Re: Alan Greenspan

[QCao009@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/7/2007 1:41:32 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
Bussardre@aol.com writes:

“The  continuing  acceleration of the flow of workers to competitive markets  
during the past  decade has been a potent disinflationary force. That  
acceleration has depressed  wage growth and held down inflation  virtually 
uniformly 
across the globe.”  “As  awesomely  productive as market capitalism has 
proved to 
be, its Achilles' heel   is a growing perception that its rewards, 
increasingly skewed to the  skilled,  are not distributed justly. Market 
capitalism on a 
global  scale continues to  require ever-greater skills as one new technology 
 
builds on another. Given that  raw human intelligence is probably no  greater 
today than in ancient Greece, our  advancement will depend on  additions to 
the 
vast heritage of human knowledge  accumulated over  the generations. A 
dysfunctional U.S. elementary and secondary   education system has failed to 
prepare our 
students sufficiently rapidly  to  prevent a shortage of skilled workers and 
a 
surfeit of  lesser-skilled ones,  expanding the pay gap between the two 
groups.  
Unless America's education system  can raise skill levels as quickly  as 
technology requires, skilled workers will  continue to earn  greater wage 
increases, 
leading to ever more disturbing  extremes of  income concentration. Education 
reform will take years, and we need   to address increasing income inequality 
now. Increasing taxes on the rich,  a  seemingly simple remedy, is likely to 
prove counterproductive to  economic  growth. But by opening our borders to 
large 
numbers of  highly skilled immigrant  workers, we would both enhance the 
skill  
level of the overall workforce and  provide a new source of  competition for 
higher-earning employees, thus driving  down their  wages. The popular 
acceptance 
of capitalist practice in the United   States will likely rest on these 
seemingly quite doable   reforms.”



Billee & Pete:
 
In a white/black, black/white world we need to ask ourselves how the  
American middle class can extricate itself from this bipolar mainstream  media-shaped 
discussion.  When the three Democratic frontrunners continue  to take a 
cautious approach to Iraq, when the three leading Republican  candidates continue 
to lip Reagan cold war/fear-driven dogma from a warped time  zone, the missing 
links between foreign policy, global economy and equal  education opportunity 
for all are clear to only those of us who can look beyond  the fray.  And 
looking beyond the fray is simply not as popular as lulling  ourselves to sleep 
between Larry Craig and Brittney Spears.  
 
You both continue to very effectively raise the issue of fairness and  
justice, and yet, I am not sure any of us is committed enough to see that we are  
all being driven to either opt out of this profit-driven obesity zone or  
continue to subject ourselves to glut and self-pollution.  It was  fascinating to 
listen to the new Minister from Darfur make fun of Bush's UN  speech until we 
realize that the scale he professes as an acceptable truth is  clearly dangerous 
for anyone who lives in the area.  Furthermore, if one  follows the money 
trail as you do, Billee, you will start to realize as we wake  up this morning, 
the question we only need to ask before we condemn Somalia is  the reality that 
escapes Fred Thompson in his Reagan mime.  In Vietnam,  Russia, China and the 
US supply arms to both sides of the conflict.  In the  Iran/Iraq conflict, 
again it is the Soviet Union, us(and our ally  Saddam) and Europe.  Now in Iraq 
it is again us and the same suspects  supplying the ammunition.  In Colombia, 
it's the same.  And in Darfur,  who do we think are supplying the arms for 
both sides to kill?
 
It is sad to watch "educated" Toms from Oxford and Paris being propped  up as 
the answer to the crisis when clearly they are pawns.  It is sad  watching 
Clarence Thomas justifying what he has to say again as his own cause  celebre.  
In the meantime, "no child left behind" means more and more  children being 
offered as sacrificial lambs because of their own courage and  valor.  This 
November, my youngest nephew is getting married six months  earlier because his 
fiancee is getting shipped off to Iraq.  We all believe  in America and what it 
stands for.  The question to ask for the young, the  poor and the immigrant is 
if America still believes in its children.  Move  on.org was not so far off 
in asking about betrayal.  It just needs to ask  the very same question of all 
of us.  Somewhere down the line, and I am not  sure we have not crossed it, we 
each need to face our own soul before we preach  to others about God and ask 
ourselves whether we should take any of these lies  about ourselves any more.  
Has any of you noticed that the soldiers  killed are now in their mid and 
late thirties and no longer teens and  twenties?
 
I will reserve my real thoughts about Alan Greenspan and Henry  Kissinger.  
Billee, his new book belongs with William Bennett's books in  the discarded bin 
outside Barnes and Noble.  So much for the erudite and  the virtuous.  
Courage, everyone; we will need so much more of it when we  can no longer discern 
them from the fool and the profiteer.
 
Quan





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