Libya to lay off 400,000

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The Libyan government plans to lay off 400,000 people, or more than a third of its workforce, to try to ease budget pressures and stimulate the private sector, Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi said.

Mahmoudi told the General Peoples Congress or parliament on Saturday the number of civil servants and state employees had grown excessively to more than one million in recent years and their salaries ate up 4 billion dinars ($3.13 billion) in 2006.

"The objectives of this budget are to increase Libyans' standard living by the rate of 5 percent during this year and to promote productive activities," he said without elaborating.

Mahmoudi added that he wanted to improve health and education and encourage the private sector to make manufactured goods of sufficient quality to compete with imports.

"The objectives of this budget are to increase Libyans' standard living by the rate of 5 percent during this year and to promote productive activities," he said without elaborating.

Mahmoudi added that he wanted to improve health and education and encourage the private sector to make manufactured goods of sufficient quality to compete with imports.

He is pushing for more economic self-reliance and private sector-friendly reforms to fight an unemployment rate of at least 13 percent.

But hopes of change have risen with the revival of diplomatic relations with Washington.

While most U.S. sanctions were lifted in 2004, the revival of formal ties is expected to loosen a remaining web of financial curbs placed on U.S.-Libya investment in the decades of estrangement when the West accused Libya of supporting terrorism.

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Typical neo-lib formula:

1 - Step one promise the world if nation joins the US sphere.

2 - Step two create crisis in the public sector

3 - Step three obliterate through laws and privatisations the public sector to ensure it never functions again.

4 - Step four bring in the multi-nationals to pick up the pieces for massive profits and minimal effectiveness.

5 - Step 5 when the colonials complain call them terrorists and send in the marines.

[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

Blaming the US for changes in Libya makes it seem that Libyan leaders have no part in this change, and that there is no possibility that they learned something from previous policies.

I have never been to Libya, but can tell you that MANY third world civil services could quite easily be reduced, at no cost to efficiency.

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This could be a good thing if they're firing a bunch of administrators to free up money to pay people who actually provide services.

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But only certain kinds of efficiency and productivity are encouraged when it comes to laissez-faire ie. the kind that privatize profits, socialize the risk, and create a low wage, "flexible" workforce for private enterprize to exploit. A lowly valued currency tends to encourage sloth and laziness among workers apparently.

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it seems that women are barred from employment? Free_Radical

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Not at all. Women in Lybia not only have the right to work, but are encouraged by the state to do so.

Lybia is a wealthy nation and its welfare state system is very generous. They have a minimum guaranteed income that was first implemented when Gaddafi took plower in 1969 and committed for distribution of oil wealth amongst the citizens. As well, I think that citizens have a right to housing, 'free' university education (plus bursary for students to live on) etc..

It is a common occurrence, for example, that one-half to one third of the civil service simply never reports to work, all the while drawing a paycheck.

To make a meaningful comment about Libya, one would have to know whether the present size of the Libyan civil service is excessive. If it is, it should be cut back; if it isn't, it shouldn't.

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Originally posted by sidra:
Not at all.

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Population: 5.9 million

Men, 15-64: 1,891,643
Women, 15-64: 1,778,621

Labour Force: 1.787 million

The labour force just seemed small compared to both population and the adult population, and seemed to imply that less than half of adults could work (well, it does imply that less than half of adults can work).

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But between this, and the news article posted, it would appear that close to two-thirds of Libyan workers were public servants. Wow. -Free_Radical

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Good observation, Free_Radical Actually, at least up to ten years ago (when I visited Lybia), The bulk of workers in Lybia were foreigners, from Tunisia, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Mauritania etc. Lybians basically either own businesses, are occupied in the public service sector or study in some University somewhere..

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Originally posted by jeff house:
In many third world countries, huge civil services are created, often simply as a way to reward supporters of the regime.

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This can works both ways whether private sector or public. But that line of argument is often used as an excuse to dismantle the public sector as a favour of friends of "the regime." And there are several examples of private sector corruption around the democratic capitalist third world, for sure.

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It is a common occurrence, for example, that one-half to one third of the civil service simply never reports to work, all the while drawing a paycheck.

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And, for example, in the U.S. private sector health care delivery, an estimated $30 billion a year in health care fraud. Insurance companies and private contractors are not above creative bookkeeping and billing taxpayers for ghost services.

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To make a meaningful comment about Libya, one would have to know whether the present size of the Libyan civil service is excessive. If it is, it should be cut back; if it isn't, it shouldn't.

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Compare Libya's economy and mortality statistics with other African nations, I think that's fair. How about Angola or Nigeria ?. Both of those countries export oil to the U.S.

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Reference to Chile doesn't really tell us much about Libya.

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In many third world countries, huge civil services are created, often simply as a way to reward supporters of the regime.
It is a common occurrence, for example, that one-half to one third of the civil service simply never reports to work, all the while drawing a paycheck.

To make a meaningful comment about Libya, one would have to know whether the present size of the Libyan civil service is excessive. If it is, it should be cut back; if it isn't, it shouldn't.

Reference to Chile doesn't really tell us much about Libya. -Jeff House

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What is exactly the problem when a country such as Lybia afford full employment for its citizens. For such was the case ten years ago. (We neither heard nor read about it, since Qaddafi was/is not exactly a West's favourite).

