Jobs

I am highlighting a comment from down below, Democrats who don’t even bother with the lipstick, by Steve Kelly here. I tend to focus on the elements of thought control and crowd behavior, and so am fascinated by the behavior of groups like Democrats. They are unaware of how their own common thought patterns are identical to their supposed opposites. In the example I wrote about they are seemingly unaware that they are advancing a corporate agenda identical to the other party, even adopting the same language.

This is what I think of as the “magnet” effect – imagine metal particles scattered about on a table top, and someone waving a powerful horseshoe magnet above. The particles, heavily influenced by the magnet, will form patterns of alignment. This is the effect of money in politics.

Steve is a big picture guy. In his comments here and elsewhere, he is usually several levels above us, seeing the deeper meaning of the issues we discuss in minutia. In the discussion of logging in Montana, here was his reaction:

There are two serious problems with the notion that forests in Montana hold great wealth-producing (and associated jobs) commodity value that is being somehow denied by environmentalists’ appeals and litigation.

The commodity values are negative. Negative! It costs more to extract, process, transport and market wood products grown in this region than they are worth on the global market. There is no profit margin.

Subsidies have provided the sole means of making a profit on any sustainable schedule of accessing, logging, replanting, “managing,” accessing, and logging again.

Distance to markets is another problem that significantly adds to the production cost problem.

Yield is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. Trees here have a very short growing season, which produces a (20-50 cubic feet per acre) very low yield per acre when compared to (150-300 cubic feet per acre) Oregon or Mississippi. It doesn’t pencil out. It never did! This yield-equals-profit calculation Tester, “the farmer,” should, and probably does know like the back of his hand.

Without public subsidies that range from tax breaks to price breaks, to fuzzy accounting and contract bailouts, the timber industry has depleted the resource, mined it, and is now moving on. Industries wholly dependent on converting public treasures using public subsidies into noncompetetively produced commodities will fail sooner or later. It is an unsustainable business model and practice.

Environmentalists are the problem for expressing their conservative views publicly and in federal courtrooms.

This highlights other aspects of the ongoing debate about the commons and investors wanting access: One, as Chomsky mentions, whenever we hear the word “jobs,” substitute “profits.” They are speaking in a public jargon that is understood in its exact sense privately. If unemployment was really a concern, the remedies are well-known – higher marginal tax rates, just for starters, and public works. Known … but not spoken.

And secondly, “free” markets” exist, but are dangerous, and are hence avoided wherever possible. At those very low levels where people do not have power to protect themselves from market forces, the “free” market exhibits in the form of slavery, and its modern counterpart, sweatshops. Free markets are destructive. The ability to avoid market forces manifests in perfect correlation with concentrated wealth.

In the rarified air of American business, pursuit of profits (“jobs”) is usually associated with subsidy of one form or another, and the means of funneling subsidy are legion: the forest bargains that Kelly highlights, sweetheart oil leases, military spending, outright subsidy (as with agriculture and blue-sky research), and what are often thought of as natural byproducts of evil government: fraud, waste and abuse.

The objective is wealth capture. Since wealth is a usually product of mass efforts, getting it into a few hands requires exertion of focused effort, the kind that naturally follows wealth concentration**. In the United States, the most common expression of concentrated power is easily seen in the campaign finance system – all that is done openly, and the rest of that iceberg as well. As any libertarian or Randian will tell us, the right to bribe politicians is freedom. They are all about freedom.

So we come full circle now the understanding why Montana Senator Jon Tester, his counterpart Max Baucus, his predecessor Conrad Burns, and his opponent, Dennis Rehberg, are such advocates for “jobs” and enemies of roadless lands.
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**If that sounds circular, think of the board game Monopoly, having its origins in the Great Depression. The victor is the one who gains an early wealth advantage and then uses it to garner yet more. There’s some skill involved in the game, but the biggest factor in winning is to have luck early on as the properties are claimed by roll of the dice.