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vision for public-owned and run auto, banking sectors ?

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Mon, 2009-03-30 12:37

#1

thanks

vision for public-owned and run auto, banking sectors ?

just listening to the noon news, and wondering- as the private sector has done such an abysmal job with both the auto industry and with finance, instead of making workers and the general public suffer still further, why doesn't parliament/congress accept the reality that the private corps are bankrupt and take them over and do it properly?

sorry as i'm not too well informed on these things... there surely is a way governments across borders can work together to arrange these kinds of things; they seem to spend an awful lot of time wringing their hands over the situation, and making the situation worse for ordinary people.

anyway, just sharing some thoughts of the moment.

Mon, 2009-03-30 14:16

#2

remind

remind's picture

The current goverments are controlled by corps and financial brokers, so you would never have that happen under the current fascist regimes.

For example the Bank of America is actually controlled by the Catholic Church, who has billions in assets, but it just got millions and millions in bailouts from the US government.

Mon, 2009-03-30 14:23

#3

George Victor

But where will the great unwashed invest for their retirement?

It was the view of all that loot waiting to be invested that drove the financial sector to paroxysms of inventiveness like the ABCP creations and that brought down the house of cards.

First, demand state-backed pensions with modest but guaranteed performance. The idea is getting serious consideration from all sides beyond providing tax-free bank accounts. Then later ve plan ze ownership of the means of production, ja?

Mon, 2009-03-30 18:02

#4

thanks

George you're saying then (and i'm elaborating) that for now, as we don't yet have decent public pensions, stick with the current model, pension investments in these private corps, save the workers' jobs and decent salaries, and advocate for green products from these companies.

i've also heard it suggested that some kind of new Auto Pact might be useful.

Mon, 2009-03-30 19:49

#5

George Victor

No, thanks .

I mean "First, demand state-backed pensions"...say provincial variations on our federal old age pensions and their guaranteed income supplements. They cannot pay you less if the market tanks...and the CPP is somewhat vulnerable there...although again, it's a guaranteed amount according to your lifetime earnings...and it was upgraded in the Chretien years with larger premiums.

Any investment of public moneys should be in public institutions and services....and we should keep out the private pension funds that are now engaging in bidding battles for investment rights in services that used to be financed by municipalities with bonds.

In other words, we have to become independent of the corporate pension world, giving us the independence of citizens in a democracy. We have to also create public green industry to satisfy specific needs for our own environmental futures. Manufacture our own electric vehicles, i.e., in a truly mixed economy.

There's a host of alternative domestic heating technologies, for instance, that we should be building any time now.

And let's become independent of the finance, insurance, real-estate sector, regulate the hell out of it and end its usurious ways. In nothing should we return to "business as usual."

Mon, 2009-03-30 20:39

#6

thanks

ok thanks for clarifying on the pensions, and it seems that if Obama is guaranteeing warranties on autos, its not too larger a step to guarantee warrantees on people (sorry, that just came out... chuckle, i think i'm losing it...) really though, what i mean is that pensions shouldn't have anything to do with 'earnings', people should get egalitarian pensions that cover the basics, period.

yes on the public investments on public services, and i know there are people in unions who say that having them 'own' services through their pensions is better than having the corp financiers own the services, but i'm a firm believer in simpler is better, and that means municipal bonds and direct public funding. saves so much wasted money with intermediaries.

yes on the public green industry, but how do you see this as 'mixed economy'? what would the public sector involvement be and what not?

yes on becoming independent of the FIRE, douse it completely why not.

i know they're not even getting near the 'regulate finance and end usury' bit at the G20. just more blah blah there. their talking starts on April Fool's Day, as all the protesters are saying.

Mon, 2009-03-30 21:06

#7

George Victor

Think of pensions as the reservoir of capital that makes it all tick, thanks. Half of the investments in the market simply vanished in a few months. The surplus of all that we produce is there. Its uses will determine our collective futures. We must see to it that it is not just peed away. The kids are going to have difficult time forgiving us for their social and environmental inheritances as it is.

