NL -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- De mythe van de Amerikaanse Competitieve Overmacht

   

 

De mythe van de Amerikaanse Competitieve Overmacht

 Door Larry Romanoff, 23 januari, 2021

ENGLISH  NEDERLANDS

 De Amerikanen scheppen onophoudelijk op over hun concurrentievermogen en de wonderen van hun roofzuchtige Kapitalistische systeem, maar bij nader onderzoek blijken deze beweringen meestal ondoordacht chauvinisme te zijn waarbij historische ongelukken in religie worden omgezet. Als we de feiten onderzoeken, zijn de Amerikaanse bedrijven zelden bijzonder concurrerend geweest. Er is meer dan overvloedig bewijs dat hun inspanningen meestal gericht zijn op het verzekeren van een asymmetrisch speelveld dat hen in staat stelde de confrontatie met echte concurrentie te vermijden. En voor een zeer groot deel zijn grote Amerikaanse bedrijven succesvol geweest, niet door enig concurrentievoordeel, maar door druk en dreigementen die uitgingen van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken en het leger.

 Xerox was ooit bijna de enige fabrikant van fotokopieerapparaten ter wereld. Kodak was ooit bijna de enige fabrikant ter wereld van camera's en fotofilm; waar zijn Xerox en Kodak vandaag? Meer recent was Motorola de belangrijkste fabrikant van mobiele telefoons; waar is Motorola vandaag? Het Amerikaanse RCA Victor was een van de grootste producenten van TV-toestellen ter wereld. Waar kunt u vandaag een RCA TV-toestel kopen? Waar zijn de grote Pan Am World Airways en Continental Airlines? Waar zijn E.F. Hutton, General Foods, RCA, DEC, Compaq? Waar zijn American Motors, Bethlehem Steel, Polaroid camera's, en zovele anderen? Weg, omdat ze niet om konden gaan met effectieve concurrentie.

FELIPE PEREIRA DO TAB -- NAS ENTRANHAS

 

NAS ENTRANHAS

Em São Paulo as pessoas já não moram somente embaixo, mas DENTRO de buracos de pontes e viadutos

FELIPE PEREIRADO TAB

Reinaldo Canato

Ricardo nunca teve casa, mas já morou em muitos lugares. Hoje, vive dentro de viaduto. Ele se aninha sobre sacos pretos de lixo amontoados que fazem as vezes de colchão. Dorme embaixo do asfalto, entre a parede e um monte de terra.

O lugar é escuro mesmo de dia. Demora até o olho distinguir as formas. Quando a visão funciona, identifica vestígios da presença de Ricardo. Uma lata amassada de Brahma jogada num canto. A garrafa de 2 litros de Coca-Cola com água ao alcance da mão. Um saco de pão de hambúrguer.

Diferentemente da visão, o olfato não precisa de adaptação. Fareja imediatamente cheiro de fumaça. O fogo que afasta ratos e baratas escureceu os tijolos do interior e a parte externa da entrada do buraco. A passagem tem forma triangular e cerca de 1,5 metro de largura por 70 centímetros de altura — espaço suficiente para Ricardo sair com desenvoltura.

Ele sempre sai com a perna direita à frente, aterrissando o pé nos restos de fogo e em pinos de cocaína. Ricardo nem liga. Caminha na direção da maloca erguida 30 metros adiante, uma biqueira (ponto de venda de drogas) onde o chão é colorido por pinos.

Ricardo Estevão da Silva está na rua desde que se entende por gente. Abandonado ainda criança, passou a vida se drogando na zona leste de São Paulo. O buraco no viaduto do Tatuapé é mais um dos lugares de parada de sua vida.

Reinaldo Canato

OCUPAÇÃO VARIADA

É quase automático associar a população que habita buracos à droga. Como toda simplificação, é uma ideia errada. Luciano Damasceno de Oliveira, 42, lustra o sapato social antes de sair do buraco que chama de casa. Ele mora e trabalha nas imediações da avenida Paulista. Com sua caixa de engraxate, visita consultórios de doutores que atendem nos conceituados hospitais 9 de Julho e Sírio-Libanês.

