There are some nasty words being mentioned in the USA, and it is not just because of covid 19, but the economic crash that will follow, which incidentally, has been brewing for a few years now. Those nasty words are "nationalisation" and "socialism", and what is more, they are not being mentioned in a derogatory manner, but as solutions to the problems the American people are facing and will face in the coming future. Truth being that we will all be facing the same problems in the coming years. We should be preparing in our communities now, not waiting until it hits us.
This from Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:
Economist Michael Hudson has for many decades studied the use of debt-forgiveness to restart economies killed by debt burdens. Debt forgiveness for corporations has a different implication than debt forgiveness for individuals. For corporations, forgiving debts lets those who financialized and indebted the economy and the population off the hook. To avoid rewarding them for the catastrophe they produced and to prevent widespread public outcry and distrust, nationalization is implied for insolvent companies and banks.And a wee look at how the system works:
Nationalization would be limited to insolvent companies and financial institutions and doesn’t mean that there would be no private companies or businesses. Additional nationalization could be used to prevent strategic companies from substituting their interests for national interests, which they do when they move American jobs and factories offshore. Pharmaceuticals could be nationalized along with health care. Energy which often sacrifices the environment to its profits could be considered for nationalization. A successful society has to have more driving it than private profit.
For most Americans nationalization is a dirty word, but it has many benefits. For example, a national health care system reduces costs tremendously by taking profits out of the system. Additionally, nationalized pharmaceutical companies could be made more focused on research and cures than on profit avenues. Everyone knows how Big Pharma influences medical schools and medical practice in line with Big Pharma’s approach. A more open-minded approach to medicine would be beneficial.
Socialist is another American dirty word, one that is being used against Bernie Sanders. I have not turned into a socialist overnight. I am simply thinking outloud. How can the economy recover when the population and corporations are smothered by debt? Debt forgiveness is the only way out of this debt suffocation. Can debts be forgiven without nationalization? Not without a huge giveaway to financial mangers and Wall Street. It is the members of the “one percent” who have received 95% of the increase in us income and wealth since 2008. Do we want to reward them for smothering the economy with debt by bailing them out without nationalizing them?
The combination of an economy covered in debt and an unprotected population is clearly revolutionary. Do we have leadership capable of breaking out of interest group politics and ruling ideologies in order to save our society and put it on a more sustainable basis?
Or will the economic hardships be blamed on the virus, the catalyst that ignited the debt timebomb?
"When will we ever learn----"
