Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts

Sunday, August 7, 2011

GOOD NEWS ON USA'S ECONOMY


The problems of the economy in the USA, and elsewhere, are easy to solve.

Think of France facing bankruptcy in 1789.

The problems of France in 1789 would have been solved if the rich had paid their fair share of taxes.

In 1789 France was the largest, wealthiest, and most powerful state in Western Europe.

Today, the top 600,000 people in the world control 85% of the world’s wealth.

Between 2002 and 2007, 65% of all income growth in the United States went to the top 1% of the population.

The rich can afford to pay more tax, and still go shopping in the malls.

Of course, France would not have got into a mess in 1789 if it had avoided stupid foreign wars.

There is a lack of demand for products, because the rich have grabbed most of the wealth.

http://retank.blogspot.com/ alerted us to the fact that: Well-To-Do Americans Are Getting More Benefits Than The Poor

1. Poor Americans get Federal welfare checks, food stamps, and unemployment benefits.

The cost of these is LESS than the $1-trillion in tax breaks awarded annually to middle- and upper-class Americans.

2. Professor Suzanne Mettler, in The Washington Monthly, points out that tax break for the rich add to the deficit.

She writes that "the most expensive of these subsidies shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans...

"Beneath the surface of American government lurks a system of social programs for the wealthy that is consuming the federal budget."

3. Tax breaks represented 7.4% of GDP in 2008, up from 4.2% in 1976.

Social Security amounted to 4.3% of GDP in 2008; Medicare and Medicaid, 4.1%.

4. Vested interests profit from the tax break policies.

These vested interests include the real estate, health care industries and the nonprofit foundations.

Real estate sector giving to political campaigns rose from $43 million in 1992 to $138 million in 2008.

~~

aangirfan: THE GLOBAL ELITE AND THE SUPPRESSION OF DISSENT

Friday, August 5, 2011

DOWNGRADED


U.S. loses AAA credit rating from S&P

Anonymous said...

Keiser report that financial oligarchies are playing financial terrorism with USA economy, banks are actually making profit...


Thursday, August 4, 2011

LIKE THE 1930'S?


In June 2010, George Soros said (full transcript/summary Seeking Alpha):

1. The current economic situation is like the 1930s.

Governments are under pressure to cut spending.

At the same time the economic recovery is weak.

2. Keynes taught that governments should spend more and create jobs when the economy is weak.

With governments now reducing budget deficits, the global economy may be pushed into a double-dip.

3. Europe's nations have a lot of debt.

Europe's debt-ridden nations have to raise almost 2 trillion euros ($2.4 trillion) within the next three years to refinance their debt, according to Bank of America Corp.

"When the financial markets started losing confidence in the credibility of sovereign debt, Greece and the euro have taken centre stage, but the effects are liable to be felt worldwide."



"Hedge funds profited by selling short the collapsing market in 2008, and chief among them was George Soros' hedge fund.

"Soros may have personally had the motivation, method, and opportunity to trigger the crash." (Cached)

"Soros made hundreds of millions betting against the Greek economy and helped it crash."

(Did Soros Cause the 2008 Crash?)

~~

aangirfan: TUNISIAN REVOLT - THE WORK OF SOROS AND THE USA

aangirfan: IT'S SOROS VERSUS MURDOCH

aangirfan: CIA, MOSSAD & SOROS VERSUS MUBARAK

aangirfan: MURDOCH AND SOROS IN MALAYSIA

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

FINANCIAL CRISIS IN US AND UK NOT RESOLVED; BIG CORPORATIONS DESCEND ON EGYPT


There are growing trade deficits in the USA and in parts of Europe.

China is booming; the USA and UK are not.

There is growing debt, both government debt and personal debt, in the USA and parts of Europe.

Interest rates are being kept low in the USA and UK. Monetery policy is loose. It is still too easy for certain people to borrow money.

The financial sector in the USA and UK has not shrunk.

The Bank of International Settlements, based in Basel, points out in its recent report that none of the problems that led to the financial crisis has been resolved.

