Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta unequalities. Mostrar todas as mensagens
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta unequalities. Mostrar todas as mensagens

quarta-feira, 10 de fevereiro de 2021

Why is there no anti-capitalist strategy?

 Summary

1 - The end of History or the eternal return?

2 - The market's victory was based on barbarism

      3 - The common objective between political and capitalist classes

4 - About the so-called socialism

5 - For a strategy of survival and change

 ((((((((((o))))))))))

1 - The end of history or the eternal return?

The gang`s supporters generally conservative and reactionary, even when adopting m formally interesting acronyms and purposes for the common people are, as a rule, prepared to supplant competition and much less to meet the aspirations of the people, the electorate. The names they bear, coming from distant times, lose all their ideological and programmatic meaning, due to the funneling promoted by neoliberalism, so well defined by Baroness Thatcher - There is No Alternative - or, by Fukuyama - “The End of History and the Last Man ”. It is clear that in both cases was the conclusion that capitalism would be a return to paradise, though the collateral damage, such as wars and pandemics, have never abandoned the land and humanity.

As for wars, the Balkans were the scene where the “democrat” Clinton exercised his muscle, taking advantage of Russia's weakness, creating micro-states, properly armed with American weapons, in the ruins of the Slavic yoke; with the latter, divided into seven nation-states, with the integration of some, in EU and NATO; with the only two of the majority catholic population, benefiting from the papal blessing. The humiliation of Mogadishio in 1993 and the bloody attacks on the embassies of Nairobi and Dar-es-Salam in 1998, were on Clinton's face; they could only be fait-divers, but they were not.

History, after all, went on.

Following September 11th, Bush moves to Afghanistan, and, the desired transformer results culminated without glory, with the almost total withdrawal, sponsored by Trump, twenty years later; in that period, Chinese, Pakistani and Indian investments began in that country; but with the poppy business in American hands. The incorporation of Portuguese mercenaries, and the presence of two well-known elements, improperly in uniform, is a demonstration of the transformation of the western invasion into clowning.

                                                                            Portuguese president of the Republic and the

Minister of Defense

Two years later (2003) it occurs the invasion and destruction of Iraq with a focus on the capture of Saddam and the segmentation of the country between Kurdish, Shiite and, Sunni zones or entities; an action that will leave in history the quality of the promoters of the operation - Bush, Blair and Aznar, with Durão serving the tea, in the Azores. Western intervention in Libya followed in 2011, with the high patronage of Obama, holder of the Nobel Peace Prize two years earlier; and the division of oil between invading partners. They looked indifferently to Gaddafi's murder, after being sodomized by the soldiery; showing one more exemple of Western civilization.

In this impetus, the “Arab springs” were framed within the scope of which Mubarak was deposed, replaced by Morsi, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood that won the elections in Egypt, and, immediately, imprisoned and replaced by an undamaged democrat, General al-Sisi, ready to do anything to receive the support of the sultans and the zionist entity.

That plan included the overthrow of the Syrian regime, to prevent the formation of a Shiite axis, from Iran to the Mediterranean; and, to this purpose, financial support for ISIS was channeled by the sultans of the region, partially applied in the purchase of war material to the North American weapons emporiums. The consequences are well known - fragmentation of Iraq, the continuation of the war in northern Syria and, - not all is bad - the creation in Rojava of a project of direct democracy; all this, causing a huge flow of refugees towards Europe.

And, to finish this point, we remember the collapse of the Libyan state facilitating the disintegration and the war in the Sahel countries that surely (?) the western support would...avoid.

Internet and information technologies, being politically neutral, are integrated into any practice, such as ancient abacuses. Of course, they accelerate the pace of transactions and practice knavery, despite the preachings of angelic environmentalists who intend they can convince capitalists to regard the environmental balance and the quality of life on the planet. The ancient Christian devotees were followed by people loving God as St. Shenufe, Popes Borgia, and, much later, Pope Wojtyla; without forgetting the "ecologist " Joschka Fischer, an accomplice in the bombing of Serbia, of course, while eating tofu.

