now owns a 51% interest in the Greek port of Piraeus, one of the largest ports in Europe. They build railroads in Kenya, hydropower dams in Argentina and in March 2019, Italy became the first G7 nation to join China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Meanwhile, the US under President Trump has removed all its troops from Syria ("They're coming home, folks.), abandoned its friends and allies the Kurds by so doing, and then sent the troops back to Syria not to help the Kurds but to protect some oil fields. Yes, oil fields are so much more important that people, folks. The US under Trump has pretty much lost all credibility in the world community, and Grover Norquist has got his wish come true. The free market system has been enshrined and government has been dethroned ... but not in China.

Remember when America was great? We sent a man to the moon, but that was not because of the free market system. That was because of John F. Kennedy's government led effort. Remember when we helped win WW II. That was because of government. Remember how we got out of the Great Depression which was caused by the free market system. Again, government. Now China is proving again that government has a role in peacefully rebuilding the world, a world that has been largely destroyed by the US in the Middle East. As Kurds flee their homes, the US is right there once again not to protect them but to protect oil fields.

American foreign policy has been run by a bunch of dolts ever since George W Bush "liberated" Iraq so it could be run by the majority of the people (democracy is majority rule, right?) who just happened to be Shiites aligned with our enemy Iran. Now Trump has more or less turned Syria over to Putin and al-Assad who are aligned with Iran. American foreign policy has turned the whole Middle East over to our supposed enemies at great cost to American taxpayers and much misery to the 60 million refugees in the world. Our only friend there is Saudi Arabia which murders journalists like Kashoggi and murders women and children with American arms in Yemen. And then Trump brags about how much money we made selling arms to Saudi Arabia. According to ABC news, "During his first visit to a foreign nation as president, President Trump announced a massive deal: $110 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia. He called the agreement "tremendous" and bragged about the billions of dollars in investments and jobs that would be brought to the United States as a result." China is creating jobs not be selling arms but by building bridges.

If all you have is a hammer, the solution to every problem involves hammering. Similarly, the US sees every problem in the world as having a military solution. The response to China's gaining ground, winning friends and influencing people in the rest of the world is, not to compete with China in building infrastructure or in building 5G, but to try and hinder China so it doesn't gain ground quite so fast. So it has sanctioned COSCO, the largest shipping company in the world which owns the Greek port of Piraeus, because it is helping Iran to ship its oil which the US has sanctioned. We will tell you with whom you can and with whom you cannot trade with, thank you very much. The US can't compete in 5G with Huawei so it arrests its executive. So pitiful that a once great nation elects a dolt as President, ruins the Middle East with its foreign policy and can't compete with China except to say ... whoa there, not so fast.

China is investing in infrastructure, building wealth and providing jobs all over the world. A new report from Credit Suisse (CS) shows that wealth in China is ticking up, and the country now accounts for 100 million of the richest 10% of people in the world. There are 99 million Americans in the same category. Who ever thought that communism could provide more wealth than capitalism? Hey Grover Norquist, you better refill that bathtub.

Off the Top of My Head

China Has Done More Than Any Other Nation to Alleviate Poverty

by John Lawrence, August 31, 2019

According to the World Bank, more than 850 million people have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms. So Bernie Sanders brings up an inconvenient point when he says, "But what we have to say about China in fairness to China and it’s leadership is, if I’m not mistaken, they have made more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization, so they’ve done a lot of things for their people.” Oh how Fox News doesn't like someone bringing up an inconvenient fact about a country they're doing their level best to make into an adversary. Laura Ingraham made this comment: "It really shouldn't be all that surprising, I guess, that Bernie has a soft spot for the Chinese thugs. Socialism ultimately leads to more power for the state. And less power for you and your family." What she leaves out is the inconvenient truth that America, rather than alleviating poverty, has continued to increase it.

From 2016 to 2017, homelessness increased in America by 0.7 percent. The largest increases were among unaccompanied children and young adults (14.3 percent increase), individuals experiencing chronic homelessness (12.2 percent increase), and people experiencing unsheltered homelessness (9.4 percent increase). According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Annual Homeless Assessment Report, as of 2018 there were around 553,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night, or 0.17% of the population. So while China has made miraculous strides in decreasing poverty, the US has done nothing or next to nothing and homelessness which represents extreme poverty is increasing year after year.

