berlin wall anniversary

[ryan costa]

20 years ago Monday, residents of East Germany stormed the Berlin Wall and crossed.

How did this happen?

In 1988 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band gave a powerful Rock concert in East Berlin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3eO2Nlcm1c

All that was good in America coalesced into Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. They delivered it to East Berlin with the kind of epic powerful long-winded rock and roll comparable to Beethoven's own epic powerful long-winded concertos and symphonies. the emotional reverberations of the concert spread across the land until finally the multitudes stormed the berlin wall.

[Stephen Eisel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjWDrTXMgF8

[Stephen Eisel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE_hRgHyN4w

[ryan costa]

Reagan spoke to west berlin. He welcomed change and liberalization. He advocated the end of the nuclear arms race between nations that already each had enough nuclear weapons to depopulated the Earth many times over.

The Wall was stormed by East Berliners. East German soldiers stationed at the wall refused to shoot them at that point.


Reagans Arms Race spending did not bankrupt the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was bankrupt from the beginning. It was bankrupt throughout its existence. As a command economy they could move funds from exports around where they needed them for overseas spending. internally, most basic accounting standards didn't really matter.

Most soviets from the beginning didn't believe much in Soviet Communism or marxism. The slogans were already established and invested with emotional frames of reference people understood. But the only career security and promise of advancement was both in touting the party line and in stomping on others who could be accused or proven or slandered to have belittled the party line. The durability of the Soviet Communist system was Clique careerism.

Reagan's Arms spending didn't intimidate the Soviet Union.
Reagan's Arms spending was for America's own self esteem. When Men are young men and have more of the chimp or baboon instinct in them, they enjoy revving their engines, squeeling tires, hot rodding, shooting rabbits or empty beer bottles. When they are older and more dignified and profound, they are more capable of taking such enjoyment and more profound pride in parades, spit and polish, well organized groups of men producing what they set out to produce. well made cars, appliances, tools rolling off the assembly lines. Tanks, planes, battleships performing to specification. the arms spending is especially emboldening. it really emboldens a guy when he is reading the morning paper at the kitchen table before heading out to work.

[Stephen Eisel]

Ryan, we must have read the same article about the cause of the Soviet Union Bankruptcy but the article that you have so eloquently regurgitated here failed to mention any specific facts on the change in percentage of military spending in relationship to gross national product pre-Cold War and post Cold War.

[ryan costa]

Ryan, we must have read the same article about the cause of the Soviet Union Bankruptcy but the article that you have so eloquently regurgitated here failed to mention any specific facts on the change in percentage of military spending in relationship to gross national product pre-Cold War and post Cold War.

I do not know of which article you speak. feel free to send it to me.
any measure of the Soviet Unions GNP is largely inconsequential; because they were a command economy that figure was practically arbitrary. therefore what portion of it was military spending is irrelevant.


East Germans brought down the Berlin Wall.

Russians ended the Soviet Union.

Reagan's contribution was his overwhelming pacifism in dealing with Russia abroad.

He had enough hollywood sense to talk tough at home and the big photo ops.
we borrowed 2 trillion dollars and threw a party.

Monday is the anniversary of East Germans storming the Berlin Wall.
Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street band were integral to motivating that.
250,000 attended the concert. then people across East Germany gathered in apartments to listen to blackmarket rock and roll albums.

[Roy Pitchford]

The Soviet Union was bankrupt from the beginning. It was bankrupt throughout its existence. As a command economy they could move funds from exports around where they needed them for overseas spending. internally, most basic accounting standards didn't really matter.

Is that a comdemnation of the ways of the Soviet Union? I just want to be clear. If so, very interesting. I'll wait to hear what you say.

But the only career security and promise of advancement was both in touting the party line and in stomping on others who could be accused or proven or slandered to have belittled the party line. The durability of the Soviet Communist system was Clique careerism.

Sounds similar to global warm...I mean global climate change. Let me attempt a re-write:
But the only career security and promise of advancement was both in touting the Inconvenient Truth and in stomping on others who could be accused or proven or slandered to have belittled the Inconvenient Truth.
But I digress.

[Stephen Eisel]

any measure of the Soviet Unions GNP is largely inconsequential; because they were a command economy that figure was practically arbitrary. therefore what portion of it was military spending is irrelevant.

There is big difference between having a $17B military budget and a $4B military budget.