Mon, 2009-03-30 21:29

#8

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Frustrated Mess's picture

Quote:
For example the Bank of America is actually controlled by the Catholic Church

And I thought it was the CIA.

Mon, 2009-03-30 22:00

#9

thanks

so i hear you saying that pensions should be guaranteed.

what should these pensions be invested in? are you saying they should be invested in a) municipal bonds for needed public services, and b) what else?

Mon, 2009-03-30 23:59

Stanley10

b) US Military bases- guaranteed growth potential in all market cycles.

c) Wooden pallets- used to hold shrink-wrapped packets of US $100 bills.

Everything else is ephemeral.

Tue, 2009-03-31 09:55

thanks

ha!

Tue, 2009-03-31 10:35

George Victor

Everything else is ephemeral.

----------------------------------

You, Stan, are being ephemeral.

I heard a conservative economist say, this morning, that the U.S. and Canada should nationalize the goddam automakers and bring them into line with the real world.

What's wrong, lost your socialist underpinnings? Or did you ever have same?

And yes, thanks, if you pick carefully through the musings of #4 posting you'll find me extolling the virtues of fairly wide investment by the state (that is what the neo-con calls guv'mint) to the degree that we can go into a future that does limit its carbon emissions and does maintain some kind of life for all.

Got any other ideas on how we can meet that balance?

Without being too ephemeral for Stan there.

Tue, 2009-03-31 11:54

Tommy_Paine

I think a much more basic question has to be posed first. Whose economy is it, anyway?

What should be striking people most of all through this meltdown is just how contrary to the ideals we all hold about democracy, liberty, equality etc, our economy is.

We need to ask ourselves just what we want our economy to provide us, then see how things like the banks or manufacturing fit into that idea.

Tue, 2009-03-31 12:21

thanks

"Got any other ideas on how we can meet that balance?"

"Whose economy is it, anyway?"

there has been a lot of good talk regarding specifics over at www.progressive-economics.ca . on debt, on the who and the how of alternatives to the casino, and it seems a very basic element here is process.

it should be all the members of the UN, along with diverse civil society groups, indigenous peoples, and at the level of communities who discuss this stuff.

think we can do it all in a few lines at babble? not.

what bothers me particularly is something i gathered from one of the threads, that the NDP and others didn't even bother to Actually go out into communities during the prorogue. maybe people just relied on internet. this will never do. only a tiny elite in the world access internet.

i'd like to see more suggestions for better process around these questions. in this country and globally.

Tue, 2009-03-31 12:30

thanks

also, i'm just delaying the 'other ideas' question because i haven't had time to read over carefully all the stuff at

http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/03/03/the-meaninglessness-of-money-why-quantitative-easing-wont-do-what-people-think-it-will-do/

and other topics there, nor to translate that into a farm-friendly non-ephemeral way.

maybe others can help. i've also promised myself that "I will finish my own book-keeping tax tallies today", at least some of the numbers, along with other stuff, and i've spent a fair bit of time at babble in the last day or so. have to keep relying on you folks again...

Tue, 2009-03-31 12:30

Tommy_Paine

I am not sure that trying to effect the kind of change we need in our cities, our province, nationally or internationally can come from our current institutinal apparatii. (crap, I'm freakin verbose today)

What we should be doing is using the internet--places like here-- to get together (face to face) to construct new institutions.

Tue, 2009-03-31 12:32

George Victor

Dear TP and thanks, without wandering into the realm of NDP failings in coming to grips with fundamentals (as a political party, they have to deal with the great unread, after all) , I wonder how much more fundamental you can get than to confront control of capital and control of CO2? The need for publicly owned institutions hitherto left to the vagaries of the market...

Am I missing something here?

Tue, 2009-03-31 12:38

thanks

pls. keep going George and others, elaborate on the control of $$ and CO2, i'll look forward to reading later.

Tue, 2009-03-31 12:40

George Victor

Or are we going to go into 'definitions"....ie. what is a state". What is the new institution needed to bring rationality to our system of banking. The meaning of money....all the things that "progressive economists" love to tackle...head on....

Tue, 2009-03-31 13:07

Tommy_Paine

"Am I missing something here?"

Well, yeah. I think everyone but me is missing something here. Which could very well indicate that I'm nuts. But here goes.

I don't think the first hurdle in all this is to wrest control of the economy away from the nasty people who have brought things to a crashing halt.

The first hurdle is to convince everyone that this is indeed their economy. It's like everyone has been told how the economy runs is "none of their business" and what's worse, believes it is none of their business.

George, ask people of your aquiaintence a simple question like "what do you want, or expect, from our economy" I get the impression that you travel in more educated circles than I. You might get less blank stares. When I ask people, I get blank stares. They've never even thought of thinking in those terms.

That's how badly we are screwed at the moment.

However, such questions should have more traction today than when things were, deceptively as it turns out, running along tickety boo.

Tue, 2009-03-31 13:38

George Victor

Broaching the question to a library board gets the same glazed expression, TP.

But if conservative economists and governments elsewhere (Britain has controlling interest in at least one bank and Krugram of NYTimes fame has suggested it) can put forward these ideas, we should not be shrinking violets...for there will never be a better time.

And funding a provincial old age pension was something put forward by PC leader and Premier Leslie Frost a half century back.

You see, the folks who have been happy with the way things were, now see that it can't be trusted. Many are scared shitless.

So assure your blank friends that a better pension, one guaranteed to be around to support them, is necessary. That is not going to take away their jobs. We have to develop those jobs from the capital that the little guy is accumulating for his/her golden years.

You are harking back to the days (last year) when all of this was radical stuff coming from commies.

Surely we now understand those ideas are history? We are just trying to maintain a mixed economy that kept us all working in wartime and which has to be resurrected against those on Bay St. and Wall ST. not yet in jail!

Tell the buddies about the economy of their fathers.

Tue, 2009-03-31 13:54

Tommy_Paine

"So assure your blank friends that a better pension, one guaranteed to be around to support them, is necessary. That is not going to take away their jobs. We have to develop those jobs from the capital that the little guy is accumulating for his/her golden years."

I guess I am more Socratic, if that's the right term. I think the best way to get people to that kind of thinking is to lead them there with the right questions. So that when they come to it, it becomes their idea, and not someone elses.

Tue, 2009-03-31 14:04

Sean in Ottawa

Maybe nationalise the Catholic Church?

Would that be enough to fund the creation of a new Green Auto industry?

;-)

Tue, 2009-03-31 14:05

George Victor

"I guess I am more Socratic, if that's the right term. I think the best way to get people to that kind of thinking is to lead them there with the right questions. So that when they come to it, it becomes their idea, and not someone elses."

-------------------------------------------------

What you are engaged in, TP, is what we used to call Mystification.

An old Marxist term meaning "sowing confusion".

Like Zen-like.

Correction....it is the questioning technique taught to BEd hopefuls.

Tue, 2009-03-31 14:08

Tommy_Paine

"An old Marxist term meaning "sowing confusion". "

Oh, I think that's an unkind treatment of what I was talking about. But, neither was I as full in my description as what I could have been, which might yet soften your assesment.

Alas, I am off to contribute to the GDP, so hopefully we can continue this tomorrow.

Tue, 2009-03-31 14:11

George Victor

That might be brought about sooner than if we wait for the Poo-Bahs of American industry to create a sustainable anything, Sean.

But, shit, maybe we should not be more retiring about taking over industry than the American president, eh? Or is the prospect of going beyond endless discussion and temporizing too unsettling?

Tue, 2009-03-31 14:47

remind

remind's picture

K, I have a question, that perhaps should have its own thread, but will fit well here too.