In May 2019, The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) released its 2019 “State of Homelessness in America” report. NAEH’s interactive report allows users to explore national and state level data on the trends and progress toward ending homelessness in the United States. According to the report, homelessness has increased slightly by 0.3%, or 1,834 people, between 2017 and 2018 nationally. Approximately 552,830 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States on a single night in 2018 during the Point-in-Time (PIT) count. So while China makes gigantic strides in reducing poverty, the US, supposedly the world's richest nation, does little or nothing while poverty increases. But instead of focusing on a comparison of the two countries with respect to how much each has decreased poverty, Laura Ingraham instead criticizes Bernie Sanders for having the audacity to even bring up the subject puting the US in an unfavorable light with respect to China.

Maybe China is doing something right which, of course, Fox News is reluctant to admit. And while the US has made little progress in its "War on Poverty" since President Lyndon Johnson declared an ""unconditional war on poverty" 55 years ago, China lifted 850 million people out of poverty in 35 years! Not only is China’s success in reducing poverty without precedent, Beijing is best equipped to help reduce poverty globally – a fact that the Western media seems happy to skip over, preferring instead to criticise Beijing’s actions wherever possible. China is helping many other nations with its "Belt and Road" initiative. But the US sees China's alleviation of poverty and assistance in economic development in other parts of the world as a "threat" undercutting its own valiant efforts which have produced nothing but war and destruction.

China spent $250 billion on its military in 2018 while the US spent $649 billion, considerably more. How much did the US spend on economic development in other nations compared to China? China spent $460 billion in the five years since 2013 while in the US total spending was roughly $49 billion in 2016, the last full fiscal year analyzed. This accounts for about 1.2 percent of the federal budget. So while the US spends over twice as much as China on war, China spends about twice that of the US on foreign aid.

In the South China Morning Post, John F. Cooper writes in an opinion piece in April 2019:

China’s two government bodies reached decisions to alleviate rural poverty both at home and in developing countries. The sentiment was that China had done both before.

In fact, China’s accomplishments in these two realms are mind-boggling, having removed some 500 million to 700 million people from the poverty rolls. In fact, poverty in China has been cut to just a fraction of what it once was.

But China has not merely reduced poverty at home. The UN Millennium Development Goals project launched in 2000 was realized, UN officials said, with help from China’s generous, no-nonsense, market-oriented and unfettered foreign aid and investments.

According to the UN (recorded in its Sustainable Development Goals project), there are 783 million people living in poverty around the world.

The Western media has not cottoned to the fact that China had done a yeoman’s job in promoting economic growth by privatizing its economy and promoting competition, and has applied these principles to its foreign aid.

Liberals favor other means. Nor do they like Beijing’s undermining of the liberal, Western world order by proffering its own model of governance. Now, the media is unhappy that China can help the world’s poor when the West can do little.

Recently, Italy formally became the first G7 country to join China’s monumental Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious effort to coordinate trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment across the regions of Africa, Europe and Asia historically bound by the Silk Road. Investment from China’s Cosco Shipping rescued Greece’s Piraeus port three years ago, turning it into one of Europe’s fastest growing. According to the German newspaper, Die Zeit, Piraeus will displace Hamburg as Europe’s third-busiest port this year.

We dare not say that China is outcompeting the US on the world stage with its approach to helping people around the world instead of bullying them. Of course Laura Ingraham and Fox News, Trump's propaganda arm, will never admit that nor will they ever admit that perhaps China's version of capitalism is superior to the US version. No, they will continue to set up the divide between the capitalist US and the socialist China. Bernie Sanders is a truth teller and that is something that can't be allowed to stand unchallenged by Fox News.

Off the Top of My Head

China and the US: Cohesiveness VS Divisiveness

by John Lawrence, August 7, 2019

Obama famously said, "We are not the blue states of America and the red states of America. We are the United States of America." I'm sorry Mr. Obama, but you are wrong, wrong, wrong. We are the Disunited States of America. China, on the other hand, moves forward seemingly with one unified agenda and with one voice. Maybe that's because they're a one party state. Maybe that's because they've cultivated and nurtured a unified people. Maybe because they're followers of Confucius. Maybe it's because they don't tolerate any dissension. I don't know. All I know is whatever they're doing, it's working. Meanwhile, the US political system is in gridlock.

Many of the problems inherent in the US today are solvable if the country and its leaders spoke with one mind. But the two party system has created a broad chasm and has led to gridlock. Take immigration policy for example. There is just no agreement because each party has its own agenda. There is no unification. There is such a thing as a rational immigration party on which a majority of the people could agree. But the leaders of the Republican party don't want a rational immigration policy. They want to leave the whole subject of immigration up in the air so they can make political hay out of it. It serves their interests not to solve the problem of immigration.