After all, history is going on. The usual and age-old sequence of plunder, war, inequality, oligarchy, migration and poverty prevails, generated by minorities of the rich, bankers, speculators, their believers and, mercenaries, in addition to the various and unlikely strains that form the political classes; at the moment, clumsy managers of the effects of the pandemic. And, stupid enough to think it is despicable to help the ancient colonized peoples in fighting the virus that… long ago discovered that the Earth is round.

2 - The market's victory was based on barbarism

Swarm around, very different acronyms, formally, for parties - socialists, social democrats, liberals, democrats, laborists, conservatives, christian democrats, anti-capitalists, communists, ecologists, greens, radicals, republicans[1]...though many of them just being crooks, corrupts and, liars. The number of party acronyms that circulate there will tend to rival the number of... coronavirus, on the loose.

In the Western world, the invention of the market economy was shown as the zenith of the human happiness; and, from there, the benefactors who come to apply it, within the framework of colonialism and non-colonialism; and, using the Keynesian model, like the neoliberal coprology.

·            In the field of politics, we have to consider a creative process including military interventions, coups d'état, wars, invasions, kleptocratic oligarch regimes and, in more recent times, personal sanctions, popularized ad nauseam by the pachyderm Pompeo… the gods keep him out of the spotlight! In a more polished form, the products resulting from elections, they are, Dupont, or Dupond, calling these revolving doors, democratic change or market democracy. For a more prosaic image, if prefered, look at differences in coffee sweetened with white sugar or brown sugar.

 

·            The oligarchic model applied to the economy goes by the name of a market economy. It was born from colonial plundering, slave labor, piracy (sometimes with a legal letter of marque), the proletarianization of peasants, who emigrated to the cities. its beneficiaries are called capitalists, sweetened name, later, for businessmen. In turn, work started to be carried out by people in precarious, fixed-term, "independent", subcontracted, experience, trainee roles, extending to the urban scene as something equivalent to working for the day, for the functions performed in the field. And who lives in an alternating regime, between unemployment and the work of shit, in the designation of the early deceased, David Graeber.

 

3 - The common objectives between political and capitalist classes

Politically, the political classes and the capitalists have a common goal; the use of the proceeds of the fiscal plunder and the domestication of the common people… to assure the GDP grows; and, that the companies invest, the external capital is installed...so that the GDP grows. As in all countries[2], that objective is present, it is necessary to create “competitive” taxation and labor prices, which must be also competitive… for GDP to grow. This litany is not very diversified but, monotonous and that ends up fixing itself on the conscious and unconscious of the mainatos (servants, in the former Portuguese African colonies).

The main parties are the managers of the product of the tax withdrawal and the guarantors of the gentleness at work; the rest of the groups are the bridesmaids who frame the procession and give it a false democratic appearance.

I partiti politici si dividono in grandi e piccoli.

I grandi mentono and rubano. I piccoli desiderano soprattutto di crescere[1] . - Emmanuel de Straznik

Within each party, hierarchies develop, fractions are in permanent struggle with each other, with groups in constitution and others, in loss of influence, within which the interests of the social groups they seek to represent, lose relevance. It is important, above all, the internal power and the ability to capture funds abroad, with all the importance to the establishment of close and lasting relationships with entrepreneurs. Political programs are repositories of phrases as hollow as consensual that cannot provoke dissent and that broaden the scope. This practice is what Robert Michels called, more than a hundred years ago, the iron law of parties; since it is its fulfillment that ensures the perpetuity of the institution. The inspiring institution was the German SPD.

Political parties do not act out based on love for their neighbors, but to keep under pressure the earnings and rights of employees, unemployed and pensioners, with a justification of deficit, debt, circumstances, obligations coming from Brussels, floods, fires, etc; on the other hand, of course, they proceed discreetly, to self-supply. No GDP growth is free to contain restraint for the earnings of workers and former workers; and, if the GDP stagnates or shrinks, it is already known who will be sacrificed. The people say that "whoever leaves and shares is a fool if he does not keep the best part".