(FT.com / Global Economy - BIS warns on domestic and international debt)

In the USA and UK, economic power lies with the big global companies.

These big global companies are happy to make money in Asia, Africa and South America.

These big global companies have no particular loyalty to the ordinary folks in the USA and UK.

Cairo - Daniel Mayer

On 27 June 2011 Tony Cartalucci wrote about the Corporate Locusts, the big global companies that are hoping to take over Egypt, Tunisia and other such countries.

Cartalucci reports:

"The very corporations that funded the think-tanks and media organizations that crafted and sold the entirely engineered 'Arab Spring' hoax to the world, have finally swarmed into Egypt to settle in and strip its lands clean."

US Senator John McCain recently led a delegation to Egypt and Tunisia.

"Traveling with McCain was a collection of corporate parasites from General Electric, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Bechtel, ExxonMobil, Marriot, and Dow who surveyed Cairo like conquering despots."

George Soros has been funding the drafting a of a new constitution for Egypt.

"The end game in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Thailand, Myanmar, and eventually China and Russia (is) to form a homogeneous, centrally controlled, one world government where megalomaniacs arbitrarily contrive the rules by which the rest of humanity is made to live."

"Boycotting and replacing entirely these corporations that are now parading around Egypt's Cairo must be foremost on our agenda."

~~~

Activist Post: Iceland Declares Independence from International Banks.

Many thanks to C. for the link.

~~~

Monday, June 13, 2011

THE GLOBAL ELITE AND THE SUPPRESSION OF DISSENT


In 2005, 47% of the world's population was living on less than $2.50 per day.

To remove these poor people from poverty would cost $507 billion per year.

(Thomas Pogge on Global Poverty)

The US military spends much more than $507 billion per year.

Around the world, the military is often used to help the rich elite to increase their wealth.

Around the world, the military is often used to prevent the poor from increasing their wealth.

In January 2001, The Atlantic had an article by Chrystia Freeland on 'The Rise Of The New Global Elite'

Among the points made:

1. In a 2005 report, analysts at Citigroup reported that the World is dividing into two blocs - (1)the rich elite and (2) the rest.

2. The rich elite have homes in places such as Mumbai, Moscow, Hong Kong, and New York.

3. Factors that have helped create certain billionaires include:

1. The revolution in information technology.

2. The liberalization of global trade.

3. Financial deregulation.

4. Tax cuts for the super-rich.

5. Insider privatization.

6. Monopolies given to certain individuals (eg rent-seeking in regulated industries in India and Mexico.)

4. In India and China, between 1820 and 1950, per capita income was basically flat.

Between 1950 and 1973, it increased by 68 percent.

Between 1973 and 2002, it grew by 245 percent.

China's and India's super-elite have grown richer.

5. Worldwide, executive pay has skyrocketed.

Hege fund manager John Paulson profited almost as much from the crisis of 2008 as Goldman Sachs did.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of U.S. workers have missed out.

Between 2002 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the United States went to the top 1 percent of the population.

6. Mohamed El-Erian has an Egyptian father and French mother.

Mohamed El-Erian is the CEO of Pimco, the world’s largest bond manager, which is based in the USA but owned by Germany's Allianz SE.

Stephen Jennings is a New Zealander.

He co-founded the investment bank Renaissance Capital which has its roots are in Moscow.

In 2009 Jennings said: "The largest metals group in the world is Indian. The largest aluminum group in the world is Russian … The fastest-growing and largest banks in China, Russia, and Nigeria are all domestic."

7.
A top man at one of the world’s largest hedge funds said that if changes in the world economy lift a large number of people in China and India into the middle class and and a smaller number of people in America out of the middle class, that's not such a bad trade.

A Taiwanese-born executive of a U.S. Internet company says the American middle class demands a higher paycheck than the rest of the world. He suggests that middle class Americans maybe "need to decide to take a pay cut."

