Economic impacts on politics.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=12944
Article highlights some impacts of USA via international financial system on Russia, China and other countries around the world.
Quote from article:
"The U.S. media are silent about the most important topic policy makers are discussing here (and I suspect in Asia too): how to protect their countries from three inter-related dynamics: (1) the surplus dollars pouring into the rest of the world for yet further financial speculation and corporate takeovers; (2) the fact that central banks are obliged to recycle these dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the federal U.S. budget deficit; and most important (but most suppressed in the U.S. media, (3) the military character of the U.S. payments deficit and the domestic federal budget deficit.
Strange as it may seem and irrational as it would be in a more logical system of world diplomacy the "dollar glut" is what finances America's global military build-up. It forces foreign central banks to bear the costs of America's expanding military empire effective "taxation without representation." Keeping international reserves in "dollars" means recycling their dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bills U.S. government debt issued largely to finance the military."
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasia...omic_Community
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangha...n_Organisation
Re: Economic impacts on politics.
From article http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=18636
"Latvia is being devastated by two global wars. On the geopolitical front is the Cold War’s coup de grâce. Neoliberals have managed to de-industrialize Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, persuading parliaments to dismantle government support for economic renewal. The “Washington Consensus” has backed a policy of giving away public enterprises and land to a newly minted oligarchy of insiders, and helped them sell shares to Western investors. The ensuing economic wreckage has helped avert future military rivalry to U.S. hegemony.
Western investors are waging their own social war of finance and property against labor. Initiated by the Chicago Boys in Chile in 1973, sponsored in Britain by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives after 1979 and by Ronald Reagan’s Republicans in the United States after 1980, this class war was capped by “Rubinomics” under Bill Clinton and the Democrats after 1992. Rejecting the classical distinction between earned income (wages and profits) and unearned income (economic rent, financial charges and land-price gains or other asset-price gains), this global war seeks to rationalize privatization of the land and key resources of the former Soviet Union and China as well as those in Third World debtor countries. Its aim is to roll back a century of Progressive Era regulatory reforms and taxation of rentier wealth. So over and above being on the losing side in this victory over Communism, Latvia has been swept up in this war of oligarchy against democracy. "
Article goes on to discuss western European predatory policies.
And another article http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=13969
"... Mr. Medvedev called for China, Russia and India to “build an increasingly multipolar world order.” What this means in plain English is: We have reached our limit in subsidizing the United States’ military encirclement of Eurasia while also allowing the US to appropriate our exports, companies, stocks and real estate in exchange for paper money of questionable worth.. ...This means creating a new alternative. Rather than making merely “cosmetic changes as some countries and perhaps the international financial organisations themselves might want,” Mr. Medvedev ended his St. Petersburg speech, “what we need are financial institutions of a completely new type, where particular political issues and motives, and particular countries will not dominate.” "
Re: Economic impacts on politics.
Class warfare.
Economics is a political battle ground. Various factions strive to control political debates by using economics as though it is an established certainty about which there is no doubt. In reality economics theories and definitions are fought over by powerful factions, to control politics and the electorate. Mainstream economics have been largely captured by powerful property and financial interests to propel their agendas. This is readily seen by examining the history of economics.
In several videos, economist Fred Harrison shows some of the history of mainstream economics, and where economics have been purposely mystified. The resulting mystified economics are used within and between nations for class warfare, and to subjugate foreign nations by international institutions. Fred has several other videos worth viewing on his website.
http://renegadeeconomist.com/video/d...-2-coming.html
http://renegadeeconomist.com/video/d...apitalism.html
http://renegadeeconomist.com/video/d...yal-lords.html
Crucial to the on-going debate is the difference between earned and unearned income. Mainstream economists have worked hard to erase the distinction so that taxation increasingly penalizes earned income of working people. The opposite can be seen in the absence of tax on so-called qualified dividends in the USA. This favours financial and property interests. This is just one example among several, including depreciation schedules. Only financial and property interests can benefit from these.