“There are no laws against corruption because who writes the laws are the corrupts”

In the patronage hierarchy, the highest strains articulate with the parties in power to share the fiscal pie; for legislative production likely to favor capital accumulation; for the creation of a media environment that promotes sacrifice, so that the “country” does not sink; and, for the generation of the media and social environment that compels employees to accept greater tax burden and cheaper labor. The State is the mediator of redistribution, the sieve that separates and harvests gold nuggets, letting the sand flow into the stream and settle at the bottom of the river.

4 - About the so-called socialism

For more than 10 years when we began to write and act against "this" - the political and economic system in Portugal (not only…) we, synthetically, designed by post-fascist regime - there were words that we refused to include in our speech to do not feed the reigning atavistic conservatism. One of those words, with a vast and diversified contents, is the term socialism as defining a salvific reality, for the present days.

Socialism was thought as a liberating formula against capitalism that we know quite well and, whose existence weighs heavily on the shoulders of the overwhelming majority of human beings.

Socialism, was claimed as unavoidable, mythical and salvific in defense of which, millions of generous individuals were sacrificed to come to suffer, undergoing, on the skin, the effects of a practice that led to the supremacy of a very well known disaster - capitalism. What is more, these disasters contributed greatly to keeping capitalism out of the dump of history.

In 1917, the Soviet Revolution called for a Copernician shift to economic, political, social life, to free women, oppressed peoples and nations; and that Maiakovsky would refer in a poem, with a pride felt in the presentation, abroad, of his red passport.

However, the elevation to power, in the name of socialism, of groups of unscrupulous and heavy-handed bureaucrats; secular priests who defend a unique thought; their supreme and indisputable leaders, had a first notable moment in Berlin, on 15/01/1919 when Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and thousands of workers were murdered by the "Social Democrats" (the current SPD), and its leader, Ebert, having as executive arm, a vengeful troop, felt as badly defeated at the war of 1914/18. From this massacre, a few years later, greater bestialities, greater misfortunes, carried out by Hitler, came to bear - in the name of his National-Socialism, as racist, murderer and, concentrationary.

However, in 1920, the Ukrainian militiamen of Makhno, contrary to the statist and hierarchical principles followed by Lenin, after having jointly fought the remains of the tsarist army, were victims of bloody persecution led by Trotsky - the usual performer of dirty work - more or less commissioned by Lenin. A work that Stalin continued in the thirties, causing the death of millions of poor Ukrainian peasants.

In 1921, was also in the name of socialism that Trotsky, backed by Lenin and Stalin, promoted the Kronstadt massacre, murdering thousands of those who had, a time before, played the October Revolution; the authoritarian ride, accelerates the creation of a totalitarian state, persecutions, murderers, in favor of a caste of bureaucrats, mindless executors of particularly severe laws.

After Lenin's death, the power was transferred to Stalin who eliminated the competition of the occasion and, of other later, real or fictitious, for some thirty years, continuing the name of socialism to the political and economic model, which entered the sadly celebrated, Gulag.

With the end of the regime, in 1991, the references to socialism in Russia disappeared; as in China, it happened gradually shortly after Mao's death, in 1976. Note that, in the latter case, the “socialist” reality was transfigured to such an extent by the regime that, in the 1970s, intellectuals of the class of Charles Bettelheim or Joan Robinson, a Labor economist, were completely deceived by what had been given to them, shown in China; Where, curiously, power remains monopolized by the CCP, even if concomitant with a clearly capitalist economic model.

“If you get the most fiery revolutionary and give him the absolut power, one year later he will be worse than the tsar”

These failures and opportunistic back-faces, drive to a current domination of more extremed reacionarism, corresponding to the increased aggressiveness of dominant capitalism, and its financial arrangements. On the other hand, they ideologically disarmed the traditional lefts and the unions, incapable of an alternative discourse and, putting into practice a constant and reactionary retreat, of ideological disarmament, in a logic of going behind, a word that, in English, has a very expressive and eloquent, word - tailism, go on the tail.

The reconciliation of reactionary policies with left-wing labels led to the defeat of Syriza, in Greece, in 2015, in a context with the capitulation of the “left”; and the gradual retreat of the electoral weight of Podemos, crouched around an Iglésias, devoted believer in Laclau's populism. The stagnant electoral Portuguese left stands, with the presentation, ultimously, the same number of votes than in the seventies, even though the population enrolled to vote has increased 3 million in the same period; and that, outlined, obedient, to march according to the conviniences of “sergeant” Costa (Portuguese primer), in everything that is essential for him.

These false lefts venerate the State, they do not attack its power, even if it is showing, evidently, its role of helper of financial power, of multinationals and, the main den of corruption. Thus, the national party spectacles, as a rule, present two parties or, two alliances of parties, very similar, in terms of political practices, with a routine turnover, with the choice to come out of an artificial electoral crunch, generated by the eagerness to access the “Bowl"; in this context, all falsehoods, all unrealizable promises are worthwhile, to obtain the preferences of the commoners; and to people do not feel at the time of election, the alternation will be observed in the differences between the twins Thomson and Thompson.

Donde está la izquierda?

Al fondo, a la derecha[3]

 5 - Strategy for survival and change

There is a dichotomous question of a methodological nature:

a) Is capitalism an evil, such as drought, climate change, covid-19, poverty, inequality, deforestation, patriarchy and many others? Is it an element that disputes, with the evils mentioned above, the championship of the problems that plague Humanity, the environment and the planet?     

or,

b) We deal with a structural element that produces or strongly influences those evils, showing itself innocent only facing the effects of sunspots or a volcanic eruption?     

Traditional ecologism and political parties in general, they accept capitalism as a given, a constant, like the day/night cycle, even if capitalism is the architect of the powerful and versatile global economic structures, invisible and criminal, that frame our lives; even if this acceptance is anti-historical, taken as a divine command for which we have strictly to accept, pray and pick up the pieces of the destruction.

In its poverty on policy and ideas, in the broth bland called eco-socialism, is it expected an outbreak of ethics that promotes the conversion of capitalists as benefactors of the planet and of humanity...like the famous Gates? And do they wait the regenerator effects of one more petition, delivered to the government? Do you have some hope after few moments of conversation with a mandarin? Over the centuries it has been expected something of the promised by dozens of evangelists and prophets but...where are the results? And do you hope, with Job's patience, that one day the political classes will find the will, the capacity and the autonomy to put capitalism in order, thus restoring a new, green Eden?

Pedro Pedreiro, penseiro, esperando o trem (Pedro, mason, thinker, waiting for the train[4]

Aqueles que esperam o que nunca chega  (those who wait what never reach) [5]

However, cautiously, these formations, in general, lean against the state budget to follow a comfortable life. Fluffy bed and hot plate at the right time, always go well…

We think that the first hypothesis reveals innocence, reactionary or, ignorance and benevolence, treating the main evil - capitalism - as just a competitor of the other evils that affect Humanity and the planet; removing causal links. In practice, it is a question of capitalism not being held accountable or lessened, of devaluation of the damages in force, trusting that the political classes, as capitalist managers, reconstitute this Eden. And that, even before the overall precariousness of work, the regular appearance of epidemics, the existence of armies and police to defend the apartheid of the political classes against the multitude that are deemed less meek and complicit with those; and who accept increased working hours, endemic unemployment, living in pestilent cities but, with the divine right to circulate on four wheels, polluting; while an eternal debt to the banks is maintained, to guarantee a ceiling, which can disappear, at any moment, in the face of a trivial unemployment crisis.

The role of the financial system in the global economy, or in national and domestic economies is the major determinant in the lives of people, companies and countries; but many people have an incomplete view about that and, perhaps benevolent, because access to credit only rarely is denied; for more, being so "attractive" given the effective interest rates very low , also linked to low inflation rates.

 

This and other texts in:

http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/

 http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/documents                               
https://pt.scribd.com/uploads


[1] In Pela, Macedonia, at the time of Philip, father of Alexander, the political nomenclature was simpler - blues and greens

[2] https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2020/03/o-salariado-na-europa-1_10.html

https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-evolution-of-wealth-in-europe-200019_6.html?m=1

https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2020/06/salarios-e-impostos-sua-evolucao-no.html

[3] Puerta del Sol, Madrid demonstration of  Indignados , 2011 “Where is the Left? In  the background, on the right side”

[4] Chico Buarque de Holanda, Brasilian writer and singer

[5] Pequena Memória Pra Um Tempo Sem Memória” (Little Memory For A Time Without Memory) (Gonzaguinha and Luiz Gonzaga)

 [1] Political parties are divided into large and small. The great ones lie and steal. The little ones especially want to grow up

sexta-feira, 15 de janeiro de 2021

The 'market', GDP, and life

1 - The “market” conditions life

2 - The partner finance state

3 - GDP and covid

########### vvvvv ##########

1 - The “market” conditions life

Recently, the OECD offered to the "market", a very comprehensive picture of the economy for the near future, through the much talked - as little strict, GDP. (see chart at the end).

In particular, the market is the place where normal people, sellers and, buyers of goods meet for subsistence and trade.

In economics, the “ market ” is a tendency to a infinite and particularly nebulous extrapolation from a market. In economic terminology, it is called "market" the ethereal space where they intersect, businessess and very different powers - normal people, harmful pestilences, such as capitalists (individual or collective) and political classes; goods, everything that transacts in the “market” even if it has only a virtual existence; and money, lots of money (overwhelmingly in the form of a record somewhere, in the accounts of the institutions of the financial system) and money, of course, it too, a commodity, the main and most widespread of the goods, leaving... covid-19 far behind.

The functioning of the “market” has not people as the beneficiaries or, as the objective of its existence. The “market” takes the 7000 M of people that inhabit the planet as instruments for the functioning of the “market” itself, as a large mine from which the human capacity for transforming nature into goods and providers of services, more or less necessary, is extracted; it also includes, goods and other elements, coisificados[1], amortized till to be considered as rubbish. As this drive is always scarce for the ambitions of capital, the limitations of the planet need to be overcome; so what if a well-known top capitalist (Elon Musk) takes colonization and the guaranteed fuss of Mars very seriously!

The operation of the "market" takes place, not because of the availability of goods and services essential to life and the reproduction of nature (including human beings) but the consumer products or services, electronic impulses necessary to thicken the already accumulated capital. If this mechanism changes or destroy the environment, local or global; if it promotes suffering and enormous lacks to a significant part of mankind; if it poisons or destroys fields and cities, these are collateral damages, certainly surmountable by a rise in securities on the NYSE or NASDAQ, making happy its holders. Those are the artisans that define, in essence, the contents of the media and the creativity of their plumitivos[2], by duty craft, little aware of the growing margin in the uncontrolled own overall system management; devoting more to gossip, the fait-divers of politics and football - Their master’s voices.

The S&P 500 (Standard & Poors) is a finished example of capitalism in this 21st century. It includes the shares of the most relevant USA 500 companies, listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ and they have the importance of defining the trends of the "market"; it is based on very unrealistic ideas about the evolution and efficiency of investments based on ethereal elements that may be separated into two groups;

·   those, related to transactions of land, natural resources, real estate, stocks, currency or goods; elements with intrinsic materiality;

·   or, immaterial, virtual elements, such as patents, the values assigned to trademarks, the assessment that makes the customer value of a company or, their software.

 

1975

1985

1995

2005

2018

$ Billions *

0.122

0.428

3.12

9.28

21.03

% of intangibles in total S & P- 500

17%

32%

68%

80%

90% **

                          * 1 B = 10 ^ 12 (Europe ) * * 2020        

                    Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-soaring-value-of-intangible-assets-in-the-sp-500/

However, the value attributed to intangibles has shown itself to be more and more determinant in the creation of the value attributed by the “market” (and a broken bag, called PIB), making it ethereal, fragile and, in reality, unrelated with the lives of human beings in general. Since the transactions based on purely conceptual elements, riding electrical impulses, their variations, set in the financial voluptuousness, do not will leave to affect heavily, millions of human beings, through the actions of governments and political classes in general, when something escapes to capital accumulation designs. More than ever, the "market" is a game, a casino, which artificiality has the particularity to produce its harmful effects on thousands of millions of human beings, while fattening the elite that Manuel Castells, the beginning of the century, estimated at 1% of the world population.

The entry into scene of coronavirus came to show the inability of capital institutions (multinational companies and institutions, such as WHO, captured by private interests), without forgetting the enormous responsibilities of governments, always agile in the impoverishment or the withdrawal rights and, in evident bewilderment to overcome the consequences of the viral invasion. As a result, the number of infected people continues to grow (more than 93 M of people, including 2 M (jan 14th) of fatal victims, when the end of the one-year period that has elapsed since the emergence of covid-19 is approaching. Only one Copernician change, creating democracy, annuls nationalisms, state powers, political classes and, turns economy an instrument of a harmonious encounter between Humanity and the planet.

Before protests and rebellions, there is always available, by political powers, one takes care of the array of repressive or destructive resources ranging from various strains of police and military, hierarchized based on bestiality, the bombing of cities, with the generation of millions of refugees, in addition to the use of electronic warfare tools, "clean", able to settle specific people or, raze cities. Saddam Hussein, even though he had several look - alikes - whom even his guards did not recognize as such - ended up not escaping the execution ordered by the occupier; and General Suleimani was shot down without an ancient protocolized declaration of war or invasion. Trump is a greater symbol of post-fascist modernity.  

What in the eighteenth century came to be called economy, consisted of the adaptation of human effort to the satisfaction of needs. Capitalism has to be associated with the accumulation of capital in the context of a deranged compulsion by looking for an infinite growth of GDP, even though it only has a name since 1932. Despite this drive towards the infinite, the satisfaction of real human needs - food, housing, health, peace and, education - is systematically impaired to the detriment of capital accumulation, today, mostly in the form of electronic records that multiply incessantly, without generating a bread crumb; but, stealing many crumbs from those who do not live in the lust of financial speculation.

2 - The partner finance state

This madness developed by the financial system, to create a constant and accelerated creation of money, has as counterpart credit creation, debt, from companies, families and, states, a creation that does not correspond to concomitant use of savings; it corresponds to an anticipation of the future, especially of future earnings that, within a current practice (economic and political) may not exist. On the contrary, the formation of credit cascades by the financial system proceeds without having any significant volume of savings in the balance. So, the savings or simple deposits placed by people, as a form of annuity that gives them some security in the future, are in no way guaranteed...even if the States ensure (... gravely...) € 100,000/person in the case of banking laugh!

It is known that the financial system will never be able to return the amounts deposited by its customers, just as it is known that public debts have an impossible repayment; although some Portuguese economists, out of ignorance or reactionarism, pointed, some years ago, to a restructuring of the Portuguese public debt, which in due time, we considered (as today) as priceless as illegitimate [1] .

Thus, GDP intends to represent everything, representing, in reality, little. When someone prepares a meal for you, it doesn't count towards GDP, but if you go to a restaurant you'll join the “market” and then contribute to GDP! Aid for a young person in schoolwork only enters GDP, if produced in an explanatory company, on a commercial basis. GDP only considers what is traded in the "market", knowing that the transactions carried out in the market are, to a large extent, external and, therefore, impossible to integrate the sanctified GDP. A major element of integration in GDP is the value-added tax (VAT) which is levied on almost all purchases of goods or services [2]; a whistleblower at the service of the State, the collective capitalist. Relating to work, work effort, this integration is assured by the with holding tax on the remuneration of labor (IRS). Finally, there is an interconnection between goods registered (and paid) by companies as necessary for their activity (especially automobiles), but whose use is allowed to capitalists and senior staff for their use in their private life, thus avoiding taxation of income from work.