Michael Splinter, CEO of the Silicon Valley green-tech firm Applied Materials, said that if he was starting from scratch, only 20 percent of his workforce would be Americans.

Thomas Wilson, CEO of Allstate, has said: "I can get (workers) anywhere in the world. It is a problem for America, but it is not necessarily a problem for American business."

8.
The Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has admitted that he had "treated business exclusively as a game" and "did not care much about social responsibility."

9. "The lesson of history is that, in the long run, super-elites have two ways to survive: by suppressing dissent or by sharing their wealth."

- Chrystia Freeland on 'The Rise Of The New Global Elite'


China in the 1940s (multipletext.com/2009/9_china_1940s.htm) had a huge gap between rich and poor.

How do you explain the economic situation?

Parts of Detroit are like parts of Jakarta.

Here in Jakarta there is a large posh shopping mall.

But most of the visitors to the mall do not have the money to buy the goods on display.

For most people, whether in Detroit or in Jakarta, incomes are too low.

On 23 June 2010, in the Financial Times, Douglas Bruce explained that without some trickle-down effect, any recovery will be stillborn

Douglas Bruce explains that "over the past few decades, the top earners in banking and other sectors have been increasing their share of a finite cake...

"Going back a generation or two... it was still possible for a middle-class father to support a family of four, but it now takes two earners to maintain most families, and that at a lower standard of living..."

Poverty in India

On 23 June 2010, Li Onesto wrote about: "Dying Detroit" - The Impacts of Globalization. Social Decay and Destruction of an Entire Urban Area

In Detroit:

Almost half of the children live in poverty.

The illiteracy rate is close to 50%.

Michigan state spends more on prisons than it does on higher education.

Many of Detroit's jobs have moved abroad, to where the wages are even lower.

India has palaces and paupers.

On 24 June 2010, at Global Research, Andrew Gavin Marshall wrote about: The Global Political Awakening and the New World Order

He points out:

1.2 billion people in the world live on less than $1 per day.

Nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day.

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth.

The richest 1% of adults own around 40% of global assets.

The richest 10% of adults own around for 85% of the global assets.

The bottom half of the world adult population own around 1% of global wealth.

The top 6,000 people in the world own 40% of the world’s assets.

The top 600,000 people in the world control 85% of the world’s wealth.

The bottom 3.4 billion own 1% of world wealth.

Zbigniew Brzezinski explains that increased literacy means greater political awareness, increased use of TV means greater awareness of global disparities, and greater use of the Internet means more instant communications.

Brzezinski sees an increase in anti-Americanism and anti-globalization.

"From the point of view of the global oligarchy, the only method of imposing order and control ...is through the organized chaos of economic crises, war, and the rapid expansion and institutionalization of a global scientific dictatorship."

A London mansion worth over £100 million.

In the USA, roughly 40% of the population fall below the poverty line at some point within a 10 year time span. (Poverty in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Israel has many millionaires and many hungry children.

"Once idealized as a socialist paradise, the Jewish state is increasingly becoming a country of two classes...

"35% of children are living in poverty, leaving Israel with this unhappy distinction: It ranks among Western countries with the greatest percentage of poor children, according to the Insurance Institute." (Poverty in Israel: The divide deepens between the haves and have .../ Israel will join OECD as its poorest member )




In 2006 it was reported that in the Calton area of Glasgow the average life expectancy of a male is just 53.9 years.

This is lower than in Bangladesh or North Korea or Iraq. (In Iraq, life expectancy is 67. Minutes from Glasgow city centre ...)

In January 2010, a report by the UK government's National Equality Panel pointed out that the gulf between rich and poor in the UK grew wider under Tony Blair's Labour Party than at any time since the Second World War.

In the UK, the richest 10 per cent of families have assets worth an average £853,000 - almost 100 times the £8,800 average wealth of the poorest 10 per cent. (Gulf between rich and poor grown under Labour and now widest since WWII - Daily Mail )

Glasgow slum

Our leaders would appear to be in favour of a feudal system where the upper class become very rich and the lower class become very poor.

