Chapter 538 The Star-Spangled Banner protects those who burn it

There is a British proverb that says nothing can upset your heart more than your friends or neighbors getting rich. Seeing someone you know get rich is the most enviable and jealous thing.

In the crazy vortex of "herd mentality", less than one in 100,000 people in the world can endure it.

If you could go back fifteen years and ask those Japanese people who sang and spent money every night, ten out of ten people would tell you that the Japanese bubble economy was due to the Plaza Accord and the appreciation of the yen.

But when you ask them what happened after the yen appreciated, most people can't answer it.

The real economy often affects jobs. Hanwa Kogyo was originally a very honest steel company. However, after the Plaza Accord was signed, the president began to play with foreign exchange and became one of the six ghosts in Tokyo.

The Plaza Accord was signed and the yen was set to rise. In this case, why not speculate in foreign exchange?

The large inflow of foreign capital has caused the U.S. dollar to continue to appreciate, and U.S. export competitiveness has declined, which has expanded into a foreign trade deficit crisis. Under the pressure of this economic crisis, the United States hopes to use the depreciation of the U.S. dollar to strengthen the foreign competitiveness of U.S. products and reduce the trade deficit.

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At that time, Caterpillar's biggest competitor was Komatsu. The then president, Lee Morgan, used the trade surplus between Japan and the former Federal Republic of Germany as an excuse to verbally intervene in the foreign exchange market, hoping to stimulate U.S. exports and reduce U.S. exports through dollar depreciation.

trade deficit.

"As long as the dollar can depreciate by 20%, I can drive an excavator to the capital of Japan."

His speech caused investors to sell the dollar frantically, and the dollar depreciated sharply against the currencies of major industrial countries.

Japanese companies all had the idea of ​​speculating on the financial market, but they had no idea and no one took the lead. At this time, the success of "Hanwa" caused crazy speculation and speculation across Japan, which played a very, very bad role.

Japanese companies, large and small, saw the success of "Hanwa" and all embarked on the same path. They still engage in the real economy, make steel, build cars, and engage in machine tools. They speculate in foreign exchange and learn from "Hanwa"

, the small goal of making 100 million a day can be easily achieved.

On May 29, 1987, under pressure from the United States on the one hand and the Japanese government’s wrong decision on the other, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone launched a “financial atomic bomb” against the Japanese archipelago.

Yasuhiro Nakasone delivered a televised speech to the people of Japan and announced a major "Business Countermeasures" of the Japanese government.

The main contents of the countermeasures are as follows: 1. Resident tax reduction of no less than one trillion yen; 2. Government investment of no less than 5 trillion yen.

Originally, it would have been fine if the companies were still working diligently in the industry, but after the financial atomic bomb was dropped, many small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan have stopped working in the industry, because Japan has begun to enter a "deflation spiral", and then an "industrial hollow" has occurred.

Industrialization has become more and more difficult to do. Furthermore, Hanwa's example gave a huge stimulus to other Japanese companies and caused a trend in Japanese society of everyone speculating in foreign exchange and stocks.

Against these two backgrounds, the original intention of the Japanese government to spend 6 trillion yuan was that I would cut taxes and give you money, hoping that residents would buy more domestic products to stimulate domestic demand and that companies would invest more to activate the economy.

As a result, all the money invested by the government was used to speculate in foreign exchange.

Under irrational behavior, any advice is useless. The fundamental reason for the formation of bubble economy is human herd psychology.

Originally, you were a normal person, and saw your friend making a fortune, so you jumped in. Your "success" made your friend jealous, and then he also rushed in. By analogy, the bubble blew bigger and bigger.

Making money is as easy as snapping your fingers, putting your money in the financial markets and watching it increase in value.

Therefore, the Plaza Accord was only the cause of Japan's economic collapse. The real cause was the wrong policies launched by the Japanese government at the wrong time and the greedy desires of Japanese companies.

What is the American Dream to most people?

Is it a skyscraper that towers into the sky? Or is it a life of luxury and luxury, where you can shop at will with a credit card?

Such plots often appear in some books and movies. A loser who once lived at the bottom of society has lived a "decent life" through his own efforts. These people include rugby players and famous bodybuilders, who have repeatedly failed.

War politicians, as well as housewives, police officers, academics, taxi drivers, etc., and even Wall Street traders.

All the various people in the book have one thing in common, they are very inspiring people with action. They do not talk about the American dream, but constantly pursue and practice it. The overall story is very

Inspiring and quite true.

