By Denis Bright
Early returns from the special senate vote in Georgia on 5 January 2021 do suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris may have the casting vote in a deadlocked US Senate.
The result is so close for the second contested spot in Georgia that NBC News has not called the final seat in race between John Ossoff (Democrat) who is narrowly in the lead against David Perdue (Republican incumbent) by less than 18,000 votes across a divided Georgia.
Having control of the Presidency and the Congress is essential for Joe Biden to implement the national mandate he received on 5 November 2020.
The slender Democracy Now mandate must be seized on so many fronts.
The urgency of the COVID-19 challenge rages in every community.
Beyond the health emergency are the deep structural problems in the US economy which is facing its second recession in ten years (Image Trading Economics of US GDP Growth Rates by Quarter):
United States GDP Growth Rate
To Trump supporters, the economic rebound in the September Quarter of 2020 is proof of the absolute wisdom of the President Trump.
Social reality shows a grimmer picture of high trade deficits and a fixation on China as the source of the US economy’s structural woes when the rise of China as actually a lifeline to the stability of the US and global economies. Chinese investment in the US economy would have rectified a negative trading balance and contributed to new productivity in the US economy in the medium term.
The Trump Administration locked the US into an old economy in which coal, oil and arms sales were cheered on by its Republican support base. Now the US might venture into a new world of commitment to zero net emissions by 2050 to control global warming with the support of Japan, Britain and the EU Countries.
The Biden Administration needs a senate majority to move the US economy in these new directions with commitment to national health as its prime short-term objective.
To neoconservatives globally, the Trump wisdom is based on old perspectives about the moral superiority of an unregulated corporate ideology with its veto over sound environmental initiatives particularly in the transport and electricity sectors and efforts to restore authenticity to globalizing processes and international diplomacy.
There is a woeful education divide embedded into the challenges posed by Republicans on the streets of Washington to protest against the transition to the Biden Administration on 20 January 2020.
The folly of the retreat back to tariff barriers under the Trump Administration and the increasing use of tax havens like the Cayman Islands, Ireland and Luxembourg to protect US corporations from their commitment to social restructuring is simply not reported on Murdoch’s Fox news or other populist outlets who stoke up support for market ideology as the way forward.
Although the Harvard Business School (HBS) is a key training ground for US political elites, its academic staff are keen to advice students of the folly of market ideology at a time when US capitalism needs a remake.
Data about the weaknesses of the fundamental corporate structures has a time lag as shown by the months taken to develop the essential argument for change in this outstanding paper which is available online from the HBS at no cost to readers.
Alfaro, Laura, Ester Faia, Ruth Judson, and Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr. “Elusive Safety: The New Geography of Capital Flows and Risk.” Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-099, March 2020. (Revised September 2020.)
The data presented is largely from the US Treasury’s Treasury International Capital System (TIC) which is at the very heart of the financial establishment in Washington.
Trillions in US corporate wealth are embedded in tax evasion scams in the Cayman Islands (CYM), Britain (GBR), Ireland (IRL) according to the data presented in the HBS paper with its two year time-lag on new data.
Profile of US Corporate Liabilities
The folly of lowering corporate tax rates here in Australia to attract more corporate tax avoidance was indeed sufficient for our senate to reject the LNP’s offer with the support of Labor and key cross-bench senators.
As those final votes are counted in the second senate race in Georgia, our own future lies in going with the changes that might come out of the campaign miracles which commenced in 2018 when the Democrats gained control of the US House of Representatives.
Contrary to the advice offered by Trump’s outgoing ambassador in Canberra, Australians should be embracing to opportunities to go with the change and to avoid more lost trillions in the future on more US strategic communication and space warfare projects directed at our more profitable trading and investment partnership.
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