Joe Stiglitz, formerly chief economist at the World Bank, told CNBC that "Market fundamentalism has eroded any sense of community and has led to rampant exploitation." (Stiglitz: America's Ersatz Capitalism Is A Joke )

The rich-poor gap has a lot to do with rotten leaders. (afrogeekchic.wordpress.com/.../)

According to the economists Howell and Diallo (2007), neoliberal policies have contributed to a US economy in which 30% of workers earn "low wages", and 35% of the labour force is "underemployed". (Neoliberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

According to John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer (2006), "The U.S. economic and social model is associated with substantial levels of social exclusion, including high levels of income inequality, high relative and absolute poverty rates, poor and unequal educational outcomes, poor health outcomes, and high rates of crime and incarceration." (Neoliberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Jews helped run the Moslem Ottoman Empire.

Who has gained from the policies of our rotten leaders?

"Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations.

"Today, though barely 2% of the nation's population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews." (NEOCON FINANCIERS / BANKERS)

The use by feudal rulers of Jewish financiers has a long history.

In the Middle Ages in Europe, many kings depended upon Jews as financiers.

Royal power worked alongside Jewish money. (NEOCON FINANCIERS / BANKERS )

"1922: King Abdulla Ibn Hussein of Transjordan sits under the watchful eyes of his Jewish bodyguards, Habanni Yemenite brothers Sayeed, Salaah, and Saadia Sofer." (mochajuden.com/?tag=ruth)

Jews also played a major role in the medieval Muslim world.

Jews played a major role in the running of the Ottoman Empire. (NEOCON FINANCIERS / BANKERS)

"In late 19th-century Britain, the Jewish-dominated press championed imperialism, which benefited Jewish finance.

"And during the early stages of the Soviet regime, Jews were numerous in leadership positions, especially in the secret police...

"It was with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal that Jews gained long-term power in the United States...

(Benjamin Ginsberg's The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State. NEOCON FINANCIERS / BANKERS )

Some people believe that Masonic Jewish bankers pull the strings.

In his book, "Under the Sign of the Scorpion" (2002), the Estonian Juri Lina says about 150 million people died as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution, subsidized by the Masonic Jewish banking cartel. "The West pretended to oppose the Bolsheviks but in fact defended them." (savethemales.ca - USSR - Experiment Was "Social ...)

Jewish folks have been important in Latin America.

Around 300,000 Jews live in Argentina, mostly in Buenos Aires. (Argentine Jews Struggling with Money Problems and Security Fears)

In 2001, the economy of Argentina collapsed due to neo-liberal policies.



The feudal system, with its gap between rich and poor, is not unique to any one country or any one religion.

India has many millionaires.

But in 2006 it was reported that 35% of Indians live on less than $1 a day, which is much worse than Pakistan’s figure of 17%. (India - Rich and Poor)

Louis XVI

Is the situation today to be compared to that in France in 1789?

Norman Gash, at the National Review, 14 July 1989, wrote: Reflections on the revolution - French Revolution

(Norman Gash was a former Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews)

1. According to Norman Gash, in 1789 France was the largest, wealthiest, and most powerful state in Western Europe.

In 2010, the USA is said to be the most powerful state in the world.

2. Norman Gash asks: What reason was there for revolution in France in 1789?

Gash relates that, according to Napoleon, there was revolution because the middle class wanted more power for themselves and less power for the aristocrats.

It could be argued that, in the USA, the middle classes are getting restless. They see a corrupt elite enjoying too many privileges.

Louis XVI

3. Gash points out that in France, in 1789, "the climate of opinion was rational, liberal, and optimistic, the monarchy not averse to reform, the aristocracy itself permeated by ideas of the Enlightenment."

Why then was there a bloody revolution?

Gash explains that the 'system' appeared to make reform difficult.

Edmund Burke said that "a state without the means of some change is without the means of its own conservation."

In the USA in 2010, the constitution appears not to be protecting the USA from disaster.

America's institutions seem incapable of preventing wars, discontent and hunger.