As one element of immigration policy that both parties could agree upon, let's take border security. Most people would agree that a secure border is desirable. A secure border is certainly possible with not even state of the art technology. The border could be secured with the technology found in most present day cars - radars and cameras. So why aren't they doing it? Answer is simple: there's no money in it. It would seem that the primary responsibility of the military would be to protect the nation's borders. However, the Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law signed on June 18, 1878, by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The purpose of the act – in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807 – is to limit the powers of the federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States. It has been interpreted as removing the Army and Air Force from any responsibility of protecting US borders, but my interpretation is that this was not the original intent of the act.

The military doesn't want to be involved with protecting the borders because it could be done so cheaply and with a very limited (but substantially increased) number of personnel. No the military is about multibillion dollar aircraft carriers and multibillion dollar airplanes. The USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier costs more than $13 billion and that's just to build it, not to maintain it. Here's an example of how the US and China do business. Each has developed an advanced aircraft with similar capabilities. The American F-22 production was axed because of its high cost - US$62 billion for the whole project, which equates to US $339 million per aircraft. The Chinese J-20's research and development cost was estimated to be more than 30 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion), with a cost per aircraft of US$100-110 million. So the US accomplished its goal of spending multiples of billions of dollars and then scrapping the airplane. China's costs were much cheaper and they actually have an advanced airplane at their disposal.

So border security would be a trivially expensive problem to solve if the military actually did their job and protected the borders but .. it's not their job, man. Their job is to spend billions and billions of dollars on advanced weaponry whether or not it is ever fully functional. Meanwhile, Republicans have a political football they can toss around and work up the racists. Solving the immigration problem would deprive them of that.

So freedom has produced gridlock and Chinese philosophy has produced a society that moves forward with more or less one voice and one agenda. One of Confucius' teachings was a variant of the Golden Rule, sometimes called the "Silver Rule" owing to its negative form: "What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." Confucius's moral system was based upon empathy and understanding others, rather than divinely ordained rules. Confucius asserts that virtue is a mean between extremes. For example, the properly generous person gives the right amount—not too much and not too little. While the Chinese have adopted a superior variant of capitalism, they remain politically a one party system, a one philosophy system. They have free elections at the local level, and then those leaders select the leaders at the next higher level and so on. The US political system had gotten us to the point where no problem is solvable not because it's inherently unsolvable but because our political leaders in one party, namely the Republican party, are in a position to block any solutions, and it is in their political interests to do so.

Freedom has culminated in gridlock, and an unlimited Second Amendment has culminated in mass shootings. I don't think China would tolerate these outcomes. Instead they are moving ahead with their Belt and Road Initiative peacefully building infrastructure throughout the world at the same time that the US is trying to control the world with its outsized military and the threat of sanctions. The US threatens a country's economic development by the use of sanctions; China is ameliorating economic development by building infrastructure around the world. Which country has the more humane policies?

Off the Top of My Head

How to Counter China's BRI Initiative: A Worldwide Green New Deal

by John Lawrence, July 24, 2019

The American political establishment is all worried about China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) because it forges alliances with many countries especially, but not limited to, those of the Eurasian land mass including Russia. They do this by partnering to build infrastructure in those countries thereby increasing trade with China primarily. The Chinese approach is basically the equivalent of Dale Carnegie's book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People." The American approach is to threaten other countries with its military might or its weaponized dollar. These are the only things in the American playbook. Other American interactions with third parties have been left to the private sector because the American government has been hollowed out to the point that all activities with the exception of the military and the use of sanctions have been left to the private sector. America cannot even repair its own infrastructure much less build infrastructure in the rest of the world like China is doing. China can do this because it has a government capable of launching huge initiatives. Unless those initiatives are of a military nature, the US can do nothing of the sort.

Therefore, I have a great idea (I think). The Democrats should think big and their agenda should be (in addition to universal health care which I will discuss later) a Worldwide Green New Deal (WWGND). Climate change will not be ameliorated that much by just greening America. Most of the greenhouse gasses are being emitted elsewhere. So a Green Marshall Plan or a Worldwide Green New Deal is in order, and it will counter China, not militarily like the Washington Republican establishment is trying to do (after all if all you possess is a hammer every problem must be solved by hammering), but by peaceful green development exactly like China is trying to do although I don't know how much the emphasis with the BRI is on green.