Last night was watching a program on all the housing morgage defaults in the USA in specific Flordia and Detroit. Interesting to me, one person in that commentary put the blame on individuals who believed they had a right to own a home.

This prompted me to think; "do, or should people, have the right to own their own home?" It is a larger subject matter than one might first think, especially if we look at having a home as being a fundamental necessity, and therefore should be a fundamental right.

Tue, 2009-03-31 15:40

KenS

Having a home is different than home ownership.

Not that this is an answer.

As to how the role that deliberately expanding home ownership played in the bursting of the financial bubble that set off the current crisiss...

I even herd someone from the Fraser Institiute weigh in on this on a CBC Radio panel that others probably heard [The Current maybe? in the last couple days].

He sort of steered clear of explicitly blaming the victims, but did say that people should 'share' in the responsibility for taking on house payments they could not afford.

This grotesquely overlooks the role that the army of well paid and scandolously unpricipled debt pushers, real estate agents, and appraisers played in aggressively convincing people that it would work out fine, and keeping them from reding the fine print about all the charges, etc.

Not to mention that this particular part of the bubble was just the specific tip of the iceberg that happened to be the straw that broke the camels back. If it had been only a housing price bubble it would have just been some gas pains that would have worked themselves out by now.

Tue, 2009-03-31 19:22

thanks

hearing a few different things here;

- pensions, homes

- fear, hopes/ expectations around economy/ 'ours' vs. 'none of our business'.

- anger around fear, and causes of fear.

- frustration about how to effectively address fears/hopes/lack/anger.

Then i go back to the OP and realize that i probably worded it way too broadly, and apologize for that. and realize i need to go check up on the news and see what other developments have occurred...

Tue, 2009-03-31 20:49

George Victor

Seems clear to me, thanks.

How do we bring about (or at least view) public ownership of manuracturing and finance institutions. Given the collapse of the market-driven variety, it seems a no-brainer.

All seems very necessary - from a perspective of survival of our species. Not copping out on our kids.

What's the confusion?

Tue, 2009-03-31 22:35

Stanley10

My two cents on a national pension scheme Thanks: We are presently trapped in a world economic structure where most of us are living below our means to support a particular state living beyond its means and whose mode of survival is to dominate all states both militarily and economically (globalization?). So far, most state governments appear to be avid participants in maintaining this structure. Hence, can one actually say that they act in the interest of their people? Canadian governments have come and gone yet the sale of resources, infrastructure, and industry has continued unabated. I have a great distrust of national schemes because of this. Some of the best public ownership has been at the local or even provincial level such as auto insurance, water, electricity, etc. I fear any pension scheme administered by a national government whose interests in the well being of its people are debateable. Didn’t the federal government just extend pension status reporting out to ten years? Yet, even if a truly representative party were elected to institute such a scheme (with the best of intentions) it would probably be raped to the bone by the succeeding government. How is our national energy program or gas reserve doing? The problems we face are both within and without our borders so I hope that the present world economic structure changes so that we can all enjoy a social democracy.

Wed, 2009-04-01 00:15

thanks

well at present, for me the 'how' problem is tied to the process issue, when so many people have articulated different approaches/ first priorities in elements to address. that's a positive of course- diverse aspects getting addressed by many people. but it's probably way beyond the scope of single thread at babble. a more specific question seems to be more useful.

Wed, 2009-04-01 08:35

George Victor

Yeah it's all too complex to even discuss because those neo-cons out there don't agree with us. And they continue to set the pace, provide the "visiion" as in "vision for public-owned and run auto, banking sectors?"

Leave the vision thing to bean counters!

Wed, 2009-04-01 09:13

Jacob Richter

Hey, I'm a bean counter!

Wed, 2009-04-01 10:06

George Victor

That's nice.

Wed, 2009-04-01 10:40

Tommy_Paine

"How do we bring about (or at least view) public ownership of manuracturing and finance institutions. Given the collapse of the market-driven variety, it seems a no-brainer."