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Originally posted by Sidra:
The "huge" bureaucracy was required by the impressive welfare state (income support, education, health an d housing)... until now. Guess who showed up and saw things they did not like ? Yep, the unharnessed capitalism crowd, the fish eat fish and the fittest survive !

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Yes, there seem to be glaring differences between what the pro-market IMF preaches to third world developing countries and what countries like the U.S. and Canada actually practice since giving up on hands off free market approach in the 1930's.

[ 22 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by sidra:
What is exactly the problem when a country such as Lybia afford full employment for its citizens. For such was the case ten years ago. (We neither heard nor read about it, since Qaddafi was/is not exactly a West's favourite).

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Two potential problems - productivity and sustainability. To use an extreme example - hiring people to count all the Es in the Encyclopedia Britannica just so they can have a salary is probably a bad idea given that there's so many more useful things they could be doing. So could these 400,000 people be freed up to do something more productive? Hard to say without knowing more about Libya, but it's possible.

What happens to a nation when it privatises all of its essential services to foreign based mutinationals who then outsource these jobs to another country willing to enslave its citizens for cheaper labour costs? Splat goes the economy.

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Originally posted by sidra:
Not at all. Women in Lybia not only have the right to work, but are encouraged by the state to do so.

Lybia is a wealthy nation and its welfare state system is very generous. They have a minimum guaranteed income that was first implemented when Gaddafi took plower in 1969 and committed for distribution of oil wealth amongst the citizens. As well, I think that citizens have a right to housing, 'free' university education (plus bursary for students to live on) etc..

But wait... the USA came into the picture. We will see..

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Don't get me started about the lack of action by the government on AIDS. Poor medical practices led to hundreds of children contracting AIDS.

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Originally posted by scooter:

The quality of the free education is pretty low. It is very difficult to get medicine. [...] [T]hey have rampant alcohol and drug addication problems.

Don't get me started about the lack of action by the government on AIDS. Poor medical practices led to hundreds of children contracting AIDS.

Yes, the country should be rather wealthy but it isn't due to government corrupt, lack of personal freedoms, etc.

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Originally posted by unionist:

Ok, enough about the U.S. What do you think of Libya?

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No-no, I believe he was trying to tell us how corrupt and inefficient the Libyan economy has become after years of extra-territorial trade embargos by the multinational cabal. Let's learn more how Libya, too, can become a showcase of IMF-WTO policies for Liberal democracy, like the rest of Africa in general.

[ 23 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:

No-no, I believe he was trying to tell us how corrupt and inefficient the Libyan economy has become ...

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Originally posted by unionist:

Fidel, you killed my joke!

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Ya, the ultra right and Liberals alike don't care to discuss the experiment in Chile

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Neither do I, when we are in a thread about Libya.

That's because they are DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.

As a result, it CONFUSES the issue to talk about them as if they were the same.

And fyi, one cannot help but mention N.K. when discussing U.S.-led extra-territorial medieval sieges both countries have had to endure similarly over several decades. Cuba, N.K., Libya, and several more countries have had to deal with trade embargos in the recent past. How is that irrelevant to the overall economic situation in Libya ?. Haven't all of these countries past and present, been labelled "axis of evil" pariah nations by various right-rightist regimes in Washington?. I don't think you get it, and that's too bad.

"Make the economy scream." -- Richard "the madman" Nixon to the CIA in regard to sabotaging socialism in Chile

[ 23 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by unionist:
Ok, enough about the U.S. What do you think of Libya?

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Actually we have hired three guys from Libya so my information is pretty good. One fled the country fifteen years ago, the other two left last year to avoid military duty. -scooter

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Yes, scooter. But unionist's quip "Ok, enough about the U.S. What do you think of Libya?" still stands.

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What happens to a nation when it privatises all of its essential services to foreign based mutinationals who then outsource these jobs to another country willing to enslave its citizens for cheaper labour costs? Splat goes the economy.

What happens to a nation's population when the same services are privatised to maximise profit and essential services like water and energy become too expensive for an average citizen to afford? Bring on the revolution!

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Indeed. Imagine discussing Libya in a thread about Libya!

All threads should be about Chile and Cuban infant mortality rates. Nothing else matters.

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And for the record, it's you who mentioned infant mortality rates not me in this thread. Mortality rates are one of the benchmarks used to determine whether the experiment is headed towards failed nation state or neo-Liberal glorification, like Friedmanism in Chile. What would Friedman have said about such a large and bloated public sector in Libya ?. Ya, just as I thought: selective amnesia.

Maybe they need ENRONg or World CON execs in there to show them how it's done, right Stephen?.
Perhaps we could look at the free market success stories in oil-rich Angola or Nigeria ?. How about The Congo since western imperialists got rid of Lumumba and the red menace ?. Or should the Libyan's simply fly by the seat of their pants from here on in without so much as a manual pointing to pro-market successes ?.

It's obvious they're doing something wrong in Libya. They've got the best mortality rates in Africa. They're screwing up.

[ 24 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Dictators and their supporters always seem able to find someone else to blame. Oh - it's the sanctions, the imperialist powers, the counterrevolutionaries, etc - never their own stupid policies. Just an observation.