Some quibbles with the Green New Deal as presently constituted: it guarantees a government job for anyone who needs a job. No, leave this part out, because the Republicans will slaughter you over this. A Worldwide Green New Deal is necessary not only to save the planet, but to counter China's growing influence in the world. This would be a peaceful competition instead of the military one that has borne no fruit over the last years since WW II. The wars since then have been a waste and a tragedy that have only destroyed infrastructure and alienated major parts of the world's population. A WWGND will also be a change in foreign policy vis a vis the rest of the world. It will say we are not here just to try and control you militarily or to destroy your economies with sanctions if you don't obey our orders. It would be saying to the world "let's have a peaceful competition with China and save the world from the worst effects of climate change at the same time."

The US political establishment is apprehensive about China. It is getting defensive about China. That's why it is taking the attitude towards Huawei which is outdcompeting American companies. The US is trying to use sanctions to block Huawei's progress since it is on the losing end of the competition. But America has no industrial policy; China does and this makes all the difference. America can only react defensively using threats both military and dollarized.

Now regarding universal health care, as much as I like Bernie Sanders, I think Medicare for All as a plank in the platform has to go. The Republicans will slaughter us over that. Hickenlooper and others have a better idea: Medicare for All Who Want It. The rest can stay with their private insurance. Evidently, 180 million Americans are covered by employer based insurance, and, evidently, they like it. This would be similar to restoring the public option that was lobbied out of Obamacare. Let people opt in to Medicare, but don't force them to. This is the winning agenda item. Over the years as more and more people become disenchanted with private insurance, they will start opting in until the point will be reached that effectively Medicare For All will be realized. This is the way to make universal health care evolutionary instead of revolutionary.

The American Republican poltitical establishment is taking a defensive, fearful attitude towards China's BRI. They are trying to control the world not by military supremacy but by peaceful development in conjunction with their neighbors. How dare they! The US has invested the whole ball of wax into military domination of the world to put America first. After all we beat communism leaving America as the world's dominant empire. But if America doesn't change course it will be left in the position of trying to hold back China's peaceful initiatives with its threats of military action and sanctions.

One last note: the US will have to replace the privately owned Federal Reserve with a public central bank in order to fund a WWGND. Ellen Brown has discussed this in detail. Lincoln essentially did this with his issuance of greenbacks to fight the Civil War and build the transcontinental railroad. It worked for him and us.

Off the Top of My Head

Does China Have a New Model of Capitalism That Works Better?

by John Lawrence, July 12, 2019

Who would have thunk it? China has a model of capitalism which outcompetes the American model. This is laid out in the companion article by Ellen Brown: How to Pay for It All: An Option the Candidates Missed. Progressive Democrats have all kinds of plans for the economy as Ellen states. The Republican response is how you gonna pay for it? Ellen has the answer. Or rather China and Japan have the answers. Their economies are booming. Their economic growth is phenomenal. Their people are fully employed. China, with its Belt and Road initiative, is building infrastructure not only in China but all over the world. All the US power structure can do is whimper, "Yeah, but they are going into debt and their system will collapse. It's a Ponzi scheme." Yet it seems to be working very well while the US falters, not even being able to maintain its infrastructure, much less modernize it.

The US central banking model is antiquated compared to the Chinese and Japanese models. Simply stated, the US Federal Reserve can only bail out the big banks because it is owned by the big banks, as it did in 2008. The Chinese and Japanese models are continuously bailing out the whole "real" economy, something the US cannot do. The US model makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. The Asian models are such that the central government, not the big banks, can direct where investment flows to. It is really quite simple.

Now Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC are catching on to the fact that there is something to Ellen Brown's work, that all the things they want to bring about in American society are possible if we just change the model of a privately owned Central Bank (the Fed) and make it responsive to public rather than private needs.

See her book: Banking on the People, Democratizing Money in the Digital Age.

Off the Top of My Head

Crisis at the Border

by John Lawrence, July 8, 2019

The temporary solution is simple: they arrive in busloads. It's intolerable that they are kept here in the US under horrible conditions. So... bus them back as fast as they arrive. Humanitarian crisis solved! They are being brought here by human traffickers. They are not arriving due to spontaneous decisions to walk to America. They are coming basically to escape poverty. The US asylum laws were never meant to deal with a situation like this. They are being flaunted by people who arrive on US soil and ask for asylum. Then according to law they have to be given a court date months or years away. In the meantime they melt into US society and never show up for their court date. They are relying on the dysfunctionality of the US government to do anything coherent. The immigration situation could have been resolved years ago, but US government is totally incapable of doing anything rational.