I'll try to get to how these and other factors in mainstream economics have impacted Russia since the end of the USSR.
Re: Economic impacts on politics.
From article concerning economic policy implemented after break up of USSR.
'...a rent-tax as being essential for “purely” free enterprise to exist. In tsarist Russia a rent tax was endorsed most notably by Leo Tolstoy (who became a follower of the American land and tax reformer Henry George). This policy was about to be endorsed by the Duma under Alexander Kerensky in 1917 just before Lenin’s October Revolution.
The policy has been endorsed by a group of leading American economists who published an open letter to President Gorbachev on November 7, 1990. It was drafted not by socialists but by economics professors at the opposite side of the political spectrum, market economists and even libertarians who espoused the ideas of Henry George, headed by Nicolaus Tideman of Virginia Tech, future Nobel Economics Prize-winner William Vickrey, Mason Gaffney and Lowell Harriss. Other Nobel winners included James Tobin, Robert Solow and Franco Modigliani, as well as such prominent economists as William Baumol of Princeton, Richard Musgrave and Zvi Griliches at Harvard, and Alfred Kahn. “Dear Mr. Gorbachev,” they wrote,
"The movement of the Soviet Union to a market economy will greatly enhance the prosperity of your citizens. But there is a danger that you will adopt features of our economies that keep us from being as prosperous as we might be. In particular, there is a danger that you may follow us in allowing most of the rent of land to be collected privately.
It is important that the rent of land be retained as a source of government revenue. While the governments of developed nations with market economies collect some of the rent of land in taxes, they do not collect nearly as much as they could, and they therefore make unnecessarily great use of taxes that impede their economies–taxes on such things as incomes, sales and the value of capital. . . .
The rental value of land arises from three sources. The first is the inherent natural productivity of land, combined with the fact that land is limited. The second source of land value is the growth of communities; the third is the provision of public services. All citizens have equal claims on the component of land value that arises from nature. The component of land value that arises from community growth and provision of services is the most sensible source of revenue for financing public services that raise the rental value of surrounding land. These services include roads, urban transit networks, parks, and public utility networks for such services as electricity, telephones, water and sewers. A public revenue system should strive to collect as much of the rent of land as possible, allocating the part of rent derived from nature to all citizens equally, and the part derived from public services to the governmental units that provide those services. When governments collect the increase in land value that results from the provision of services, they are able to offer services at prices that represent the marginal social cost of these services, promoting efficient use of the services and enhancing the rental value of the land where the services are available. Government agencies that use land should be charged the same rentals as others for the land they use, or services will not be adequately financed and agencies will not have adequate incentive or guidance for economizing on their use of land.
Some economists might be tempted to suggest that the rent can be collected publicly simply by selling land outright at auction. There are a number of reasons why this is not a good idea. First, there is so much land to be turned over to private management that any effort to dispose of all of it in a short period would result in an extreme depression in prices offered. Second, some persons who could make excellent use of land would be unable to raise money for the purchase price. Collecting rent annually provides access to land for persons with limited access to credit. Third, subsequent resale of land would enable speculators to make large profits unrelated to any productive services they offer, resulting in needless inequity and dissatisfaction. Fourth, concern about future political conditions would tend to depress offers. Collecting rent annually permits the citizens of future years to capture the benefits of good future public policies. Fifth, because investors tend to be averse to risk, general uncertainty about the future will tend to depress offers. This risk aversion is sidestepped by allowing future rental payments to be determined by future conditions. Finally, the future rent of land can more justly be claimed by future generations than by today’s citizens. Requiring annual payments from the users of land allows each year’s population to claim that year’s rent. While the proceeds of sales could be invested for the benefit of future generations, not collecting the money in advance guarantees the heritage of the future against political excesses." (End of letter.)
This letter warned specifically against precisely the problems that would develop under Yeltsin’s “shock therapy” reformers and kleptocrats. But the U.S. Government, World Bank and IMF had other ideas, and blocked this basic approach, with well-known tragic results.'
And another article here, a little old, but with some very useful information.