.... I agree - which is why it's essential to have an efficient public sector that works. Doug

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Your language is straight out of the Murdoch media lexicon. Actually Qaddafi is much less a dictator than the guys East to him (Egypts' Mubarak) and the guy North West to him (Tunisia's Ben ALi). Since the latters are imperialists' puppets, the Murdoch media does not call them dictators, but presidents. The appelation "Dictator Muammar Qaddafi" is only used in the Western imperialist world.

Nobody made any claim of lack of efficiency in the Lybian bureaucracy. Do you have any info we do not know ? On a second thought, if I want any info you may have, I would just watch Fox News.

[ 24 January 2007: Message edited by: sidra ]

I did find this outline of a presentation on public administration in Libya which is sort of interesting: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN016111.pdf

Here's an article about public service reform in developing countries generally: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/visions/deans_research_seminar/for_the_people_chpt_6.pdf

Libya does have a large problem with corruption in its government, which suggests that civil servants are poorly paid and that there's a lack of proper management.

If the numbers on this EDC profile of Libya are correct, 75% of the workforce is in the public sector, which seems pretty unbalanced.

http://www.edc.ca/english/docs/glibya_e.pdf

[ 24 January 2007: Message edited by: Doug ]

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The thing with being a dictator is that either you are or you aren't. Even if you're a nice, competent dictator, you're still a dictator. That goes for most other governments in the region too.
I did find this outline of a presentation on public administration in Libya which is sort of interesting: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN016111.pdf

Here's an article about public service reform in developing countries generally: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/visions/deans_research_seminar/for_the_people_chpt_6.pdf

Libya does have a large problem with corruption in its government, which suggests that civil servants are poorly paid and that there's a lack of proper management.

If the numbers on this EDC profile of Libya are correct, 75% of the workforce is in the public sector, which seems pretty unbalanced.

http://www.edc.ca/english/docs/glibya_e.pdf

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In addition to Fidel's reply, I would like to remind you, Doug, that the point is that Lybia -with all its faults like any other country- is so far wealthy enough to afford its huge bureaucracy. People do have jobs.

But I can imagine the USA and the IMF ask: Who would constitute the reserve army if there is no educated and unemployed mass ?

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A great deal of work is needed in relation to public service delivery and to prepare environment for private sector and investment . A comprehensive review of legislations can be an important step toward effective private sector

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Its noticeable that EVERY nation these neo-libs review this recommendation is always the recommended process to achieve nirvana.

The only problem is their lack of actually using a country as an example to show this snake oil actually worked.

I also notice they never make any recommendations to reverse their bullshite selloffs to the robber barons when it clearly fails as in South Africa, Russia and Bolivia.

Canada and all other G8 countries didn't soar economically until they nationalised key sectors of our economy (like hydro, health care, transportation and education). Funny how these neo-libs forget this important fact in their "expertise".

Neo-libs can list every problem with countries that haven't drunk their poison but they can never name just ONE country where their quackery actually worked.

Corporate Feudalism is a failed system. Everyone knows it except "the smartest guys in the room".

[ 24 January 2007: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

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Originally posted by sidra:
My argument is that Lybia...Lybia, which I doubt.

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The proper name of the country is Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

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Could you at least spell the country name correctly, even if it is the incorrect name. -scooter

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I really thought you would have at least guessed the reason I have spelled the name of the country in more than one way throughout the thread, without my even noticing.

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Originally posted by scooter:

Could you at least spell the country name correctly, even if it is the incorrect name.

The proper name of the country is Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

I'm sorry you doubt there is a drug problem in GSPLAJ. The UN and UNICEF think otherwise.

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Just to be pedantic I would venture to say that both spellings of Lybia are fine given that Arabic spellings are consonantal, and Anglisized Arabic is really only formalized as standards in English and often not at all, and even adapted differently by Arabs speaking English. Thus "Amhed," is spelled numerous ways.

In this instance, and for example, there would likely be a number of adequate ways to spell "Jamahiriya," and still satisfy the need to conform to the original Arabic, especially given that there in in all probability no standardized spelling of this word in English.

Those who seek to win the debate through assertions of superior knowledge of grammar and language had better look twice before they cross the street.

[ 25 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

And stick around for more opportunities to learn.

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Just to be pedantic I would venture to say that both spellings of Lybia are fine given that Arabic spellings are consonantal, and Anglisized Arabic is really only formalized as standards in English and often not at all, and even adapted differently by Arabs speaking English. Thus "Amhed," is spelled numerous ways.

In this instance, and for example, there would likely be a number of adequate ways to spell "Jamahiriya," and still satisfy the need to conform to the original Arabic, especially given that there in in all probability no standardized spelling of this word in English.

Those who seek to win the debate through assertions of superior knowledge of grammar and language had better look twice before they cross the street. -Cueball

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Thank you Cueball. It is EXACTLLY the reason.
It is always a pleasure to read you, Cueball.

[ 25 January 2007: Message edited by: sidra ]

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Corporate Feudalism is a failed system. Everyone knows it except "the smartest guys in the room".

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But the system which the "dumbest guys" favour, Communism, is also a failed system.

In the case of Libya, after the reform, 43% of all employees will be in the public sector.

And you think that's too low?

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Originally posted by jeff house:

But the system which the "dumbest guys" favour, Communism, is also a failed system.

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Jeff, Soviet communism lasted 70 years, and it folded because people were fed up with the cold war embargos and Zbigniew's proxy war in Afghanistan.

Laissez-faire capitalism lasted 30 years. There were no trillion dollar taxpayer-funded cold wars to push it over the edge in 1929. The Soviets didn't start a second world war to prevent the spread of capitalism into Russia.

And it's debatable as to whether this system is working. The world had 500 million chronically hungry people around the democratic capitalist world 25 years ago. Today, there are 800 million. 10.5 million children under the age of five died of the capitalist economic long run last year. How many more will die this year and the next?.

This system, however you want to define it, is a monumental failure.

[ 25 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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The world had 500 million chronically hungry people around the democratic capitalist world 25 years ago. Today, there are 800 million.

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But the popualtion of the world is a lot bigger now as well. Meanwhile here is the great (sic.) Communist record with regard to hunger:

*Russia - millions die in famines on the Volga in 1922 and millions more during the Stalin induced famine in Ukraine in the 30s. According to some article I've read it took Russia 60 years to get back to the standard of living they had before the "revolution" of 1917.

*China - an estimated 40 million dead from famine during mao's so-called Great Leap Forward in the 50s (or should we call it the great leap backwards). Only now is the standard of living improving in China and only because the government there is now "Communist" in name only, while in reality Canada is closer to Communism than China is.

*Vietnam - AFTER the "American War" ended in 1975, the reunified Vietnam promptly underwent complete economic collapse as a result of catastrophic attempts to collectivize agriculture. From 1975 to the late 80s, Vietnam was a net IMPORTER of rice and most people were maulnourished having to eat nothing but boiled cassava. Only after the government brough in perestroiuka style reforms in the late 80s did things strart to improve. Now Vietnam (like China) is Communist in name only and capitalism is everywhere. Now if they only had free health care and education they MIGHT someday be as socialistic as Canada is!!

*North Korea - hundredsof thousands dead of starvation in the 1990s while in South Korea the standard of living rivals Japan's. Before WW2, the northern half of Korea was the rich half

*Burma (Myanmar) after 30-odd years of Ne Win and his "Burmese Road to Socialism" Burma went from being richer than Thailand to being a net importer of rice and being one of the poorest nations on earth.

Like you clearly justify your statement that the famine of 1922 in Russia was clearly the result of the form of government which took over the region in the middle of a civil war, and not the result of the civil war were one side was backed armed and encouraged by the capitalist powers, precisely in part, to undermine the system by putting it under war time stress.

There was a lot of starvation in the southern US in 1866 did the communists cause that too? I was taught it was marrauding Union Troops burning and looting during "Sherman's March to the Sea," that dislocated the economy.

It could very well be argued that the famine of 1922, was also one of capitalisms great succcesses. Also the masseacre of Iraqis by sanctions in the 1990's could be considered a great success.

Such gaping holes in your otherwise worthy list of evidence indicate either a completely careless attitude towards history, or extreme partisanship.

It is of course always the case that you trumpet the great achievements of capitalism, and the negative things that go on in the rest of the world, but ignore sailent relationships between them. As if there is no relationship between the mass starvation and displacement of indiginous persons going on in Colombia, right at this very minute, and our wealth and the means we use to assert our hegemony, often violent, and almost always economically devestating.

Trying to make a meaningful political comparisons by talking about the economic state of Vietnam, after a 10 years war with the united states which killed millions, without even mentioning the war at all, and Canada is to make you a political analyst on the level of Dr. Seus.

[ 25 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

But the popualtion of the world is a lot bigger now as well. Meanwhile here is the great (sic.) Communist record with regard to hunger

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Stockholm, there were six million people starved to death while pork and corn left 13 sea ports in 1847 Ireland. Using Nobel economist Amartya Sen's figures, Noam Chomsky says the number of people who died of what amounts to the capitalist economic long run between just the years 1947 and 1979 is well over ten million each year. Noam says if we considered ALL of the third and fourth world under the influence of western nations in the last 100 years, the number of skeletons in capitalism's closet would be truly breathtaking. The left has no intellectual desire to participate in tit for tat body counts, although a black book of capitalism would fill considerably more pages than the BBofC.

[ 25 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Just to be pedantic I would venture to say that both spellings of Lybia are fine given that Arabic spellings are consonantal, and Anglisized Arabic is really only formalized as standards in English and often not at all, and even adapted differently by Arabs speaking English.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
*China - an estimated 40 million dead from famine during mao's so-called Great Leap Forward

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That would make sense if you neglected the fact that typical Chinese were born in a farmers field and died an average of 30 years later under imperial rule. The pro-capitalist Chiang Kai Shek and KMT murdered ten million before fleeing to Formosa.

Fact about China: China was behind India, a nation with comparable population, by every social and economic measure before 1949.

By 1976, the year of Mao's death, China's infant mortality was better than capitalist India's IM rate ... today! Life expectancy in China was doubled under Mao.

Your homework will be to estimate how many lives were saved through Maoist health reforms, and not to mention extension of life span in China.

Now picture our stoogocrats in Ottawa and Queen's Parks having to deal with administrating over a billion people. "Plonk" a billion people in downtown Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Vancouver. We'd have riots on our hands, and millions would starve to fucking death in a matter of weeks for a lack of means in general. The McGuinty Liberals would have to get on the horn to McD's central and beg for a lot of hamburger flipping jobs to support them. It would be a disaster of monumental proportions.

Now picture an Anglo-American backed Chiang Kai Shek and the Kuomintang marauding through the country and murdering anybody with traces of red scarf around their necks. Double-bubble toil and trouble for Stockholmer's imaginary capitalist utopia.

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*Burma (Myanmar) after 30-odd years of Ne Win and his "Burmese Road to Socialism" Burma went from being richer than Thailand to being a net importer of rice and being one of the poorest nations on earth.

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Burma is a military dictatorship. The junta calls itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council. There is nothing socialist about it. Union leaders and Marxists are routinely jailed for life or executed. And Gross human rights abuses don't seem to prevent western energy companies like UNOCAL from doing business with the military junta. Why do you think there's an obvious lack of pressure from the west to wage trade embargos on Myanmar or need for carpet bombing to seize the oil ?. It's for the same reason the west had no zeal for enforcing sanctions on friendlies like South Afreeka. IN this case, it's because multinational oil companies are doing business with the corrupt regime. There are no Nasser or Qadaffi or Chavez style socialists in Myanmar, sorry.

In fact, North Korea is more open to foreign relations and trade and has better infant mortality rates by comparison. North Korea is booming right now, according to a financial report handed to Warshington last year. North Korea isn't as isolated as what the hawks in the would have you believe, and not nearly as poor as they are in Myanmar with the oil being siphoned off by multinationals. It's difficult to keep up with how little you know about geopolitics in general, Stockholmer.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Let's compare it to South Korea. What could be a better controlled experiment than two halves of the same country each being run under a different system. The north even gets a head start by virtue of being the historically richer half of the peninsula. Yet the most conservative estimate is that the standard of living in South Korea is about 20 TIMES higher than what it is in the north. When is the last time you heard of people in Seoul eating grass in public parks to keep from starving to death???

YOu describe India as "capitalist" now, but through the 50s, 60s and 70s it was run along very socialistic lines by the Congress Party and had a very closed economy. They only started to grow in the last ten years or so when they started to liberalize their economy.

Imagine if the Gang of Four in China had won their mini-civil war in the late 70s and China was still in the grip of the Cultural Revolution with tens of millions dying a year when food production ground to a halt etc...

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
North Korea is "booming" compared to what? Chad?

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For one thing the relationship of Soviet client states to the central power was marked by completely different dynmamics, due at least in part to the status of the two super-powers after the second World War. While the US inheritted a huge and profitable economic empire from the British, with practically zero economic damage to the US heartland, the main body of both industrial and rural production in the USSR had been overun and largely destroyed. Because of this Soviet satelites got far less substantive economic aid from their overlord, (and in the case of Germany there was a net drain in the form of war reperations) while the US was able to invest heavily in reconstructing the devastated economies of their client states in Europe and in Asia.

So, while I think I would agree that there are apparent, and real systemic problems in the way that the North Korean economy is managed, I don't think merely adding up GDP's and comparing North and South Korea does any justice to a thorough and accurate historical analysis of how either functions for good or ill, or the reasons behind the apparent successess of the South Korean economy in relation to the North.

In the general, I don't really care.

I might even be on your side in some small way, however, but playing with the historical record, so as to omit sailent and obvious features of events -- such as ignoring the impact of the US occupation on Vietnamese economy, including a concious campaign of defolitation and disruption of the rural economy as a device to seperate peasant from communist party cadre, when discussing post war Vietnamese rice production --that are clearly relevant to specific situations is completely of no interest to me, nor is it helpful in my view.

It is either an example of ignorance, or in the worst case partisan distortion amounting to lying.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

The US, and other western nations were constantly shipping food to South Vietnam during the entire war. What do you think the "hearts and minds campaign" consisted of? Tonka trucks and matel toys for the kids?

South Vietnam was a net importer of basic food stuffs throughout the war. This came in the form of US humanitarian aid delivered through the US Army, after the destroyed the local crops and forced Vietnamese Peasants into the urban centers.

Your ignorance is unreal.

Here is a nice photo of obviously well nourished Vietnamese kids living happily in Wartime Vietnam.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
. Yet the most conservative estimate is that the standard of living in South Korea is about 20 TIMES higher than what it is in the north. When is the last time you heard of people in Seoul eating grass in public parks to keep from starving to death???

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Nope can't say I have. North Korea: The Next Asian Tiger

GDP comparisons are like the spat you and I have concerning proportional democracy - South Korea(and Myanmar) have more than twice as many people as North Korea. Of course the national output is going to be more. Your sources on North Korea sound a bit over the top for lack of anything new to tell us. ABC and Fox News can be like that.

North Koreans pay around 10 percent of their incomes for housing. It's much more than that in the South where infant mortality is considerably better than in the North where they have been dealing with an extra-terriritorial trade embargo and threats of nuclear incineration by the U.S. occupying force several times since the 1950's.

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YOu describe India as "capitalist" now, but through the 50s, 60s and 70s it was run along very socialistic lines by the Congress Party and had a very closed economy. They only started to grow in the last ten years or so when they started to liberalize their economy.

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The closed and "secretive" societies are a line of bull perpetrated by the cold war propaganda machine. Of course they closed economies, the cold war embargos don't help to open up trade with communist countries. The embargoes are for a reason, ask Cubans.

North and South Korea could become an economic powerhouse if united. That's what the Yanqui imperialists are really worried about not so much nukes that may be used to threaten their own occupation subsidized grudgingly by the South Korean taxpayers and protesting students.

The U.S. was once the world's premier military and economic power a few decades ago. They still spend a gazillion times more on military than any other nation. But they are no longer the lone economic power. The Pacific Rim countries, Japan, China, S Korea, and Taiwan are now creating a third of the world's capital, far more than the U.S. Imperialism's goal is to keep the barbarians divided and conquered, re the military occupation. But now there are reports of trade happening between Russia, North and South Korea and Japan. The babarians are no longer divided, and that's a going concern for western imperialism.

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The only system that works is a mixed economy where people are free to own property and own businesses, but where there is a generous social welfare system.

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That's true, and there are political forces trying to return us to that 1930's experiment in laissez-faire capitalism. We don't need capitalists to tell us how to trade with other countries though. It's been happening for millenia and natural as pigs in muck.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

You can keep grasping at straws with all your silly excuses but the fact is that every single attempt at "communism" has been a total failure.

BTW: If you believe that article about North Korea it seems that if that country is making any progress at all it is only because it is following China and Vietnam in turning its back on Marxism and moving towards a market economy.

Right now Canada is more "socialistic" than either China or Vietnam. We get free health care and education. People in those countries have to pay for both out of their own pockets and if they can't afford it they do without.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
It didn't seem to take Germany and Japan very long to go from being smouldering ruins in 1945 to being two of the richest countries in the world just 20 years later.

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There weren't the massive airlifts of aid and reparations paid to Vietnam that occurred in Germany after the war. And Japan was award MFN status in helping that economy along for many years. The west was afraid that both countries would fall back to their socialist tendencies. Germany was a flashpoint for the spread of communism to the west. Hitler didn't re-arm the war machine all on his own.

By comparison, there wasn't one thin dime paid to Vietnam for the massive destruction and loss of life.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
BTW: If you believe that article about North Korea it seems that if that country is making any progress at all it is only because it is following China and Vietnam in turning its back on Marxism and moving towards a market economy.

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They are trading with other countries. Capitalists didn't invent trade. It's been happening for millenia. Fidel Castro's first visit to Warshington was to seek recognition as new leader and to ensure that trade between Cuba and its largest neighbor would be normalized. Trade has been used as a weapon by warring factions and imperialists since time immemorial. If communism is doomed to fail all on its own, then what up with the economic warfare and vindictive trade embargos ?. What does that say about a system that wages such economic warfare on other countries?. It's not a benevolent force that does these things, Stockholmer. Vindictive trade embargos are not put to a democratic vote even in the imperialist nations - they are decided behind closed doors and implemented by a relative handful of megalomaniacal sociopaths.

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Right now Canada is more "socialistic" than either China or Vietnam. We get free health care and education. People in those countries have to pay for both out of their own pockets and if they can't afford it they do without.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I was referring to North Vietnam where things were worse after 1975 than they had been before. Why else do you think millions of people (many of whom were from the north) got into boats in the late 70s and braved shark-infested waters, typhoons and pirates to get out of there. These were people who stuck around during the war but left afterwards when things got even worse.

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First of all, North Vietnam was bombed to shit, with more total tonage dropped on it, than dropped by all sides during WW2.

As for the boat people, and I had always thought that other than the inevitable exodus of people who were active supporters of the previous regieme, who left Vietnam after the war for obvious reasons, and that the ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese who left starting in 1979, had something to do with the fact that they feared reprisals against them when China invaded in that year.

But yes Stockholm, they left because the economy was being mismanaged and they were starving.

Why don't you talk about something you know about, such as....?

Tell me Stockholm have you acually ever read any books or anything about the topics you discuss with such authority?

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
There is only one country in the world that doesn't trade with Cuba and that's the US. The other 170-odd countries have no sanctions. .

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You must be setting some kind of babble record for most incorrect statements in a row. After the Cason affair, European sanctions against Cuba were tightened. Do you have any idea what helms-burton is all about ?. I didn't think so.

Jonas Savimbi is long forgotten by Angolan's, the old murdering SOB. They let his fly-blown body rot in the streets. And so now Angola's most successful domestic industry is manufacturing artificial limbs to aid the thousands of its citizens who lost arms and legs to landmines and shot off by bullets. And they export oil to America, too. That's all that mattered in Angola, Stockholmer. Imperialists don't give two shits about human rights or an outbreak of prosperity in Africa. Africa is a vast repository of natural resource wealth for multinationals to raid at will, kind of like Canada but with a lot more people of colour. Of 12 major wars in Africa, the CIA was involved in 11 of them. Haiti and the DR aren't nearly the only countries where they are afraid of democracy taking root. Democracy is the ultra right's most hated institution.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Democracy is the ultra right's most hated institution.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Its also the ultra left's most hated institution. Why else do you think that Communist countries never allow free multi-party elections? (Answer: becauser they know they could never win one)

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First of all, North Vietnam was bombed to shit, with more total tonage dropped on it, than dropped by all sides during WW2.

As for the boat people, and I had always thought that other than the inevitable exodus of people who were active supporters of the previous regieme, who left Vietnam after the war for obvious reasons, and that the ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese who left starting in 1979, had something to do with the fact that they feared reprisals against them when China invaded in that year.

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But the economy in North Vietnam was apparently WORSE years after bombing had stopped than it apparently was at the height of the war.

BTW: The Chinese-Vietnamese who left in the late 70s didn't just FEAR reprisals. The reprisals were very real. They were expelled en masse from the country or else incarcerated in prison camps. A lot of the people who left were also former South Vietnamese communists who were all quickly purged so that North Vietnam could rule the country directly from Hanoi and not have to deal with any of the indigenous southern Communists (kinda like how the first think Stalin did in 1945 was murder all the Polish Communists who were not subservient to Moscow).

It wasn't quite as bad as Cambodia where you got slaughtered if you wore glasses or spoke any foreign languages (unless you were Pol Pot who did both) - but it is still estimated that over a million Vietnamese died in prison camps after the war when just having been a dishwasher in the South Vietnamese army was reason enough to get a sentence of life imprisonment.

The sad thing is that all this could have been avoided if the US had recognized Vietnamese independence in 1945 instead of trying to help France to recolonize. In 1945 Ho Chi Minh wanted US recognition and if he had had it, Vietnam probably would have in the long run evolved into an Asian Tiger comparable to malaysia. The Russians only got a foothold there because the American backed the french. Instead 30 years were lost in pointless wars with the French and the Americans that only delayed the inevitable.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

The ten thousand day war on an idea in Viet Nam started well before the doctor and the madman bombed Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam to smithereens, intervened in East Timor, and fomented drug economy in the Golden Triangle.
There were over two million VietNamese starved to death in 1946 as a result of rice crops flooded during imperialist occupation. Ho Chi Minh pleaded Harry truman for for assistance. The pleas were ignored, of course. And by 1956, the U.S. and beginnings of the military industrial complex were supplying French troops with 85 percent of machine guns, small arms and ammunition used against the Viet Minh.

The Raygun admin refused to acknowledge the disaster under Pol Pot in Cambodia, and that was for a reason. The Vietnamese have only just purged the last of Khmer Rouge guerilla fighters marauding over the jungle border in the last ten years or so. Viet Nam was a tragedy, Stockholmer. It wasn't a fuckin board game like "Risk"

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Of course it was a tragedy and the responsibility for the tragedy lies with many people: The French, The Americans, the Vietnamese Communists, the Vietnamese anti-Communists, the Chinese, the Russians etc..

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I'd place the American and French imperialists at the very top of that list in order of damage done to Vietnam and without so much as a penny in reparations for massive loss of life and destruction. Diem was corrupt, and the Yanks wanted to make him despotic leader of the month. The Yanks are good at installing corrupt despots, from Symngman Rhee in South Korea to the Marcos' in Philippines to the corrupt and oppressive Shah to Fulgencio Batista to the current batch of criminal regimes in Central America.

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The Yanks are good at installing corrupt despots, from Symngman Rhee in South Korea to the Marcos' in Philippines to the corrupt and oppressive Shah to Fulgencio Batista to the current batch of criminal regimes in Central America.

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The Russians are also good at installing corrupt despots, from Kim Il Sung to Walther Ulbricht, Rakosi, Husak, Nicolai Ceaucescu, Pol Pot, Nasser, Idi Amin, Khadafy and and all the other criminal regimes in Eastern Europe.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

The Russians are also good at installing corrupt despots, from Kim Il Sung to Walther Ulbricht, Rakosi, Husak, Nicolai Ceaucescu, Pol Pot, Nasser, Idi Amin, Khadafy and and all the other criminal regimes in Eastern Europe.

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I think your list is somewhat inaccurate, or at the very least, misleading. Pol Pot was supported by both China(post-Mao) and the U.S. The Khmer Rouge were aided and abetted by the CIA throughout the 1980's. And the NVA was forced to reallocate border protection forces to the North when China amassed a million troops along the border and began attacking. The NVA were able to fend them off.

On the Side of Pol Pot: U.S. Supports Khmer Rouge

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When asked about U.S. policy in Cambodia during an April 26, l990 ABC News special, Rep. Chester Atkins (Dem. Mass.) characterized it as "a policy of hatred."
The U.S. is directly responsible for millions of deaths in Southeast Asia over the past 30 years. Now, the U.S. government provides support to a movement condemned by the international community as genocidal. How long must this policy of hatred continue?

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Dictator Central

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

I like your visual aids though, they are much superior to Stockholms who provides very little sourcing for his "ideas," probably because they are his and his alone, and nothing to do with reality.

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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I've admitted learning from everyone here, including the Cueball himself -Fidel

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Originally posted by Fidel:
[QB]
GDP comparisons are like the spat you and I have concerning proportional democracy - South Korea(and Myanmar) have more than twice as many people as North Korea. Of course the national output is going to be more.

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Which is why GDP comparisons have to be made per capita. North Korean GDP per capita is $1,800. South Korean GDP per capita is more than ten times that, $24,200.

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North Koreans pay around 10 percent of their incomes for housing.

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The cheap rent isn't much good when the building you live in is falling apart and you don't have enough food to eat in it. You know there's a problem when every day, North Koreans risk being shot - and having themselves and their families severely punished should they be deported - to cross the border into China, of all places.

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It's much more than that in the South where infant mortality is considerably better than in the North where they have been dealing with an extra-terriritorial trade embargo and threats of nuclear incineration by the U.S. occupying force several times since the 1950's.

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So has Cuba, and it's infinitely more functional than North Korea is. Put the blame where it really belongs - Dear Leader.

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North and South Korea could become an economic powerhouse if united. That's what the Yanqui imperialists are really worried about not so much nukes that may be used to threaten their own occupation subsidized grudgingly by the South Korean taxpayers and protesting students.

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Originally posted by Doug:
Which is why GDP comparisons have to be made per capita. North Korean GDP per capita is $1,800. South Korean GDP per capita is more than ten times that, $24,200.

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Yes, and Canadian GDP per capita is even larger. But we know it's horse hockey, because Canada owns one of the worst child poverty rates among richest nations, and income and wealth gaps between rich and poor have become chasms. And neither Canada, or South Korea, have had to endure a nasty trade embargo since 1953. The Yanks levelled every building in the North taller than one story. Over three million North Koreans were killed by foreign aggressor nations led by the U.S., who are still there and menacing the North militarily.

The North had a strong industrialised economy leading up to the dissolution of the USSR. When its northern markets dried up during the destructive policies of the Gorbachev years, so did North Koreas economy as U.S.-led trade sanctions against North Korea made matters worse.

The South is more fascist than people realize. Leaders like Syngman Rhee and Park Jung Hee used methods to suppress anti-imperialist, anti-Japanese and anti-American leftist groups similar to methods used by Mussolini and Hitler. There were concentration camps, euphemistically referred to as re-education camps, for leftists and students. The difference was that the North allowed lefist anti-imperialist groups to thrive during the cold war.

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The cheap rent isn't much good when the building you live in is falling apart and you don't have enough food to eat in it. You know there's a problem when every day, North Koreans risk being shot - and having themselves and their families severely punished should they be deported - to cross the border into China, of all places.

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Where's your evidence of this happening?. There are documented cases of police crackdowns on trade unionists in South Korea where dozens and even hundreds of workers protesting for better pay and working conditions were arrested by police and troops brought in to quell the unrest. More than 2000 students were massacred at Kwang Ju in 1980, one of the western world's largest cold war embarassments not well known.

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So has Cuba, and it's infinitely more functional than North Korea is. Put the blame where it really belongs - Dear Leader.

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Cuba also suffered the loss of trade with the USSR since 1989 or so. I can't understate the amount of hardship the period of the 1990's caused for both Cuba and South Korea with vicious extra-territorial trade sanctions imposed by Washington and corporate friendlies in Europe and around the world. The U.S. stands accused of blocking humanitarian aid to both countries over the recent past, illegally according to the UN.

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It's more likely that for quite a long time North Korea would be an albatross around South Korea's neck if united, much as East Germany was and continues to be a big economic and social problem for Germany as a whole. Probably more so because the economic disparity is so much greater between the Koreas.

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Germany is a rich country still. That country, like Japan, has to import all of its raw materials for manufacturing. Germany exported almost $900 billion dollars worth of goods and services two years ago. And, of course, Germany has a high degree of skilled labour along with established export markets. North Korea and Cuba have had especially bad luck with trading freely, and we know why that is.

The U.S. wants to maintain division on the Korean peninsula. That's how imperialism works, from Rome to British Empire to pox Americana. That region of the world, Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan, has now surpassed the U.S. wrt being the world's largest generator of wealth. And that doesn't sit well with Warshington. it's not about the nukes. It's estimated that 30 countries will have nuclear weapons in the coming years, and we can thank wanton U.S. military aggression for it happening. Kim Jong Il pursued military buildup after the fall of the USSR - the U.S. was increasingly threatening the Korean peninsula with militant action.

In case if you want to add to your pool of knowledge I recommend the following homepage of the Flat Earth Society.

http://tinyurl.com/9fd8

If I could be bothered I'd also try to help you out by finding websites that claim that Elvis is alive or that all the Jews working in the World Trade Centre on the morning of Sept. 11 telling them not to come to work!

[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
If I could be bothered I'd also try to help you out by finding websites that claim that Elvis is alive or that all the Jews working in the World Trade Centre on the morning of Sept. 11 telling them not to come to work!

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Not sure about Elvis being alive and Jews in the WTC, but there is a serious body of scientific scholarship which is looking into the thesis that Elvis was Jewish. When I retire, I plan to dedicate my life to resolving that puzzle.