However, the fact is that if motivation is really useful, 80% of social wealth will not be controlled by 20% of people.

Those stories are very inspirational, very central, and very real and touching, but it is very difficult for people at the bottom to squeeze into the upper class. Even if they graduate from an Ivy League school, the elite education in the United States leads the best talents to the financial and legal industries, and

Not natural science.

A mathematician who used to serve physics moved to Wall Street to work for stock exchanges and insurance companies, studying some "products" that are full of pages full of formulas, and you are guaranteed to not understand what he wrote.

There are more professional vocabulary in the financial industry. Customers only have two choices: "obey and pay" and "disobey and miss the opportunity." Playing hedge funds requires people with high IQs to operate. What they think is simple sounds the same to ordinary people.

Like an alien language, the American democratic political system is filled with the influence of "money power" that cannot be concealed. This determines that the loudest voice of the upper class in the United States comes from the corporate and legal circles. Even well-known scientists are "people who have the most say" in American politics.

light".

The "Qian Xuesen case" more than half a century ago seems to the Chinese to bring glory to the country, but to the United States it is another matter. The core information will no longer be accessible to the Chinese.

It is well-known that the children of Asians, especially Chinese immigrants, are highly competitive in academic performance, which puts great psychological pressure on white students and parents. Many people move and change schools to prevent their children from being overwhelmed by Chinese students at school.

When Americans with children choose housing, unless they are willing to pay for private schools, the first consideration is the quality of education in the school district. From this perspective, most Americans move with a strong element of "educational immigration," often for

Get into an excellent school district and bite the bullet and buy an expensive home.

Under "quality education", there are also many Americans with low levels of education. Everyone has the desire to pursue a better life, but the income level of this group of people cannot afford the increasing housing prices. These people who take out loans to buy houses are potential subprime people.

Victims of the mortgage crisis, even poor people can now buy a comfortable house with a swimming pool and a kitchen.

Housing prices that only rise but do not fall also make the rich who are greedy for profit continue to speculate, eventually forming an extremely inflated bubble. Once the crisis breaks out and you lose your job despite having a high loan, the bank can take back the mortgaged house and sue you.

The court is useless, this is stipulated in the contract.

It is equivalent to saying that a family with an average income originally lived in an RV, because they slept in a house with a garden and a swimming pool for a period of time, and had dreams for a period of time, and then were brought back to their original shape and continued to live in the RV.

The cost of dreaming in a house during this period is high. It costs more than traveling and staying in a hotel. The garden with the swimming pool is gone, but you can use plastic bottles to grow some fruits and vegetables to supplement the household income. Every month is very difficult.

When you have a house, you can still have outdoor BBQ and beer. After losing your house, you can only eat cheap food. The hormones remaining in the meat will make you very obese and the risk of cardiovascular disease will increase. Sadly, you do not have any medical treatment.

Insurance, if you don't dream, you can at least stay slim and healthy. After dreaming, you can only be like this over-inflated economy, fat and ugly, and spend the rest of your life with alcohol.

Patriotism is a common emotion shared by ordinary people. It exists in all countries in the world, but it expresses itself in different ways. Some countries use passionate slogans, some use massive rallies and parades, and some countries spontaneously fly national flags. In

In the United States, every July 4th, Independence Day or other major occasions, many families will plant a flag at the door of their home to express celebration and unity. In the United States, no other symbol is more important and emotionally stirring than the flag.

The flag symbolizes the glory and glory of the American nation, and represents the unity and greatness of the country. For this reason, 48 of the 50 states in the United States have passed laws to protect the flag from being tarnished. Precisely because Americans regard the flag as a sacred symbol,

Therefore, people around the world who oppose the United States often take pleasure in burning the American flag to express their dissatisfaction and anger with the United States' foreign policy and way of life.

However, even in the United States, there are a group of Americans who are dissatisfied with their own government. They burn the flag as a way to express their opinions and criticize and protest against some of the practices of the U.S. government. They know the law and break the law in order to protect what they believe is the United States'

"Freedom of expression" protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.

In August 1984, the Republican Party held its national convention in Dallas, Texas, in the west of the United States, and once again elected the conservative current president Reagon as the Republican presidential candidate to run for re-election. During his first term, Reagon implemented the policy of "killing the poor and giving to the rich" internally.

His fiscal and tax policies, foreign military expansion and war preparations, and a new Cold War with the Soviet Union. These domestic and foreign policies of his have been fiercely criticized by some leftists.