[ryan costa]

The Soviet Union was bankrupt from the beginning. It was bankrupt throughout its existence. As a command economy they could move funds from exports around where they needed them for overseas spending. internally, most basic accounting standards didn't really matter.

Is that a comdemnation of the ways of the Soviet Union? I just want to be clear. If so, very interesting. I'll wait to hear what you say.

But the only career security and promise of advancement was both in touting the party line and in stomping on others who could be accused or proven or slandered to have belittled the party line. The durability of the Soviet Communist system was Clique careerism.

Sounds similar to global warm...I mean global climate change. Let me attempt a re-write:
But the only career security and promise of advancement was both in touting the Inconvenient Truth and in stomping on others who could be accused or proven or slandered to have belittled the Inconvenient Truth.
But I digress.

Progressive income taxes or tariffs or K-12 public education, and even the New Deal or vocational unions are perfectly in keeping with Americanism and anti-sovietism. The new Republican strongholds(the south) can thank the New Deal and cold war spending(funded by progressive income taxes on the industrial north) for moving enough federal spending south for the whites there to become Republicans.

the significance of very recent (the last 100 years or so) human industrial impact on climate change is acceptable by most number crunchers. One of the primary drivers of computer development was getting better weather reports: wars hinged on making the right moves in the right weather. on predictions of how well which crops would do well during a year. enormous human intelligence has been applied to tracking ocean currents, prevailing winds, precipitation patterns, and what drives them. climatologists have far much more information to work with than most astrophysicists in figuring out planets and stars. climatologists have far much more information to work with than nuclear physicists who piece together the nature of the atom by smashing them in particle accelerator colliders.

[Roy Pitchford]

Progressive income taxes or tariffs or K-12 public education, and even the New Deal or vocational unions are perfectly in keeping with Americanism and anti-sovietism.

Really?
Show me that stuff in our founding documents.

[ryan costa]

Progressive income taxes or tariffs or K-12 public education, and even the New Deal or vocational unions are perfectly in keeping with Americanism and anti-sovietism.

Really?
Show me that stuff in our founding documents.

There is nothing explicitly in our founding documents against that stuff. our documents top out at references to taxation with representation. The corporate form as we know it did not exist when the constitution was written. There is nothing in our Constitution that is Anti-Soviet: paradigms of capitalism and socialism didn't exist as we know them when the American Revolution was completed.

American government has always been "big" relative to the scope and enumerations of private enterprise. Taxation power has always been "big". whether excise taxes on Booze, tobacco, barrels, timber, anything. The primary big private enterprise of the U.S. for much of the first hundred years was being enough of a political insider to get an early in on buying/claiming lots of land - often with fiat 'bonds' - before selling it in smaller parcels. connected Americans strove for their government licensed monopolies of ferries, toll roads, canals, railways, and all the grants and financing that could possibly come with it.

the Army was always called in to throw out the Indians. (treaty renegotiation(coercion)). Each treaty was a contract of property rights not worth enforcing on the principle that white property coveters(Americans) deserved it more than the previous property owners. American history is that it is okay to violate contracts so long as you deserve the property or income stream more than the previous owners. wealth re-distribution. I don't feel guilty about it. I just don't see a logical or historical case against income taxes.

The Sanctity of the American dream was funded on the belief there would always be more land for Uncle Sam to dole out. it had nothing to do with freedom. other than the freedom to not have to work for some feudal landlord or entrenched professional guilds.
(unless you were a sharecropper or slave in the South. the south was a resurgence of everything wrong with feudal europe). own your own farm. own your own shop. This was before the new corporate feudalism, but many people are happy with the new corporate feudalism so it is okay.

There is nothing anti-capitalistic about progressive income taxes, corporate taxes, tariffs.

Russians and East Germans listened to black market Bruce Springsteen tapes. Beatles tapes.
never came across references of them listening to black market Reagan speech tapes.
So give a hoot and holler of appreciation for Bruce Springsteen tonight, for his work in liberating East Germany.

[Roy Pitchford]

Progressive income taxes or tariffs or K-12 public education, and even the New Deal or vocational unions are perfectly in keeping with Americanism and anti-sovietism.

Really?
Show me that stuff in our founding documents.

There is nothing explicitly in our founding documents against that stuff.

Thank you.

There is nothing in our Constitution that is Anti-Soviet: paradigms of capitalism and socialism didn't exist as we know them when the American Revolution was completed.