Bastille

4. Gash points out that the French revolution was a long sequence of events, stretching from 1789 until 1799.

There was "an extraordinary series of political improvisations:

constitutional monarchy,

republicanism,

single-party rule,

dictatorship of the proletariat,

oligarchy,

and finally military despotism."

If there are to be dramatic changes in the USA, the end result might be military despotism under an American Napoleon.

Napoleon was a fascist.

He attempted the total military domination of continental Europe.

He tried to have a New World Order, or as Gash writes "a new international order".

Napoleon

5. According to Gash, the French Revolution, Napoleon's Empire and the 1815 Congress of Vienna "foreshadowed the Europe of the future."

That means both good things and bad things.

Americans seeking revolution should study Europe's history.

6. Gash implies that bloody revolution was not necessary to bring about change in Europe.

Gash writes:

Even if the French Revolution had not taken place, "common sense suggests that the main lines of European evolution would have been much the same, though perhaps the pace might have been slower."

Gash lists the products of European society which would have come about either by gradual evolution or by fast and bloody revolution:

A. Liberalism based on representative institutions.

B. Nationalism based on linguistic unity.

C. The rise of the sovereign state.

D. The centralization of administrative power at the expense of provincial.

E. The increasing responsibility of government for the welfare of its subjects.

F. The ability to mobilize a whole society for war.

G. military defeats in consequence giving rise to revolution and revolution to tyranny.

H. International conflicts followed by international institutions to preserve harmony.

America is changing.

The changes will be a mixture of good and bad.

The changes will happen, even without a revolution.

French Empire 1811

7. According to Gash, the French Revolution helped to shape European society in two notable ways.

A. Force was used to bring about change. "Liberalism and reform marched behind French bayonets."

The ideas of liberalism and reform had many of their origins in England.

B. The awakening of nationalism.

Gash writes that: "ideas that march behind bayonets are rarely popular; reform at the hands of a conqueror earns little gratitude. French rule brought not only enlightenment but hardship."

It was not long before there were nationalistic revolts against the French.

In Germany, later in the century, "Bismarck exploited the German national feeling first evoked by Napoleon I."

Any attempt by an American dictator to bring about a New World Order would result in nationalist revolts.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

REVOLT AGAINST THE FEUDAL SYSTEM?

China in the 1940s (multipletext.com/2009/9_china_1940s.htm) had a huge gap between rich and poor.

How do you explain the economic situation?

Parts of Detroit are like parts of Jakarta.

Here in Jakarta there is a large posh shopping mall.

But most of the visitors to the mall do not have the money to buy the goods on display.

For most people, whether in Detroit or in Jakarta, incomes are too low.

On 23 June 2010, in the Financial Times, Douglas Bruce explained that without some trickle-down effect, any recovery will be stillborn

Douglas Bruce explains that "over the past few decades, the top earners in banking and other sectors have been increasing their share of a finite cake...

"Going back a generation or two... it was still possible for a middle-class father to support a family of four, but it now takes two earners to maintain most families, and that at a lower standard of living..."

Poverty in India

On 23 June 2010, Li Onesto wrote about: "Dying Detroit" - The Impacts of Globalization. Social Decay and Destruction of an Entire Urban Area

In Detroit:

Almost half of the children live in poverty.

The illiteracy rate is close to 50%.

Michigan state spends more on prisons than it does on higher education.

Many of Detroit's jobs have moved abroad, to where the wages are even lower.

India has palaces and paupers.

On 24 June 2010, at Global Research, Andrew Gavin Marshall wrote about: The Global Political Awakening and the New World Order

He points out:

1.2 billion people in the world live on less than $1 per day.

Nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day.

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth.

The richest 1% of adults own around 40% of global assets.

The richest 10% of adults own around for 85% of the global assets.

The bottom half of the world adult population own around 1% of global wealth.

The top 6,000 people in the world own 40% of the world’s assets.

The top 600,000 people in the world control 85% of the world’s wealth.