Livre do serviço, Luciano conversa com porteiros e zeladores no final da tarde e com frequência é indicado para bicos de servente de pedreiro em prédios comerciais e residenciais. De volta para casa, varre o chão à frente do buraco onde mora. Só então faz um afago nos cachorros e entra para dar continuidade ao ritual noturno. Prepara o jantar, toma banho, escova os dentes e descansa até pegar no sono.

Luciano pode dobrar as costas para entrar no buraco, mas isso não o fez vergar a espinha. "Nunca fui do vício. Nunca quis má companhia." Na coletânea de histórias de vidas que não saíram como planejado, ele é mais uma prova de que o desespero transforma tudo em casa. Até buraco de viaduto.

Reinaldo Canato

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey -- Thinking beyond Covid: There's always money for submarines

 Author`s name Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

 22.01.2021 17:46 (Updated: 22.01.2021 20:17)

Thinking beyond Covid: There's always money for submarines

Opinion » Columnists

Thinking beyond Covid: There's always money for submarines

After a year of Covid-19 which has descended on us all like a cloud, let us look beyond the fog and see what lies over the horizon.

Planet Earth 2021. The Human Freak Show reaches its 987th episode as inter-galactic travellers roll up and tune in just inside the Kuiper Belt for their daily dose of laughter at our expense. Their giggles can be heard all over the Universe.

No beds but money for submarines

If it was not so tragic, it might be funny. But it isn't. Many of us, myself included, have lost close family members to Covid-19 and today the number of infections and deaths are even worse than they were last March/April. These days at least doctors and nurses are not wearing plastic bags over their heads but in many countries hospitals are at breaking point with patients dying in ambulances queueing up outside, or else lying on hospital floors because there aren't enough beds. There's plenty of money for submarines, though, of course.

Many are those who refuse to wear masks or who deny that Covid exists or who say the vaccines are in fact a ruse to inject a micro-chip into us so that "they" can kill us all or control us. Not so long ago, the same people were speaking about commercial pilots releasing chemtrails into the atmosphere because "they" wanted to kill everyone. Getting real, turning a blind eye to such a dangerous virus lurking invisibly out of reach may be a safety mechanism (if you cannot see it, it does not exist...go and ask the ostrich) but this is the time for transparency, not denial.

Money for submarines but not to vaccinate people

Many are those who decided to spend last Christmas as usual and to have New Year celebrations as always, despite the obvious risks and now look what has happened. With all our technology, we have managed to pull off the impossible and actually go backwards. Doctors and nurses are overworked to saturation point, non-Covid patients are not daring to go anywhere near a hospital and are suffering the consequences, jobs are being shed by the thousands. In some countries, only a handful of people are being vaccinated because the healthcare system cannot deliver the vaccine and Devil take the hindmost. But there is money for submarines to murder people and to entertain submariners while they do what they do down there, whatever that may be, while there is not enough money to save human lives, of course.

This, while over a trillion dollars are spent each and every year on weapons systems to murder people. There's always money for submarines.

The chronic non-medical problems posed by Covid

The Myth of American Competitive Supremacy -- January 23, 2021

  

The Myth of American Competitive Supremacy 

By Larry Romanoff, January 23, 2021

 

 Americans boast incessantly about their competitiveness and the miracles of their predatory capitalist system, but on examination these claims appear to be mostly thoughtless jingoism that transmutes historical accidents into religion. If we examine the record, US companies have seldom been notably competitive. There is more than abundant evidence that their efforts are mostly directed to ensure an asymmetric playing field that permitted them to avoid confronting real competition. And, in very large part, major US corporations have succeeded not because of any competitive advantage but by pressure and threats emanating from the State Department and military.

 

 Xerox was once almost the only manufacturer of photocopiers in the world. Kodak was once almost the world's only maker of cameras and photo film; where are Xerox and Kodak today? More recently, Motorola was the leading manufacturer of mobile phones; where is Motorola today? US-based RCA Victor was one of the largest producers of TV sets in the world. Where can you buy an RCA TV set today? Where are the great Pan Am World Airways and Continental Airlines? Where are E.F. Hutton, General Foods, RCA, DEC, Compaq? Where are American Motors, Bethlehem Steel, Polaroid cameras, and so many more? Gone, because they couldn't deal with effective competition.