The purchase of war material counts as … investment in national accounts! Whether an investment is a money application into something that allows the satisfaction of an individual or collective need, it is clear that the military equipment is useless and is artificial to count to GDP (see EU, the chart of accounts 2010, the SEC10). It should be noted that military spending comprises a strong import to most countries since production is very concentrated in a few number which, due to its sophistication, makes buyers (the vast majority of countries) dependent on components or the load coming from abroad; a weakness inherent in the respective geopolitics but which, as a rule, result in the inability to engage in wars, unless the major producing powers or the smuggling networks feed the logistics.

In Portugal, it is estimated that an income corresponding to about 25 to 29% of GDP does not count within the latter. And that disgusts all governments, always ready and eager to reduce social costs and increase the revenue from taxes, fees, fines... as economists dislike, with a real fixation on the infinite growth of GDP...

There is a constant struggle of the binomial States/political classes to frame, under their knowledge and their enormous capacity for predation, the entire production of goods and services, without exceptions, as if all transactions between humans have or should integrate a commercial logic. Among the few situations where the States and political classes are tolerant facing to a non - accounting in GDP, the main is, corruption; and, for obvious reasons, since they strive for an open and happy life, achieved through lies and theft, with the distracted connivance of the judiciary.

For all this oppressive and kleptocratic machinery to work, governments are needed where there is a presence of mandarins embedded in the influence trade, young technocrats eager for promotion and, plenty of imbeciles that history will not mention and that seek financial glory as a result of favors to businessmen.

So, it is no wonder that the governmental caste grows, and grows substantially. In Portugal, the first constitutional government, in 1976, had 18 ministers and 37 secretaries of state; the current one has 27 ministers and 68 secretaries of state, not to mention tons of secretaries and advisers, all paid for by the public purse.

3 - GDP and covid

According to the OECD, the outlook for GDP growth looks very promising for the next two years. It is possible that after this annus horribilis (2020) the economic situation will prove to be less disastrous, although this should not have repercussions on the unemployed waiting for better days and, even less, on those who moved from old people's deposits (cynically referred to as homes) to the cemetery. The production and sale of vaccines will certainly have effects on GDP growth.

The balance between the savings available and the investment financed by them no longer has any meaning, once the financial system runs on its track, separated from the real world; central banks issue electronic circuits that will inflate the banks' availabilities, having, on the other hand, credit rights over those, whose return will probably never happen.

So, by the end of 2020, the US FED made available to the big banks a billion (in the US it is a trillion) dollars, as very short-term credits, in a concerted action with the other central banks (ECB, and banks in Canada, Japan and, Switzerland) so that there is no shortage of dollars in the market, at a time when funds will be distributed to the population to compensate for damage resulting from the virus and the disastrous way in which it has been combated by the Trump administration.

The US public debt remained stable between 1994 and 2008, between 5 4 and 63% of GDP; in 2009 , with the crisis of subprime came to 74 %, with 84% the following year and to 92% in 2011; growth, albeit slower, reached 107% in 2020 and 122% in April. In dollar terms this means the passage of 4.5 trillion (billion in Europe) in 1994 to 9.2 in 2008, 14 in 2011 and 23.7 in last April. A rain of money, a success...which left out the large range of poor people.

In Portugal, in the first ten months of the year , the impact of the measures adopted within the scope of Covid-19 reproduced a value of € 7692.5 M, divided between revenue breaks and expenditure increases (an amount equivalent to 3.6% of 2019 GDP) . The most relevant contributions to these breaks are as follows:

·       Measures with an impact on revenue - € 1508.3 M (893.9 M and 611.1 M, respectively within the scope of Central Administration and Social Security [3] and, essentially, consist of a suspension of IRC payments (€ 791 M) and exemption from TSU [4] payments (€ 477 M); and also, suspensions of tax (€ 68.5 M) or contributory (€ 71.8 M) foreclosures, certainly benefiting a good portion of typically relapsed and fraudulent entrepreneurs. 

 

·       Measures impacting on spending - € 2356.2 M, highlighting € 819 M for the layoff, € 201.3 M to support the self - employed, € 368.4 M for health equipment and € 248.4 M of various allowances.

And, of course, they are not included, the purchase of vaccines and correlated spending...

