The State of Israel has 64 billion dollar reserves. It is not so much compared with China, Taiwan, Singapur, but it should be remembered (and I do remember) that this country was striving for "economic independence" only ten years ago. People (myself included) was very sceptical that this country could survive without World Jewry's donations and American assistance. Yet we are prospering, at 30,000 dollar per capita GNP, not far from the European Union's average (that is, we compare with Britain, Germany, Sweden). Pic.: When I came to Israel, you had to have "tlushim" (permits) to buy eggs. Difficult to believe now, but am of the generation that experienced going to chicken farms (not far from Kever Benjamin city) to buy eggs (it was done in semi-secret, I think in my times there was no more rationing, but people continued behaving like that for long time after. TAHAL, the water company I worked for, had a company store in Petach Tikva and I had a ration card. That was in 1976).
15 comments:
Doesn't the dollar reserves reflect more that the Bank of Israel made a strategic decision to buy dollars, just to prevent the dollar's decline against the shekel?
Yes, isn't it miraculous what prosperity can result once you get rid of socialism. See China. Too bad the US hasn't learned this lesson and is headed in the opposite direction. I wonder when we get our ration books?
K
"Yes, isn't it miraculous what prosperity can result once you get rid of socialism. See China. Too bad the US hasn't learned this lesson and is headed in the opposite direction. I wonder when we get our ration books?"
You get a little money in your pocket and now you're a big capitalist. When you (or your parents) were young and poor, socialism probably looked pretty attractive. It was the same when Israel and China (the modern versions of each) were young and poor. The U.S. was never poor like either China or Israel. In the U.S., socialism wasn't a response to national poverty, but to a national prosperity that left most Americans in poverty.
Nowadays there are so many and complicated permitting issues in egg production that soon we may have to re-institute ration cards. The chickens have to have their nesting space and entertainment, the air pollution has to be measured and modelled, the firemen demand complete sprinkler protection, and the keepers of the aquifer purity demand to account for each drop of chickenshit.
Socialism never looked attractive to my parents - one experience the National type (i.e. Nazis) and the other experienced the Stalinist variety and neither was favorably impressed to say the least. Jews are natural capitalists, except for a few misguided intellectuals.
The America where "most Americans" are in poverty must be on a different planet from the one I live on. My father was convinced that there was no real poverty at all in America - in a really poor country (like the Poland he grew up in), the poor people are not as fat as cornfed hogs but rather are as skinny as supermodels (but not by choice). They dress not in $100 sneakers and fancy track suits but in patched up rags and shoes with holes in them. Most Americans have NO idea what socialism is about, or the true poverty it brings about. Anyone who has had any experience with the real thing wants nothing to do with socialism.
Yes, it is always appealing to covet your neighbor's property when your neighbor has more (which is what socialism comes down to). It has also been understood as a violation of basic morality for over 2,000 years. See the 10 commandments.
K
"Jews are natural capitalists, except for a few misguided intellectuals."
"A few misguided intellectuals" has to be the understatement of the century, K. Seriously, do you even buy this? Jews were disproportionately represented among Communist parties in the U.S. and Europe, and Jews today vote overwhelmingly for the left in the U.S.
"The America where "most Americans" are in poverty must be on a different planet from the one I live on."
Not a different planet, but a different time: the time after waves of mass immigration but before the implementation of socialist policies. Circa 1900, America had been rapidly growing and industrializing for over a century, and was a relatively rich country. But its cities were filled with poor people (including Jews) working long hours for shitty wages in dangerous conditions. Socialists were the first to call for 40 hour work weeks, workplace safety, etc.
So the prosperity we have now (such as it is) is due to socialism? Ha, ha. Socialism is incapable of creating wealth - all it can do is redistribute a pie that begins to shrink once the socialists sink their claws into it. The closer any country adheres to a socialist program, the poorer it is. All these "do good" measures only backfire.
K
"So the prosperity we have now (such as it is) is due to socialism? Ha, ha."
You are being deliberately obtuse. Our prosperity (nationally, at the GDP level) was due to capitalism; rule of law; a smart, industrious population; a bounty of cheap land and natural resources; and a good dose of protectionism. Despite that national prosperity, by the beginning of the 20th century, most Americans were poor and lived and worked in miserable conditions. It was socialism that distributed a little of that prosperity to the workers.
Capitalists struck back though, with their dogmatic embrace of free markets and mass immigration, and they have succeeded in freezing real wages for most Americans over the last few decades, by outsourcing jobs to low wage countries and flooding America with workers to lower wages here.
The technology spinoffs that capitalism thrives on, were largely financed by governments. In the UK, US and France all of the pioneering work on DNA, Krebs cycle, biology etc were done with money provided by the NHS, NIH or CNRS. Similarly the entire aerospace industry would be stuck in the biplane era were it not for the impetus provided by the defence budgets of the belligerents. Ross Perot the famous self-made billionaire was himself living on the government tit. The same goes for the internet and GPS, without DARPA none of these would be possible. In the fierce cutthroat world of business, had it not been for the antitrust laws, IBM would have crushed Microsoft way back in the early 80s, by simply packaging a DOS clone with every PC.
Yes, you compare with Britain: you compare very badly. Depending on the measure, you're at about 75% of their per capita GDP. Congrats.
And Britain does it without receiving $500 a head per year from the United States. Where would the Israeli economy be without American subsidy?
"And Britain does it without receiving $500 a head per year from the United States. Where would the Israeli economy be without American subsidy?"
Where would Britain be without the Lend-Lease, supply convoys, etc.?
Israel has not reached the economic level of Britain and it continues to receive foreign assistance. Basically we are in the same group, a bit better than Portugal and a bit worse than Austria. Being there is a dream, as this is an overcrowded desert with no natural resources. Our economy is now self sustaining and it is growing fast. For those who know how this country started, it is a dream come true.
Having lived, traveled and worked on a number of different continents, I am now convinced that national GDP is a function of 3 independent things:
1.The Smart Fraction version of national IQ (related to, and coupled with,'moral character')
2.The circumstantial gift of natural resources
3.The economic system.
Only one of these can be manipulated, and even that is not easy.
The important variable is not just the motivation to work, but also its ENABLEMENT; ie the efficient exploitation of human resources. Depending on circumstances there is some role for the government which necessarily entails a modicum of taxation. But there is also a profound need to rise above a certain freedom threshold, so that people can feel they are GENUINELY 'getting ahead' by work and not just being parasitized.
When I was younger, unlike most at a very radical university, I was an unpopular archcapitalist; but with experience,I have come to realize the art of good government is to optimize trade-offs, and shift the needle as circumstances require.
We are condemned by reality to be BOTH individualists and collectivists, and it requires a certain type of mind to be comfortable with this apparent contradiction.
Anon.
There is no doubt that even so-called capitalist countries really have mixed economies in the modern age, but the trick is finding the right balance, where the socialist tendencies don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Right now I have no confidence that Obama will be able to strike the correct balance - he's a red diaper baby and has spent his whole life as far from the productive sector as possible and that his needle is permanently pinned to the redline of socialism. He will lean to the left every chance he gets and the people he appoints (e.g. Sherrod) even more so.
K
Yes, I totally agree about Obama, one only has to look at the various people with whom he has been closely associated over a very long time, as well as his own "job" record.
However, I do not think he is interested in redistribution to benefit the traditional working class; I think it's a new and slightly more sophisticated gig now.
Anon.
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