Having said all that, here's the more comprehensive solution. The US should work with Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to rid those countries of the gangs which are threatening the people and giving them a plausible excuse to become migrants. The US needs to allocate a large amount of financial resources to those countries, and even have a physical military presence on the ground. Think about it. The military never does anything constructive like rooting out M-13 and other gangs that are involved in the drug traffic with the US and with committing violence towards indigenous people. The US has been involved in various coups in Central and South America at the behest of the oil and exploitive industries, American corporations and right wing dictators, but never on the side of the people to improve conditions in their lives. It's only the lefties who have tried to improve conditions of the hoi polloi. US forces have only served right wing regimes and American corporations seeking to exploit resources.

Medium reports:

At the margins of the mainstream discursive stalemate over immigration lies over a century of historical U.S. intervention that politicians and pundits on both sides of the aisle seem determined to silence. Since Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 declared the U.S.’s right to exercise an “international police power” in Latin America, the U.S. has cut deep wounds throughout the region, leaving scars that will last for generations to come. This history of intervention is inextricable from the contemporary Central American crisis of internal and international displacement and migration.

The liberal rhetoric of inclusion and common humanity is insufficient: we must also acknowledge the role that a century of U.S.-backed military coups, corporate plundering, and neoliberal sapping of resources has played in the poverty, instability, and violence that now drives people from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras toward Mexico and the United States. For decades, U.S. policies of military intervention and economic neoliberalism have undermined democracy and stability in the region, creating vacuums of power in which drug cartels and paramilitary alliances have risen. In the past fifteen years alone, CAFTA-DR — a free trade agreement between the U.S. and five Central American countries as well as the Dominican Republic — has restructured the region’s economy and guaranteed economic dependence on the United States through massive trade imbalances and the influx of American agricultural and industrial goods that weaken domestic industries. Yet there are few connections being drawn between the weakening of Central American rural agricultural economies at the hands of CAFTA and the rise in migration from the region in the years since. In general, the U.S. takes no responsibility for the conditions that drive Central American migrants to the border.

The interventions of the US on the side of right wing dictators and American corporations in El Salvador are too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that the dates are 1932, 1944, 1960, 1980-1992, 1990, 2006, 2014, 2015. These included massacres of civilian women and children by right wing dictators with full US support. In Honduras there have been numerous interventions in support of Dole foods and Chiquita bananas, US owned corporations.

1980s: In an attempt to curtail the influence of left-wing movements in Central America, the Reagan administration stations thousands of troops in Honduras to train Contra right-wing rebels in their guerrilla war against Nicaragua’s Sandinistas. U.S. military aid reaches $77.5 million in 1984. Meanwhile, trade liberalization policies open Honduras to the interests of global capital and disrupt traditional forms of agriculture.

2009: Left-leaning and democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, who pursued progressive policies such as raising the minimum wage and subsidizing public transportation, is exiled in a military coup. The coup is staged after Zelaya announces intentions to hold a referendum on the replacement of the 1982 constitution, which had been written during the end of the reign of U.S.-backed military dictator Policarpo Paz García. Honduran General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, a graduate of the U.S. Army training program known as the School of the Americas (nicknamed “School of Assassins”), leads the coup. The United States, under Hillary Clinton’s Department of State, refuses to join international calls for the “immediate and unconditional return” of Zelaya.

Guatemala:

1954: Fearing the Guatemalan government’s steps toward agrarian reform and under the influence of United Fruit propagandist Edward Bernays, President Eisenhower authorizes the CIA to overthrow democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz, ending an unprecedented ten years of democratic rule in the country, colloquially known as the “ten years of spring.” In Árbenz’s place, the U.S. installs Carlos Castillo Armas, whose authoritarian government rolls back land reforms and cracks down on peasant and workers’ movements.

1965: The CIA issues Green Berets and other counterinsurgency advisors to aid the authoritarian government in its repression of left-wing movements recruiting peasants in the name of “struggle against the government and the landowners.” State Department counterinsurgency advisor Charles Maechling Jr. would later describe the U.S.’s “direct complicity” in Guatemalan war crimes, which he compared to the “methods of Heinrich Himmler’s extermination squads.”

1971: Amnesty International finds that 7,000 civilian dissidents have been “disappeared” under the government of U.S.-backed Carlos Arana, nicknamed “the butcher of Zacapa” for his brutality.

It just goes on and on. Most recently, the good ol American playbook of supporting right wing turnovers of democratically elected regimes didn't turn out so good for US interests in Venezuela where American supported Juan Guaido failed to oust Maduro.

Why aren't American politicians, the American media and the American people studying this history? Oh, I know: they are too busy watching vacuous and inane TV shows and attending sporting events when they are not buying new cars or pleasuring themselves in a multitude of other ways. Or listening to Trump's inane tweets which lead politicians like Joshua Gardner, a career DOJ attorney to utter "I am doing my absolute best to figure out what's going on."