 

ERIC ZUESSE --

How Billionaires Transfer Blame to Others

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture

Throughout history, aristocrats, and their flaks such as their ‘news’-media, cast blame downward, away from themselves who collectively control the government, and onto, instead, some minority or other mass group, who can’t even plan or function together so as to be able to control the government.

The U.S. has a two-Party aristocracy, as is clear from the “Open Secrets” list of the 100 biggest political donors in the 2020 U.S. Presidential and congressional campaigns, the “2020 Top Donors to Outside Spending Groups”. Those are only these individuals’ publicly acknowledged expenditures, none of the dark political money, which, of course, is donated secretly. At the top there, of the donors’ lists, is Sheldon Adelson (who just died, on January 11th in California, and was buried in Israel), who spent far more than anyone in all of U.S. history had ever spent in any campaign cycle, $215 million, which amount far exceeded even the $82 million that he had spent in 2016, which in 2016 was second only to Thomas Steyer’s $92 million (the previous all-time-highest amount donated in any campaign year). Adelson gave exclusively to Republicans, whereas Steyer gave exclusively to Democrats. Steyer in 2020 gave $67 million, which — though he was himself running for President in 2020, and hadn’t been running in 2016 — was only 73% of his 2016 donations, in that year, when he had been the nation’s top political donor. He was only the 5th-biggest donor in 2020, instead of #1.

ERIC ZUESSE -- Biden Sold-Out Totally

 Biden Sold-Out Totally

Eric Zuesse, January 20, 2021

On January 19th, The Daily Poster — which is by far the best news-source reporting on the Biden Administration — headlined “Biden Lifts Health Care Plan From Insurance Lobbyists” and reported that the health-care plan that President Joe Biden will be proposing was written by the lobbyists for the mega-health-insurance companies and will include no public option and will include “Nightmare Deductibles And Widespread Claim Denials.” It’s all explained in their news-report. That’s not the type of ‘news’ billionaire-owned-and-controlled ‘news’-media provide. Those mainstream media are just Democratic Party or Republican Party propaganda, because both Parties are controlled by the fewer-than-a-thousand American billionaires, and the billionaires make their money by fooling people about politicians and about public policies, so as to control the Government in their favor, collectively, as the super-rich, and this is why they control all of the major ‘news’-media — to fool the public.

Here’s just one paragraph from The Daily Poster’s brilliant news-report and analysis:

Biden’s inaugural committee has received donations from at least two major health insurers, Anthem and Centene, which both offer plans on state marketplace exchanges. Centene’s CEO bundled donations for Biden’s presidential campaign, and Biden’s first major campaign fundraiser was headlined by Independence Blue Cross’s CEO. 

During the 2020 primary campaign, Biden repeatedly demonized Medicare for All legislation offered by Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Sen. Bernie Sanders, questioning how the country would pay for it and proposing a public health insurance option people can buy into instead. Democrats previously considered creating a public option during ACA negotiations a decade ago — AHIP secretly bankrolled a successful $100 million advocacy campaign to kill it. 

While Medicare for All could actually save the country up to $650 billion annually, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Biden is now proposing some of the most costly and inefficient ways to expand health insurance coverage. The moves could still leave people exposed to substantial out-of-pocket costs — from deductibles, copays, and coinsurance — that act as barriers to care.

ERIC ZUESSE -- U.S. Trade Deficits Increase from Covid

Eric Zuesse, posted at The Duran, January 19, 2021 

America’s trade deficit (excess of imports minus exports) reached its minimum in February 2020, and since then has increased 84% from February’s -3708, up to November's -6812. America has one of the world’s highest rates of coronavirus-19, or Covid-19, infection, and therefore is less productive and more needy than most countries are, during the coronavirus crisis, and is consequently importing more and producing less. The reverse has generally been the case for the countries that have had good policy-responses to the virus — those countries’ economies have either been virtually unharmed by, or else have actually boomed from, this pandemic.

China’s mere month-long trade deficit from coronavirus was an enormous -62.05 in February, but by March China popped back up to+19.93 and has remained above +36 since that time, and it reached its high of +75.43 in November. China has one of the world’s lowest rates of coronavirus-19 infection, and is therefore exporting more as it fulfills the needs of countries (such as America) that are producing less because of the coronavirus crisis. 

A major study by Jungle Scout, “Global Imports Report 2020”, says that: