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In the 1980s, only 2 percent of publicly traded companies in the U.S. were considered zombies, a term used by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for companies that, over the previous three years, had not earned enough profit to make even the interest payments on their debt, Sharma wrote. The zombie minority started to grow rapidly in the early 2000s, and by the eve of the pandemic, accounted for 19 percent of U.S.-listed companies. Its happening in Europe, China and Japan, too.

And its all logical. Prolonged and increasingly generous bailouts, where governments are willing to buy even corporate junk bonds to prevent foreclosures, added Sharma, distort the efficient allocation of capital needed to raise productivity.

The past few years should have been an era of huge creative destruction. With so many new cheap digital tools of innovation, so much access to cheap high-powered computing and so much easy money, start-ups should have been exploding. They were not.

Before the pandemic, the U.S. was generating start-ups and shutting down established companies at the slowest rates since at least the 1970s, wrote Sharma. The number of publicly traded U.S. companies had fallen by nearly half, to around 4,400, since the peak in 1996. (The number of start-ups has increased in the pandemic, but that may be because so many businesses closed.)

Alas, though, big companies are becoming huge and more monopolistic in this easy money, low interest rate era. It is not only because the internet created global winner-take-all markets, which have enabled companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple to amass cash piles bigger than the reserves of many nation-states. Its also because they can so easily use their inflated stock prices or cash hordes to buy up budding competitors and suck up all the talent and resources crowding out the little guys, Sharma said.

Meanwhile, he added, as governments keep stepping in to eliminate recessions, downturns no longer play their role of purging the economy of inefficient companies, and recoveries have grown weaker and weaker, with lower productivity growth. So it takes more and more stimulus each time to prop up growth.

This is all actually making our system more fragile.

Now that so many countries, led by the U.S., have massively increased their debt loads, if we got even a small burst of inflation that drove interest on the 10-year Treasury to 3 percent from 1 percent, the amount of money the U.S. would have to devote to debt servicing would be so enormous that little money might be left for discretionary spending on research, infrastructure or education or another rainy day.

Read more:
Opinion | Made in the U.S.A.: Socialism for the Rich. Capitalism for the Rest. - The New York Times

George Orwells novel 1984, a warning about a dystopian world where authoritarians are able to control the population by use of technology, is no longer fiction its at our doorstep. In a chilling and frightening secretly recorded video, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said, We have deleted one account, but this will go long into the future. Translation: we have been able to silence the President of the United States, but soon we will be silencing anyone who opposes our path towards socialism.

The Democratic Party of today is obviously allied with the media and mega wealthy big tech globalists, because they believe in the same thing socialism. This is not the Democratic Party of even four years ago. The classic liberalism of the partys past actually believed in free speech. Not anymore. Using COVID as an excuse to spy on you and control you, the far left Democratic Party of today is on their way to the lockstep single party control they seek.

Socialism and communism are branches of the same tree. In the socialist/communist mind, there can be no higher authority than the State so they must tarnish and destroy anything that competes for state supremacy. This includes religion, a nations traditions and culture and any competing idea. Rather than allow debate, which comes from irredeemably evil people, they demonize and silence opposition. That is why socialists tear down statues, cancel opposing voices and downplay Christmas and Thanksgiving. These threats to State supremacy must be diminished.

Biden, who was not required to take a position on the issues by his allies, the media, has since elected, and moved quickly to satisfy the far left. The left, which already controls the media and education, is moving towards even more control of your life. They will move to control energy production and your healthcare and every aspect of your life will be overseen by government because you are a simpleton, and they know better than you.

AOC, who used to be far left, but is now becoming orthodoxy in the Democrat Party, is already making us aware that there will be a new government agency to identify and eliminate any voices that they deem untruthful. Government and its allies, the media globalists, will decide truth.

History is full of great civilizations that have gone with the wind. Ronald Reagan was a visionary when he said, the extinction of freedom is never more than a generation away.

Eben D. Henson

Danville

See the article here:
Democratic Party believes in socialism - The Advocate-Messenger - Danville Advocate

Bruce Friesens letter (Democracy vs. socialism, CVN, Vol. 26, No. 17) indicating that democrats are attempting to overthrow our government through socialistic actions which he claims lead to communism is troubling for so many reasons. I understand that facts, science, education and truth are not likely to sway Trump supporters, but I am compelled to point out the facts, nonetheless.

Communism is both a political and economic system while socialist countries tend to be democratic. The author seems to use Marxist theory to express the belief that socialism leads to communism, for which there are no examples. But he ignores another tenet of Marxist philosophy that states that communism can only come about via revolution. Both of these models use the idea that the government provides for each person. This is based not only on their needs but on what they can contribute back to society.

Communists believe that the state or the government should control and own all aspects of economic production. They also think that the state should provide every citizen with their basic needs.

Socialism is a bit more flexible. Socialists believe that all citizens should share in economic resources and who can have what is decided by a democratically elected government. This means that unlike communism, socialists do believe in private property. All industry and production are communally owned and managed by an elected government.

There are only five countries in the world that claim to be communist: China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba. Two of those clearly had revolutions, as have Russia and France. France is clearly not communist or even socialist. Many European countries have elements of socialism, as does the United States. Social Security, Medicare, police and fire departments are just a handful of examples that we enjoy in our country. Do a little research and the difference become obvious.

Go here to see the original:
Communism and socialism, not the same | Opinion | coastalview.com - Coastal View News

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Originally posted here:
Letter to the editor: Capitalism with a heart close to socialism - TribLIVE

Please dont use the word socialism to discredit a person or an idea unless you have read a book about it. Fox News and letters to the editor seemingly use socialism and leftist to reject an idea, or a person, without considering the merits involved.

Let us talk descriptively about how our system works or fails. Putting negative labels on ideas and people is just plain lazy and ill-willed. But we do that as reflexively as we open our mouths when eating.

Economists explain that we have a mixed economy, while capitalism and free enterprise are embedded in the American DNA. Some farmers are getting government subsidies, for example. I have not heard farmers complain about socialism.

It is amazing that our economic system leaves so many people hungry and impoverished. In the U.S., more than 40 million people live in poverty that is caused mainly by wage inequality, inflation and poor education.

Feeding America explains: Before the coronavirus pandemic, 35 million experienced hunger. Poverty is one of the factors that affect a persons ability to have enough food to meet their needs. Yet up to two-thirds of people facing hunger have incomes above the federal poverty line.

Surely our system is resilient enough to enable economic systems in poor communities besides just giving tax breaks for soup kitchens and charities. Our system is irresponsible. And please dont call me a socialist for saying so.

Urbane Peachey

Manheim Township

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Read the original here:
Understand the term 'socialism' (letter) | Letters To The Editor | lancasteronline.com - LancasterOnline