Perhaps "Socialism" didn't, but the ideals of it still were around:

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy."
--Thomas Jefferson

"The Utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of wealth] and a community of goods [central ownership of the means of production and distribution], are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic and, in our government, unconstitutional."
--Samuel Adams

[i]"The moment the idea is admitting into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."
--John Adams

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
--James Madison

Now, before you start yelling that democracy is different... one of the founders of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society told the New York Times that the group was founded to "throw light on the world-wide movement of industrial democracy known as socialism."

For contrast:
"The theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property."
--Karl Marx

wealth re-distribution. I don't feel guilty about it. I just don't see a logical or historical case against income taxes.

No reason to feel guilty...you have the freedom to give money to whoever you wish.
However, what gives the government the right to take my money and give it to others that they feel deserve it?

"Let vigorous measures be adopted; not to limit the prices of articles, for this I believe it is inconsistent with the very nature of things and impracticable in itself, but to punish speculators, forestallers and extortioners, and above all to sink the money by heavy taxes. To promote public and private economies; encourage manufacturers, etc."
--George Washington

There is nothing anti-capitalistic about progressive income taxes, corporate taxes, tariffs.

I disagree. The more money taken from corporations, the less money they have for growth. Less growth means less jobs created, less corporate reinvestment in communities, etc.

There is no capitalism when you take from those that have and give to those that do not.

Buffett stated that he only paid 19% of his income for 2006 ($48.1 million) in total federal taxes, while his employees paid 33% of theirs, despite making much less money

One reason why Buffet's effective tax rate is so low is that he likely makes a lot of money through capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. Why are capital gains taxes lower? The government knows that capital investments are proven to create jobs, so they want to incentivize more of them.

[ryan costa]

I hope you enjoyed the Bruce Springsteen concert last night.
Give Bruce and the Band a standing ovation. They helped end the cold war.

Capital gains taxes are a tax on selling stock for more than you paid for it.
There are other permutations of capital gains. but stock jobbing, bond sharpstering, and possibly currency "trading" are the predominant kind.

Stocks, Bonds, and Mortgage-backed "securities" are the ultimate fiat currency.
Real Estate appreciation relies on a expanding monetary policy, so capital gains on real estate sales could also be considered a beneficiary of loose currency policies.

lower capital gains taxes and lower top tier income taxes encourage groundless stock speculation, unnecessary mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing, and downsizing.

Revenue and profitability encourage investment in useful technology and drives employment. unnecessary mergers and outsourcing drive profit margins down, wages down, and useful investment in machinery and buildings down. There is no shortage of crappy new shopping strips, fast food joints, and empty 30 year old shopping strips and fast food joints.

A loose fiat currency or monetary policy creates jobs. when such policies are managed prudently, and regulated well enough the prevent rapid inflation, S&L busts, the Bush 700 billion dollar bailouts, the pending bailouts, all of the pension fund bailouts, and golden parachutes for the executives with the most important contracts.

when Reagan cut the capital gains rates, and top tier income tax rates, it was an inducement for wall street heads to find innovative ways to cook up the sale price of stock. the junk bond fueled mergers and acquisitions mania allowed upstarts to acquire a lot of stock. cutting jobs, outsourcing, generally taking money out of the company, and liquidating assets became the best way to smart up stock trading prices.

The mortgage backed security trading paradigm also picked up at this time. wall street sucked the S&Ls dry. everyone thought they'd be making a lot of money at first, but it turns out only the smartest guys made a very lot of money not producing anything at all.

private sector employee pension plans went broke all over. if they were lucky the Government would take them over. 20 or 30 years in the company was good for something. the Executives who "earned" those 30 million dollar golden parachutes had more important contracts.

The 80s growth was mostly about highly subsidized sprawl. Alan Greenspan pursued a strong pro-fiat monetary expansion policy. That is okay: he said a lot of shit about gold while doing it. I don't know of any millionaires or billionaires who sold their stock for gold in the last 100 years.

oil addiction heats up, but people are willing to scratch their heads and not understand why.
then there were the military arms contracts, but those are unassailable.
the personal computer, local networks, and database took off heavily in the 1980s. that would have happened with or without Reagan's tax policies.

it is just as easy to find quotes from the people you listed supporting tariffs, taxes, and "government".

In addition, in early America most free white many generally worked for themselves. most business was that small. the only reason to work for someone else was to save up money to build your own business later. Corporatism centralizes production. (often in Mexico and China). Wal-Mart centralizes distribution.

