Good Morning All:
I came across this article http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4cd17af4-bf5e-11df-965a-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss which discusses Cuba's move to cut 500,000 workers from the state payroll which represents the biggest shift to private enterprise since 1968. I find it a fascinating juxtaposition to the United States' efforts to nationalize health care and increase government control over the automobile and financial industries. Particularly when our government pay czar agrees to a $9 million pay package for the new CEO of General Motors http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/general-motors-ceo-9-million-pay-package/
Many European nations and now even Cuba are venturing into privatization and moving away from nationalized enterprise while we follow a reverse trajectory. Is the United States leading or are we following? What should we make of these global economic transitions?
Amanda Talty
You make a few bold statements here that I would like you to follow up on. How exactly has the United States taken steps to "nationalize health care and increase government control over the automobile and financial industries." There is an argument to make they are more regulated, but they are for from nationalized.
ReplyDeleteAs for European privatization, that has not come to their health-care as most industrialized European nations have some type of universal coverage. If anything the United States inability to create a national health-care network makes us a "leader" and not a follower.
Denhardt and Denhardt discuss the way managers can use coercion and the ethical implications of it's use, and that is largely why Cuba is moving away from their nationalized industries. Decades long economic sanctions are coercion on the international stage. The frail health of a dying despot is also another contributing factor.
Brandon: As per your request I am following up on statements made in my post. I don't believe either of my statements are all that bold. I think the recent passage of the health care legislation in conjunction with repeated calls by both the President and leaders in Congress for a single payer health care system in the United States justifies the statement "efforts to nationalize health care". I also think its safe to say that by the United States purchasing 60% of GM stock and giving banks $250 billion in return for shares of stock we are "increasing government control over the automobile and financial industry". The government or more specifically, "we the people" are now share holders in private industry. Perhaps we are interperting the facts differently. I don't know what you would call the above but I would call that a move towards nationalization.
ReplyDelete-Amanda