It's just too much to ask that the US government stop supporting right wing murderous dictatorships and start alleviating the conditions which led to the migration crises from these Central American countries. But maybe AOC and the other Congressional members of Latin American descent can finally come to grips with this terrible history perpetrated by the US government and the CIA against the people of Central and South America and lead the way to an America which facilitates retribution and economic development for the people themselves. Or perhaps that will be left up to China with its Belt and Road Initiative. In just a decade, trade between China and Latin America has multiplied more than 20 times as regional partners have signed hundreds of agreements and broken ground on dozens of key energy, transport and infrastructure projects in strategic locations. China better watch out. The US doesn't appreciate them or anyone else doing some good in its own back yard.

Off the Top of My Head

Neither Shall They Learn War Anymore

by John Lawrence, July 5, 2019

The Prophet Isaiah urged people to “beat their swords into plowshares” and learn war no more. Here's the full quote:

"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:4)."

Well, I didn't see too many plowshares at the Trumpistan 4th of July parade yesterday. It seems as the US has taken the opposite course: beating plowshares into swords. Its military might is nonpareil, its dollar diplomacy turned to dollar militarism. Whoever thought that the good ol US would turn around and change the dollar from a safe haven into a weapon?

The US has its priorities and militarism is first. The U.S. outpaces all other nations in military expenditures. World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the total. U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next eight largest military budgets combined. Meanwhile, while US infrastructure crumbles, China is spending on infrastrutrure instead of weaponry. China does not do infrastructure by half measures. It has the world’s longest networks of motorway and high-speed rail. It has the tallest bridge as well as the longest. It is building nearly ten airports a year, more than any other country. It has the most powerful hydroelectric dam, the biggest wind farm and as much coal power as the rest of the world combined.

The official US budget for the Department of Defense in 2019 is $649 billion. But this doesn't include development and maintenance of nuclear weapons which is housed in the Department of Energy: $25 billion or the Department of Veterans Affairs spending: $216 billion. Or the Homeland Security budget: $69 billion. Or the money spent on 17 intelligence agencies: $80 billion. A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon you're talking about real money. When you add it all up, the US spends over a trillion dollars a year on militarism. China spends $250 billion.

On infrastructure spending China far surpasses the US. The White House Fiscal Year 2018 Budget proposes spending $200 billion in new federal spending over 10 years or $20 billion a year. China’s total fixed asset investment in transport infrastructure alone hit $327.77 billion in 2018. Quite a sizable difference. In addition China is spending on infrastructure in other countries with its Belt and Road initiative. Already it has spent $200 billion on infrastructure development in other countries!

The Council on Foreign Relations reports:

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the launch of both the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, infrastructure development and investment initiatives that would stretch from East Asia to Europe. The project, eventually termed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) but sometimes known as the New Silk Road, is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived. It harkens back to the original Silk Road, which connected Europe to Asia centuries ago, enriching traders from the Atlantic to the Pacific. ...

Xi’s vision included creating a vast network of railways, energy pipelines, highways, and streamlined border crossings, both westward—through the mountainous former Soviet republics—and southward, to Pakistan, India, and the rest of Southeast Asia. Such a network would expand the international use of Chinese currency, the renminbi, while new infrastructure could “break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity,” according to Xi. (The Asian Development Bank estimates that the region faces a yearly infrastructure financing shortfall of nearly $800 billion.) In addition to physical infrastructure, China plans to build fifty special economic zones, modeled after the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which China launched in 1980 during its economic reforms under leader Deng Xiaoping. ...

China’s overall ambition for the BRI is staggering. To date, more than sixty countries—accounting for two-thirds of the world’s population—have signed on to projects or indicated an interest in doing so. Analysts estimate the largest so far to be the $68 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a collection of projects connecting China to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. In total, China has already spent an estimated $200 billion on such efforts. Morgan Stanley has predicted China’s overall expenses over the life of the BRI could reach $1.2–1.3 trillion by 2027, though estimates on total investments vary.

The US is getting alarmed over China's spending on infrastructure development both at home and around the world. The US has an economy in which the Federal government only spends on its military and military-industrial complex. There is little money left over for anything else. It also by the way is spending almost a trillion dollars a year on interest on the national debt. So much for priorities. While the US is attempting to bully the rest of the world with its military might and economic sanctions, the rest of the world is passing the US by. They are developing alternative banking institutions in order to bypass the use of the US dollar and escape sanctions. China in particular is winning friends and influencing nations by the peaceful pursuit of helping them to develop economically.

