---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 20:15:50 -0400 From: Doug Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Ralph Nader On the US Economy >From NewCity NET http://www.sfbg.com/nader/24.html . . . . > THE BIG GAMBLE > Ralph Ndaer > The Clinton administration's created a casino economy, where speculative capital >reigns supreme, big investors win big, and everyone else suffers. > > > I've heard just about enough from the proponents of unregulated markets and >intensified economic globalization. Haven't they realized that it's not even >superficially plausible for them to contend that the solution to problems caused by >deregulation, marketization, and globalization is <b>still more</b> deregulation, >marketization, and globalization? Wall Street's wild swings, the collapse of the >Russian economy, and Asia's economic contagion all provide important lessons that we >can no longer ignore. > > We should end Social Security privatization. Now. Regardless of Wall Street's >trajectory over the next few weeks, the myth that the stock market provides a >relatively risk-free, high-return investment outlet--a safe place for the nation's >accumulated savings for retirees--has been shattered once again. Senior citizens >banking on social security cannot afford a two-week 15 percent drop in their >retirement lifeline. Their daily anxiety factor alone is enough to disqualify Wall >Street's self-serving social security privatization proposals. > > Financial globalization entails massive, insupportable risks. It needs to be closely >monitored and controlled. While it may reflect underlying problems of overvaluation, >the most recent Wall Street plunge was touched off by economic anarchy in Russia. >Globalization brings with it an excessive interdependence that can turn isolated >problems into worldwide slides. National and international legal controls are needed >to cool foreign investments and short-term loans that pour far too quickly into >oligarchic countries, but evaporate as soon as economic indicators start to sour. Too >often this foreign money is taken from the savings of ordinary people who've invested >in U.S. mutual funds. > > NO new money should be given to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF has >worsened the economic crisis in both Russia and Asia and wasted billions of dollars >rescuing foreign investors and the domestic super-rich. Rather than aiding countries >through troubled times, IMF loans have spread economic contagion. > > The IMF has encouraged foreign investors to make additional risky investments around >the world without the discipline of the fear of failure. It has also pressured >countries into further opening themselves to short-term loans and investments, making >their economies even more vulnerable to sudden investor withdrawal. > > The international pull-down model (subordinating health, safety, and other standards >of living to the supremacy of international trade) of the IMF and World Trade >Organization (WTO) should be discarded. IMF austerity measures--imposed on borrower >countries as a condition for receiving loans--depress domestic demand. They've >transformed acute financial crises in Asia into chronic recessions and depressions. > > Meanwhile the WTO has pitted countries against one another in a global race to the >bottom in wages, environmental standards, and health and safety protections--all for >the purpose of promoting exports and attracting foreign investment. The combined >effect of those pull-down strategies weakens global demand and creates a worldwide >overcapacity problem. The United States, as buyer of last resort, has absorbed the >worldwide excess, but there is a limit to how much our debt-loaded consumers can >spend. > > In this current state of financial uncertainty it is clearly the wrong time to act >on H.R. 10 -- the misnamed financial modernization proposal now pending in the >Senate. This proposal would permit common corporate ownership of banks, insurance >companies, and securities firms. With a big bank merger binge bringing radical change >to the U.S. financial landscape, and world markets in turmoil in Asia and >Russia--where major U.S. banks have significant investments--the Senate really has no >reason to rush forward with a largely corporate drafted deregulatory bill that will >add to the uncertainty that huge concentrations of power carry with them. > > Under the guiding hand of the Clinton administration and Treasury Secretary Robert >Rubin--formerly a partner at Goldman Sachs--economic policy is increasingly crafted >to benefit the U.S. financial sector, even at the expense of corporate manufacturers. >They've created a casino economy, where speculative capital reigns supreme, criminal >capitalists in Russia are viewed as worthy business partners, and big investors win >big, while small investors, workers, consumers, and the environment all suffer. > > Critics of unregulated economic globalization have issued dire warnings for some >time now. Much of their analysis has been rejected by powerful corporate interests >and their allies in academia and the punditocracy. With the critics' warnings >increasingly borne out as truth, it's time to consider their proposals for a global >economy that serves worker and consumer needs under the rule of law, rather than >those of financial speculators and corporations. ___________________________________________________________ Doug Hunt, UCC/NEER Chair, US NGO Caucus for UN Comm. on Sust. Dev. & Organizer US Network for Sustainable Development Financing p: 301-593-4724 f:301-593-7591 e:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