The bottom 3.4 billion own 1% of world wealth.

Zbigniew Brzezinski explains that increased literacy means greater political awareness, increased use of TV means greater awareness of global disparities, and greater use of the Internet means more instant communications.

Brzezinski sees an increase in anti-Americanism and anti-globalization.

"From the point of view of the global oligarchy, the only method of imposing order and control ...is through the organized chaos of economic crises, war, and the rapid expansion and institutionalization of a global scientific dictatorship."

A London mansion worth over £100 million.

In the USA, roughly 40% of the population fall below the poverty line at some point within a 10 year time span. (Poverty in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Israel has many millionaires and many hungry children.

"Once idealized as a socialist paradise, the Jewish state is increasingly becoming a country of two classes...

"35% of children are living in poverty, leaving Israel with this unhappy distinction: It ranks among Western countries with the greatest percentage of poor children, according to the Insurance Institute." (Poverty in Israel: The divide deepens between the haves and have .../ Israel will join OECD as its poorest member )




In 2006 it was reported that in the Calton area of Glasgow the average life expectancy of a male is just 53.9 years.

This is lower than in Bangladesh or North Korea or Iraq. (In Iraq, life expectancy is 67. Minutes from Glasgow city centre ...)

In January 2010, a report by the UK government's National Equality Panel pointed out that the gulf between rich and poor in the UK grew wider under Tony Blair's Labour Party than at any time since the Second World War.

In the UK, the richest 10 per cent of families have assets worth an average £853,000 - almost 100 times the £8,800 average wealth of the poorest 10 per cent. (Gulf between rich and poor grown under Labour and now widest since WWII - Daily Mail )

Glasgow slum

Our leaders would appear to be in favour of a feudal system where the upper class become very rich and the lower class become very poor.

Joe Stiglitz, formerly chief economist at the World Bank, told CNBC that "Market fundamentalism has eroded any sense of community and has led to rampant exploitation." (Stiglitz: America's Ersatz Capitalism Is A Joke )

The rich-poor gap has a lot to do with rotten leaders. (afrogeekchic.wordpress.com/.../)

According to the economists Howell and Diallo (2007), neoliberal policies have contributed to a US economy in which 30% of workers earn "low wages", and 35% of the labour force is "underemployed". (Neoliberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

According to John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer (2006), "The U.S. economic and social model is associated with substantial levels of social exclusion, including high levels of income inequality, high relative and absolute poverty rates, poor and unequal educational outcomes, poor health outcomes, and high rates of crime and incarceration." (Neoliberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Jews helped run the Moslem Ottoman Empire.

Who has gained from the policies of our rotten leaders?

"Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations.

"Today, though barely 2% of the nation's population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews." (NEOCON FINANCIERS / BANKERS)

The use by feudal rulers of Jewish financiers has a long history.

In the Middle Ages in Europe, many kings depended upon Jews as financiers.

Royal power worked alongside Jewish money. (NEOCON FINANCIERS / BANKERS )

"1922: King Abdulla Ibn Hussein of Transjordan sits under the watchful eyes of his Jewish bodyguards, Habanni Yemenite brothers Sayeed, Salaah, and Saadia Sofer." (mochajuden.com/?tag=ruth)

Jews also played a major role in the medieval Muslim world.

Jews played a major role in the running of the Ottoman Empire. (NEOCON FINANCIERS / BANKERS)

"In late 19th-century Britain, the Jewish-dominated press championed imperialism, which benefited Jewish finance.

"And during the early stages of the Soviet regime, Jews were numerous in leadership positions, especially in the secret police...

"It was with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal that Jews gained long-term power in the United States...

(Benjamin Ginsberg's The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State. NEOCON FINANCIERS / BANKERS )

Some people believe that Masonic Jewish bankers pull the strings.

In his book, "Under the Sign of the Scorpion" (2002), the Estonian Juri Lina says about 150 million people died as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution, subsidized by the Masonic Jewish banking cartel. "The West pretended to oppose the Bolsheviks but in fact defended them." (savethemales.ca - USSR - Experiment Was "Social ...)