For leftists, the Republican convention is also a great opportunity for them to express their dissatisfaction and anger and attract the attention of the public and the media. A group known as the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, No. 100, led by its leader Gregory Lee Johnson,

marched noisily through downtown Dallas to protest Republican policies that favor big business.

While shouting slogans against the Republican Party and Reagon, they used spray guns to spray graffiti on government agency buildings along the road, and from time to time they destroyed lawns and trees to vent their anger. One of them casually pulled out the flag in front of a bank and gave it to Johnson.

The flag was originally hoisted to celebrate the Republican convention. When they arrived in front of City Hall, Johnson poured a bottle of kerosene on the flag and his partner lit it with a lighter. The demonstrators burned it while

, while happily cheering and singing: "America, red, white, blue, we spit on you." There were many bystanders present at the time, but in the face of the enthusiastic and enthusiastic demonstrators, they dared not speak out in anger.

A plainclothes police officer witnessed the entire incident and reported it to police headquarters on a walkie-talkie. Police later arrested Johnson and charged him with violating a Texas state law that prohibits the desecration of solemn objects, including not only the American flag, but

Also includes the Texas state flag, public monuments and cemeteries.

The definition of this law is: The perpetrator knows that his or her destructive behavior will seriously offend those who see and discover what he or she has done, but still insists on doing so.

Therefore, the key to this case is that someone must testify that Johnson's act of burning the flag hurt them. The prosecutor easily found witnesses such as Walker as witnesses. They made it clear that burning the flag was a serious offense to their feelings.

They were heartbroken over this. Johnson was immediately found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison and a $2,000 fine.

In court, Johnson justified what he had done: "I burned the flag at a time when Reagan was being nominated for president. Whether you agree with it or not, there was no other symbolic statement at the time that expressed our views more powerfully than burning the flag.

"This is entirely a gesture. We have new patriotism, not no patriotism."

To the surprise of the Dallas District Attorney, the appeals court not only overturned the conviction, but also accepted the defense attorney's view and determined that what Johnson did was a symbolic speech and therefore should be subject to First Amendment speech.

Protection of the Liberty Clause. What violated the U.S. Constitution was not Johnson’s burning of the flag, but the Texas law that prohibited and punished damaging the flag!

Freedom of speech is absolute, and burning the flag is not a crime. In the eyes of local prosecutors and ordinary people, this verdict simply confuses right and wrong and makes trouble. However, these judges plausibly quoted the judgment of another Supreme Court case 41 years ago, in which

In the case, the Supreme Court ruled that saluting the flag is a form of expression and is protected by the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Therefore, when the government forces public school students to salute the flag, it violates "free speech." Likewise.

, burning the flag is also an expression and should naturally be protected by the Constitution.

Historical lessons tell people that patriotism often goes too far. I think that the German Communist Party and the Japanese Communist Party were both born out of strong patriotism and nationalistic passion; countless crimes and atrocities were also caused by patriotism and the country.

It is carried out in the supreme fanaticism. Therefore, when it comes to flag burning, calmness and reason should obviously take precedence over passion and fanaticism.

The Supreme Court's decision means that laws protecting the flag in 48 states and the District of Columbia are invalid. The judge believes that punishing desecration does not make the flag sacred, because doing so would dilute this revered symbol.

freedom of expression.

But these words were simply not enough to quell the anger of American flag-protecting patriots. Since the Prayer Case in the 1960s, no verdict has aroused such strong public anger. Thousands of critical letters from the public were published in newspapers, and the newly elected

The president, another World War II veteran, suggested passing a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision. When the House of Representatives passed a motion condemning the Supreme Court's decision, no one voted against it; the Senate was also divided between parties and passed two bills condemning the Supreme Court's decision.

Party joint motion, to which only three people opposed.

To pass a constitutional amendment in the United States, it not only requires the approval of a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress. The Flag Protection Act is a contest between the people and the elite, a balance between democracy and the rule of law. The most ordinary Americans are very serious about it.

It is also very simple to divide things into good and bad, right and wrong. Therefore, in the list of members of the Flag Guard, there is almost no intellectual and professional group, basically some traditional veterans, labor, immigrants and women's organizations.

Among the people surveyed, 86% of those with a high school education or below support amending the constitution and protecting the flag, while 60% of those with a college degree are opposed to doing so.

The opponents of the flag protectors are staunch supporters of free speech. Although they do not think that burning the flag is appropriate, they believe in the supremacy of the principle of freedom of expression and respect the enlightened judgment of the Supreme Court. These people are precisely the elites of American society.
To be continued...