Well, how was it done before, and how did it work out?

When there was a crisis in the railway industry (before the depression?) the government created the Canadian National Railway to buy up smaller, troubled railways in Canada. It seemed to work quite well. Well enough for the Conservatives to eventually privatize it.

Less crisis driven was the purchase of Petro Can, again, privatized by the Conservatives.

Nationalizing in Canada seems to work out that the public purchases toxic assests at inflated prices (my guess there) only to sell them off at fire sale prices to the friends of whichever representative party of the Family Compact has the most seats in Parliament at the time.

We could look at the E.I. system as a nationalized insurance scheme. A good one, but even though it is and was higly illegal to take money from that scheme for uses other than for what it was intended, we see this was no barrier to the theiving, above the law perfidious scum in Parliament.

I'm not saying that nationalizing this or that doesn't work. It just doesn't work under our current government processes. Well, I guess it works for some people, but surely not for the public interest.

So, the task before us, in my mind, is much more fundamental.

Wed, 2009-04-01 11:38

KenS

Whether or not privatization has been a good idea policy-wise- the examples you stated have not been fire sales, nor sold to cronies.

Privatization of those has proceeded by public offerings of shares- as would any corporation. And the public coffers have profited.

Not that this has any bearing on the general points being made.

Wed, 2009-04-01 12:23

thorin_bane

Tommy_Paine wrote:

"How do we bring about (or at least view) public ownership of manuracturing and finance institutions. Given the collapse of the market-driven variety, it seems a no-brainer."

Less crisis driven was the purchase of Petro Can, again, privatized by the Conservatives.

I would quible that the libs(ie conservatives) sold off petrocan(remaining 25%) to the amazing tune of 3 whole billion dollars. Thanks you ralph goodale. I'm unaware of how much was sold off previously to 2004.

Wed, 2009-04-01 13:32

George Victor

TP:

"So, the task before us, in my mind, is much more fundamental."

----------------------------------------------

The Canadian Pacific was a nationo-building project, the CN was a government at work to insure transport and communications, and in Ontario, a state-sponsored power authority.....as well, a historical perspective without gaps will show that there was, from mid-Depression onward, the creation of national institutions (a central bank, the CBC and a national airline ..by the PCs - and in wartime and immediately following the war, unemployment insurance, a national pension, a "middle class" with education in mind.

From the creations of the Chicago school came the economic incentive to destroy the welfare state, and from the early 1970s, that is what took place. And then came the contradictions that caused capitalism to implode...too much debt and too much creativity in the financial sector.

If you go dancing around without that picture in mind...it is the rise and fall of modern capitalism in the face of the need to prohibit growth on a finite planet - you will always be hunting for something more "fundamental"

But tell me, what is more fundamental than control of the capital and the means of production of a society in the face of a need to control and direct production and distribution ...or our species goes extinct?

Thu, 2009-04-02 12:42

George Victor

The fundamentals to be agonized about:

"I think a much more basic question has to be posed first. Whose economy is it, anyway?

What should be striking people most of all through this meltdown is just how contrary to the ideals we all hold about democracy, liberty, equality etc, our economy is.

We need to ask ourselves just what we want our economy to provide us, then see how things like the banks or manufacturing fit into that idea. "

-------------------------------------------------

And while all that is discussed, we read in the hated Globe this morning:

"It's payback time for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The past couple of years haven't been much fun for the giant money manager, which has sent deal makers around the world to hunt for ports, airports, toll roads and other infrastructure assets, only to be outbid by rival riding high on waves of cheap debt.

Now, however, the cash-rich CPPIB is getting another crack at many of those assets as the one-time rivals are forced - by the global downturn and their debt loads - to sell."

They are "after assets that share key attributes: near-monopoly control over their markets and revenue based on long-term contracts... bridges, power grids, toll roads, airports, ports and now communications networks."

That's our CPP. It could be our Guaranteed INcome Supplement.