Observing the evolution of the public debt in the periods January / October in 2019 and 2020, it is easily noted that the increase in debt in 2020 is about ten times greater than that recorded in the previous year (in € million). Far beyond, therefore, the sum of increases in expenditure and reduction in revenues.

2019 ( Jan / Oct)

  + 1225 M

2020 ( Jan / Oct)

+ 12896 M

The increase in debt is not always easy, given the very low level of interest rates (even negative) and especially because the financial system needs to raise debt of states, to deliver to the ECB as collateral for the funds that the central bank issues, with the objective, to be applied to the lust of financial capital. The enrichment of this has little or nothing to do with peoples' lives, increases inequalities but...it is positively reflected in the well-known GDP!

The EU has faced the pandemic through its usual narrow economistic way, recalling that in the beginning, it was just a "common market"; and, thus, everything plans to solve with a focus on the mobilization of money, of a Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) in force until 2027, to be distributed among the member states, with Portugal having € 30000 M, to be contemplated in the budgets and yet, € 15 300 M grants, without prejudice to the use of more loans.

Bureaucrats, of economistic or mere mandarins bias, experts in the trafficking of influences, practicing brinkmanship paltry, just based its pressure on people, reducing their well-being, with isolation, in the narrowing of distances and the frequencies in their movements, in the use of masks and frequent use of alcohol-gel, which, as it turns out, have been of little use. They discovered the wide range of vaccines to stick in the population, with variable prices [5] but excluding those created by geopolitical, Chinese and, Russian challengers. And they look with culpable indifference on the main victims of the virus, the elderly, especially if confined to homes, defenseless before the plague that enters by the door or through family members; and, that make up the overwhelming majority of cases of death by covid-19.

The graph below reflects the growth prospects advanced by the OECD for the next two years. Perhaps it is, above all, the formulation of something that will comfort the peoples subjected to fear of the covid-19 and its recent variant; and that, frightened, restricted and confined, dismissed or placed in layoffs, they watch, frightened or rocked by the hype of the political classes, to fatten financial capital.

                         Source: OECD   - https://stats.oecd.org/viewhtml.aspx? Datasetcode = EO108_INTERNET & lang = en # )

  - - - - - -

[1] How the financial system captures humanity through debt   

http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/12/como-o-sistema-financeiro-captura.html

http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/01/como-o-sistema-financeiro-captura.html

http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/12/como-o-sistema-financeiro-captura.html

Restructuring public debt solves nothing in our lives

http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/11/reestruturar-divida-publica-nada.html

Public debt - Public debt - Cancer is not treated with paracetamol

http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/05/divida-publica-divida-publica-cancro.html

Europe - debtors of unpaid debt

https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2019/06/europa-os-devedores-de-uma-divida-nao.html

[2] In addition to other taxes with a specific impact on certain consumptions (beer, tobacco, fuels); inherent to property ( I S  Veículos, IUC or IMI) or acquisitions (cars, pleasure boats ...) and others, always in the sights of the government shift gang, with a more general impact, such as stamp duty.

[3] Portuguese Social Security has been stolen by governments and companies for decades, in view of the conniving silence of the parties on the right or less on the right; but also by the press. On the subject, consult: 

https://www2.slideshare.net/durgarrai/segurana-social-vtima-de-uma-burla-com-dcadas

http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2012/07/a-divida-seguranca-social-o-longo.html

http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/segurana-social-processos-de-descapitalizao-1

http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/estratgia-para-um-sistema-de-segurana-social-favorvel-multido-de-trabalhadores-e-ex-trabalhadores

[4] TSU is the contribution of the firms to the Social Security of workers

[5 ]Oxford / AstraZeneca - € 1.78; Johnson & Johnson - € 6.9;  Sanofi / GlaxoSmithKline - € 7.56

Pfizer/BioNTech - € 12; CureVac - € 10; Moderna - € 14.70, per serving

 This and other texts here, in Portuguese and English:

 http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/documents

 https://en.scribd.com/uploads

 

 



[1] Seen as a thing in Portuguese

[2] Plumitivo – The one with the profession of writing what the boss orders