Was the prophet Isaiah right when he prophesied that nations would "beat their swords into plowshares", and was he really prophesying that about China and not the US?

Off the Top of My Head

Was Jesus a Hippie?

by John Lawrence, June 19, 2019

Jesus was against the accumulation of wealth. He is quoted in the Bible:

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal" and "Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them" and "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin". Yet in a capitalistic society such as we live in, it is all about the accumulation of wealth. If you don't accumulate wealth so that you can support yourself in your old age when you aren't capable of working, you will be out in the street with the homeless where most hippies of bygone eras are located.

In Jesus' day wealth was primarily associated with ownership of animals or precious metals or jewels (thou shall not envy thy neighbor's ox nor ass) although Roman law did prescribe property rights, and Jesus lived during the time of Emperor Caesar Augustus. But Jesus was oblivious to all that and Christianity has been associated with poverty. Don't some monks take a vow of poverty? Hippies eschew material things, and then they wind up homeless. That's what's going on today. Hippies are anti-materialiastic, but it takes wealth to live in this society and not wind up on the street. Rents are relentlessly skyrocketing, and people of meager means and resources can't live in an urban society like the "lilies of the field" and the "birds of the heaven.'

In Roman times people mainly acquired land through inheritance and marriage, although there was a Roman real estate market. Naturally, a great deal of Roman property law concerned land issues.

Roman property law became quite specific about the rights and limitations of ownership. On the one hand, owners had secure rights in land. Tenants (coloni) had only the right to use land during the term of their contractual agreement which tended to be for five years or year-to-year in the absence of a specific agreement. If a new owner wished to discharge tenants, he or she could do that.

And what about the intergenerational transfer of wealth? I guess Jesus wouldn't be concerned about that, but there is a growing awareness that that's the difference between well off and poor families and especially between white and black families. Many white families transfer wealth to their children so they start with a leg up. Many black families transfer nothing to their children so generation after generation they start at zero.

According to the Economics Policy Institute:

Failures in the provision of these building blocks to the African-American population have led to an enormous racial wealth gap. The racial wealth gap is much larger than the wage or income gap by race. Average wealth for white families is seven times higher than average wealth for black families. Worse still, median white wealth (wealth for the family in the exact middle of the overall distribution—wealthier than half of all families and less-wealthy than half) is twelve times higher than median black wealth. More than one in four black households have zero or negative net worth, compared to less than one in ten white families without wealth, which explains the large differences in the racial wealth gap at the mean and median. These raw differences persist, and are growing, even after taking age, household structure, education level, income, or occupation into account.

Work, toil, materialism - a certain amount of that is necessary for survival. We live in a winner-take-all society which has no compassion for losers, no compassion for people who took a wrong turn in life and then never recovered, no compassion for the children of former slaves. According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Annual Homeless Assessment Report, as of 2017 there were around 554,000 homeless people in the United States. Around the world there are many more as there are huge amounts of migrants leaving their home countries seeking a better life. Most of them are homeless, many of them due to US wars in the Middle East. When you add up the homeless and migrants of the world, you would probably have a staggering number. Some societies are trying to accommodate them. The US under Trump is building a wall to try to hold them back.

If the US put as much effort into building peaceful productive societies around the world as it does into its war machine, some of the problems of the homeless and migrants in the US and abroad might be ameliorated. The US is even taking up arms against societies like China who are trying to be engaged in the peaceful development of the world through its Belt and Road Initiative. We can't let China do this because it's a threat to the American Empire. Therefore, the methods of war and economic sanctions must be used to keep others down who are engaged in peaceful pursuits to make the world a better place.

Off the Top of My Head

Two Visions: China's and the US'

by John Lawrence, May 3, 2019

The US Vision is Pax Americana similar to Pax Romana. That is that the world's most powerful nation imposes peace by means of war if necessary on the rest of the world. China's vision is for a win-win situation in economic terms between China and the other nations of the world, notably excluding the US. The American Empire is getting a little long in the tooth. China's vision is not only exciting the other nations of the world with visions of mutual and multilateral cooperation but is actually manifesting this on the ground. An example is the Mombasa-Nairobi railroad which was built under the auspices of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This rail link is crucial for Kenya's economic development and promises to be the first segment of a cross Africa railroad connecting the Indian and Atlantic oceans.

You will never hear about this on American television. American television will not inform you on what's going on in the rest of the world. American TV is consumed with mass shootings, severe weather and dramatic car and truck pile-ups usually caused by severe weather. In addition American TV on the political level is only concerned about the media circus centering around the tweets of Donald Trump. Joe Biden's entrance in the political arena as a potential 2020 candidate for President promises only to serve as a political slugfest between him and Trump. Think of the two of them in a boxing arena delivering blows on each other each of which is reported in detail by the media. What's not being reported is anything having to do with the future or the betterment of the American people. The rest of TV is devoted to celebrity worship.