Wal-Mart is the largest quasi-governmental organization in the United States. Wal-Mart is the largest lever acting on our legislators. Wal-Mart has monopoly powers in getting other producers to lower prices(often resorting to outsourcing)

Your quote from Washington actually supports tariffs.

many of Jefferson's contemporaries tooks his words with a huge grain of salt, dismissing him as an unrealistic utopian.

However, Jefferson and every other Plantation owner was the Government of his plantation. Some were more progressive about ending their dependence on slaves, while most would defend themselves as being the caretakers and custodians of their slaves. not sure whose labor was being wasted.

John Adams advocated taxes during his Presidency, paying down the war debts to belgium and the netherlands and france, and also a Navy. However, he worked hard to keep the Quasi-War with the new Free Republic France from escalating into a full scale war. Jefferson had very coarse words for him for accomplishing this, but Jefferson was generally regarded as a weird utopian who made his living inheriting property and with government jobs.

The Academic Legwork of scholars who "prove" 'free trade' and 'markets' are 'Good' carry conditions and assumptions. one is that corporations do not follow cheap labor overseas. another is that "winners" compensate "Losers".

Then there are the deeds and not the words. Look at the map. the 13 states that were the thirteen colonies were very lightly occupied at the time of the revolution. much of their present western halves were barely occupied all. Follow that all the way to the Pacific Ocean and you get property distributed by Government to People. doesn't matter where it comes from or who owned it or didn't own it or wasn't using it right. the Europeans just focus on the FACTs: popular uprising getting rid of nobility. popular government distributing wealth. The United States was the inspiration for European Socialism.

Canada is less economically developed that the U.S. for three reasons: they were a bit more respectful to native americans property rights than the U.S. They were not as socialistic as the U.S. in redistributing property. They did not as strong Protectionism as the U.S.

Capitalism is simply the sale and buying of stock that represents a portion of the assets and liabilities and revenue of an ongoing business concern. The American Revolution was to get rid of the British East India Company. The British East India company was a large quasi-governmental entity that set a lot of policy in the colonies. most of the Stock Owners were in Britain. I think it was Smedley Butler who said something like, "if you own the stock you can make an extra penny a crate. after congress sends in the Marines".

the faster sprawl goes up the faster urban decay sets in. those are inevitable external costs. the developers and bankers are the government that sets policies to subsidize sprawl. that faster corporations "centralize" or outsource production, the faster the spillover costs mount. The faster big box developers and wal-mart centralize distribution, the faster the spillover costs rise.

If there is no capitalism when you take from those that have and give to those that do not...there was never capitalism in U.S. history. all you mortgage brokers get by on vast government subsidies, programs, and regulations. All you automobile parts get by on enormous government programs for highways, roads, oil, and the big shopping centers and suburban schools people need to drive to. Lawyers are government to anyone who isn't a lawyer, but I'm sure they deserve every penny.

[Charlie Page]

Nice how Obama snubbed the German Chancellor’s invitation to attend the anniversary.

He can go to Copenhagen to lobby to bring the Olympics to Chicago so his old buddies can get rich but can’t find the time for the anniversary.

He’s even made plans to go to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in the summer even though he himself says he doesn’t deserve it.

Maybe his Teleprompter is in the repair shop...he uses it so much. For as smooth as he is, he can’t put an intelligent sentence together without it.

[ryan costa]

Nice how Obama snubbed the German Chancellor’s invitation to attend the anniversary.

He can go to Copenhagen to lobby to bring the Olympics to Chicago so his old buddies can get rich but can’t find the time for the anniversary.

He’s even made plans to go to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in the summer even though he himself says he doesn’t deserve it.

Maybe his Teleprompter is in the repair shop...he uses it so much. For as smooth as he is, he can’t put an intelligent sentence together without it.

show me a video clip of Obama speaking that does not include a single intelligence sentence from him.

Even Reagan flubbed a few words of his big speech at the Berlin Wall.

I don't know of any President who hasn't used a teleprompter or notes when making speeches. so far he has demonstrated superior speaking skills to both Presidents Bush, both in interviews and in speeches and in debates. Bush was pretty notorious for screwing up his speeches, and appearing to get stumble when some kind of coaching audio device in his ear malfunctioned during a debate.

Even Washington had Hamilton draft a lot of his addresses, including his farewell address.