eoi online has the article ‘X’ Marks the Spot Where Inequality Took Root: Dig Here.

The spot so marked is shown in the following figure from the article.

The analysis is interesting, but I think the author left out a very important factor.

We came out of WWII relatively unscathed compared to Europe and other theaters of the war. Our workers and our corporations enjoyed an advantage over the rest of the world that could not last forever. As the Asian economies growth really started to gather full steam, some adjustment had to happen. We did not see the need to manage that adjustment, so we did not handle it well. All the burden of adjustment was put on the backs of the workers, while the wealthy were able to bend the rules to protect themselves – well at least temporarily.

One of the ways we went wrong was on the insistence of maintaining a strong dollar. This was good for maintaining the value of the wealth of the rich people. It was not good for spreading the pain of the inevitable adjustment over the entire population of the USA as our WWII advantage started to wane. I think this attempt to refuse to face up to the adjustment led to some of the desperate efforts to maintain the wealth of the wealthy in the face of forces we refused to recognize.

The New York Times has the article Chastised by E.U., a Resentful Greece Embraces China’s Cash and Interests.

While Europe was busy squeezing Greece, the Chinese swooped in with bucket-loads of investments that have begun to pay off, not only economically but also by apparently giving China a political foothold in Greece, and by extension, in Europe.

The NYT failed to point out that China understands the economic principles that the west has forgotten. The way to boost a struggling economy is not through austerity, but through government backed investments to stimulate the economy. Are we now going to blame China for our stupidity?

We no longer have to ask whether a Progressive economic policy would get the economy going again. China proves the Progressive economics works all over the world. We can refuse to learn anything from the evidence, or we could just give in and try economic policy that works.

I know people are going to twist my words into an endorsement of Chinese politics, but I said no such thing. We used to understand and apply progressive economics in our Democracy, but since we have switched our government to an oligarchy, we cannot seem to get out of our own way on economics.

Maybe fear of China will put a human face back on our capitalism. The threat of communism from the USSR is what used to prevent our system from diving into its current depths of depravity.

Medium has the article How To Keep Your Head In A Sea Of Propaganda. There are some very good ideas in this article. I found that I have recently developed an appreciation one of these ideas due to a book I have been reading. Here is an excerpt from the article that introduces the idea of “inner work”

Propaganda works by constructing narratives that are favorable to the institution promulgating it, and it does so by appealing to people’s baser impulses like fear and tribalism in order to create sympathy for their stories. Inner work which creates some space from mental narrative and identification is a great way to inoculate oneself against such manipulations. Meditation, self-inquiry, mantra repetition and mindfulness practices can all be useful toward this end, as can right-brained activities like drawing and painting since they involve a movement away from the language center.

I never put much stock in the value of meditation until I read the book “Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism” by Rajiv Malhotra. Here is an excerpt from the description of the book that I found on Amazon.

India is more than a nation state. It is also a unique civilization with philosophies and cosmologies that are markedly distinct from the dominant culture of our times – the West. India’s spiritual traditions spring from dharma which has no exact equivalent in Western frameworks. Unfortunately, in the rush to celebrate the growing popularity of India on the world stage, its civilizational matrix is being co-opted into Western universalism, thereby diluting its distinctiveness and potential.

“Being Different” explained the value of “inner work” as a tool that can be used in addition to western style logic to give you insights that you won’t get from western style logic alone. I still have not taken up meditation, but I now see the point of it.

KPFA has the podcast Ajamu Baraka on American Exceptionalism & The Failure of The Left.

Today on Flashpoints, we feature a discussion with Ajamu Baraka about American Exceptionalism and the failure of the Left to challenge US foreign policy.

The interview with Ajamu Baraka takes up the first 20 minutes of this podcast. Even though I agree with Baraka, I noticed I had a little resistance at first to the implications of what he was saying. That didn’t last long, as I realized that he was right about those implications, and I just had to deal with it.