Welcome to Gaia! ::

Apparently in Texas you are kicked out of stuff when you scream " you burgeoise whore" at a chick when she takes it upon herself to tear tear a part of my communist wheelcap off. Also saying " We will bury you" in the middle of an nuclear proliferation debate didn't go over as well as I thought.

I once went to a NAFTA-CAFTA conference hosted by a local college, now incidently my college. They had us hit "break out groups", which are essentially after they had 3 big speakers, and then 3 proffessors present various arguements- then these break out groups.

I asked one question of the Neoliberal professors who were major proponents of globalization- and though I know that even in socialism certain portions of what I call "neoliberalism globalization" will exist- but in the form of international socialist brotherhood.

Anyways I asked how the circulaton of commodities is supposed to stay in our favor if we're sending huge amounts of capital out of the country and taking in base commodities. Especially even with GDP... Isn't the last portion net exports (exports - imports) we're importing more than we export everyday- than we did the previous day, thus our economy is going to fail unless we find a way to provide for our own economic independence in certain sectors.

The proffs looked at me and were sort of pissed that a *highschool kid at the time* could ask such a question.. Then the director of history who had lived in chiapas came forward and agreed fully with me :p

Then I just got put in his breakout group and turned everybody against neoliberalism :p I didn't insult anybody, and I never said "i'm a communist" or anything like it, though those who knew; knew :p the history director wished me luck in establishing socialism :p lol.

Hmm... doesn't seem like sufficient reason to me. I know that at my school that wouldn't be enough to get kicked out. But I suppose it happens. During my speech on nukes I simply compared the amount of nukes which Iraq or even North Korea could possibly have to the amount possessed by the US, and pointed out that any provocative action taken would be an act of suicide and stupidity.

She tore up a soviet heirloom of mine. And the nuculear thing was supposed to be funny. It doesn't really matter anyway. I did get a few people in ROTC interested in Marxism.

Come on I have faith in Hammer and Fire and joined the forum! I want my Hammer and Fire!

What heirloom was this a book of some sort? For I would find it rather hard to tear up a soviet medal etc.

For some reason, even with in-sourced companies (like say a toyota plant) those are still considered exports I do believe no imports. Rather, an export is something produced in America *by somebody* and then sent to markets outside of the country; and thus those things from foreign markets coming inwards are imports. Even if it is a foreign owned company those items still produced within America are considered native product and thus part of our economy- the only true difference is that the bourgeois that owns the majority of the capital and business on paper- resides outside of the US.

Yes I do understand trade; we send a commodity and receive cash and vice versa. The problem is we arn't receiving that money back- the nations we trade with just continue using American dollars to buy from other nations because- surprise surprise- eveybody takes American dollars. Or better yet they could just change the American dollars into their own currency and thus flush their own economy with new money. The fact is that we are importing more than we are exporting commodity wise this is a trend that started in 1967 according to the "Nominal Gross Domestic Product" and this disparity has been growing since then.

The real problem with our economy is that our service based economy has a very difficult time being exported anywhere ,but Mexico or Canada and then those are limited to a very small area of operation- unless the entire business is transplanted and then they become an international business and thus become natural product within that nation.

While bringing lots of goods in and sending lots of money out certainly would help inflation balance itself out, we do need to worry about what happens when all this money that is floating in itnernational markets comes back or perhaps, what will happen if we continue to see the leak of capital and plant to foreign nations.

As for Graccvhs, it is a common remark in the sphere of economics that one wants to maintain a "trade balance" or if anything export more than one imports- the US hasn't done this since 1967 (and for a short time a few years later).

Also, rather than saying "our" to mean american would you prefer for me to say "The American" as obviously my use of language denotes my "social chauvenism".

I am under the firm impression, from my own materialistic investigations, that in order for a modern socialist economy to function- what with the new developments of the later 20th century adding even more weight, and with Lenin's approval in the form of the NEP, China's market rehash, Tito's experiments, and Castro's new openness which is causing a rise in living standards and productivity; we must maintain market mechanisms.

It isn't pretty, and by no means does it replace the importance of social planning, but at first we need to concentrait our efforts of the most important industries (obtaining them and planning them). In the mean time, the market will function in other industries and small businesses (unless they fall in the extractor sector) will remain relatively untouched by social planning unless they present themselves open to that opertunity. Saying that we can just socialize everything isn't a possibility. It was possible in Russia because they had enough feudal and church holdings that they could simply confiscate this property without too many complaints, but we would have to force business out through taxes and buy them out physically because the bourgeois will never surrender these things- and any war for them would be more akin to genocide (as any stock holder would become infinitely powerful if all the other stock holders were killed off).

So then, we must socially plan things correctly, and use the market institutions (those that remain) to our advantage. These would include trade, as I am fairly confident that even with socialism in many nations trade would still need to be carried out untill all national boundries are abolished.

She ripped a part of a Soviet Officer Wheelcap off when I wasn't looking. It's viewable in my journal.