The ABCs of Meaningless Economic Phrases
by Rudolf Hickel and Heinz J. Bontrup
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2016/11/433826.shtml
The most common myths start from the tax state that burdens the economy, the housework ordered by the state (save,save,save) to the Schwabian housewife prescribing the austerity creed. Politics must tend to every need of capital as a scared doe and therefore lower taxes. The term reform has been twisted around completely and is used to reduce the social responsibility of the state.
Thanks for your passion and light! Corporate media is interested in business as usual, not in discussion or debate. We should be talking about recalibrating the state and the market after the neoliberal myths of the self-healing market and efficient financial markets have turned our system upside down.
Profit making is different than profit-maximizing. Competition and cooperation depend on one another in the business world. All personal and business achievements are based on state investments in roads, schools, health care, airwaves, community centers, food quality and water quality. What is public should remain public. How sad when universities become “profit centers” and health care is distorted into a way of private enrichment!
Words are powerful and can break the frozen soul (Kafka), Abolishing Medicare where administrative costs are 2-3% instead of 20% in the profit-maximizing world is like putting the cart before the horse, bridling the horse by the tail or mistaking the goat for the gardener. They create a desert and call it peace! As we head into the new Dark Age or Stone Age, it is vital we join forces and learn from all those who battled impostors in the past like Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Bonhoeffer.
The future should be open and dynamic, not closed and static, regional, democratic and interdependent. If we all end up in McDonalds uniforms, that is a dystopia full of irrationality and business-friendly myths!