Jewish folks have been important in Latin America.

Around 300,000 Jews live in Argentina, mostly in Buenos Aires. (Argentine Jews Struggling with Money Problems and Security Fears)

In 2001, the economy of Argentina collapsed due to neo-liberal policies.

The feudal system, with its gap between rich and poor, is not unique to any one country or any one religion.

India has many millionaires.

But in 2006 it was reported that 35% of Indians live on less than $1 a day, which is much worse than Pakistan’s figure of 17%. (India - Rich and Poor)

Louis XVI

Is the situation today to be compared to that in France in 1789?

Norman Gash, at the National Review, 14 July 1989, wrote: Reflections on the revolution - French Revolution

(Norman Gash was a former Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews)

1. According to Norman Gash, in 1789 France was the largest, wealthiest, and most powerful state in Western Europe.

In 2010, the USA is said to be the most powerful state in the world.

2. Norman Gash asks: What reason was there for revolution in France in 1789?

Gash relates that, according to Napoleon, there was revolution because the middle class wanted more power for themselves and less power for the aristocrats.

It could be argued that, in the USA, the middle classes are getting restless. They see a corrupt elite enjoying too many privileges.

Louis XVI

3. Gash points out that in France, in 1789, "the climate of opinion was rational, liberal, and optimistic, the monarchy not averse to reform, the aristocracy itself permeated by ideas of the Enlightenment."

Why then was there a bloody revolution?

Gash explains that the 'system' appeared to make reform difficult.

Edmund Burke said that "a state without the means of some change is without the means of its own conservation."

In the USA in 2010, the constitution appears not to be protecting the USA from disaster.

America's institutions seem incapable of preventing wars, discontent and hunger.

Bastille

4. Gash points out that the French revolution was a long sequence of events, stretching from 1789 until 1799.

There was "an extraordinary series of political improvisations:

constitutional monarchy,

republicanism,

single-party rule,

dictatorship of the proletariat,

oligarchy,

and finally military despotism."

If there are to be dramatic changes in the USA, the end result might be military despotism under an American Napoleon.

Napoleon was a fascist.

He attempted the total military domination of continental Europe.

He tried to have a New World Order, or as Gash writes "a new international order".

Napoleon

5. According to Gash, the French Revolution, Napoleon's Empire and the 1815 Congress of Vienna "foreshadowed the Europe of the future."

That means both good things and bad things.

Americans seeking revolution should study Europe's history.

6. Gash implies that bloody revolution was not necessary to bring about change in Europe.

Gash writes:

Even if the French Revolution had not taken place, "common sense suggests that the main lines of European evolution would have been much the same, though perhaps the pace might have been slower."

Gash lists the products of European society which would have come about either by gradual evolution or by fast and bloody revolution:

A. Liberalism based on representative institutions.

B. Nationalism based on linguistic unity.

C. The rise of the sovereign state.

D. The centralization of administrative power at the expense of provincial.

E. The increasing responsibility of government for the welfare of its subjects.

F. The ability to mobilize a whole society for war.

G. military defeats in consequence giving rise to revolution and revolution to tyranny.

H. International conflicts followed by international institutions to preserve harmony.

America is changing.

The changes will be a mixture of good and bad.

The changes will happen, even without a revolution.

French Empire 1811

7. According to Gash, the French Revolution helped to shape European society in two notable ways.

A. Force was used to bring about change. "Liberalism and reform marched behind French bayonets."

The ideas of liberalism and reform had many of their origins in England.

B. The awakening of nationalism.

Gash writes that: "ideas that march behind bayonets are rarely popular; reform at the hands of a conqueror earns little gratitude. French rule brought not only enlightenment but hardship."

It was not long before there were nationalistic revolts against the French.

In Germany, later in the century, "Bismarck exploited the German national feeling first evoked by Napoleon I."

Any attempt by an American dictator to bring about a New World Order would result in nationalist revolts.