Economics

Summit plutokratů

Nov 10, 2014 Wayne Swan

BRISBANE – Na oficiální večeři ve Washingtonu před listopadovým summitem skupiny G-20 v Brisbane poučoval mediální magnát a australský rodák Rupert Murdoch ministry o nebezpečích socialismu a rozbujelé vlády. Tento horoucí odpůrce australské ceny uhlíku a ostřílený oponent amerického prezidenta Baracka Obamy velebil ctnosti úsporných programů a minimální regulace a brojil proti rozkladným vlivům sociálních záchranných sítí.

Ministři se ve Washingtonu účastnili výročního zasedání Mezinárodního měnového fondu a Světové banky, kde se snažili překonat vzájemné rozdíly a nalézt před nadcházejícím summitem společnou řeč. Murdochův tón však naznačuje, že konsensus v otázce trvale udržitelného a začleňujícího růstu bude těžko dosažitelný.

Murdochovy poznámky jsou v souladu s názory, které vyjadřuje jeho přítel, australský premiér Tony Abbott, a jeho současná administrativa. Například v lednu informoval Abbott zděšené účastníky davoské konference, že globální finanční krizi nezpůsobily neregulované globální trhy, ale spíše příliš rozbujelé vlády. Pro ministry financí, kteří předchozích několik let zápasili s toxickými důsledky marnotratnosti finančního sektoru, to byla rozhodně novinka.

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j. von Hettlingen Nov 14, 2014

Wayne Swan, Christine Lagarde would no doubt agree that the G 20 meeting is a "plutocrats' summit!" That "the world’s 85 richest people control more wealth than the world’s 3.5 billion poorest people," has fueled widespread resentments, especially as "inequality is casting a dark shadow over the global economy."
As a forum for the world’s leading industrial nations, the G20 economies account for two-thirds of the world’s people, 85% of its gross product, and three-quarters of global trade. Hence it sees it has the heft and credibility to decide for the rest of the world.
Australia is said to spend over $500m to host the event, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott is a friend of Rupert Murdoch. The media mogul has never tried to hide his phobia of socialism and his aversion towards "big government" and "too much governance". As one of the diehard opponents of Barack Obama, he must have orchestrated the GOP victory in the mid-term elections.
Australia has chosen to use the "G-20 chairmanship as an opportunity" to narrow the agenda and focus on economic issues. The question is how the members would be able "to re-energize and refine the group’s mission to boost global growth, create jobs, and raise living standards". The goal is to raise the level of output by at least 2% above the currently projected level in the next five years.
The problem is that the boost to growth will only occur if reforms are actually implemented by member countries. Structural reforms are "controversial and difficult to execute." They are also unpopular, as they often "involve sacrifices by ordinary citizens and benefit society’s most privileged groups," leading to economic inequality, while the rich get away without paying more taxes.
No doubt Murdoch has its finger in the pie, if Australia refuses to "discuss inclusive growth", but "talk of unregulated markets, lower taxes, and the removal of social safety nets". It certainly "indicates that the summit will offer no substantive policies aimed at reducing inequality".
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Nathan W Nov 13, 2014

What could be more corrosive than helping people who are down?

Better to leave them to the wolves and the doldrums so that we don't face all the trouble of disadvantaged people making something of themselves.
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Mr Econotarian Nov 11, 2014

So why is France, with higher levels of income equality than the US, doing so poorly economically?
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Zsolt Hermann Nov 11, 2014

There is no political, economical or social solution for inequality.
The problem is our insatiable, self-calculating, self-serving human nature.

We are programmed in a way that we are incapable of giving up anything from our own fulfillment. If we have 100 we want 200, when we achieved 200 we already want 400 and we are never satisfied...

We are like alcoholics who cannot stop drinking even after being told we would die if we did not stop, or like "conscious cancer" knowing that by destroying the host it destroys itself but still it cannot stop.

Today there are hardly any people who would not understand constant quantitative growth is not only impossible, futile but it is self-destructive.

We also know that we all exist in a globally interconnected and inter-dependent system where nobody can isolate, escape, hide and all problems reach each and every corner.

Those on top of the pyramid also know that the Ponzi scheme stops working when the bottom of the pyramid falls off, still the "downward" trickle is stopped, and they hope by some miracle they can survive and continue profiting without the mob.

Unless we change our own nature, redirecting our focus from self-calculations to calculations for the collective, unless we change the values of society, abandon the reckless, excessive consumerism, overproduction the whole system will collapse burying everybody under.

We have only one choice: do we change before the inevitable happens and start changing ourselves and through self-change building a new human society pro-actively, or we wait until suffering, a very unpredictable, volatile transitional period forces us to change?
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Lance Brofman Nov 10, 2014

"..Even if it was widely understood that the shift of the tax burden from the rich to the middle class was the cause of the depression, it would still be extremely difficult to remedy the situation. The enormous shift in tax policy favoring the rich has been a world-wide phenomena going on for many years. After the Socialist party candidate François Hollande won the presidential election, France enacted tax laws that gave France the most progressive tax system among the 20 largest industrial nations. However, the world-wide the tax systems have become so much less progressive in the past decades, that if the tax code that France has today were applied to France in 1969, France would have had the most regressive tax system among the 20 countries in 1969.

A major component of the shift of the tax burden from the rich onto the middle class involves the corporate income tax , whose incidence falls entirely on the owners of corporations. Corporate income taxes were 4% of GDP in 1969 and are now less than 1%. The reduction in corporate taxes has not necessarily been the result of political power on the part of corporations. Rather it was part of an international “bidding war” among countries to see who could induce corporations to move from one country to a jurisdiction to another with a lower corporate tax. Even if were politically feasible, the United States could not unilaterally reinstate the corporate income tax rates back to 1969 levels.

That it would take the cooperation of more than twenty nations to give up some of their sovereignty and agree on reinstating corporate income taxes illustrates just how difficult it would be to adopt tax policies that could overcome the cycle of overinvestment. Thus, even if the depression ends capital will soon again accumulate too rapidly. Then the productive capacity of the business sector will again outpace the ability of the household sector to absorb the increasing production. This will bring on another period of weak economic conditions and corresponding low interest rates. Alternately, we will see a Japan-like period of extended low interest rates as the current depression, as I define it lasts indefinitely. .."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1543642
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Summit plutokratů

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