Thu, 2009-04-02 18:30

Tommy_Paine

"But tell me, what is more fundamental than control of the capital and the means of production of a society in the face of a need to control and direct production and distribution ...or our species goes extinct?"

Exactly. "Control" is the key. I think when power or control is concentrated in fewer hands, things go bad. Control has to be democratized to the point where no unbalanced influence can screw things up for everyone else.

Thu, 2009-04-02 19:04

saga

saga's picture

I'm not much in favour of nationalizing industries, because I don't think our government bureaucracies have very good business sense.

However, I'm very much in favour of the government supporting worker-owned businesses. Anybody have a perspective on that?

Thu, 2009-04-02 21:25

thanks

"The Canadian Pacific was a nationo-building project, the CN was a government at work to insure transport and communications, and in Ontario, a state-sponsored power authority.....as well, a historical perspective without gaps will show that there was, from mid-Depression onward, the creation of national institutions (a central bank, the CBC and a national airline ..by the PCs - and in wartime and immediately following the war, unemployment insurance, a national pension, a "middle class" with education in mind. "

this is true. just because whomever is in power could sell off nationalized entities doesn't mean it necessarily will happen. the distinction lies in many factors, including us- the will of the people. and certainly nationalizing sectors is better than the alternative, and current reality, of private control/mayhem.

"Control has to be democratized"

yes. fair vote. as well all the other participatory approaches people are working on.

"near-monopoly control over their markets and revenue based on long-term contracts... bridges, power grids, toll roads, airports, ports and now communications networks...That's our CPP. It could be our Guaranteed INcome Supplement." - so you're saying have the CPP buy this stuff up, as opposed to having private pension plans, or whomever else, buy it up.

"I don't think our government bureaucracies have very good business sense." - this problem could be dealt with, to a degree, if CPP bought up the fire sales. it doesn't eliminate the option of worker-owned businesses, either.

Thu, 2009-04-02 22:06

George Victor

Buy it up and run it with people and their descendants in mind. Posterity.

Fri, 2009-04-03 13:01

thanks

yup

Fri, 2009-04-03 23:44

Tommy_Paine

"I'm not much in favour of nationalizing industries, because I don't think our government bureaucracies have very good business sense.

However, I'm very much in favour of the government supporting worker-owned businesses. Anybody have a perspective on that?"

I think when it comes to using renewable resources, local worker owned businesses are the only way to go. I came to that opinion through thinking about the somewhat esoteric debate amoung scientists regarding the reasons behind the extinction of the mamoth. It was a long meandering thought process too tedious to repeat here. But that's my conclusion. Renewable resources have to be local, worker owned businesses.

I'm not married to any particular theory of how an economy should work. As I am fond of saying, all the economic systems work. The question is, for whom do they work?

It has always struck me that there's probably nothing new under the economic sun. Remembering back to my readings on Republican Rome, we see the same kind of debates then as we see now. Only we have more complex jargon these days. I think these economic experiences through time should be viewed as experiments, and we should see what has worked, and what hasn't, and from that perspective forge something that looks the best.

I have no problem with government run bureaucracies running some things. They seem to do the best job with health care and education, for example, but it has to be looked at case by case. I suspect it's a good thing with some economic sectors, and bad for others.

The assholes who have engineered our current economic calamity strike me as little different from the assholes in the old Soviet Union that were responsible for the Aral Sea disaster.

Or Aral desert, I guess now.

Too much power in too few hands, a bad outcome for the people under any "ism".

Sat, 2009-04-04 03:15

George Victor

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Acton)

Sat, 2009-04-04 03:23

George Victor

saga:

"However, I'm very much in favour of the government supporting worker-owned businesses. Anybody have a perspective on that?"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Look up Prof. Henry Mintzberg of McGill U. A proponent of co-operatives who points to the success of the movement in Spain. He pooints to the need for "regional" application of solutions ..a people oriented approach. Quite radical and very satisfying perspective.