Thus the rest of the world is passing us by as the US is concerned only with bread and circusus just as in the Roman Empire. The American Empire is intent on imposing its will on the rest of the world either by war, the threat of war or by means of economic sanctions. We know best so it's only right that we tell the rest of the world what to do and how to live. Only the days of this modus operandi working are numbered. America's vision involves coercion; China's vision provides for mutual economic cooperation and win-win agreements. The US spends trillions on its war machine while the rest of the world refuses to do so. The United States spends more on national defense than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan combined. Trump wants the NATO allies to spend more. Instead seeing the handwriting on the wall, they are forming ties with China. Italy recently became the first EU nation to form an alliance with China under the BRI. France and Switzerland are undertaking MOUs to do the same. Traditional US allies are recoiling against Trump's America First mentality and veiled threats. France, for example, has been threatened by the US if their largest oil company, Total, does business with Iran. Naturally, they resent this and are looking eastward for balance.

The US threatening its allies? This can only be a harbinger of a coming change in the world order. Other nations, particularly US traditional allies, do not appreciate being ordered around by the US.

Off the Top of My Head

While the US Bullies, China Invests

by John Lawrence, March 9, 2019

China has been entering into mutually beneficial arrangements with many countries of the world in accordance with its Belt and Road Initiative. The US doesn't like it because the US modus operandi is to tell other countries what to do based on sanctions. If they don't comply, they will be sanctioned or even bombed. The latest country to have a cozy relationship with China is Italy. Now the US is even ordering its European allies around and European countries are rethinking their relationship with the US especially because of the idiocy of the Trump administration.

China has told the US to mind its own business after Italy was warned not to join the Belt and Road Initiative. So now the US is trying to order other countries not to participate in a mutually beneficial relationship with some other country. Is it the US prerogative to tell countries what other countries they can do business with? The US thinks so. It sees the Chinese Belt and Road initiative as a threat. The South China Morning Post reported:

China’s Foreign Ministry told Washington to mind its own business on Wednesday after US officials warned Italy that its international image would suffer if it signed up for the Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious intercontinental infrastructure programme.

Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a press briefing in Beijing that Rome does not need Washington’s advice on conducting its affairs.

“This position taken by the US side is laughable,” Lu said. “As a major country, Italy knows exactly what policies serve its own interests and it can make its decisions independently.”

Lu was responding to a report by the Financial Times that Italy planned to sign a memorandum of understanding on joining the Belt and Road Initiative when President Xi Jinping visits the country later this month. ...

But White House National Security Council spokesperson, Garrett Marquis, told the FT that the Belt and Road Initiative was unlikely to help Italy economically and could significantly damage the country’s international image.

Xi is expected to visit Italy on March 22 and 23. If Italy signs the memorandum, it will be the first of the seven leading industrialised nations, or Group of Seven, to sign up officially.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went further in criticising the initiative, saying projects under the scheme were “almost certainly designed for foreclosure”. ...

Asked by a member of the audience if the Belt and Road Initiative could remove European and Asian countries from the US sphere of influence, Pompeo said “these deals are, in fact, often too good to be true, and many countries have already begun to see that”. ...

The Belt and Road Initiative, first proposed by Xi in 2013, is a vast China-centred strategy to increase global trade with more than US$1 trillion in investment.

But the US and other countries have been increasingly critical and last year, US Vice-President Mike Pence, in a wide-ranging criticism of Beijing, accused China of using the belt and road to engage in “debt diplomacy”. ...

On Wednesday, Lu said the initiative had been welcomed by more than 150 countries and that the US should stop slinging mud at it.

Beijing will hold its second belt and road forum in April, with dozens of world leaders invited, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has criticised the cost of some projects.

So Pompeo and the rest of the US neocon establishment is concerned that China might drive a wedge between the US and some of its allies by entering into mutually beneficial arrangements without the US' permission. Who knows? Peace might even break out making the trillion dollar yearly investment by the US in its own military-industrial complex irrelevant, irrelevant, that is, except for US taxpayers that have to pay the bill. Does China have a winning strategy here? Instead of investing hugely in weapons of war and trying to order other nations around by the use of sanctions, China is facilitating the economic development of many nations and making for a more peaceful world, a world in which China's influence will no doubt supersede that of the US whose global hegemony is based on the use or implied threat of force.